Essays on Educational ReformersQuick, Robert Hebert
History
Essays on Educational Reformers
Quick, Robert Hebert
Education -- History; Educators
course of instruction certainly without Greek and perhaps without Latin
will have to be provided for middle schools. Juster views are beginning
to prevail of the schoolmaster’s function. It is at length perceived
that he has to assist the development of the human mind, and perhaps,
by-and-bye, he may think it as well to learn all he can of that which he
is employed in developing. When matters have advanced as far as this, we
may begin to hope for a science of education. In Locke’s day he could
say of physical science that there was no such science in existence. For
thousands of years the human race had lived in ignorance of the simplest
laws of the world it inhabited. But the true method of inquiring once
introduced, science has made such rapid conquests, and acquired so great
importance, that some of our ablest men seem inclined to deny, if not the
existence, at least the value, of any other kind of knowledge. So, too,
when teachers seek by actual observation to discover the laws of mental
development, a science may be arrived at, which, in its influence on
mankind, would perhaps rank before any we now possess.
§ 19. Those who have read the previous Essays will have seen in various
forms most of the principles which Mr. Spencer enumerates, but I gladly
avail myself of his assistance in summing them up.
1. We should proceed from the simple to the complex, both in our choice
of subjects and in the way in which each subject is taught. We should
begin with but few subjects at once, and, successively adding to these,
should finally carry on all subjects abreast.
Each larger concept is made by a combination of smaller ones, and
presupposes them. If this order is not attended to in communicating
knowledge, the pupil can learn nothing but words, and will speedily sink
into apathy and disgust.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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