The Teacher: Essays and Addresses on EducationPalmer, Alice Freeman
Philosophy
The Teacher: Essays and Addresses on Education
Palmer, Alice Freeman
Education; Education, Higher; Women -- Education
to recommend it to the average college of the future as the best mode of
limiting the elective principle.
Probably, however, this difficulty will chiefly be felt by persons
engaged in the actual work of educational organization. The outer public
will think it a more serious objection that grouped colleges are in
reality professional schools carried down to the limits of boyhood. So
far as they hold by their groups, they are nurseries of specialization.
That this is necessarily so may not at first be apparent. A little
consideration of the contrast in aim between group systems and
prescribed will make the matter plain. Prescribed systems have gained
their long hold on popular confidence by aiming at harmonious culture.
They argue, justly enough, that each separate sort of knowledge
furnishes something of its own to the making of a man. This particular
"something," they say, can be had from no other source. The sum of these
"somethings" constitutes a rounded whole. The man who has not
experienced each of them in some degree, however small, is imperfectly
planned. One who has been touched by all has laid the foundations of a
liberal education. Degree of acquaintance with this subject or with that
may subsequently enlarge. Scholarly interest may concentrate. But at the
first, the proper aim is balanced knowledge, harmonious development of
all essential powers, avoidance of one-sidedness.
On this aim the group system bestows but a secondary attention.
Regarding primarily studies, not men, it attempts to organize single
connected departments of knowledge. Accordingly it permits only those
studies to be pursued together which immediately cohere. It lays out
five, ten, any number of paths through the field of knowledge, and to
one of these paths the pilgrim is confined. Each group constitutes a
specialty,--a specialty intensified in character as, in order to escape
the difficulties of maintenance just pointed out, the number of groups
is allowed to increase. By insistence on specialization regard for
general culture is driven into a subordinate place. The advocates of
prescription maintain that there are not half a dozen ground-plans of
perfected humanity. They say there is but one. If we introduce variety
of design into a curriculum, we neglect that ideal man who resides alike
in all. We trust, on the contrary, in our power to hit some line of
study which may deservedly appeal to one human being while not so
appealing to another. We simply note the studies which are most
congruous with the special line selected, and by this congruity we shape
our group. In the new aim, congruity of studies, adaptation to a
professional purpose, takes precedence of harmonious development of
powers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account