Edification

“ It is an education which, so far as it goes beyond the three elements of reading, writing, and arithmetic, is framed in all its essential features upon an exclusively collegiate type of studies; grammar, history, geography, foreign languages, and the like, being introduced, to the utter exclusion in all the most important of the successive "Standards" of any teaching of drawing, of mechanics, of the simplest facts of science or of natural history—of all, in fact, that most nearly concerns the workman throughout his entire career. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the Middle Ages furnish us with many examples of the popularization of science, of the writing of compendia of various kinds, of the gathering of information to save others the trouble, and, above all, of the making of what, in the modern time, we would call encyclopedias. Handbooks of various kinds were issued, manuals for students and specialists, and many men of broad scholarship in their time devoted themselves to the task of making the acquisition of knowledge easy for others. This was true not only for history and philosophy and literature, but also for science. ”

“ History will then be the only subject suitable for general intellectual training,—the history of man's development. It will bring out the great principles of ethnography and sociology, of political economy, the lives of great men, the history of the church, art, and literature. [Pg 275] In scientific study and in teaching mathematics, the men prominent in science and in discovery will find a place. Geography brings up points of view related to almost every study, and experience already acquired gives good reason for making this subject the centre of all instruction. ”

“ Therefore "technical education" is a suitable and proper designation of the training which is given to apprentices, etc., in the strictly technical details of their trades, arts, or professions. When we require a name for the science or the philosophy of anything, we obtain it by using the Greek root logos, and appending it in English form to the Greek name of the general subject, as geology, the science of the earth; anthropology, the science of man; biology, the science of life, etc. ”

“ Again, artistic education will be split up into as many sections as there are arts, and scientific instruction in the same way; for pedagogy assigns to each branch of the classification its corresponding method of teaching. It goes without saying that the sciences of any given branch are different among themselves, and the study of botany, for example, is not the study of zoology. And there are as many forms of culture to be promoted by education as there are sciences ”

“ Have these Arts a fixed Foundation in Nature; or were they not attained to by Study? If by Nature, why have we heard of no Orators among the Inhabitants of the Bay of Soldania, or eminent Poets in Peru? If by Study, why not now, as well as formerly, since Printing has made Learning cheap and easie? Does it seem harder to speak and write like Cicero or Virgil, than to find out the motions of the Heavens, and to calculate the Distances of the Stars? ”

“ We gladly recognise that such specialists are doing invaluable service, in their several lines, to the cause of knowledge; but we may also wish that the desire to be scientific was more uniformly tempered by a regard for the nature of the materials with which all scholarship has to deal. Those materials are the creations of the human intellect, whether as seen in the evolution of language, or of literature, or of art. ”

“ According as one object or another predominates, so will the method of teaching change; if one object is sought to the exclusion of all others, the method of teaching will, of course, vary with the object in view. The philologist will subordinate everything to the study of philology; the historian will fasten all his attention on the evidences of date, the local references, the flavour of contemporary philosophy, politics, religion, or whatever it may be; the technician will be entirely occupied with form, metre, structure. ”

“ The perusal, however, of these various publications has confirmed me in the conviction, that, for the purposes of instruction, the plan originally carried out by me was best fitted to achieve the object in view, my aim being to instruct in, and not to lecture on the art. I have, therefore, studiously divested the present publication of technicalities, or of any attempt to display learned research, in the origin or progress of the art, which, to the uninitiated, would not be instructive, and could only prove "caviare to the general." ”

“ Thus literature and philology, represented in the elementary school by English alone, in the university will extend over the ancient and modern languages. History, which, like charity, best begins at home, but, like charity, should not end there, will ramify into anthropology, archæology, political history, and geography, with the history of the growth of the human mind and of its products in the shape of philosophy, science, and art. ”

“ Individual essays assess the state of scholarship on, theoretical bases of, and research methods for preschool through elementary writing, middle and high school composition, postsecondary-level writing, teacher research in writing classrooms, second-language composition and teaching, rhetoric, family and community literacies, writing in the professions, and historical studies of composition. Each concludes with what is intended to be a complete bibliography of published research during the two decades. ”

“ I think I have recognised in my examination of the question that all our philology—that is, all its present existence and power—is based on the same foundation as that on which our view of antiquity as the most important of all means of training is based. Philology as a means of instruction is the clear expression of a predominating conception regarding the value of antiquity, and the best methods of education. ”

“ For he made the springs of learning—the innumerable Archives—the priceless manuscripts, the half-million of printed books gathered in his own halls of study, mingle their currents for every scholar, of whatever country or creed, who thirsted for the river of learning, strewn with golden sands for discoverers. ”

“ If the historians really taught the youth to think historically from the beginning, and the scientists really taught him to think scientifically from the beginning, and he could apply his new methods of thought to the expression of his own emotions, experiences, life, then the teacher [Pg 400] of composition might confine himself to the second of his duties, and teach only that technique which makes writing to uncoil itself as easily and as vividly as a necklace of matched and harmonious stones. ”

“ Besides the clay tablets, the libraries contained papyri which have now perished.
Varieties of literature.—The texts related to all the branches of knowledge studied at the time. Astronomy and astrology, mathematics, geography, medicine, law, history, religion, and mythology, private and public correspondence, mercantile transactions, political documents, the pseudo-science of omens, lists of beasts, birds, vegetables, and stones, are all represented in it, and last, but not least, philology. ”

“ We plead for the preservation of literature, especially classical literature, as the staple of education in the name of beauty and understanding: but no less do we demand science in the name of truth and advancement. ”

“ But, as generations went on, and the literature of these studies grew in volume, students began to feel the need of more agreement on general principles. In the present century the scientific spirit has added the domain of these old studies to its conquests. Within the last fifty years the comparative method has created a science of language. The study of manuscripts, as such, has become the science of palaeography; textual criticism is, within certain limits, a science ”

“ Therefore, the great business of the scientific teacher is, to imprint the fundamental, irrefragable facts of his science, not only by words upon the mind, but by sensible impressions upon the eye, and ear, and touch of the student, in so complete a manner, that every term used, or law enunciated, should afterwards call up vivid images of the particular structural, or other, facts which furnished the demonstration of the law, or the illustration of the term. ”

“ Besides the rudiments—reading, writing, and arithmetic—and religious instruction and good manners, mathematics, history, botany, geography, drawing, architecture, hydrography, navigation, and other technical subjects have often been taught, and in the industrial schools a manual and vocational training has been furnished. ”

“ Our work now is to broaden both the conception of research and of teaching, to recognize that whatever imports fresh and valid ideas, fresh and valid aspects—not simply of chemical and physical matters, but of aesthetic, social, and political matters, partakes of the honour and claims of research—and that whatever conveys ideas and aspects vividly and clearly and invigoratingly, not simply by word of mouth but by book or picture or article, is teaching. ”

“ Philology and grammar thus grew into sciences, and their professors held the keys of human erudition. Deep ought to be our gratitude for the contingent of classical literature rescued from a rapid destruction by such arduous and self-denying labours; and a history of these discoveries, and of the zeal and enterprise volunteered by the early commentators and publishers of the ancient authors, would form an interesting monument of undaunted and generally successful diligence. ”

“ An experience of more than eight years as Lecturer on the ‘Historical Development of Art,’ at the National Art Training School, South Kensington, has convinced me of the necessity for a short and concise Manual, which should serve both the public and students as a guide to the study of the history of art. In all our educational establishments, colleges, and ladies’ schools, the study of art-history, which ought to form one of the most important subjects of our educational system, is entirely neglected. ”

“ But I was reassured on this point by learning that Philology, as the subject of this Section, was intended to be taken in that larger and undoubtedly fitter sense of the word which it bears in other countries, and to which the usage of scholars ought certainly to fix it in our own—that is to say, the study of language and of literature without distinction between ancient and modern, and without exclusion of anything which is needed for the full comprehension and illustration of either. ”

“ So, no man can be regarded as a scientific scholar whose knowledge of Nature has been solely derived from books. In either case the real scholar must have been to the fountain-head and drawn his knowledge from the original sources. In order, then, to discover how scientific culture must be gained, we must consider the conditions on which the successful study and interpretation of Nature depend. ”

“ You may possibly be disposed, after reading my former lectures, to say that, as most of the developments of our art seem to have originated abroad, it would be more systematic to study them in the first instance where they originated, and then to trace their ramifications in other countries. I would reply that, though when writing on a subject one is obliged to be systematic, it is by no means necessary that we should be rigorously so in our studies. ”

“ The following quotation does not use the word value, but it contains the notion of a curriculum constructed on the idea that there are a number of separate ends to be reached, and that various studies may be evaluated by referring each study to its respective end. "Memory is trained by most studies, but best by languages and history; taste is trained by the more advanced study of languages, and still better by English literature; imagination by all higher language teaching, but chiefly by Greek and Latin poetry ”

“ For the present, therefore, I do not propose to study the arts of this province with the expectation that they will furnish a key to the origin of the peoples, or to the birthplace of their arts, but I shall treat them with reference rather to their bearing upon the processes by which culture has been achieved and the stages through which it has passed, keeping always in mind that a first requisite in this work is a systematic and detailed study of the material to be employed. ”

“ They are intended for use after the manner of the source books or collections of documents which have so vastly improved the teaching of general history in recent years. No argument is needed as to the importance of such a collection for effective teaching of the history of education; but I would urge that the subject requires in a peculiar degree rich and full illustration from the sources. The life of school, college, or university is varied, vivid, even dramatic, while we live it ”

“ THE word encyclopædia was first used by the Greeks, not for a book, but for a system of instruction in the whole circle of learning. Knowledge in their time was still so limited in extent that it could be thought of as taught by one man and covered in a single educational curriculum. ”

“ A principle of grading thus suggested as applicable to one kind of history as to another.
1. Any facts readily visualized possible material for school history.
2. Clear visualization a factor in stimulating interest.
3. Clear visualization of the man, the act, the situation, a necessary key to his mental states.
4. Elementary history, therefore, to be largely descriptive and narrative, to be made up of concrete examples rather than generalized knowledge.
e. Time and place relations essential to the conception of any fact as historical. As difficult for one kind of history as for another. ”