There are countries where it would be considered a truism that a teacher in order to exercise his profession intelligently should know something about the chief authorities in it. Here, however, I suppose such an assertion will seem paradoxical; but there is a good deal to be said in defence of it. De Quincey has pointed1 out that a man who takes up any pursuit without knowing what advances others have made in it works at a great disadvantage. He does not apply his strength in the right direction, he troubles himself about small matters and neglects great, he falls into errors that have long since been exploded. An educator is, I think, liable to these dangers if he brings to his task no knowledge but that which he learnt for the tripos, and no skill but that which he acquired in the cricket ground or on the river. If his pupils are placed entirely2 in his hands, his work is one of great difficulty, with heavy penalties attached to all blundering in it; though here, as in the case[xiv] of the ignorant doctor and the careless architect, the penalties, unfortunately, are paid by his victims. If (as more commonly happens) he has simply to give a class prescribed instruction, his smaller scope of action limits proportionally the mischief3 that may ensue; but even then it is obviously desirable that his teaching should be as good as possible, and he is not likely to employ the best methods if he invents as he goes along, or simply falls back on his remembrance of how he was taught himself, perhaps in very different circumstances. I venture to think, therefore, that practical men in education, as in most other things, may derive4 benefit from the knowledge of what has already been said and done by the leading men engaged in it, both past and present.
All study of this kind, however, is very much impeded5 by want of books. “Good books are in German,” says Professor Seeley. I have found that on the history of Education, not only good books but all books are in German or some other foreign language.[1] I have, therefore, thought it worth while to publish a few such imperfect sketches6 as these, with which[xv] the reader can hardly be less satisfied than the author. They may, however, prove useful till they give place to a better book.
Several of the following essays are nothing more than compilations8. Indeed, a hostile critic might assert that I had used the scissors with the energy of Mr. Timbs and without his discretion9. The reader, however, will probably agree with me that I have done wisely in putting before him the opinions of great writers in their own language. Where I am simply acting10 as reporter, the author’s own way of expressing himself is obviously the best; and if, following the example of the gipsies and Sir Fretful Plagiary, I had disfigured other people’s offspring to make them pass for my own, success would have been fatal to the purpose I have steadily11 kept in view. The sources of original ideas in any subject, as the student is well aware, are few, but for irrigation we require troughs as well as water-springs, and these essays are intended to serve in the humbler capacity.
A word about the incomplete handling of my subjects. I have not attempted to treat any subject completely, or even with anything like completeness. In giving a sketch7 of the opinions of an author one of two methods must be adopted; we may give an epitome12 of all that he has said, or by confining ourselves to his more valuable and characteristic opinions, may gain space to give these fully13. As I detest14 epitomes15, I have adopted the latter method exclusively, but I may sometimes have failed in selecting an author’s most characteristic principles; and probably no two readers of a book would entirely agree as to what was most valuable in it: so my account must remain, after all, but a poor substitute for the author himself.
For the part of a critic I have at least one qualification—practical acquaintance with the subject. As boy or master,[xvi] I have been connected with no less than eleven schools, and my perception of the blunders of other teachers is derived16 mainly from the remembrance of my own. Some of my mistakes have been brought home to me by reading works on education, even those with which I do not in the main agree. Perhaps there are teachers who on looking through the following pages may meet with a similar experience.
Had the essays been written in the order in which they stand, a good deal of repetition might have been avoided, but this repetition has at least the advantage of bringing out points which seem to me important; and as no one will read the book as carefully as I have done, I hope no one will be so much alive to this and other blemishes17 in it.
I much regret that in a work which is nothing if it is not practically useful, I have so often neglected to mark the exact place from which quotations18 are taken. I have myself paid the penalty of this carelessness in the trouble it has cost me to verify passages which seemed inaccurate19.
The authority I have had recourse to most frequently is Raumer (Geschichte der P?dagogik). In his first two volumes he gives an account of the chief men connected with education, from Dante to Pestalozzi. The third volume contains essays on various parts of education, and the fourth is devoted20 to German Universities. There is an English translation, published in America, of the fourth volume only. I confess to a great partiality for Raumer—a partiality which is not shared by a Saturday Reviewer and by other competent authorities in this country. But surely a German author who is not profound, and is almost perspicuous, has some claim on the gratitude21 of English readers, if he gives information which we cannot get in our own language. To Raumer I am indebted for all that I have[xvii] written about Ratke, and almost all about Basedow. Elsewhere his history has been used, though not to the same extent.
C. A. Schmid’s Encyclop?die des Erziehungs-und-Unterrichtswesens is a vast mine of information on everything connected with education. The work is still in progress. The part containing Rousseau has only just reached me. I should have been glad of it when I was giving an account of the Emile, as Raumer was of little use to me.
Those for whom Schmid is too diffuse22 and expensive will find Carl Gottlob Hergang’s P?dagogische Realencyclop?die useful. This is in two thick volumes, and costs, to the best of my memory, about eighteen shillings. It was finished in 1847.
The best sketch I have met with of the general history of education is in the article on P?dagogik in Meyers Conversations-Lexicon.[2] I wish someone would translate this article; and I should be glad to draw the attention of the editor of an educational periodical, say the Museum or the Quarterly Journal of Education, to it.
I have come upon references to many other works on the history of Education, but of these the only ones I have seen are Theodore Fritz’s Esquisse d’un Système complet d’instruction et d’éducation et de leur histoire (3 vols., Strasburg, 1843), and Carl Schmidt’s Geschichte der P?dagogik (4 vols.). The first of these gives only the outline of the subject. The second is, I believe, considered a standard work. It does not seem to me so readable as Raumer’s history, but it is much more complete, and comes down to quite recent times.
For my account of the Jesuit schools and of Pestalozzi,[xviii] the authorities will be found elsewhere (pp. 34 and 383). In writing about Comenius I have had much assistance from a life of him prefixed to an English translation of his School of Infancy23, by Daniel Benham (London, 1858). For almost all the information given about Jacotot, I am indebted to Mr. Payne’s papers, which I should not have ventured to extract from so freely if they had been before the public in a more permanent form.
I am sorry I cannot refer to any English works on the history of Education, except the essays of Mr. Parker and Mr. Furnivall, and Christian24 Schools and Scholars, which are mentioned above, but we have a very good treatise25 on the principles of education in Marcel’s Language as a Means of Mental Culture (2 vols., London, 1853). Edgeworth’s Practical Education seems falling into undeserved neglect, and Mr. Spencer’s recent work is not universally known even by schoolmasters.
If the following pages attract but few readers, it will be some consolation26, though rather a melancholy27 one, that I share the fate of my betters.
R. H. Q.
Ingatestone, Essex, May, 1868.
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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mischief
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| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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derive
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| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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impeded
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| 阻碍，妨碍，阻止( impede的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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compilations
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discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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steadily
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epitome
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| n.典型，梗概 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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detest
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epitomes
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derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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blemishes
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| n.（身体的）瘢点( blemish的名词复数 )；伤疤；瑕疵；污点 | |
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quotations
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inaccurate
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devoted
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gratitude
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diffuse
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infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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Christian
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treatise
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consolation
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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