The Elements of General Method | Page 5

standard, of the materials furnished by the common school, is our first
task. To what extent does history contribute to our purpose? What
importance have geography and arithmetic? How do reading and
natural science aid a child to grow into the full stature of a man or
woman?
These questions are not new, but the answer to them has been long
delayed. Since the time of Comenius, to say the least, they have
seriously disturbed educators. But few have had the courage, industry,
and breadth of mind of a Comenius, to sound the educational waters
and to lay out a profitable chart. In spite of Comenius' labors, however,
and those of other educational reformers be they never so energetic,
practical progress toward a final answer, as registered in school courses,
has been extremely slow.
Herbert Spencer says: "If there needs any further evidence of the rude,
undeveloped character of our education, we have it in the fact that the
comparative worths of the different kinds of knowledge have been as
yet scarcely even discussed, much less discussed in a methodic way

with definite results. Not only is it that no standard of relative values
has yet been agreed upon, but the existence of any such standard has
not been conceived in any clear manner. And not only is it that the
existence of such a standard has not been clearly conceived, but the
need of it seems to have been scarcely even felt. Men read books on
this topic and attend lectures upon that, decide that their children shall
be instructed in these branches and not in those; and all under the
guidance of mere custom, or liking, or prejudice, without ever
considering the enormous importance of determining in some rational
way what things are really most worth learning. * * * * * Men dress
their children's minds as they do their bodies, in the prevailing fashion."
Spencer, Education, p. 26.
Spencer sees clearly the importance of this problem and gives it a
vigorous discussion in his first chapter, "What knowledge is of most
worth?" But the question is a broad and fundamental one and in his
preference for the natural sciences he seems to us not to have
maintained a just balance of educational forces in preparing a child for
"complete living." His theory needs also to be worked out into greater
detail and applied to school conditions before it can be of much value
to teachers. It can scarcely be said that any other Englishman or
American has seriously grappled with this problem. Great changes and
reforms indeed have been started, especially within the last fifty years,
but they have been undertaken under the pressure of general popular
demands and have resulted in compromises between traditional forces
and urgent popular needs. An adequate philosophical inquiry into the
relative merit of studies and their adaptability to nurture mental, moral,
and physical qualities has not been made.
The Germans have worked to a better purpose. Quite a number of able
thinkers among them have given their best years to the study of this
problem of relative educational values and to a working out of its
results. Herbart, Ziller, Stoy, and Rein have been deeply interested in
philosophy and psychology as life-long teachers of these subjects at the
university, but in their practice schools in the same place they also
stood daily face to face with the primary difficulties of ordinary
teaching. At the outset, and before laying out a course of study, they

were compelled to meet and settle the aim of education and the
problem of relative values. Having answered these questions to their
own satisfaction, they proceeded to work out in detail a common school
course. The Herbart school of teachers has presumed to call its
interpretation of educational ideas "scientific pedagogy," a somewhat
pretentious name in view of the fact that many leading educators in
Germany, England, and elsewhere, deny the existence of such a science.
But if not a science, it is at least a serious attempt at one. The
exposition of principles that follow is chiefly derived from them.
With us the present time is favorable to a rational inquiry into relative
educational values and to a thorough-going application of the results to
school courses and methods.
In the first place the old classical monopoly is finally and completely
broken, at least so far as the common school is concerned. It ruled
education for several centuries, but now even its methods of discipline
are losing their antique hold. The natural sciences, modern history, and
literature have assumed an equal place with the old classical studies in
college courses. Freed from old traditions and prejudice, our common
school is now grounded in the vernacular, in the national history and
literature, and in home geography and natural science.