Outlines Of Educational Doctrine

OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE. BY JOHN FREDERICK HERBART TRANSLATED BY ALEXIS F. LANGE, PH. D. ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AND SCANDINAVIAN PHILOLOGY, AND DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF THE COLLEGE OF LETTERS, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ANNOTATED BY CHARLES DE GARMO, Pn. D. PROFESSOR or THE SCIENCE AND ART OF EDUCATION, CORNELL UNIVERSITY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON MACMILLAN CO., LTD. 1913 All rights reserved COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1901. Reprinted June, 1904 February, 1909 October, 1913. J. 8. Cashing Co. Berwick ft, Smith Co. Norwood, Mas8., U. SJL PREFACE THE reasons for translating and annotating Herbarts Outlines are, first, to-present to the English-speaking public Herbarfs latest, and also his most complete, work on education and, second, to note to some ex tent at least the advances made in educational thought since Herbart laid down his pen. Herbarf s educational writings are distinguished by two marked characteristics i, their helpfulness in actual teaching and 2, their systematic completeness. The thoughtful reader can see the bearing of each part upon all the others the purposes of education are so completely correlated with the means, that, whether the topic under discussion be apperception or interest or methods of teaching or school govern ment or moral training or the presentation of a par ticular study, the reader Is never at a loss to see the relation of this part to the whole. The eminent practicability of Herbarts thought de pends upon his psychological point of view, which is always that of concrete experience. The moment one tries to apply rational psychology to actualteaching, one begins to rise into the clouds, to become vague Vi PREFACE or, at least, general. The reason for this is that rational psychology deals with unchangeable presup positions of mind. We may conform our work to these standards, but we cannot modify them, any more than we can a law of nature. But when we have to deal with an apperceiving content, we feel at home, for over this we have some control. We can build up moral maxims, we can establish permanent interests, we can reveal the unfolding of whole developments of thought and effort, we can fix the time order of studies and parts of studies in short, we can apply our pedagogical Insight with some degree of success to actual school problems. Though empirical psychology has in the last fifty years had as rapid a development as any other de partment of science, it has never departed essentially from the direction fixed by Herbart. New methods have indeed been applied, but the leading motive has remained empirical it has had small tendency to drift toward rational psychology. This fact makes Herbarts educational thought, so far as psychological bearing is concerned, seem as fresh and modern as when it was first recorded. In one important respect, however, Herbarts system needs modernizing. It is in relating education to con ditions of society as it now exists. German society has never been that of English-speaking countries much less does German society of the early part of the nine teenth century correspond to Anglo-Saxon society at PREFACE VII the beginning of the twentieth. Indeed, even had there been correspondence before, there would be di vergence now. It is one of the main purposes of the annotation, therefore, to pointout the social Implica tions of various parts of the Outlines The annotation has made no attempt to improve Herbarts prophetic vision concerning many important matters, or to elucidate self-evident propositions, or to supplement observations already complete, true, and apt. Especial attention is called to the exactness and illuminating character of Herbarts diagnosis of mental weaknesses and disorders in children, together with his suggestions as to proper treatment...