A student's history of education

by Frank Pierrepont Graves

Stoy’s practice school at Jena,

Karl Volkmar Stoy (1815-1885), the founder of the other school, gave himself simply to a forceful restatement of the master’s positions, but also established a most influential pedagogical seminary and practice school upon the original Herbartian basis at Jena. And eleven years later, Wilhelm Rein (1847- ), who had been continued by Rein. a pupil of both Stoy and Ziller, succeeded the former in the direction of the practice school, and introduced there the elaborate development that had taken place since Herbart’s time. He adopted Ziller’s ‘concentration,’ ‘culture epochs,’ and other features, but made them a little more elastic by coördinating other material with the ‘historical’ center in the curriculum. Through him Jena became known as the great seat of Herbartianism. Other Germans to develop the principles of Herbart Lange and Frick. have been Lange and Frick. The Apperception of Karl Lange is an excellent combination of scientific insight and popular presentation. Otto Frick, director of the ‘Francke Institutions’ at Halle (see p. 176), inclining more to the close interpretation of Stoy, devoted himself to applying Herbartianism to the secondary schools, and outlined a course for the gymnasium.

In Germany content and methods of education were greatly modified.

A throng of other German schoolmasters and professors have further adapted the doctrines of Herbart to school practice, and while their theories differ very largely from one another, from their common basis they are all properly designated ‘Herbartian.’ As a result of this continuous propaganda, the content and methods of the school curricula in Germany have been largely modified. Herbart’s emphasis upon the importance to the secondary schools of literary and historical studies as a moral training has been adapted to the elementary schools by the later Herbartians in the form of story and biographical material. History has consequently attained a more prominent place in the curriculum, and is no longer auxiliary to reading Prominence given to history and literature. and geography. It is regarded as a means of moral development, and the cultural features in the history of the German people are stressed more than the political. Ziller’s plan for concentrating all studies about a core of history and literature, on the ground of thus producing ‘a moral revelation of the world’ for the pupil, is in evidence everywhere. A twofold course,—Jewish history through Bible stories, and German history in the form of legends and tales, appears in every grade of the elementary school after the first two, and even in these lower classes there is some attempt to utilize literature as a moral training through the medium of fairy stories, fables, moral tales, Robinson Crusoe, and the various stories of the philanthropinists (see p. 225).

Herbartianism in the United States.—Next to the land of its birth, the United States has been more influenced by Herbartianism than any other country. Before 1880 there were but few notices of Herbartianism in American educational literature, and not many appeared American teachers who studied at Jena introduced Herbartianism into the United States. during the following decade. The movement was fostered largely by American teachers that were studying with Rein at Jena during the last two decades of the century. Before 1890 nine Americans had taken their degree there, and by the twentieth century more than fifty. These young men came back filled with the enthusiastic belief that Herbartian principles could supply a solution in systematic form for the many complicated problems with which American education was then grappling, and began at once to propagate their Northern Illinois the center. faith. The movement centered chiefly in northern Illinois and was especially strong in the normal schools. The staff of the State Normal University at this time included Charles DeGarmo, afterward professor of Education at Cornell, Frank M. McMurry, now of the Teachers College, Columbia University, and his brother, Charles A. McMurry, now of the faculty of the George Peabody College for Teachers; and the practice school at the Normal University was the first to be established upon Herbartian principles. The Schoolmasters’ Club of Illinois gave much of its time to a discussion of Herbartian principles, and the first Herbartian literature in the United States was rapidly produced. During the last decade of the century there appeared large numbers of articles, textbooks, treatises, and translations, including The Method of the Recitation and a variety of other works upon general and special methods by the McMurrys. In 1892 The Herbart Club was founded to promote a study of Herbartian principles and adapt them to American conditions, and during the first three years it spent its efforts in translating the words of Herbart The Herbart Society and its Year Book. and in discussing Herbartian topics only. In 1895 the name of the club was changed to the Herbart Society for the Scientific Study of Education, many non-Herbartians were admitted, the scope of the discussions was enlarged, and the publication of a Year Book was begun.

Then began the period of criticism and the formulation of American Herbartianism. The movement was Opposition, vigorously opposed by many on the ground that it was a foreign importation, was based upon absurd metaphysical presuppositions, or contained nothing new, but the disciples of Herbart stood valiantly by their guns. Although not always certain in their own minds, they endeavored to clear up all misunderstanding and confusion in the doctrines and to keep them practical through developing them in connection with actual experiments in teaching. They showed that the fanciful psychology of Herbart did not hold a determining place in his educational thought, and that it might be rejected, without affecting the merit of his pedagogy. One by one the doctrines were introduced in the order of their concreteness,—five but growth of the movement. formal steps, apperception, concentration, interest—and little attempt was made to weave them into a single system. The critical season did not long endure, and the movement soon spread widely. By the close of the first year the Herbart Society had a membership of seven hundred, and the Herbartian principles were everywhere studied by local clubs and taught in schools and universities. In the report of the United States Commissioner of Education for 1894-1895, Dr. Harris stated: “There are at present more adherents of Herbart in the United States than in Germany.” This, he believed, was due to the greater freedom of discussion that was allowed. The movement not only became an educational awakening, but it attained almost to the Herbartian features adopted by others. proportions of a cult. Moreover, many who hardly considered themselves Herbartians undertook to modify and adapt the Herbartian principles, especially ‘correlation’ and ‘concentration.’ Francis W. Parker of Chicago, for example, among the phases of his educational practice (cf. [pp. 293] and 364), approached concentration so closely as to center the entire course of study around a hierarchy of natural and social sciences. And the Committees of Ten and Fifteen, appointed by the National Education Association to report upon secondary and elementary education respectively, showed a strong Herbartian influence in their recommendations of correlation.

Largely in consequence of the development of Herbartianism, an increased amount and larger utilization of Amount of history increased in American schools, historical material became general also in American elementary schools. A wide appreciation of the growth of morality, culture, and social life, rather than merely the development of patriotism, became the object in studying this subject. English and German history, as well as American, which alone was formerly taught, and sometimes Greek, Roman, and Norse, appear in the curricula of many elementary schools, and, instead of being confined to the two upper classes, historical material is often presented from the third grade up. Biographical and historical stories are largely employed in the lower classes, while in the upper some attempt is made to use European history as a setting for American. A similar and wide survey of literature encouraged. development in the amount and use of literature also has appeared in the course of the elementary schools, partly as a result of the Herbartian influence. Instead of brief selections from the English and American writers, or the poorer material that formerly appeared in the school readers, complete works of literature have begun to be studied in the elementary curriculum, and a wide and rapid survey of the great English classics has been encouraged in the place of merely reading for the sake of oral expression. Even in the lowest grades some attempt to introduce the classics of childhood has been made.

While in these ways all elementary, and to some extent secondary, schools have been affected, Herbartianism pure and simple has largely been abandoned for less dogmatic methods. Even the Herbart Society has ceased to foster a propaganda, and has since 1901 dropped the first part of its name and been known as ‘The National Society for the Scientific Study of Education.’ The later works of DeGarmo and Frank M. McMurry claim to be quite emancipated from Herbartianism. But, although professed Herbartians are now almost unknown in the United States, no other system of pedagogy, except that of Pestalozzi, has ever had so wide an influence upon American education and upon the thought and practice of teachers generally.

Froebel’s Early Life.—Let us now turn to Froebel, the other great successor of Pestalozzi, and to his development and extension of the master’s principle of ‘natural development.’ Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel (1782-1852) was born in a village of the Thüringian forest. He tells us that this environment started within him a search for the mystic unity that he believed to exist amid the various phenomena of nature, but it is more likely that this attitude was developed through a brief residence Search for ‘unity’ developed through idealism, romanticism, and ‘nature philosophy’ at Jena. (1799-1800) at the University of Jena. The atmosphere about this institution was charged with the idealistic philosophy, the romantic movement, and the evolutionary attitude in science. Froebel could not have escaped the constant discussions upon the philosophy of Fichte and Schelling. He must likewise have fallen under the spell of the Jena romanticists,—the Schlegels, Tieck, and Novalis. The advanced attitude in science at Jena may also have impressed the youth. While much of the science instruction failed to make clear that inner relation and mystic unity for which he sought, he must occasionally have caught glimpses of it in the lectures of professors belonging to the school of Natur-philosophie.

His Experiences at Frankfort, Yverdon, and Berlin.—After leaving the university, Froebel was for four years groping for a niche in life. But he eventually (1805) met Anton Grüner, head of a Pestalozzian model school at Adoption of teaching. Frankfort, who persuaded him of his fitness for teaching and gave him a position in the institution. Here he undertook a systematic study of Pestalozzianism, and, through the use of modeling in paper, pasteboard, and wood with his pupils, he came to see the value of motor Study with Pestalozzi. expression as a means of education. He then withdrew to Yverdon and worked with Pestalozzi himself for two years (1808-1810). There he greatly increased his knowledge of the play and development of children, music, and nature study, which were to play so important a part in his methods. Next, he went to the University of Berlin to study mineralogy with Professor Crystallization of law of ‘unity.’ Weiss, and through the work there he finally crystallized his mystic law of ‘unity.’ He became fully “convinced of the demonstrable connection in all cosmic development,” and declared that “thereafter my rocks and crystals served me as a mirror wherein I might discern mankind, and man’s development and history.”