[186] This thought throws light on a dictum of current pedagogy, “First, the idea, then the term.” It shows that very often, in actual experience, the sequence is from term to idea. The relation between term and idea is the same in kind as that between sentence and thought. Must we then say, “First the thought, then the sentence”? Or, “First the thought, then the chapter or the book”?
The disciplinary value of translation is also well stated. It may be doubted whether the schools furnish a better “intellectual gymnastic.” Three high intellectual attainments are involved in a real translation: 1. The separation of the thought from the original form of words; 2. The seizing or comprehension of the thought as a mental possession; and 3. The embodying of the thought in a new form. A strictly analogous process, of almost equal value in its place, is that variety of reading in which the pupil is required to express the thought of the paragraph in his own language. This exercise involves the three processes above stated, and may be called “the translation of thought from one form into another, in the same language.” (P.)
[187] Marmontel, Mémoires d’un père pour servir à l’instruction de ses enfants, Tome I. p. 19.
[188] Maître d’étude: “He who in a lycée, college, or boarding-school, has oversight of pupils during study hours and recreations.”—Littré.
[189] It is a matter of surprise that in a German Pedagogical Library the very first French work published is the Traité de l’Homme of Helvetius. This is giving the place of honor to what is perhaps of the most ordinary value in French pedagogical literature.
[190] See the French translation of this tract at the end of the volume, published by Monsieur Barni, under the title, Éléments métaphysiques de la doctrine de la vertu. Paris, 1855. The work of Kant appeared in German in 1803.
[191] Extract from Kant’s Fragments posthumes.
[192] Monsieur Compayré seems to give his sanction to the “Discipline of Consequences.” I think that Mr. Fitch has correctly stated its limitations (Lectures, p. 117). Kant doubtless borrowed the idea from Rousseau, who employs it in the government of his imaginary pupil. (See Miss Worthington’s translation of the Émile, p. 66.) This doctrine is the basis of Mr. Spencer’s chapter on Moral Education. (P.)
[193] Helvetius, but poorly qualified for teaching moral questions, had had the idea of a Catéchisme de probité. Saint Lambert published, in 1798, a Catéchisme universel.