Herbart (1776-1841) has composed a series of pedagogical writings which assign him a special place in the list of educational philosophers. Let us call attention, in particular, to his General Pedagogy (1806), and the Outline of my Lessons on Pedagogy (1840). That which distinguishes Herbart is his attempt to reduce to a system all the rules of pedagogy by giving them for a basis his own psychological theory. He inaugurated a new method in psychology, which does not seem, however, to have given the results that were expected from it,—the mathematical method. For him, psychology is only the mechanism of the mind, and by means of mathematical formula calculation may be applied to measure the force of ideas. The soul does not possess innate faculties; it is developed progressively.
But it would require long efforts to enter into the secrets of Herbart’s original thought. Let it suffice to say, that nurtured from an early period on the ideas of Pestalozzi, whose friend he was, he has founded a real school of pedagogy.
Beneke (1798-1854) is the author of a Doctrine of Education and Instruction, which is, in the opinion of Doctor Dittes, a masterpiece of psychological pedagogy. Beneke agrees with Herbart on a great number of points. His pedagogical methods have been popularized by J. G. Dressler, director of the normal school at Bauzen, who died in 1860.[278]
Charles Schmidt, who died in 1864, wrote a large number of works on pedagogy, in which he is inspired by the phrenology of Gall and his fantastical hypotheses. Doubtless this inspiration is not happy, and the works of Schmidt are more valuable for their details, for their special reflections, than for their general doctrine. But from his undertaking there issues at least this truth, that the science of education should have for its basis, not only psychology, but physiology also, the science of the whole man, body and mind.
There is no country where pedagogy has received a more philosophical and a higher development than in Germany. Even the great poets, Lessing, Herder, Gœthe, and Schiller, have contributed through certain grand ideas to the construction of a science of education.
631. The English Philosophers.—English philosophy, with its experimental and practical character, and with its positive and utilitarian tendencies, was naturally called to exercise a great influence on pedagogy. There are more truths to gather from the thinkers who, in different degrees, have followed Locke and Bain, and who have preserved a taste for prudent observation and careful experiments, than from the German idealists, enamored of hypothesis and systematic constructions.
Without doubt this explains the considerable success which the recent books of Herbert Spencer and Alexander Bain have obtained even in France.
632. The Book of Herbert Spencer.—If it were sufficient to define with exactness the end to be attained, and to discover the true method for constructing the science, Herbert Spencer’s book on Education, Intellectual, Moral, and Physical,[279] would be a satisfactory treatise; but it is one thing to comprehend that psychology is the only solid basis of a complete and exact pedagogy, and another thing to determine the real laws of psychology.
“Education will not be definitely systematized,” says Mr. Spencer, “till the day when science shall be in possession of a rational psychology.”