Indeed, no one should allow himself to be deceived by this fine phrase, Education as a Science, which might disconcert and turn aside whole classes of readers, such as those who, in works on education, especially desire a guide for practice. On the contrary, they will have every reason to commend a book which passes very quickly from generalities to applications, and which is above all else a manual of practical and technical pedagogy. The study of it will be profitable not merely to professors who are teaching the higher branches of literature and science, but even to the humblest instructors, and even—for Mr. Bain overlooks no detail—to teachers of reading and writing.
656. Division of the Work.—Education as a Science comprises three parts: 1. psychological data; 2. methods; 3. modern education.
The author first inquires in what order the faculties are developed, and what effect this order should have on the distribution of studies. This is the psychological part. Then follows a discussion of what Mr. Bain calls the logical order, that is, of the relations which exist between the studies themselves and their different parts. This is the “analytical problem” of education.[285]
These preliminaries being established, Mr. Bain enters upon the principal theme,—the methods of instruction. He discusses one after another the first elements of reading, object-lessons, “which, more than any other means of instruction, require to be practised with care, for without this, an admirable process might, in unskillful hands, be nothing more than a thing of seductive appearance, but without value”; then methods relating to history, geography, the sciences, and the languages.
Finally, in his third book, Mr. Bain exhibits a new plan of study, with particular reference to secondary instruction.
657. Psychological Order and Logical Order.—In his reflections on the development of the mind and upon the distribution of studies, Mr. Bain is inspired by the principles which have guided Mr. Spencer.
“Observation precedes reflection. The concrete comes before the abstract.”
In education, then, the sequence should be from the simple to the complex, from the particular to the general, from the indefinite to the definite, from the empirical to the rational, from analysis to synthesis, from the outline to details; finally, from the material to the immaterial.
Such would be the ideal order in education; but Mr. Bain remarks that in practice all sorts of obstacles come to disturb this rigorous sequence.
658. Modern Education.—The plan of secondary studies which Mr. Bain recommends to the reformers of teaching is the result and the résumé of all these observations.