Professor Shotwell, of Columbia University, recently wrote to the publishers a letter in which he said: “I shall use the articles in the Encyclopaedia Britannica which deal with industrial processes as a substitute for a text-book in one of my courses in Social and Industrial History and have especially in mind the splendid treatment of the cotton industry by Professor S. J. Chapman and others.” A large number of Britannica articles have, by permission, been reprinted, word for word, for use as text-books; and it is impossible to say how many have been paraphrased, and, in a form less clear and vivid than the originals, similarly employed. The writers of the Britannica have, among them, done so large a share of the world’s recent work in research and criticism, that no one who is engaged in writing a text-book or in preparing a course of lectures should fail to use the work as a check to test the completeness and the accuracy of independent investigation.
Fortunately, the system of monthly payments has enabled teachers to purchase the Britannica to an extent which, in view of their limited resources, is a striking evidence of their earnest desire to perfect their professional equipment. In some cases two and even three teachers have combined their efforts in order that they might jointly possess the work. But whatever may be the difficulties to be overcome, it is certain that the Britannica is, for the teacher, an instrument as directly productive as a technical library is for a doctor or a lawyer.
A professor in an eastern college wrote to the publishers: “It has become ‘the collection of books’ which Carlyle might term ‘the true university’”; and the practical head of a business school in Pennsylvania says: “By its purchase, I have secured access to a university education.” A well known professor of German calls it “a Hausschatz of amazing richness and variety,” and adds: “I hope you will not be sued at law for an attempt to monopolize the market for profitable and entertaining literature.” The president of a southern university wrote: “It is the first book to consult, the one book to own, if you can own but one.” And a Harvard professor says: “I have been particularly interested in some of the recent phases of European history. Concerning some movements, about which it is as yet extremely difficult to find material in books, I have found the Encyclopaedia most useful.” A teacher in a theological seminary exclaims: “What a university of solid training it would be for a young student, if he would spend an hour each day reading the work, volume by volume, and including all the articles except those of a technical nature belonging to other departments than his own!”
This is what teachers have said of the value to them of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Specialists in school-hygiene and school librarians have also noted the advantage of the light, handy volumes printed on India paper—one weighs no more than two monthly magazines—, which may be easily held at the proper angle for eye-focus on a large page.
The teacher will find in this Guide valuable suggestions about particular subjects which he may wish to teach or study,—such as history, literature, language and biology. In this chapter we suggest a general course.
The Theory of Education
Let him begin with the article Education (Vol. 8, p. 951), which is the equivalent in length of 120 pages of the size and type of this Guide, and of which the first part is by James Welton, professor of education in the University of Leeds and author of Logical Bases of Education, etc., the sections on national systems by G. B. M. Coore, assistant secretary of the London Board of Education, and that on the United States by Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University. This valuable article begins with a discussion of the meaning of the term “Education,” excludes John Stuart Mill’s extension to everything which “helps to shape the human being,” and narrows the meaning to definitely personal work,—the true “working” definition for the practical teacher.
The section on educational theory might equally well be styled a sketch of the history of education and will prove valuable to the teacher preparing for a licence-examination in this subject or for a normal training course. It discusses old Greek education with special attention to Spartan practice, Plato’s theory and Aristotle’s, and the gradual change from the point of view of the city-state to Hellenistic cosmopolitanism. The older Roman education, practical and given by father to son, is contrasted with the later Hellenized training, largely by Greek slaves, largely rhetorical and largely summed up in Quintilian’s Institutio. The contest between the pagan system and Christianity is shown to have culminated in monasticism; and barbarian inroads stifled classical culture until the Carolingian revival under Alcuin in the 8th century and the scholastic revival (11th to 13th centuries) of Abelard, Aquinas and Arabic workings over of Aristotle. Scholastic education is considered especially in relation to the first great European universities and the schools of the Dominicans, Franciscans and Brethren of the Common Life, and in contrast to chivalry, the education of feudalism. The Renaissance is treated at greater length, and this is followed by sections on the influence of the Reformation on education, and the consequent growth of Jesuit schools. The keynote of the story thereafter is reform,—the movement away from the classics, toward natural science, and, especially after the French Revolution, by means of new methods and theories, notably those of Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel and Herbart.
The remainder of the article EducaTION deals with national systems of education: French, German, Swiss, Belgian, Dutch, Scotch, Irish, English, Welsh and American, with an excellent bibliography. These, and other, national systems are also treated from another point of view in the articles on the separate countries.
Articles on Great Schools