The United States looks forward to the coming century, confident of sharing largely in the world’s commerce. With an enormous and rapidly growing foreign trade, and with her industries sending their wares into all quarters of the globe, the future of her trade is certain. Shall we also become a great maritime nation? Shall we be as successful in the age of steel steamships as we were in the days when our clipper-ships, “those strong-winged gulls in timber, put swift girdles around the earth?” Unquestionably, yes! The commercial advantages which our rivals have possessed for half a century have nearly all disappeared. Our maritime instincts are not dead; and when we again turn our attention in earnest to the work of international navigation, we shall “win anew the wide-reaching seas our sires loved and occupied so well.”
EDUCATION DURING THE CENTURY
By FRANKLIN S. EDMONDS, A.M.,
Asst. Prof. of Political Science, Central High School, Philadelphia.
The nineteenth century has been characterized by a deep and abiding interest in popular education. One hundred years ago there were many close observers who strongly opposed all attempts to provide schools for the masses, lest they should be educated above their station in life. This feeling was particularly strong in conservative countries like England. It led the Duke of Wellington to remark to one who was explaining to him the work of Joseph Lancaster, “Take care what you are about; for unless you base all this on religion, you are only making so many clever devils.” So careful a critic as Alexis de Tocqueville, after his visit to the United States in 1831, wrote to Jared Sparks: “Are the effects of education uniformly good? Does not a man who obtains an education above his social condition become an unquiet citizen?” The first triumph of the nineteenth century was the conquest of this fear; and there is to-day a general belief that it is the duty of each community to provide a well-developed school system, that each child may have an opportunity for making the best and highest use of his powers and capabilities.
Perhaps no single element has contributed more to this change in the popular attitude towards schools than the writings of the great group of thinkers who, with lofty ideals and keen acumen, have devoted themselves to the study and discussion of educational questions. Germany has been foremost in its contributions to educational literature. Foremost in time as in influence is John Henry Pestalozzi (1746–1827). Although endowed with an “unrivaled incapacity for government,” Pestalozzi has yet become an inspiration to modern pedagogy, because of his love for teaching and the tender sympathy of his nature. After various educational experiments, he opened, in 1805, a school at Yverdun, on the Lake of Neufchatel, which soon won for him a European reputation, and became a centre of interest to educators from all Europe. The Emperor of Russia gave him a personal proof of his favor, and Fichte, the great German philosopher, declared that he saw in Pestalozzi and his labors the dawning of a new era for humanity. In his writings and in his teaching Pestalozzi emphasized the importance of the home in education; he asserted the truth that all instruction is based on observation: “Neither books nor any product of human skill, but life itself, yields the basis for all education;” and in a general way he aimed to develop the child through his own personal activity, rather than to furnish him with useful facts.
The most eminent of Pestalozzi’s disciples was Friedrich Froebel (1782–1852), the founder of the kindergarten. After a varied career as a forester, student at Jena, etc., Froebel went to Yverdun in 1808, and for two years was a co-laborer with Pestalozzi. The impulse which he here received never lost its force. It brought him to consider the problems of elementary education, and finally led, in 1837, to his establishment of the first kindergarten at Blankenburg in Thuringia. His idea may be well expressed in his own words,—“I can convert children’s activities, energies, amusements, occupations, all that goes by the name of play, into instruments for my purpose, and therefore transform play into work. This work will be education in the true sense of the term.” His great theory was idealistic—he believed in the unity of the universe, in the essential harmony of the world. It was the duty of the teacher to fit the child for his place in human society. This could be best done if the child was taken at a very early age and prepared for life in an ordinary school. The kindergarten, or child-garden, is thus a school where a child learns social life, where his play is systematized and his activities are directed. The average course of study takes hold of the child when he is six years of age; the kindergarten usually fills in the two preceding years. As an educational institution, the kindergarten has met with little public support in Europe, although in Paris there are a number of “maternal schools,” which correspond closely to Froebel’s plan. In the United States, Miss Elizabeth Peabody became the first apostle of the movement. The idea of caring for the children below the regular school-age won instant favor, and in a number of large cities kindergartens were opened under private auspices. As their success became clearer and more positive, they were taken under the control of the public. In 1896–97, the report of the United States Commissioner of Education shows that there were 1077 kindergartens in the United States connected with the public-school systems of cities having more than 4000 population, with an enrollment of 81,916 pupils. The International Kindergarten Union, formed for the purpose of “gathering and disseminating knowledge of the kindergarten movement throughout the world,” has aided greatly in stimulating an intelligent interest in Froebel’s ideals in America.
None of the great German philosophers has been honored with a more loyal cult than Johann Friedrich Herbart (1775–1841), who directed general attention to the necessity of studying the principles of education. In his writings and lectures while professor at the University of Göttingen, Herbart started an inquiry into the theoretical basis of instruction. He found the final aim of all education to centre in the formation of moral character, while the keystone of instruction is interest. “The final aim of instruction is morality. But the nearer aim which instruction in particular must see before itself in order to reach the final one, is many-sidedness of interest.” Herbart’s influence in arousing and directing thought has been most felt in Germany, but in America his name has been taken by one of the most active educational associations, “The National Herbart Society.”
PESTALOZZI.