Pedagogics as a System

by Karl Rosenkranz

—Illustration is especially necessary in the natural sciences and also in æsthetics, because in both of these departments the sensuous is an essential element of the matter dealt with. In this respect we have made great progress in charts and maps. Sydow's hand and wall maps and Berghaus's physical atlas are most excellent means of illustrative instruction; also Burmeister's zoölogical atlas.—

§ 106. The demonstrative method, in order to bring about its proof of necessity, has a choice of many different ways. But we must not imagine, either that there are an unlimited number, and that it is only a chance which one we shall take; or that they have no connection among themselves, and run, as it were, side by side. It is not, however, the business of Pedagogics to develop different methods of proof; this belongs to Logic. We have only to remember that, logically taken, proof must be analytic, synthetic, or dialectic. Analysis begins with the single one, and leads out of it by induction to the general principle from which its existence results. Synthesis, on the contrary, begins with a general which is presupposed as true, and leads from this through deduction to the special determinations which were implicit in it. The regressive search of analysis for a determining principle is Invention; the forward progress of synthesis from the simple elements seeking for the multiplicity of the single one is Construction. Each, in its result, passes over into the other; but their truth is found in the dialectic method, which in each phase allows unity to separate into diversity and diversity to return into unity. While in the analytic as well as in the synthetic method the mediation of the individual with the general, or of the general with the individual, lets the phase of particularity be only subjectively connected with it in the dialectic method, we have the going over of the general through the particular to the individual, or to the self-determination of the idea, and it therefore rightly claims the title of the genetic method. We can also say that while the inventive method gives us the idea (notion) and the constructive the judgment, the genetic gives us the syllogism which leads the determinations of reflection back again into substantial identity.

§ 107. (3) The active mediation of the pupil with the content which is to be impressed upon his consciousness is the work of the teacher, whose personality creates a method adapted to the individual; for however clearly the subject may be defined, however exactly the psychological stage of the pupil may be regulated, the teacher cannot dispense with the power of his own individuality even in the most objective relations. This individuality must penetrate the whole with its own exposition, and that peculiarity which we call his manner, and which cannot be determined à priori, must appear. The teacher must place himself on the stand-point of the pupil, i.e. must adapt himself; he must see that the abstract is made clear to him in the concrete, i.e. must illustrate; he must fill up the gaps which will certainly appear, and which may mar the thorough seizing of the subject, i.e. must supply. In all these relations the pedagogical tact of the teacher may prove itself truly ingenious in varying the method according to the changefulness of the ever-varying needs, in contracting or expanding the extent, in stating, or indicating what is to be supplied. The true teacher is free from any superstitious belief in any one procedure as a sure specific which he follows always in a monotonous bondage. This can only happen when he is capable of the highest method. The teacher has arrived at the highest point of ability in teaching when he can make use of all means, from the loftiness of solemn seriousness, through smooth statement, to the play of jest—yes, even to the incentive of irony, and to humor.

—Pedagogics can be in nothing more specious than in its method, and it is here that charlatanism can most readily intrude itself. Every little change, every inadequate modification, is proclaimed aloud as a new or an improved method; and even the most foolish and superficial changes find at once their imitators, who themselves conceal their insolence behind some frivolous differences, and, with laughable conceit, hail themselves as inventors.—

THIRD CHAPTER.

Instruction.

§ 108. All instruction acts upon the supposition that there is an inequality between present knowledge and power and that knowledge and power which are not yet attained. To the pupil belong the first, to the teacher the second. Education is the act which gradually cancels the original inequality of teacher and pupil, in that it converts what was at first the property of the former into the property of the latter, and this by means of his own activity.

I. The Subjects of Instruction.

§ 109. The pupil is the apprentice, the teacher the master, whether in the practice of any craft or art, or in the exposition of any systematic knowledge. The pupil passes from the state of the apprentice to that of the master through that of the journeyman. The apprentice has to appropriate to himself the elements; journeymanship begins as he, by means of their possession, becomes independent; the master combines with his technical skill the freedom of production. His authority over his pupil consists only in his knowledge and power. If he has not these, no external support, no trick of false appearances which he may put on, will serve to create it for him.