OFFICE OF PEDAGOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY 59 



also to the sphere of the immature. The physical and the moral 

 health of both is its constant employment. And in the sphere of 

 adult life this includes: the direction and inspiration of the press, 

 since that influences the range of thought among the citizens; the 

 nurture and maintenance of art, which molds the taste; the super- 

 vision of all those public performances that affect the manners. But 

 though the actual range of the activities of state pedagogy may be 

 very great in this direction, yet its effect will naturally be propor- 

 tionately less, since adults are not easily moved from their settled 

 course of thinking by the educational activity of the state. On the 

 contrary, among those still approaching maturity state pedagogy can 

 work with great effect. And this it has done in Germany to a very 

 considerable extent. A great host of officials direct the course of 

 the educational and scholastic administration, leading the youth 

 onwards, step by step, from one examination to another, until they 

 stand on the threshold of some life vocation, entering thereby the 

 society of adults. 



This course has assumed, during the nineteenth century, an ever 

 more rigid and more definite form. State pedagogy has not been 

 satisfied with organizing the system of schools and the general char- 

 acter of instruction, but has also taken active charge of the schools 

 and of the instruction even to the point of sketching the lesson-plans 

 and the methods. It superintends the execution of an effective 

 body of statutes, and issues volumes of printed instructions. 



Is there room, then, for a scientific pedagogy at the side of this 

 state pedagogy ? From the standpoint of the latter one might be 

 disposed to contest the validity of the former, indeed even to regard 

 it as a menace to the state, inasmuch as it might set up in opposition 

 to the traditional usage and to the powers that be a scheme of ideal 

 education, judged by which the existing conditions are grievously 

 backward. And this might lead to the further conclusion that from 

 this relation there could arise nothing but discontent, while a false 

 conception of educational conditions might prevail. Every error 

 in educational theory would be a menace to the state system of 

 education. 



This view of the matter, however, is untenable. History is far from 

 testifying to the destructive effects of systems of educational theory. 

 Certainly Rousseau's pedagogy was radical enough, but in the several 

 nations the educational world has taken no great interest in it. The 

 conservatism of the existing order offers sufficient resistance to insure 

 society against hasty innovations. It is far truer that scientific 

 pedagogy has in its relations to state pedagogy a great and splendid 

 mission to perform. For it may render most real service by keeping 

 state pedagogy from becoming inert, and in bringing to its attention 

 new ideas and purposes, so that it may be neither text-ridden nor 



