4IO 



NA TURE 



[September 3, 1908 



he makes no reference to the interesting recent re- 

 searches of Mr. Wethered, nor to the early observa- 

 tions of De la Beche. The account of rocks formed 

 b}- siliceous organisms is equally defective in many 

 respects, and the papers of Dr. Hinde are not referred 

 to either in the text or in the " Index Bibliogra- 

 phique " at the end of the volume. 



Taken as a whole, therefore, the work, while it may 

 be regarded as a very useful summary of the general 

 results obtained, up to the present time, in the study 

 of the ocean-floor by deep soundings, cannot be com- 

 mended as an absolutely safe guide to those anxious 

 to make their acquaintance with all the original 

 sources of information on the subject. 



THE CONTRAST BETWEEN GERMAN AND 

 ENGLISH EDUCATION.' 



Gerwan Education, Past and Present. Bv Prof. 

 Friedrich Paulsen. English translation by Dr. T. 

 Lorenz. Pp. xx-l-310. (I.ondon : T. Fisher Unwin, 

 1908.) Price 5^. net. 



TO write well a short book on a vast subject is a 

 task which only a master can accomplish. It 

 is not too much to say that Prof. Paulsen is the onlv 

 man in Europe who could have given, within such 

 small compass, so readable and well-proportioned an 

 account of the growth of German education from a 

 remote past to the present time. Dr. Paulsen has 

 style as well as profound knowledge. He knows 

 what fo leave out. He neither fatigues the reader 

 by a superfluity of uninterpreted facts nor offends 

 him by superficiality of treatment. Two years ago 

 Messrs. Teubner, of Leipzig, published the original 

 edition of this work in a slim, closely printed volume 

 of less than 200 pages as one of the series which they 

 are issuing under the title " .\us Natur und Geistes- 

 welt." Xow Mr. Unwin gives us the book pithily 

 and idiomatically translated by Dr. Lorenz, and pre- 

 frxed by a useful outline of the mechanics of the 

 German educational system, and a short dictionary 

 of English renderings of German technical terms. 

 .As it stands, it is the handiest book on the outlines 

 of the subject in the English language. 



For an English reader the weakest point in the 

 book lies in the fact that Dr. Paulsen knows com- 

 paratively little about the history of education in 

 England. This is not his fault. The history of 

 English education — that most elusive, intricate, and 

 many-provinced subject — has not yet been satisfac- 

 torily written. Piece by piece, the materials for it 

 are being brought together by scholars like Mr. 

 -Arthur Leach, Dr. Rashdall, Prof. Foster Watson, 

 Mr. J. E. G. de Montmorency, and Mr. Sidney Webb. 

 But the facts are not yet known with anything like 

 completeness as regards some critical periods in the 

 history of our English schools. The time for syn- 

 thesis and illuminating generalisation has not come. 

 We ourselves , suffer from this at every turn. 

 Pamphleteers give us what they believe to be the 

 meaning of our educational history, and often mis- 



1 This review was written before tile lamented deiJth of Prof. Paulsen on 

 August 15. 



XO. 2027, VOL. 78] 



lead us as completely as might a guide with a bad 

 map. But, apart from Mr. Graham Balfour's invalu- 

 able summary of facts in his " Educational Systems 

 of Great Britain and Ireland," there is at present 

 no book about higher education in the L^nited King- 

 dom to which a student can turn as he turns to 

 Dr. Paulsen's " Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts 

 auf den deutschen Schulen und Universitaten," to the 

 translation of which, by the way, Dr. Lorenz may 

 perhaps feel willing to turn his hand. The result 

 of this gap on the student's bookshelf is that even 

 Dr. Paulsen, in spite of the extraordinary range of 

 his knowledge of educational developments, fails to see 

 the significance of the sidelights which German educa- 

 tional history throws upon English, and which, in 

 its turn, English educational history throws upon, 

 German. 



To the practical Englishman the main question 

 which arises in the perusal of a book like this is 

 " What have we to learn from the history of German 

 education ? What pitfalls can the record of their ex- 

 periments help us to avoid? " Now, broadly speak- 

 ing, the English and German systems of education 

 are at the present time moving in precisely opposite 

 directions towards a point which lies somewhere in 

 the wide space which now stretches between them. 

 In other words, the study of German education (using 

 that term in a broad sense) is for an Englishman a 

 study in contrasts. Germany (again using that term 

 witli due regard to the fact that one part is as dif- 

 ferent from another as Scotland is from England) 

 has a great respect for intellect; we are a little on 

 our guard against it. Germany believes in scientific 

 research as applied to industry and commerce. We 

 are only beginning not to be contemptuous of it. 

 Germany is fast extending the age of compulsory 

 education through the critical years of (at any rate 

 male) adolescence. In England and Wales, out of 

 the half-million children who annually leave the 

 public elementary schools at thirteen or fourteen 

 years of age, not more than one in three ever after- 

 wards receives in point of civic or technical education 

 any further systematic care. 



So far the score is against us. But there is 

 another side of the account. For real independence 

 of private judgment the atmosphere of Emrlish life 

 is much more favourable than the German. In the 

 healthy development of the character of girls, the 

 German schools have much to learn from the best 

 English, and German secondary education can offer, 

 e.Kcept in schools which have broken loose from 

 official routine, nothing really comparable to the train- 

 ing of the will which is afforded by the corporate 

 life, where it is healthy and inspiring, of a first-rate 

 English school. 



The English reader of Dr. Paulsen's sketch, which, 

 because it is drawn by a master-hand, shows the 

 capital features of the situation in bolder outline than 

 might a more detailed picture, cannot but note two 

 points of significant difference in the educational his- 

 tory of the two countries. For generations education 

 has been more thought of as a necessary State func- 

 tion in Germany than with us. But there uas a time 



