Febkuart 18, 1887.] 



sciujsrcjt'. 



175 



strongly Hegelian in form and statement, and 

 heuce abounds in the eccentricities and meta- 

 physical peculiarities of that great thinker. But 

 to our mind, this does not impair the usefulness 

 and timeliness of the book, for whatever Hegel's ex- 

 aggei'atious may have been, and despite the fact 

 that his philosophy is on the wane, he seized hold 

 on a great number of spiritual truths, and formu- 

 lated them as they had never been formulated be- 

 fore. 



~ The key-note of Rosenkranz's pedagogical phi- 

 losophy is, that, " man's true nature is not found 

 in him at birth, but has to be developed by his 

 activity ; his true nature is his ideal, which he 

 may actualize by education." 



The book is divided into three parts. The first 

 considers the idea of education in general, its 

 nature, form, and limits. The second part treats 

 of the special elements of education, the physical, 

 the intellectual, and the practical (in the sense of 

 will-education), and discusses the various stages of 

 the process of education and the problems pre- 

 sented by them. The third is given over to par- 

 ticular systems of education, and is a short history 

 of educational theories. 



Rosenkranz strikes a true note when he puts 

 pedagogics on a psychological basis, " the nature 

 of education is determined by the nature of mind " 

 (p. 19), " the general form of education is deter- 

 mined by the nature of the mind " (p. 26), and 

 passim. The limits of education are three. The 

 first is the subjective limit, and is found in the 

 individuality of the pupil. "Whatever does not 

 exist in this individuality as a possibility cannot 

 be developed from it. Education can only lead 

 and assist : it can not create " (p. 47). The second 

 limit is the objective one, and lies in the means 

 which can be appropriated for education. " That 

 a talent for a certain culture shall be present, is 

 certainly the first thing ; but the cultivation of 

 this talent is the second, and no less necessary. 

 But how much cultivation can be given to it, ex- 

 tensively and intensively, depends upon the means 

 used, and these again are conditioned by the 

 material resources of the family to which one be- 

 longs. The greater and more valuable the means 

 of culture which are found in a family, the greater 

 is the immediate advantage which the culture of 

 each one has at the start" (p. 48). The third 

 limit of education, Rosenkranz calls the absolute 

 limit. And this is defined as, " the time when the 

 youth has apprehended the problems which he has 

 to solve, has learned to know the means at his 

 disposal, and has acquired a certain facility in 

 using them. ... To treat the youth, after he 

 has passed this point of time, still as a youth, con- 

 tradicts the very idea of education, which idea 



finds its fulfilment in the attainment of this state 

 of maturity by the pupil " (p. 49). After this 

 limit is reached, self -education supplants instruc- 

 tion by teachers, and the ideal to be had in view, 

 and the methods to be followed, must have been 

 implanted during the antecedent period. 



It would unduly tax our space, and it is not 

 necessary, to select for emphasis the many valu- 

 able and suggestive points in Rosenkranz's treat- 

 ment of specific educational subjects. They will 

 appeal at once to every educator who reads the 

 book. But some specially pregnant passages may 

 be quoted. "Mens sana in corpore sano is correct 

 as a pedagogical maxim, but faults in the judgment 

 of individual cases; because it is possible, on the 

 one hand, to have a healthy mind in an unhealthy 

 body, and, on the other hand, an unhealthy mind 

 in a healthy body. Nevertheless, to strive after 

 the harmony of soul and body, is the material 

 condition of all normal activity. The develop- 

 ment of uitelligence presupposes physical health " 

 (p. 68). " What we learn through books forms a 

 contrast to what we learn through living. Life 

 forces upon us its wisdom; the book, on the con- 

 trary, is entirely passive. ... If we are indebted 

 to life for our perceptions, we must chiefly thank 

 books for our understanding of our perceptions. 

 We call book-instruction ' dead ' when it lacks, for 

 the exposition which it gives, a foundation in 

 illustration addressed to sense-perception, or when 

 we do not add to the printed description the percep- 

 tions which it implies : and these two are quite 

 different" (p. 121). "The course of study must 

 be arranged so as to avoid two extremes : on the 

 one hand, it has to keep in view the special aim 

 of the school, and, according to this, it tends to 

 contract itself. But, on the other hand, it must 

 consider the relative dependence of one specialty 

 upon other specialties and upon general culture. 

 It must leave the transition free, and in this it 

 tends to expand itself" (p. 183). "Social culture 

 contains the formal phase, moral culture the real 

 phase, of the practical mind. Conscience forms 

 the transition to religious culture. In its univer- 

 sal and necessary nature, it reveals the absolute 

 authority of spirit. The individual discerns, in 

 the depths of his own consciousness, commands 

 possessing universality and necessity to which he 

 has to subject himself. They appear to him as 

 the voice of God. Religion makes its appearance 

 as soon as the individual distinguishes the Abso- 

 solute from himself, as a personal subject exist- 

 ing for and by Himself, and therefore for him. 

 The atheist remains at the stage of insight into 

 the absoluteness of the logical and physical, aes- 

 thetic and practical, categories. He may, there- 

 fore, be perfectly moral. But he lacks religion, 



