May 21, 1886 ] 



SCIENCE. 



469 



By the use of methods like these, chemistry is 

 likely to hold its proper place in an educational 

 curriculum. It should not be play, — a mere 

 mode of whiling away the time in a series of 

 entertaining surprises ; and it should not be drudg- 

 ery, — the attempt to master a series of names 

 and formulas ; but the science should be pre- 

 sented to the beginner as it appears to the ad- 

 vanced investigator, as the orderly, prolonged, 

 well-guided study of certain classes of phenomena, 

 in order that the laws which govern them may be 

 discovered and applied. 



In the opinion of the writer, which is based 

 upon many years of observation of the study of 

 chemistry as a part of a general education, the 

 volume before us is admirably adapted to the 

 purpose in view. Chemistry thus studied will be 

 found an admirable discipline ; and, if the scholar 

 goes no further than to master the pages of this 

 little volume, he will carry with him through life 

 a clear conception of the methods of scientific 

 study, and will thus be saved from many of the 

 perplexities which have beset many scholars 

 whose training has been exclusively based upon 

 books, and who may, unfortunately for them- 

 selves and unfortunately often for the world, have 

 been filled with horror at the progress of science. 

 A single year of laboratory work will do more 

 than the mastery of a cyclopaedia to assure the 

 scholar of the truth of modern investigations. 



COMPAYRE'S HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY. 



To many persons the endeavor to treat teaching 

 and the practice of education generally in a scien- 

 tific manner seems nonsense. They liken teachers 

 to poets, who must be bom, not made, and fall 

 back upon mother wit and natural instinct as the 

 sole requisites lor a good teacher. But teaching 

 is not a new occupation : our principals and pri- 

 mary teachers are not the first to impart instruc- 

 tion to children. In fact, teaching is as old as 

 civilization; and it would be strange indeed, if, 

 in all these centuries, no experience that is worth 

 any thing to us had been acquired. Education 

 has been carried on under almost every possible 

 variation of conditions, whether they be geo- 

 graphical, political, social, religious, ethical, or only 

 personal. Human nature has an infinite number 

 of phases, but its essentials vary but little from 

 era to era. Therefore it would be more than 

 strange, it would be miraculous, if the problems 

 that confront our educators to-day had not been 

 more or less dimly perceived and more or less 

 successfully met in the past. Unless a teacher 



The history of pedagogy. By Gabriel, Compayre. Tr 

 by W. H. Payne, A.M. Boston, Heath, 1886. 12°. 



proposes to begin all over again, and try to repeat 

 in his own experience the experience of the race, 

 unless he proposes to test all possible methods, and 

 fall into all the old errors, he certainly ought to 

 be acquainted with the history of his profession. 

 This is placing the desirability of a training in 

 pedagogics on the lowest ground, — that of 

 mere utility. It leaves out of consideration 

 all that great philosophers have said and done 

 concerning education ; it takes no account of the 

 relations existing between pedagogics on the one 

 hand, and psychology, ethics, and politics on the 

 other. 



For the purpose of giving a general knowledge 

 of past educational theories and practices, we 

 know of no book so useful as the ' Histoire de la 

 p6dagogie' of M. Compayre, which Professor 

 Payne has so opportunely translated. Grassberg- 

 er's vohunes are essential to a detailed knowledge 

 of education in Greece and Rome. Schwarz and 

 Niemeyer are excellent so far as they go, Von 

 Raumer is minute on the great German educators, 

 Schmidt's four volumes are classic, and Kloepper's 

 little compend is an excellent manual ; but Com- 

 payre's book, while not too special and technical 

 to be uninteresting to the general reader, is full 

 enough for the average teacher. We have only 

 one serious fault to find with it, — it is written by 

 a Frenchman. As a consequence of this, the 

 writings of French educators are unduly promi- 

 nent, and the course of the history of pedagogy is 

 conditioned more or less by the history of France. 

 This is, of course, a patriotic view, but a one- 

 sided one. Since the Renaissance, educational 

 progress has been international ; and, if any one 

 nation is to have the place of honor, that nation 

 must be Germany. It is in Germany that the 

 tenets of humanism, realism, philanthropinism 

 and naturalism were most thoroughly developed 

 and put into practice. Sturm was a German ; 

 Comenius, Ratich, Lessing, Pestalozzi, Fichte, 

 Herbart, Beneke, Froebel, — to pick names at 

 random, — were all Germans ; and Germany, not 

 France (despite the unsurpassed influence of Rous- 

 seau), should be most prominent in the history of 

 pedagogy. 



Apart from this faulty stand-point, there is 

 little in M. Compayre's history to criticise. It is 

 too brief, perhaps, in its treatment of the great 

 schools of the middle age, but it is corresponding- 

 ly full on Rousseau. We should be glad to have 

 seen more on the great universities, especially 

 those in Italy and Paris. Rollin, whom the Ger- 

 man pedagogues are apt to overlook, receives his 

 proper recognition here. The chapters on the 

 education of women are among the most interest- 

 ing in the book, and are, if we mistake not, 



