. School: a monthly record of educational thought and progress. e guidance forseveral generations. The address of Sir Oliver Lodge to the TeachersGuild on January 13 last, together with sundryother addresses and articles, witnesses to the factthat this synthesis has begun. We find far morethan a mere reiteration of the value of science ;far more than a complaint that the pupils of ourschools do not think. Definite ideals seem torise before us ; definite watchwords ring in ourears. In teaching facts to the young the greatthing to aim at is not discipline but interest. A masters business is (not
. School: a monthly record of educational thought and progress. e guidance forseveral generations. The address of Sir Oliver Lodge to the TeachersGuild on January 13 last, together with sundryother addresses and articles, witnesses to the factthat this synthesis has begun. We find far morethan a mere reiteration of the value of science ;far more than a complaint that the pupils of ourschools do not think. Definite ideals seem torise before us ; definite watchwords ring in ourears. In teaching facts to the young the greatthing to aim at is not discipline but interest. A masters business is (not to see that there ismental effort, but) to supply proper some of our readers these exhortations will recallthe characteristic doctrines of a great Germaneducationist ; while Sir Olivers charges againstsecondary schools, that the majority of the boysturned out of them are ignorant; that they neitherpossess knowledge nor do they know how to acquireit, nor do they, as a rule, feel any interest in it,will recall the very similar charges made years ago. ^>t^6t*ev-(J^^*^^_--^ EDUCATIONAL THOUGHT AND PROGRESS 57 by Matthew Arnold, that the upper classes of thiscountry are inaccessible to ideas, possessed of^ a whole range of powers of thought and feelingunawakened, and that they are essentially a raceof barbarians. The two sentences quoted above from Sir Oliversrecent pronouncements would seem to summarise hisviews upon the chief weakness of our secondaryschools ; the curriculum of these schools is too formal,too merely disciplinary ; the act of learning,rather than the thing learned being consideredthe most important matter. There is a value,he sees, both in tlie thing itself and in the pro-cess of its acquisition; the latter, taken alone,is in large measure an unattractive thing, inca-pable of awakening curiosity and hunger forknowledge. Sir Oliver points out how disastrous has been thefailure of our elementary schools in the very de-partment where controversy has see
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