The Herbartian psychology applied to education : being a series of essays applying the psychology of Johann Friedrich Herbart / by John Adams.

  • Adams, John, 1857-1934.
Date:
1902
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Herbartian psychology applied to education : being a series of essays applying the psychology of Johann Friedrich Herbart / by John Adams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    of all, the truest and the best, but still a metaphor, had been long ago made, but was only as yet working its way slowly towards the conquest of the English mind. The plant metaphor is generally regarded as beginning with Pestalozzi,! and holding an after course through Froebel and his followers till now it holds the vast majority of our profession in its relentless grip. Before Pestalozzi was heard of, wiseacres told each other that “ As the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined,” but with him the simile passed into a metaphor, and embodied a way of regarding childhood that has become so wide- spread that its very opponents in attacking it are com- pelled to use its vocabulary. Under all the popular words in our school-manage- ment books, words dear to the heart of every ambitious young teacher, there lurks the inevitable metaphor with its underlying theory. Many of those words imply totally different systems, yet they are all used in the most friendly way on the same page. It is only because of the power of the idols of the market-place that this happy family arrangement can be maintained. Faculty and capacity are used as interchangeable terms, though they represent psychological views that are poles asun- der. Elicit and instruct^ teach and educate^ train and inform^ all hide different and indeed contradictory views of the function of the teacher. So much for the market-place idols in their relation to the teacher’s views on his profession. Their baneful influence is felt even more powerfully in the communi- cation between master and pupil. But as the following 1 But see Comenius, The Great Didactic^ V. 6.