tianity (the preservation of human life being the object of the nation, it follows that, when realized abstractly or exclusively, it absorbs and annuls the mental independence of its subjects, and thus contradicts itself by destroying the essence of what it undertakes to preserve, i. e., human life, which demands freedom and enlightenment; but within Christianity the principle of the state is found so modified that it is consistent with the infinite, untrammeled development of the individual, intellectually and morally, and thus not only life is saved, but spiritual, free life is attainable for each and for all).] § 11. The last system must be that of the present, and since this is certainly, on one hand, the result of all the past which still dwells in it, while, on the other hand, engaged in preparing for the future, education demands the unity of the general and particular principle as its ideal, so that looked at in this way the science of education at its end returns to its beginning. The first and second divisions already contain the idea of the system necessary for the present. [The history of pedagogy ends with the present system as the latest one. As science sees the future ideally contained in the present, it is bound to comprehend the latest system as a realization (though imperfect) of the ideal system of education. Hence, the system, as scientifically treated in the first part of our work, is the system with which the third part of our work ends.] FIRST PART. THE GENERAL IDEA OF EDUCATION. 12. THE idea of the science of education in general must distinguish— (1) The nature of education in general; (2) Its form; (3) Its limits. [The nature of education, its form, its limits, are now to be investigated. (§§ 13-50.)] CHAPTER I. THE NATURE OF EDUCATION. § 13. THE nature of education is determined by the nature of mind-that it can develop what it is in itself only by its own activity. Mind is in itself free; but, if it does not actualize this possibility, it is in no true sense free, either for itself or for another. Education is the influencing of man by man, and it has for its end to lead him to actualize himself through his own efforts. The attainment of perfect manhood as the actualization of the freedom essential to mind constitutes the nature of education in general. The completely isolated man does not become man. Solitary human beings who have been found in forests, like the wild girl of the forest of Ardennes, sufficiently prove the fact that the truly human qualities in man can not be developed without reciprocal action with human beings. Caspar Hauser, in his subterranean prison, is an illustration of what man would be by himself. The first cry of the child expresses in its appeals to others this helplessness of man's spiritual being on its first advent in nature. [The nature of education determined by the nature of Mind or Spirit, whose activity is always devoted to realizing for itself what it is potentially-to becoming conscious of its possibilities, and to getting them under the control of its will. Mind is potentially free. Education is the means by which man seeks to realize in man his possibilities (to develop the possibilities of the race in each individual). Hence, education has freedom for its object.] § 14. Man, therefore, is the only fit subject for education. We often speak, it is true, of the education of plants and animals; but, even when we do so, we apply other expressions, as "raising," "breaking," "breeding" and "training," in order to distinguish it from the education of man. "Training" consists in producing in an animal, either by pain or pleasure of the senses, an activity of which, it is true, he is capable, but which he never would have developed if left to himself. On the other hand, it is the nature of education only to assist in the producing of that which the subject would strive most earnestly to develop for himself if he had a clear idea of himself. We speak of raising trees and animals, but not of raising men; and it is only a planter who looks to his slaves for an increase in their number. The education of men is quite often enough, unfortunately, only a "breaking,” and here and there still may be found examples where one tries to teach mechanically, not through the almighty power of the creative Logos, but through the powerless and fruitless appeal to physical pain. |