The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1872-11-01
and, above all, that they should

/
a voice has been raised on behalf
of Nature, and teachers have bceh
earnestly enjoined to see to it that
Natures Great Book be made
legible to every aspiring pupil.
All this is admirable; but tho
same things have been Insisted on
in almost precisely the same
words, again and again, every sea-
son since the first teacher sassoci-
alton was organized.
| Suppose the professors of medi-
cine had adopted the teachers
course; that their professional
Journals and their professional
experimenting and writing geners
ally had been given over, 4 centu-
~ ago, to magnifying the dignity
and Importance OF medicine,l to
proclaiming the need of live,
and conscientious practitioners,
the evils of disease and the moral
duty of ali men to attain and re
tain by every legitimate meaps the
most healthtul condition possible
All such efforts might have Reen
commendable enough-asf atiieff
counterparts are in the litera8nrG
of education = but If persisted 10
solely, though never SO zealeuslY,
they would not have raised medi7
cine from. the sloughs of Ignorant
practice to the firmer ground, or
science, based ON wise fnduetioIfs
from widely Gathered facts.
Looked at with aisiust azpAS6ci-
alton of the need of the pedagQgic
profession, there is no department
of literature more pitiable than
that covered by publications de-
voted to teaching, she sconveRtien
papers and teachers magazines,
so-called. As regards their pro-
fessional matter, the numbers for
this year might be transposed
with those OF last year, or the
fifth, tenth, twentieth year before,
if that were possible, and no one
could detect the change. The
same subjects are under discussion
now as then, with scarcely an APP
preciable indication of the adj
vance during the years that have
interviewed. Could the same be
sad of the publications of any
other profession? -
A few years ago n gentleman
who knew very little about educa-
ton, and had that little confused
by certain iIl-founded theories,
essayed to develop scientific ba-
sis for education. There was
glsam of truth amid all the folly
of his work, n little light which
served chiefly to show how slight
ly the methods of inductive sci
ence have been employed in the
development of the science and
art of teaching. i~
Where are the accumulated obs
servations, the professional records
of experiments, thoughtfuily inE
stituted and vigorously executed,
for comparing and testing modes
of instruction to determine the
more efficient means for securing
the healthiest mental growth, the
highest mental culture? There is
no evidence that such investisa-
tions have ever been made: Ger
tainly their results form no npS
preciable portion of the literature
of education. Yet without ,thenS
teaching can scarcely becomes
what'it aims to be; 4 true, pro
gressive profession.
1t may be possible, In their alb
sence, for an educational Copper
nicus, Newton, Cuvier or Dsrwin
to arise and make a new era i'm ed
ucation; but the prospect is none
the brightest when every laborer
in this field has TO gather for him
self, by lifelong labor, the data
from which he may deduce laws
for the better government of his.
teaching; and where, in ninety
nine cases in the hundred, the re-
suits of such deductions, the sci
ence, so far as it goes, of his praa-'
tice, dies with him. 1t is a fact
little to the credit of the pedagogics
profession-or Would-be profess
sion-that every new impulse or
inspiration, every grand new prin-.
ciple, or presentation of princi--,
pies, for the more enlightened
conduct of education, has come
from outsiders, actual or practis
cal, like Locke, Milton, Jean Paal,
Horace Man, Herbert Spencer,
Froebel; that almost. il not quite,s
every recorded series of obserYa-s
tons and experiments for the de-s
termination gilmore rational meth.
DDS of developing and training
mind have been made by non-pro-
fessionals, by physicians in charge
of asylums for the feeble miiided,F
and the like. And there is, wes
fear, little hope of better things,a
little prospect of the elevation Of
teaching from its present tradi-
tional and empirical practice to
the rank of a progressive -scien,r
tific profession, based on pripei-,
pies capable of being impaired
and acquired, until teachers, ass
class, emulate their brethren fns
other professions, and seriously
exert themselves to accumulate ins
their technical literature-as7 9th
er professions have done--the eleSs
ments of experience and observa.s
ton, critical studies of individual.
pupils and the like, requisite for
the conversation of their belatcd,
all but stagnant, profession, into
one worthy Gifts high missions.