Philosophy of Education

It is believed that the book as it now appears will meet a want that is widely felt for a thorough-going Philosophy of Education. There are many useful and valuable works on “The Theory and Practice of Teaching,” but no work that entirely satisfies the description of a genuine Philosophy of Education.

This work, on its appearance, made an epoch in the treatment of educational theory in Germany. It brought to bear on this subject the broadest philosophy of modern times, and furnished a standard by which the value of the ideas severally discussed by radicals and conservatives could be ascertained. It found the truth lying partly on the territory of the established order and partly on the territory of the reformers Ratich, Comenius, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and their followers. It showed what was valid in the idea that had come to be established in the current system of education, and also exposed the weakness that had drawn the attack of the reformers.