field of interest. "Would that we all considered this fact," says Herbart,[1] "that each man has experience only of what he has really tried. A schoolmaster of ninety years has the experience of his ninety years' routine; he is conscious of his length of labour, but can he also rightly criticise his methods and their results? " He can only do so in the light of a theory which was both comprehensive and coherent.
If theory, therefore, cannot exist apart from practice, neither can practice be divorced from theory. And if education is to participate in the progress of the social sciences, educational theory must in even fuller measure do justice to the facts of our experience as teachers, and practice must grow more effective under the guidance of this theory.
There is, I think, evidence that this co-operative advance of educational theory and practice is already taking place. We have with us men who are both our guides in theory and our leaders in our practice, men like the present Vice-Chancellor of Leeds. Teaching methods are in many schools becoming more enlightened, as the teachers take a more scientific interest in their profession. Many minds are engaged in the work of laying secure foundations upon which a veritable science of education can be built. Even our school administration is beginning to respond to the demands of educational theory. Here and there we find members of Local Authorities or of Boards of Governors who have caught something of the new spirit.
- ↑ Werke ed. Hartenstein, vol. x., p. 9.
