"
Spencer, _Education_, p. 26.
Spencer sees clearly the importance of this problem and gives it a
vigorous discussion in his first chapter, "What knowledge is of most
worth?" But the question is a broad and fundamental one and in his
preference for the natural sciences he seems to us not to have
maintained a just balance of educational forces in preparing a child
for "complete living." His theory needs also to be worked out into
greater detail and applied to school conditions before it can be of
much value to teachers. It can scarcely be said that any other
Englishman or American has seriously grappled with this problem. Great
changes and reforms indeed have been started, especially within the
last fifty years, but they have been undertaken under the pressure of
general popular demands and have resulted in compromises between
traditional forces and urgent popular needs. An adequate philosophical
inquiry into the relative merit of studies and their adaptability to
nurture mental, moral, and physical qualities has not been made.
The Germans have worked to a better purpose. Quite a number of able
thinkers among them have given their best years to the study of this
problem of relative educational values and to a working out of its
results.
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