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McMurry, Charles Alexander, 1857-1929

"The Elements of General Method Based on the Principles of Herbart"


The multiplication of studies in the common school in recent years will
soon compel us to pay more attention to concentration or the mutual
relation of knowledges. There is a resistless tendency to convert the
course of studies into an _encyclopedia_ of knowledge. To perceive
this it is only necessary to note the new studies incorporated into the
public school within a generation. Drawing, natural science,
gymnastics, and manual training are entirely new, while language
lessons, history, and music have been expanded to include much that is
new for lower grades. Still other studies are even now seeking
admission, as modern languages, geometry, and sewing. In spite of all
that has been said by educational reformers against making the
acquisition of knowledge the basis of education, the range and variety
of studies has been greatly extended and chiefly through the influence
of the reformers. This expansive movement appears in schools of all
grades. The secondary and fitting schools and the universities have
spread their branches likewise over a much wider area of studies. We
are in the full sweep of this movement along the whole line and it has
not yet reached its flood.


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