The reader's guide to the Encyclopaedia Britannica : A handbook containing…

FOR TEACHERS [Sidenote: The Teacher’s “Factor of Safety”] Every teacher has one pupil who tries harder than any of the others to absorb knowledge, and yet is never content with the progress made, who knows how hard the teacher works, and yet is never satisfied with the teacher—and that pupil is the teacher’s self. For every other learner there is a limit to the amount of knowledge to be acquired, but in the case of the teacher a “standard” is supposed to indicate no more than an indispensable minimum. When you are trying to make your pupils master a text-book, the volume seems to contain a most stupendous mass of learning, and when one of them asks you a question about the subject with which the text-book deals, that particular point is sure to be one that the text-book does not cover. What engineers call the “factor of safety,” the margin by which the strength of materials must exceed the stress it is expected to encounter, is, for the teacher, incalculable. It is, of course, a favorite pastime of parents to send a child to school primed with some question “to ask Teacher,” selecting an enigma that has been for centuries a battle-ground for scholars or scientists. And, apart from these malicious pitfalls, children themselves seem, quite innocently, to hit upon questions of extraordinary difficulty. A rebuff, a careless response, or, worst of all, an ingenious evasion of the issue, is fatal to the teacher’s authority and influence. “Ask me that again, to-morrow morning,” is the phrase with which a conscientious teacher often meets such a contingency. And then how a fagged brain is tormented that evening, how the few books available (and they are likely to be a very few if there is no public library at hand) are searched in vain! That is not all. If it be true that the teacher is the most diligent, yet always the least satisfied, of all the teacher’s pupils, it is equally true that many of the most puzzling questions with which the teacher is confronted arise in the teacher’s own mind. [Sidenote: Answers to All Questions] The question-answering power of the Britannica is therefore of cardinal importance to the teacher, and is to be considered not only in connection with the use of the work for reference, but also in the selection of such courses of reading as may be expected to supply information of the kind that questions most often demand. And this question-answering power lies in three characteristics of the work, and may be measured by the extent to which the three are found in it: broad scope, unimpeachable authority and convenient arrangement. Its scope covers the whole range of human knowledge, everything that mankind has achieved, attempted, believed or studied. Its authority is doubly vouchsafed. The fact that the Britannica is published by the University of Cambridge (England), one of the world’s oldest and most famous seats of learning, in itself gives such a guarantee as no other Encyclopaedia has ever offered, and the assurance thus given may be regarded as showing, chiefly, that there are no errors of omission, for against the existence of the errors of commission there is a further guarantee. The articles are signed by 1,500 contributors, including the foremost specialists in every department of knowledge. Among this army of collaborators, chosen from twenty countries, there are no less than 704 members of the staffs of 146 universities and colleges. This means that by means of the Britannica the youngest teacher in the most isolated village is brought into stimulating contact with the great leaders of the teaching profession. Its arrangement gives it the advantages of a universal library, providing the varied courses of reading outlined in this Guide, and those also of a work of reference which yields an immediate answer to every conceivable question. The index of 500,000 entries instantly leads the enquirer to any item of information in the 40,000 articles. No teacher could hope to form, in the course of a lifetime, a collection of separate books which would contain anywhere near as much information. [Sidenote: A Library of Text-Books] In another relation, the Britannica is of daily service to anyone engaged in educational work. It has already been remarked that the teacher needs a “factor of safety,” a reserve of knowledge beyond that which is directly called for in the ordinary routine of the class room. But in the very course of that routine, there is also a need for co-ordinated knowledge, presented in a form available for use in teaching, of a more advanced kind than that in the text-books with which pupils are provided. And the Britannica is, in itself, a vast collection of text-books. Professor Shotwell, of Columbia University, recently wrote to the publishers a letter in which he said: “I shall use the articles in the Encyclopaedia Britannica which deal with industrial processes as a substitute for a text-book in one of my courses in Social and Industrial History and have especially in mind the splendid treatment of the cotton industry by Professor S. J. Chapman and others.” A large number of Britannica articles have, by permission, been reprinted, word for word, for use as text-books; and it is impossible to say how many have been paraphrased, and, in a form less clear and vivid than the originals, similarly employed. The writers of the Britannica have, among them, done so large a share of the world’s recent work in research and criticism, that no one who is engaged in writing a text-book or in preparing a course of lectures should fail to use the work as a check to test the completeness and the accuracy of independent investigation. Fortunately, the system of monthly payments has enabled teachers to purchase the Britannica to an extent which, in view of their limited resources, is a striking evidence of their earnest desire to perfect their professional equipment. In some cases two and even three teachers have combined their efforts in order that they might jointly possess the work. But whatever may be the difficulties to be overcome, it is certain that the Britannica is, for the teacher, an instrument as directly productive as a technical library is for a doctor or a lawyer. A professor in an eastern college wrote to the publishers: “It has become ‘the collection of books’ which Carlyle might term ‘the true university’”; and the practical head of a business school in Pennsylvania says: “By its purchase, I have secured access to a university education.” A well known professor of German calls it “a _Hausschatz_ of amazing richness and variety,” and adds: “I hope you will not be sued at law for an attempt to monopolize the market for profitable and entertaining literature.” The president of a southern university wrote: “It is the first book to consult, the one book to own, if you can own but one.” And a Harvard professor says: “I have been particularly interested in some of the recent phases of European history. Concerning some movements, about which it is as yet extremely difficult to find material in books, I have found the Encyclopaedia most useful.” A teacher in a theological seminary exclaims: “What a university of solid training it would be for a young student, if he would spend an hour each day reading the work, volume by volume, and including all the articles except those of a technical nature belonging to other departments than his own!” This is what teachers have said of the value to them of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Specialists in school-hygiene and school librarians have also noted the advantage of the light, handy volumes printed on India paper—one weighs no more than two monthly magazines—, which may be easily held at the proper angle for eye-focus on a large page. The teacher will find in this Guide valuable suggestions about particular subjects which he may wish to teach or study,—such as history, literature, language and biology. In this chapter we suggest a general course. [Sidenote: The Theory of Education] Let him begin with the article EDUCATION (Vol. 8, p. 951), which is the equivalent in length of 120 pages of the size and type of this Guide, and of which the first part is by James Welton, professor of education in the University of Leeds and author of _Logical Bases of Education_, etc., the sections on national systems by G. B. M. Coore, assistant secretary of the London Board of Education, and that on the United States by Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University. This valuable article begins with a discussion of the meaning of the term “Education,” excludes John Stuart Mill’s extension to everything which “helps to shape the human being,” and narrows the meaning to definitely personal work,—the true “working” definition for the practical teacher. The section on educational theory might equally well be styled a sketch of the history of education and will prove valuable to the teacher preparing for a licence-examination in this subject or for a normal training course. It discusses old Greek education with special attention to Spartan practice, Plato’s theory and Aristotle’s, and the gradual change from the point of view of the city-state to Hellenistic cosmopolitanism. The older Roman education, practical and given by father to son, is contrasted with the later Hellenized training, largely by Greek slaves, largely rhetorical and largely summed up in Quintilian’s _Institutio_. The contest between the pagan system and Christianity is shown to have culminated in monasticism; and barbarian inroads stifled classical culture until the Carolingian revival under Alcuin in the 8th century and the scholastic revival (11th to 13th centuries) of Abelard, Aquinas and Arabic workings over of Aristotle. Scholastic education is considered especially in relation to the first great European universities and the schools of the Dominicans, Franciscans and Brethren of the Common Life, and in contrast to chivalry, the education of feudalism. The Renaissance is treated at greater length, and this is followed by sections on the influence of the Reformation on education, and the consequent growth of Jesuit schools. The keynote of the story thereafter is reform,—the movement away from the classics, toward natural science, and, especially after the French Revolution, by means of new methods and theories, notably those of Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel and Herbart. The remainder of the article EDUCATION deals with national systems of education: French, German, Swiss, Belgian, Dutch, Scotch, Irish, English, Welsh and American, with an excellent bibliography. These, and other, national systems are also treated from another point of view in the articles on the separate countries. [Sidenote: Articles on Great Schools] The article EDUCATION should naturally be followed by a study of the article UNIVERSITIES (Vol. 27, p. 748—about 100 pages, if printed in the style of this Guide) by James Bass Mullinger (author of the _History of Cambridge_, _The Schools of Charles the Great_, etc.) and, for American universities, by Daniel Coit Gilman, late president of Johns Hopkins University; and by a reading of articles on the great universities, as for instance, Oxford, Cambridge, Aberdeen, Glasgow, St. Andrews, Dublin, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Princeton, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, California, Leland Stanford, Jr., etc. The student should then turn to the article SCHOOLS (Vol. 24, p. 359; equivalent to about 40 pages of this Guide) by Arthur Francis Leach, author of _English Schools at the Reformation_, who gives a summary of what is known of Greek, Roman and English schools. Then,—to supplement these general articles,—he should read— On _Greek_ education: PLATO (Vol. 21, p. 808), especially p. 812 (on _Meno_) and 818 (on the _Republic_). ARISTOTLE (Vol. 2, p. 501). SPARTA (Vol. 25, p. 609, particularly p. 611). On _Roman_ education: CATO (Vol. 5, p. 535). QUINTILIAN (Vol. 22, p. 761). On _early Christian_ education: CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA (Vol. 6, p. 487, particularly p. 488, on the _Paedagogus_). AUGUSTINE (Vol. 2, p. 907) and JEROME (Vol. 15, p. 326), with especial attention to their early pagan education and their attitude toward it as Christians. AMBROSE (Vol. 1, p. 798). MARTIANUS CAPELLA (Vol. 5, p. 249). BOETIUS (Vol. 4, p. 116). CASSIODORUS (Vol. 5, p. 459). ISIDORE (Vol. 14, p. 871). ST. GREGORY (Vol. 12, p. 566). BEDE (Vol. 3, p. 615). MONASTICISM (Vol. 18, p. 687). On the _Carolingian revival_: ALCUIN (Vol. 1, p. 529). ANGILBERT (Vol. 2, p. 9). CHARLEMAGNE (Vol. 5, p. 891, especially p. 894). FRANCE (Vol. 10, p. 810). On the _Scholastic revival_: SCHOLASTICISM (Vol. 24, p. 346). ABELARD (Vol. 1, p. 40). JOHN OF SALISBURY (Vol. 15, p. 449). ALBERTUS MAGNUS (Vol 1, p. 504). GROSSETESTE (Vol. 12, p. 617). THOMAS AQUINAS (Vol. 2, p. 250). ROGER BACON (Vol. 3, p. 153). On the _Renaissance_: RENAISSANCE (Vol. 23, p. 83). DANTE (Vol. 7, p. 810). PETRARCH (Vol. 21, p. 310). BOCCACIO (Vol. 4, p. 102). MANUEL CHRYSOLARAS (Vol. 6, p. 320). MANUTIUS (Vol. 17, p. 624). THOMAS MORE (Vol. 18, p. 822). ERASMUS (Vol. 9, p. 727). JOHN COLET (Vol. 6, p. 681). THOMAS LINACRE (Vol. 16, p. 701). On the _Reformation period and Counter-Reformation_: REFORMATION (Vol. 23, p. 4). MELANCTHON (Vol. 18, p. 88). LUTHER (Vol. 17, p. 133). TROTZENDORFF (Vol. 27, p. 308). REUCHLIN (Vol. 23, p. 204). ASCHAM (Vol. 2, p. 720). RABELAIS (Vol. 22, p. 769). JESUITS (Vol. 15, p. 337), especially p. 342. LA SALLE (Vol. 16, p. 231). On the _Modern period_: COMENIUS (Vol. 6, p. 759). ROUSSEAU (Vol. 23, p. 775). VOLTAIRE (Vol. 28, p. 199). PESTALOZZI (Vol. 21, p. 284). FROEBEL (Vol. 11, p. 238). HERBART (Vol. 13, p. 335). WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT (Vol. 13, p. 875). ANDREW BELL (Vol. 3, p. 684). JOSEPH LANCASTER (Vol. 16, p. 147). SIR JOHN FITCH (Vol. 10, p. 438). JAMES BLAIR (Vol. 4, p. 34). T. H. GALLAUDET (Vol. 11, p. 416). F. A. P. BARNARD (Vol. 3, p. 409). HENRY BARNARD (Vol. 3, p. 410). HORACE MANN (Vol. 17, p. 587). MARK HOPKINS (Vol. 13, p. 684). WILLIAM T. HARRIS (Vol. 13, p. 21). JUSTIN S. MORRILL (Vol. 18, p. 869). ALEXANDER MELVILLE BELL (Vol. 3, p. 684). S. C. ARMSTRONG (Vol. 2, p. 591). BOOKER T. WASHINGTON (Vol. 28, p. 344). CO-EDUCATION (Vol. 6, p. 637). BLINDNESS (Vol. 4, p. 66). DEAF AND DUMB (Vol. 7, p. 887). INFANT SCHOOLS (Vol. 14, p. 533). KINDERGARTEN (Vol. 15, p. 802). MUSEUMS OF ART (Vol. 19, p. 60). MUSEUMS OF SCIENCE (Vol. 19, p. 64). POLYTECHNIC (Vol. 22, p. 38). TECHNICAL EDUCATION (Vol. 26, p. 487), an elaborate article, about 40 pages in the form of this Guide, by Sir Philip Magnus, author of _Industrial Education_, member of the Royal Commission on technical instruction (1881–1884) and, in 1907, president of the education section of the British Association. [Sidenote: The Study of Psychology] Of equal importance with this course on the history of education, for the student taking the licence-examination or for a teacher taking an examination for a higher grade licence or a principalship, is a course in Psychology in the Britannica. This will be found largely in the great article on PSYCHOLOGY (Vol. 22, p. 547; equivalent in length to 200 pages of this Guide) by James Ward. The systematic treatment of the subject in this article is particularly valuable to the teacher, whether the object desired is to review the entire subject, sharpening one’s impressions from a longer course of reading; to get a general grounding in the subject—for which a careful study of this one article will suffice; or to make one’s self more certain of his comprehension of any part of the subject. It is not practicable to give an outline of this article here, but a few of its special topics are listed below: General analysis of the subject Attention Theory of presentations Sensation Perception Imagination or Ideation Mental Association Reminiscence and Expectation Experimental Investigations on Memory and Association Feeling Emotion and Emotional Action Intellection Self-Consciousness Relation of Body and Mind Comparative Psychology Besides the general article with its systematic summary of the subject, the Britannica contains many briefer articles on special topics, so that the teacher will find not only an excellent text-book of the subject in Prof. Ward’s article, but also an elaborate dictionary or encyclopaedia of psychological terms or topics. Among the topics treated in this “Dictionary of Psychology” are: AFFECTION APPERCEPTION ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS ATTENTION CATEGORY COGNITION CONCEPT CONNOTATION DEDUCTION DEFINITION DENOTATION DREAM EXTENSION HEARING IDEA IMAGINATION IMITATION IMMORTALITY INDIVIDUALISM INDUCTION INSTINCT INTELLECT INTROSPECTION INTUITION MNEMONICS MOTIVE NOÜMENON OBJECT, SUBJECT PARALLELISM PERCEPTION PERSONALITY PHENOMENON PLEASURE PSYCHOPHYSICS RECEPT RELATIVITY REMINISCENCE RETRO-COGNITION SELF SENSATIONALISM SMELL SUGGESTION TASTE TOUCH VISION WEBER’S LAW WILL Furthermore, the teacher will find the Britannica a valuable biographical dictionary. This he will already have realized, if he has looked up the biographical articles mentioned in connection with the history of education. The following is a brief outline course in psychological biography: Adamson, Robert Aristotle Bain, Alexander Baldwin, James Mark Beneke, F. E. Berkeley, George Clifford, Wm. K. Democritus Epicurus Fechner, G. F. Geulincx, Arnold Hamilton, William Hartley, David Helmholtz, Herman von Herbart, Johann F. Hobbes, Thomas Höffding, Harold Hume, David Hucheson, Francis James, William Kant, Immanuel Ladd, G. T. Lange, F. A. Leibnitz, G. W. Lewes, George Henry Locke, John Lotze, R. H. Mill, James Mill, J. S. Müller, Johannes Peter Münsterberg, Hugo Reid, Thomas Ribot, T. A. Spencer, Herbert Sully, James Ward, James Wundt, W. M.