the German theory of education makes prominent the selfactivity of the child as the supreme object of education. It repudiates foreign constraint, either in conduct or in intellect. It condemns memorising, as a process of enslaving the intellect to prescribed items of information and opinion. It condemns the strict discipline of schools, as producing mechanical habits of obedience to the will of others.
Hence it happens that the German school, at least theoretically, lays all stress on the process of awakening the pupil's mind intellectually. Critical alertness, and individual power to test and verify the statements of others, as well as to undertake works of original investigationthese are the supreme objects of German pedagogy.
Students of ethnology are aware, however, that nations differ in respect to their bent of mind. While the Germanic nations are knowledge-loving, the Anglo-Saxon nations love adventure and the exercise of will-power. The precocious English or American child exhibits an amount of restlessness and caprice, which compels his teacher to divert a large amount of nervous energy from the work of pure instruction, to the work that is called discipline or government of the school. The child with. precocious directive power, and correspondingly small love of knowledge for its own sake, is very difficult to manage in the school. I take it that this explains why it is that in English-speaking countries, the work of intellectual instruction is always prone to degenerate into requiring