Excerpt from Principles and Methods of Teaching: A Manual for Normal Schools, Reading Circles, and the Teachers of Elementary, Intermediate, and Higher Schools The art of teaching should have its foundations in science; for then and only then will teaching cease to be mechanical obedience to "authority." Such obedience was the curse of the "old" education. "Tradition" and "prescription" determined the methods not only in oriental systems of education, but also in the later civilizations of Europe. The principle of authority has not wholly disappeared from modern schoolrooms. Rational methods of teaching, indeed, are the exception rather than the rule in the great mass of American teachers. The individual teacher must have part in the construction of the science in which his art is to have its foundations. Otherwise the "new" education will simply substitute one tyrant for another. In other words, obedience to principles of philosophy, though it be the best philosophy, is only slavery as long as the teacher who submits to such laws cannot justify these in his own consciousness. The great mass of teachers is not equal to the task of constructing the complex science of education independently. This task implies not only analytic knowledge of human nature in its manifold relations, but also the power of synthetic thought. The great body of teachers, therefore, need supervision in constructing their system of educational principles. It is hoped that the plan of the present treatise may supply at least a portion of the needed supervision. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.