The Principles of Teaching

Abstract

IT is a wholesome sign of our times that so many attempts are being made by experts in education to find a scientific basis for the procedure and organisation of schools. Within the teacher's profession, and outside of it, there is a growing conviction that education is a science and not merely an art or even a fine art, but that its practitioners are bound to investigate the rationale of their methods, and the philosophy which underlies and justifies all really effective rules of practice. Mr. Findlay's book is an honest and successful effort in this direction. He has somewhat needlessly, as we think, restricted the aim and the possible usefulness of his work by calling it the “Principles of Class Teaching,” Teaching in a class is, after all, teaching under one particular set of conditions, whereas the principles of teaching, the art of communicating, the relative values of different kinds of knowledge, the fitness of certain subjects for scholars at different stages of development, and the influence of different studies and forms of intellectual discipline on the formation of the tastes and the moral character, are matters of large and universal interest which deserve consideration in their relation to teaching underall conceivable conditions, whether learners are taught in a class or not. To do Mr. Findlay justice, these are topics which he has not overlooked, but which are handled incidentally and often with considerable acumen and judgment in the course of his treatise. The book is, in fact, what its title professes, and something more. Principles of Class Teaching. By J. J. Findlay, Head Master of the Cardiff Intermediate School for Boys. Pp. xxxvi + 442. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1902.) Price 5s.