Great Pedagogical Essays, Plato to Spencer

Excerpt from Great Pedagogical Essays, Plato to Spencer

This volume is intended to introduce the student to the principal documents of educational history. With growth in scholarship there comes a desire to be acquainted with the original sources of information. It is to meet this demand among students of educational history that the present work has been compiled.

The idea of the present compilation, which had long been in the writer's mind, assumed definite shape a year ago, while he was making some investigations in the library of the Bureau of Education. With the original documents in his hands, it became apparent that a collection of them, either in their entirety or in satisfactory selections, could be brought within the compass of a single convenient volume. It seems strange that the attempt had not previously been made.

In preparing this volume, existing translations have been utilized as far as possible. Bohn's Classical Library has been the main dependence for Greek and Latin authors. The principal works of the great educational reformers of the Continent - Comenius, Pestalozzi, Froebel, and others - are accessible in good English versions. In a few cases, among which may be mentioned Rhabanus Maurus, Luther, Fenelon, and the Ratio Studiorum of the Jesuits, the author found it necessary to make the translations here used.

The brief biographical sketches will be found to throw more or less light upon the selections.

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