The principles of rational education / by Charles A. Mercier.

  • Mercier, Charles Arthur, 1852-1919.
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The principles of rational education / by Charles A. Mercier. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    26/128 (page 10)
    consider his land, to learn its qualities and capabilities : he is to consider the crops that he wishes to raise, their natures and amounts ; and he is to consider the means and methods that he is to employ upon his land so that he may raise the crops he wants. The sculptor is to consider his marble or his bronze, its qualities and capabilities : he is to consider the statue that he wishes to produce, its character and size; and he is to consider the means and methods that he is to employ upon his marble or his bronze so as to produce the statue he has in his mind. Without a thorough prepara¬ tion in the careful study of these three factors no worthy work of art has ever been produced or can ever be produced, and this is as true of the art of the schoolmaster as of any other. If education is to achieve a worthy result, it must be founded on a careful study, first, of the material on which the educator has to work, that is to say of the child; second, of the result he wishes to produce, that is to say, of the kind of being into which the child is to be trans¬ formed by his efforts; and third, of the means and methods by which this result is to be brought about—by which the child is to be moulded and modified so as to fit it for the life it is to live. These, then, are the three divisions of our task.