German Letters on English Education (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: picture of the present movement in educational matters in England. On my return journey I intend to stay in suitable localities, in order to give to my communications the freshness of the impressions of the country itself. LETTEE II. Favourable Circumstances promoting a manly Education in England ?Self-made Men?Difference between the Higher schools of England and those of Germany?Agitated Questions?Fundamental Features of the Character of Englishmen. Edinburgh. More than twenty-five years have passed since my first educational tour through England j during a subsequent visit, four years ago, I could pay but little attention to schools. My present visit was, therefore, a second meeting with old friends after a period which had wrought many changes on both sides. We were no longer the same: the English schools had entered upon a period of thorough reform, and I myself, after a long activity in the administration of schools, had arrived at an age matured by experience; I faced the same objects as a different man, and looked at them with different eyes, and from a different point of view. Nevertheless the foundation had remained the same on both sides. The changes already perceptible in the public school affairs of England have in general not altered their essential character, or that of the education of the young; the force of tradition is too great in the country, and the national peculiarities are too deeply rooted to allow of radical changes. And I myself, thank God, have not become so dried up by official work as not to be ablestill to contemplate, with the joyousness of a fresh and susceptible heart, the life of youth developing gaily and vigorously in the atmosphere of freedom. These letters will discuss other sides of the same subject, and will often be obliged to ...