четверг, 26 апреля 2012 г.

Herbert Spencer and his contribution to education

HERBERT SPENCER. (1880)
Herbert Spencer came from a family of teachers. His father wrote a text-book on geometry, which was used many years. At seven he could not read; he enjoyed games, rambling, etc. His father encouraged him to gather insects, to watch their transformation and to make drawings of insects gathered. He was frequently disobedient. His father’s library was quite an attraction to him.
Science, according to Spencer, is the chief staple of an education. The test of the worth of an education is determined by the way in which one treats the body and mind, arranges his business, brings up a family and be-haves as a citizen. Science helps to get a livelihood and to make money; it trains for citizenship. The process of self-development should be encouraged to the utmost. Instruction should excite interest. Intellectual activity is not to be sacrificed to routine.
He became interested in the theory of evolution, as explaining the cause of the diversity in the animal kingdom. His views are reflected in his only educational 
This confirms the conclusions made by Montaigne, Locke, Rousseau, and others. He attempts to lay down a scheme of education according to his views of evolution. He argues that the study of science aids in teaching the concrete before the abstract and gives interest to study, that corporal punishment and rote-teaching should be abandoned, and that mental growth by inherent power is superior to artificial expansion produced by purely exterior forces.
Herbert Spencer “shows that growth is organic, subject to the ordinary laws of organic development. Thus, he made psychology strictly a natural science, to be henceforth modified, extended in its scope, corrected in its errors, limited in its theories, by the same laws of criticism that apply to other natural sciences. Availing himself of the discovery of the laws of evolution, of the correlation, the indestructibility, and instability of forces, of their inseparability from matter, he has built up a system of psychology, which is destined to become one of the most potent agencies in hastening the recognition of correct principles of education.”
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