its province to preserve or restore health, to assist a natural process
(as in the case of a broken bone), or to destroy an unnatural one (as in
the case of the removal of a tumor), the same variety of work is imposed
upon Education.[1]

Sec. 2. Since the rules of Pedagogics must be extremely flexible, so that
they may be adapted to the great variety of minds, and since an infinite
variety of circumstances may arise in their application, we find, as we
should expect, in all educational literature room for widely differing
opinions and the wildest theories; these numerous theories, each of
which may have a strong influence for a season, only to be overthrown
and replaced by others.[2] It must be acknowledged that educational
literature, as such, is not of a high order. It has its cant like
religious literature. Many of its faults, however, are the result of
honest effort, on the part of teachers, to remedy existing defects, and
the authors are, therefore, not harshly to be blamed. It is also to be
remembered that the habit of giving reproof and advice is one fastened
in them by the daily necessity of their professional work.[3]

Sec. 3. As the position of the teacher has ceased to be undervalued, there
has been an additional impetus given to self-glorification on his part,
and this also--in connection with the fact that schools are no longer
isolated as of old, but subject to constant comparison and
competition--leads to much careless theorizing among its teachers,
especially in the literary field.

Sec. 4. Pedagogics, because it deals with the human spirit, belongs, in a
general classification of the sciences, to the philosophy of spirit, and
in the philosophy of spirit it must be classified under the practical,
and not the merely theoretical, division. For its problem is not merely
to comprehend the nature of that with which it has to deal, the human
spirit--its problem is not merely to influence one mind (that of the
pupil) by another (that of the teacher)--but to influence it in such a
way as to produce the mental freedom of the pupil. The problem is,
therefore, not so much to obtain performed works as to excite mental
activity. A creative process is required. The pupil is to be forced to
go in certain beaten tracks, and yet he is to be so forced to go in
these that he shall go of his own freewill. All teaching which does not
leave the mind of the pupil free is unworthy of the name. It is true
that the teacher mus