PHILOSOPHY AS A SCHOOL STUDY.

[Translated from the German of Dr. Friedrich Paulsen, professor of philosophy in Berlin.]

[1. Past. 2. Future. 3. Content and form of philosophical instruction.] 1. Past.-Philosophy is originally the essence of all truly scientific or theoretic knowledge, as distinguished from casual empirical informa tion and from practical technical science. As such was it first conceived in the Greek mind, and under this conception Aristotle has presented all sciences as parts of philosophy. Hence, philosophy from the beginning constitutes the substance of all truly theoretical instruction; it has its place in schools of philosophy. This is true both of ancient times and of the Middle Ages.

During the latter half of the Middle Ages, in which lie the roots of the present school and university systems, instruction had assumed the following form: Linguistic, philosophical, and professional instruction succeeded each other in three courses. The first of these was placed in the church and city Latin schools; it was followed in the university by the philosophical, the so called arts course, and by the professional course in the three higher faculties. The medieval scholar carried away from the lower school the knowledge of the learned language at least this is supposed to have been the case. At the university he studied the sciences (artes); first the general or philosophical sciences; then, if he desired to go farther and could do so, the professional sciences of theology, jurisprudence, or medicine. Philosophical instruction constituted the central part of the course; it was at the same time the chief constituent of the medieval universities.

The great majority of students belonged to the facultas artium; the number of those who finished the professional course in the higher faculties was comparatively small.

The essential part of the instruction in the faculty of arts was the Aristotelian philosophy. In the lectures the writings of Aristotle in Latin translations were used as text-books and explained. Their contents were impressed upon the students through disputations and tested in examinations. The first half of the course, which led to the examination for the first academic degree (baccalarius), dealt chiefly with writings on logic and physics. In the second part of the course, which closed with the degree of master of arts, writings on metaphysics and ethics were added, together with mathematics and cosmology.

In the sixteenth century, under the influence of humanism and the Reformation, the following changes occurred: On the one hand, the school course was extended, more particularly in the newly established state schools of Protestant countries, and also in the Jesuit colleges of the Catholic domain the customary Latin instruction was broadened into instruction in classical languages and literatures; at the same time there was added preparatory instruction in philosophy and the

sciences. The elements of dialectics, mathematics, cosmology, and physics were taken up. On the other hand, the philosophical faculty added a humanistic philological course, based upon an imitation of the classical authors, to the former philosophical instruction, which, after a short interruption, had been restored by Melanchthon on the old foundation of the Aristotelian philosophy.

This philological-philosophical course remained even into the eighteenth century the authoritative method of universal scientific instruction in schools and universities. Gradually, however, a double remodeling took place. In the first place, philosophic-scientific instruction gained more and more at the expense of the linguistic and philological, first at the universities, afterwards, also, in the preparatory schools. In the second place, it became the custom to finish a profes sional course in one of the higher faculties, and at the same time it became customary to begin professional training with the philosophical

course.

In the eighteenth century, therefore, the entering student, who, as a rule, brought with him from the school some rudiments of scientific knowledge, took up in the university studies in philosophy, mathematics, and natural science, philology and history, for the sake of his general culture; and at the same time studies in thcology, jurisprudence, medicine, in preparation for his future profession. For the general studies, the Initia Doctrina Solidioris, by J. A. Ernesti, a manual which had been printed in numerous editions, was much used in schools and universities. It treated of mathematics, metaphysics (together with psychology, ontology, and natural theology), logic, ethics, and natural law, political science, physics, and rhetoric.

In the nineteenth century this development resulted in the transfer of the general scientific preparation in its essentials from the philosophical faculty to the gymnasium or preparatory school; however, with this peculiarity, which is worthy of note-that in this transfer philosophy, in its narrower sense, was almost wholly lost. Under the influence of the final examination (Abiturientenprüfung) and of the official school regulations the course of study for the gymnasium or preparatory school has been steadily broadened and extended. It is now completed, on an average, at 20 years of age, and it comprises a general scientific preparatory course in all branches, in ancient and modern languages and literatures, in mathematics and the natural sciences, in history and theology, only not in philosophy. When the student enters the university he is supposed to have given proof of his general culture in the closing examination of the gymnasium, and usually applies himself at once to his professional studies-anatomy, law (Pandekten), and only at best does he, now and then, attend a philosophical or historical lecture. Thus it has come about that the old philosophical instruction, with the exception of physics, has been eliminated. Indeed, logic and psychology, metaphysics and ethics

do not occur in the course of study of a very large number of our students.

A succession of causes has led to this exclusion of philosophy. We have, in the nineteenth century, no such school philosophy as the sixteenth and seventeenth possessed in the Aristotelian, and the eighteenth in the Wolfian, philosophy. Since the great Kantian revolution there is no universally recognized system of philosophy for schools. Through this philosophy has lost its adaptability to school purposes. It is true, the Hegelian philosophy served this purpose in so far that in Prussia it gained to a certain extent the position of an acknowledged school philosophy. But after the thirties there came the great defection, and with it the alienation of the public mind from philosophy in general and its inclination to special research. About the middle of the century it was the positive opinion in extensive circles that philologico-historical investigations and mathematical and scientific research lead to real knowledge, but that philosophy is twaddle and pseudo-knowledge. At the same time Neo-humanism had presented itself, and had been received at the classical high schools as a substitute for philosophy. The ancient languages and literatures, so it was maintained, afforded all that the pupil really had any use for. Logic and psychology, ethics and politics in concreto, abstract compendious instruction, in connection with this, was held to be unneces sary and in itself unfruitful. Moreover, to this dislike of philosophy on the part of the philologians was joined that of the theologians. The belief in the literal truth of Scripture (Buchstabengläubigkeit), which had come back with the Reformation, could see, in the study of Wolff, Kant, and Hegel, only danger-even ruin for the youthful soul. That philosophical instruction should, under these circumstances, suffer, and finally yield entirely, is easily accounted for. I give a few data from the history of "philosophy as a school study" (Philosophical Propedeutics), under which name this instruction had a precarious existence in the course of study in the gymnasia during the nineteenth century.

The first official course of study of the Prussian gymnasium (Humboldt, Wolff, Süvern), newly constituted in the second decade, had no room for philosophy. Not before the decree of May 26, 1825, through the influence of Hegel, was (propedeutic) instruction in philosophy indicated for the gymnasia, and even then not positively obligatory, though really indispensable. The decree stated that the gymnasium should prepare the pupils of the two upper classes by means of elementary instruction in logic and psychology, in one or two lessons weekly, for the systematic study of philosophy with which the university instruction was to begin. In the Kantian categories and antinomies the schools might at least open up "a negative and formal outlook upon reason and ideas, and the higher satisfaction to be attained thereby,” i. e., in the Hegelian system. (Vid.: The decree of

Neigebaur, Prussian Gymnasia, §121, etc.; Hegel's Report, Vol. XVII of his complete works.)

Herbart, too, is convinced of the necessity of philosophical instruction and of the danger of its complete abandonment. "Philology and mathematics," he says, in his report of 1821 (on Instruction in Philoso phy in Gymnasia, Pedagogical works, edited by O. Willmann, Vol. II, pp. 121, etc.), "are industriously taught in our gymnasia, but they can not satisfy the soul. They leave a sensation of emptiness-a yearning for something else, which overcomes the enthusiast who pretends to himself and to others something greater and higher." Herbart would exclude from the schools all systems after Kant, including his own. He would have logic taught in the eighth high-school year, one quarter, four lessons a week; psychology in the ninth and tenth years, two quarters, four lessons a week, and a synopsis of the history of pedagogy (in 16-20 lessons), with Plato and Locke as the principal authors. Herbart gained permanent influence, especially in Austria. The Aus trian plan of instruction of 1849 (Exner and Bonitz), with which the history of the modern gymnasium in Austria begins, provided two hours a week in the last two years for philosophical instruction; and this has been retained in the new regulations of 1884 for instruction at the gymnasium in Austria.

In Prussia, on the other hand, philosophical instruction dwindled more and more after the Hegelian philosophy had lost its influence, and the tendency for concentration had gained the ascendency. Trendelenburg, who exerted great influence by his counsel and writings, was. inclined to exclude psychology as too difficult and to limit the philosophical course to logic, for which the material was afforded in his Elementa Logices Aristoteleæ (printed in frequent editions since 1836, together with the comments of 1842, etc.). The plan of instruction of 1856 (Wiese) gives the advice not to treat philosophical propedeutics as a separate study, but to combine logic with instruction in German. However, a decree of 1862 warns against excessive neglect, and orders the addition of a mark on acquisition in the elements of logic and psychology in the final certificate (Abiturientenzeugniss.) The plan of instruction of 1882 (Bonitz) emphasizes, it is true, the importance of this instruction, but at the same time also its difficulty and the rarity of success therein the latter so much that it seems to have been abandoned. Lastly, the plan of instruction of 1891 has abandoned it wholly. The acquisition of concepts and ideas is relegated to the reading of prose, which may take the place of "philosophical propedeutics often carried on quite without results and out of date as a separate branch of instruction."

2. The future. The decline has reached its limit-will there be a revival? I believe there will. The following facts point to that result: In the world at large philosophy is on the upward trend. The time of depression that followed in the second third of this century upon

the speculation craze of the first third is gone. The sciences, which had retaliated for the unbearable arrogance of the disciples of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel with contempt for philosophy altogether, have long since begun to be reconciled with her. Philosophic thinking everywhere grows out of the sciences themselves, out of physics and mathematics, out of physiology and biology, out of history and philology, out of law and political science. Fechner, Lotze, Wundt, to mention a few leading names, started with the natural sciences. General culture, also, which for a time seemed anxious to content itself with a purely physical view of things, begins now to feel that philosophy is indispensable. Increased production implies increased demand. But the school follows the movement of the outer world; that which has been established will eventually enter the school; school history can afford no surer generalization. In addition to this, humanistic philology, which in the beginning of the century assisted in crowding out philosophical instruction as superfluous, has suffered a decided deterioration in public esteem. When "classical culture" ceases to furnish an adequate view of the world, then the need of a substitute must make itself felt, and this need can be supplied only by philosophical instruction.

There is surely no doubt that the need of such instruction is practically, even now, felt in large circles. Its absence is followed by a lack of general culture which not unfrequently makes itself painfully felt in later life. For there are questions whose answers are not found in mathematics and natural science, nor in philology and history; and indeed questions of such importance and universality that no one is in a position to turn away from them. Every scientific and every practical discussion ultimately runs against the questions which we call philosophic-the rela tion of mind to matter, of thought to reality, of action to motives, of freedom to necessity, of the individual to humanity as a whole, of the finite to the infinite, of knowledge to belief, of morality to religion, etc. The person who has never thought out these questions in their mutual relation—that is, who has never paid earnest attention to philosophywill, when confronted by them, be thrown into helpless confusion and become the victim of any idea that may occur to him. So it happens that debates in political bodies, which lead to universal problems of this kind, usually leave the impression that the participants have been engaged with them for the first time in their lives, and that they have no idea that others have considered them before them and that men of the greatest importance have publicly presented the results of this reflection. Not unfrequently do the writings of lawyers, physicians, scientists, and historians make the same impression when they tread upon the ground of philosophical questions. Here they act like one who had inadvertently stepped upon ice. A hundred years ago, I believe, authors of this kind moved with greater security, and they owed this to the study of philosophy, which. at that time, the schools and universities taught extensively.