authors.[1] The young teacher has to look not so much for pedagogical theories, as for practical knowledge. He is to read carefully the authors, closely observe peculiarities of their style, accurately translate and intelligently expound their meaning. It is exactly the system, according to which Professor Hermann of Leipsic trained his philologians. This practical method of self-activity and self-training we find explained in the first part of Jouvancy's commentary on the Ratio Studiorum, in The Method of Learning.
As the object of this training is to form practical teachers, not a word is said about higher criticism and the like; but Father Jouvancy urges the teacher to acquire in the first place a thorough mastery of three languages: Greek, Latin, and the vernacular. The means of gaining this mastery are plentiful reading of the best authors, and practising compositions of various kinds: letters, orations, essays.
The second part of the learning proper to the master of literature consists, according to Jouvancy, in the thorough knowledge of certain sciences. "The erudition of a master is not confined to mere command of languages; it must rise higher to the understanding of some sciences which it is usual to impart to youth in the classical schools. Such are rhetoric, poetry, history, chronology, geography, philology."[2]
- ↑ See Pachtler, vol. IV, pp. 12-19, where lists of such books, recommended in the Old Society, are given.
- ↑ Ratio Discendi, ch. II. – It has been proved in chapter IV, pp. 124-129, that history and geography were never neglected in the colleges of the Society. In the mean time I found that the Protestant writers of Schmid's great Geschichte der Erziehung (1884-1901), in sharp contrast with the assertions of M. Compayré, candidly admit the services
