140 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
gogical field. Learned specialists in different lines of study and investigation are slow 
bo tell the pedagogical value of their subjects for children in the common schools. They 
are generally wise enough to limit their advice to their own academic field of instrue- 
tion. It is the business of specialists to develop their particular fields. It is the special 
province of the scientific pedagogue to see what use he can make of the fruits of learn- 
ing in all fields in developing a child. 1t is his business to step in to the relief not 
only of specialists but particularly of the common schools, to select the most important 
subjects, and to codrdinate them in harmony with the needs of children. There is then 
a broad field which is the legitimate province of the pedagogue and unoccupied by any- 
one else. 
The school of pedagogy at Jena, under the direction of Dr. Wilhelm Rein, is a place 
where theory and practice are brought into the best wholesome union. 
Dr. Rein delivers lectures on psychology, history of education, and general and 
special methods ; and also is director of the practice school of three grades—second, 
courth, and sixth. A skilled training teacher is at the head of each grade, who not only 
teaches but is critic of the practice teachers who labor in his grade. Each student who 
hears pedagogical lectures with Dr. Rein, also teaches from two to five hours a week in 
:he practice school. 
Once a week a test lesson is given by one of the practicing teachers, in the presence of 
all the teachers presided over by Dr. Rein. Three days later this test lesson is carefully 
discussed by the teacher conducting it and by others specially appointed, as well as by 
the whole body of interested students. The discussion of an hour and a half is con- 
cluded by Dr. Rein giving a summary of the arguments, 
Week by week throughout the year this careful mingling of theory and practice 
occurs, and the important ideas of educational science and practice gradually clear up. 
HIGHER ACADEMIC DEGREES IN PEDAGOGY. 
BY PROFESSOR S. G. WILLIAMS, CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 
AT the outset, is it not very doubtful whether there is any fit place for special degrees 
in pedagogy ? For pedagogy is merely a branch of the philosophic disciplines—an 
application of the principles of ethics and psychology to the training of children and 
youth, It has always been so considered since Kant, from his renowned chair of phi- 
losophy in Kénigsberg, treated pedagogy as one of his proper subjects; since Herbart 
inaugurated his illustrious carcer as a philosopher by a course on pedadogy in Gétting- 
en, and later, in the chair of Kant, made this a chief object in his courses, thus gain- 
ing an ever-growing influence in German education, which is likely to preserve the 
memory of his name when his philosophy, save in its relations to pedagogy, may be 
forgotten. 
But the degree of Ph.D. already exists for the philosophic disciplines in their wide 
sense, including language, history, and economics. What reason can be given for cre- 
ating a special degree in pedagogy which would not be equally good for giving special 
doctorates in history, in economics, and in language ? or for like degrees in mathemat- 
ics, chemistry, etc.? The same end would be attained, without a confusing multiplica- 
tion of degrees, by conferring the well-known M.A. for distinguished attainments in 
pedagogy and the history of education, and the already used Ph.D. for such attainments 
coupled with distinguished services in this branch of philosophy. 
It is to be feared that the proposal of special pedagogic degrees may be suspected to 
be inspired by a desire on the part of ambitious teachers to gain cheap doctorates.