tendencies of thought and feeling; if the child or youth, at
any moment, even in later years, is able to retire into his
trancendental _ego_ and arrive at decisions without regard to the
effect of previously acquired ideas and habits, any well-planned,
intentional effort at education is empty and without effect.

John Friedrich Herbart, the founder of this movement in education, was
born at Oldenburg in 1776, and died at Goettingen in 1811 [Transcriber's
note: this should be 1841]. He labored seven years at Goettingen at the
beginning of his career as professor, and a similar period at its
close. But the longest period of his university teaching was at
Koenigsberg, where, for twenty-five years, he occupied the chair of
philosophy made famous before him by Kant. His writings and lectures
were devoted chiefly to philosophy, psychology, and pedagogy. Previous
to beginning his career as professor at the university, he had spent
three years as private tutor to three boys in a Swiss family of
patrician rank. In the letters and reports made to the father of these
boys, we have strong proof of the practical wisdom and earnestness with
which he met his duties as a teacher. The deep pedagogical interest
thus developed in him remained throughout his life a quickening
influence. One of his earliest courses of lectures at the university
resulted in the publication, in 1806, of his Allgemeine Paedagogik, his
leading work on education, and to-day one of the classics of German
educational literature. His vigorous philosophical thinking in
psychology and ethics gave him the firm basis for his pedagogical
system. At Koenigsberg, so strong was his interest in educational
problems that he established a training-school for boys, where
teachers, chosen by him and under his direction, could make practical
application of his decided views on education. Though small, this
school continued to furnish proof of the correctness of his educational
ideas till he left Koenigsberg in 1833. This, we believe, was the first
practice-school of its kind established in connection with pedagogical
lectures in any German university. It should be remembered that, while
Herbart was a philosopher of the first rank, even among the eminent
thinkers of Germany and of the world, he attested his profound interest
in education, not only by systematic lectures and extensive writings on
education, but by maintaining for nearly a quarter of a century a
practi