THE GABRIEL COMPAYRÉ, DEPUTY, DOCTOR OF LETTERS, AND PROFESSOR IN THE NORMAL SCHOOL CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NASHVILLE, AND PRESIDENT OF THE D. C. HEATH & COMPANY. 1897. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. THE HE two considerations that have chiefly influenced me in making this translation are the following: 1. Of the three phases of educational study, the practical, the theoretical, and the historical, the last, as proved by the number of works written on the subject, has received but very little attention from English and American teachers; and yet, if we allow that a teacher should first of all be a man of culture, and that an invaluable factor in his professional education is a knowledge of what has hitherto been done within his field of activity, there are the best of reasons why the claims of this study should be urged upon the teaching profession. For giving breadth of view, judicial candor, and steadiness of purpose, nothing more helpful can be commended to the teacher than a critical survey of the manifold experiments and experiences in educational practice. The acutest thinkers of all the ages have worked at the solution of the educational problem, and the educating art has been practised under every variety of conditions, civil, social, religious, philosophic, and ethnic. Is it not time for us to review these experiments, as the very best condition for advancing surely and steadily? 2. The almost complete neglect of this study among us has been due, in great measure, to the fact that there have |