Reference > Cambridge History > Later National Literature, Part II > Later Philosophy > The Improvement of Philosophical Teaching
  The Journal of Speculative Philosophy The Philosophical Review  

CONTENTS · VOLUME CONTENTS · INDEX OF ALL CHAPTERS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
VOLUME XVII. Later National Literature, Part II.

XVII. Later Philosophy.

§ 15. The Improvement of Philosophical Teaching.


The general spread of the evolutionary theory, popular science, and more accurate historical acquaintance with European thought affected the American colleges only very slowly. An examination of the catalogues of American colleges will bear out the picture of dismal unenlightenment which Stanley Hall drew in 1879 of the state of philosophic teaching. 15  The beginning of a better order of things may be dated from the election of a layman, Charles W. Eliot, as President of Harvard College in 1869 or from the introduction of post-graduate instruction at Johns Hopkins in 1876. As the American colleges began to expand and as training for the educational profession became an important consideration, teachers of philosophy and psychology began to be selected with some regard for professional training and competency rather than exclusively for piety or pastoral experience. Such professional training an increasing number obtained in Germany, where, if they did not always get much fresh wisdom, they did generally learn the meaning of scientific accuracy in experimental psychology and philologic accuracy in the history of philosophy. It was through men of this class that the idealistic philosophy of Kant and Hegel was introduced into the American colleges. 16  In this they were aided by the spread of German idealism in the English and Scottish universities, which found expression in the works of J. F. Ferrier, Hutchison Stirling, F. H. Bradley, T. H. Green, Bosanquet, John and Edward Caird, Mahaffy, and William Wallace.   22
Note 15. Mind, vol. iv, 1879. Professor Gildersleeve of Johns Hopkins has testified that in his youth positions as college teachers were generally given to those who had failed in missionary work abroad. [ back ]
Note 16. Typical of this class was G. S. Morris, Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins, translator of Überweg’s History of Philosophy, and editor of a series of expositions of German philosophic classics by Dewey, Watson, Harris, and Everett. [ back ]

CONTENTS · VOLUME CONTENTS · INDEX OF ALL CHAPTERS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
  The Journal of Speculative Philosophy The Philosophical Review  
 
Loading
Click here to shop the Bartleby Bookstore.
Shakespeare · Bible · Saints · Anatomy · Harvard Classics · Lit. History · Quotations · Poetry
© 1993–2013 Bartleby.com · [Top 150]