The Meaning of Infancy by John Fiske
page 5 of 32 (15%)
page 5 of 32 (15%)
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"the meaning of education." As a belief, it is at least as old as
the period of the ancient Greek philosopher, Anaximander. As a doctrine in our modern thought, it owes its influential reappearance to certain evolutionary hypotheses of Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, which in turn stimulated Mr. John Fiske to that further inquiry which resulted in those first cogent and extended statements of the doctrine which have been the basis of so many subsequent educational applications. _Mr. Fiske's presentation of the meaning of infancy_ Because of the fundamental importance of Mr. Fiske's presentation of "the doctrine of the meaning of infancy," his views are here reprinted in detail. The material consists of an essay and an address. The first of these, "The Meaning of Infancy," is a brief and simplified restatement of those theories of man's origin and destiny as first suggested in his lectures at Harvard University in 1871, and later developed more fully in the "Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy," part II, chapters xvi, xxi, and xxii. The second of these, "The Part played by Infancy in the Evolution of Man," is an address delivered by Mr. Fiske as the guest of honor at a dinner at the Aldine Club, New York, May 13, 1895. Together these two papers constitute the most detailed and valuable elucidation of the doctrine that we possess. In offering them to the teaching profession and the reading public in this form, it is with the sincere hope that this biological interpretation of childhood and education will lend a new spiritual dignity to the whole institution of education. It must certainly be gratifying to those |
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