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Appendix—A

Petition of the Educational Institute of Scotland to the Universities' Commissioners, 1859, In Favour of Chairs of Education.

To the Right Honourable and Honourable the Commissioners under the Universities' (Scotland) Bill, the Memorial of the Educational Institute of Scotland, humbly showeth:

I.	—That your Memorialists, in the year 1847, formed an Association, embracing a large proportion of the teachers of Scotland of various Christian denominations, to which Her Majesty was graciously pleased (13th May, 1851) to grant a Royal Charter of Incorporation, under the name or style of the Educational Institute of Scotland, for the purpose of promoting sound learning, of advancing the interests of education in Scotland, and also of supplying a defect in the educational arrangements of that country, by providing for the periodical session of a Board of Examiners competent to ascertain and certify the qualifications of persons engaged, or desiring to be engaged, in the education of youth; and thereby furnishing to the public, and to the patrons and superintendents of schools, a guarantee of the acquirements and fitness of teachers for the duties required of them, and thus securing their efficiency, and raising the standard of education in general.
II.	—That they have steadily endeavoured, so far as was within their power, to carry into effect the objects for which they were incorporated; and have annually granted diplomas to such young men, desiring to enter the teaching profession, as presented themselves for examination, and have certified to their proficiency in those branches in which they were examined and found competent.
III.	—That they have long felt, with regret, the want of regular training in the theory and practice of education; and one of the objects specially contemplated by them in forming the Institute was the dissemination of a knowledge of this very important subject by public lectures, &c. The very limited means, however, placed at their command, have not enabled them to do more than furnish a few occasional lectures, which have been eagerly embraced by the members of the profession.
IV.	—That it is now more than a century since Condillac first started the idea that the art of teaching and training the young might be, and ought to be, reduced to a science founded on the philosophy of the human mind. He was followed by Dugald Stewart, who fully and clearly demonstrates that no real and solid page 48 improvement in education can take place until this idea be realised. Dr. Thomas Brown advocates not less earnestly the same view as his illustrious predecessor. And the hope that it would give birth to such an Art of Education is urged by both philosophers as the strongest argument for the cultivation of that science to which they devoted themselves, and by which they have shed so much lustre on the University where they taught, and on their country. All those who, during the last sixty years, have thought most deeply on education, being, at the same time, most thoroughly conversant with its practice, have confirmed the opinion of these great men by many new arguments and illustrations. Some have gone farther, and have addressed themselves to the task of tracing the outline and laying the foundation of the much-wished-for science, to which the name Pedeutics has been given. Thus Pedeutics is the Art and Science of education, or in other words, education reduced to fixed principles derived from the science of the human mind.
V.	—That it is acknowledged by all enlightened educationists that regular scientific and practical instruction in Pedeutics is as necessary for a teacher as the like instruction in Therapeutics, or the scientific art of treating diseases, is to a physician or surgeon; and that a knowledge of mental philosophy is as essential to practical skill in the art of educating as a knowledge of anatomy and physiology is to practical skill in surgery and medicine.
VI.	—That every sincere philanthropist will at once admit that a professional education is as necessary for the teachers of the poor as for those of the rich. No man in the present day would propound so absurd and heartless an opinion, as that systematic instruction in surgery, and a previous acquaintance with anatomy, are necessary for the medical attendants of the nobility and gentry, but that a man without any such knowledge will do well enough for practising surgery upon the poor. Is it less heartless or less absurd to say, that he who trains the children of the rich needs an accurate scientific knowledge of the "intellectual and moral powers," on which he is to operate; but that such knowledge may be dispensed with in him who is to educate the children of the poor?
VII.	—That the study of Pedeutics requires such previous training and attainments as can only be found among the students of a University. It presupposes an acquaintance with mental philosophy; that again presupposes a knowledge of logic; and that again, such a thorough appreciation of the nature and powers of language, as nothing but a sound classical education can give. Highly important, too, if not quite as essential, is an accurate knowledge of the fundamental principles of the different sciences by which the different sets of faculties are exercised.page 49
VIII.	—That from these considerations it follows, that the only appropriate and effectual means of securing for our country those great benefits, for the sake of which the sagacious and practical mind of Dugald Stewart urged the construction and cultivation of such a science, is the foundation of a Professorship of Pedeutics in each of our Universities.
IX.	—That a Scottish University is the place in which the first professorship of the kind ought to be founded, and that for the following reasons:— (1) Because students fully prepared to profit by a course of lectures on Pedeutics, are more numerous in the Scottish Universities than in any other, since mental philosophy is there studied by a larger number of persons, with greater attention, and in a more practical form. (2) Because persons, whose interest it would be to attend such lectures, are more numerous in the Scottish Universities than in any other, inasmuch as a very large proportion of their students resort to the occupation of teaching. (3) Because in a Scottish University such a course of lectures would make its beneficial effects extensively felt and universally acknowledged in a much shorter time than anywhere else. For, in Scotland, not only those who teach the children of the upper and middle classes, but also a large proportion of those who teach the children of the lowest, are men who have already received a University education.
X.	—That the intended Chairs of Pedeutics will be to the Normal School what the Chair of Medicine and Surgery is to the Hospital; the former will give a systematic and consecutive view of the principles and rules according to which education ought to be conducted; the latter will exhibit the manner of applying these rules and principles to the endless variety of individual cases that occur in practice. The proposed chairs, therefore, will not supersede or interfere with our Normal Schools, but will immensely increase their efficiency and usefulness.

May it therefore please the Universities' Commissioners to take the above premises into consideration; and in the exercise of the powers vested in them for extending and improving the Scottish Universities, to establish a Professorship of Pedeutics in each, or in such of them as to their wisdom may seem expedient.

Signed in name and by appointment of the Institute,

May 14, 1859