German Education, Past and Present

Abstract

TO write well a short book on a vast subject is a task which only a master can accomplish. It is not too much to say that Prof. Paulsen is the only man in Europe who could have given, within such small compass, so readable and well-proportioned an account of the growth of German education from a remote past to the present time. Dr. Paulsen has style as well as profound knowledge. He knows what to leave out. He neither fatigues the reader by a superfluity of uninterpreted facts nor offends him by superficiality of treatment. Two years ago Messrs. Teubner, of Leipzig, published the original edition of this work in a slim, closely printed volume of less than 200 pages as one of the series which they are issuing under the title “Aus Natur und Geisteswelt.” Now Mr. Unwin gives us the book pithily and idiomatically translated by Dr. Lorenz, and prefaced by a useful outline of the mechanics of the German educational system, and a short dictionary of English renderings of German technical terms. As it stands, it is the handiest book on the outlines of the subject in the English language.

German Education, Past and Present.

By Prof. Friedrich Paulsen. English translation by Dr. T. Lorenz. Pp. xx + 310. (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1908.) Price 5s. net.