The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). rn VOLUME XVII. Later National Literature, Part II.
XXIII. Education§ 58. Important Writers on Educational Topics
With the increasingly technical character and appeal of scientific and philosophical literature—particularly the former—has gone a similar technical development of the literature of education. This has been of profound significance, for a sort of cross-fertilization has taken place, resulting in two new species—a genuinely scientific and a genuinely philosophical type of educational writings. Both groups sprang originally from the new science of psychology and the less accurate one of sociology, or more specifically from the methods of measurement, whether experimental or statistical, developed in connection with psychology and sociology. Even though the results obtained are, as some maintain, “the vociferous reiteration of the obvious,” yet there is much to be gained through a scientific interpretation of the obvious. The application of the same methods to problems where conclusions are not obvious results in profoundly important, if gradual, advance.