FoodNet

The art of living in Australia

1893

Page 70

Presented as published in 1893. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
Yet there is something more than all this which should induce us to follow the promptings of nature ; this is the fact that Australia will only reach the zenith of her pos- sibilities when her people conform to her climatic require- ments. For what would the latter mean ? Market gardens innumerable, and a healthy and lucrative life for all con- cerned ; the development of her deep-sea fisheries, and employment, direct as well as indirect, to thousands ; the cultivation of the vine, with all the wealth pertaining to sniiUng vineyards ; the growth of the olive and other fruits, and all the other industries which only await their creation ; and instead of this, at present, all we possess is the knowledge that we are the greatest meat-eating and tea-drinking race on earth. PROGRESSIVE CHANGES IN THE THEORIES OF EDUCATION. We are told that it was Jean Jacques Eousseau who first entirely severed education and learning. In his Emile, published in 1762, he advocated a more natural and less pedantic method of training and developing the physical, mental, and moral faculties of the young. The work produced an astounding effect on its appearance, and has largely influenced the educational methods throughout Europe. Not so long afterwards, in 1801, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, permeated with the atmosphere following the French Revolution, gave to the world his views on edu- cation in his work How Gertrude Teaches her Children. The essence of his belief being that "sense-impression is " the foundation of instruction," he counselled the deve- lopment of all the faculties in preference to the mere acquisition of words. "Words alone," said he, "cannot " give us a knowledge of things ; they are only useful " for giving expression to what we have in our own SCHOOL COOKEBY— INFLUENCE ON DAILY LIFE. 95 " minds." Consequently, he believed in imparting instruc- tion by a direct appeal to the senses and the understanding so as to call forth all the powers, selecting the subjects of study so that each step should progressively assist the pupil's advancement. He contended that observation was the method by which knowledge was principally gained, and that the perceptive faculties (intuition) were deve- loped by observation. Even in his own time his ideas were awarded a recognition of their value ; in fact, he had the honour of being specially visited by Prince de Talley- rand-and Madame de Stael. In the early part of the present century another re- former, Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel, arose to in- fluence all future educational methods. As with Eousseau, Froebel held that each age belonged to itself, and that the perfection of the later stage could only be attained through perfection of the earlier. So, too, while Pestalozzi upheld that the faculties were developed by exercise, Froebel went farther, and added that the function of education"^was to develop the faculties by arousing voluntary activity, in this way becoming, according to Michelet, the greatest of educational reformers. Froebel was convinced that man was primarily a doer, indeed, even a creator, and that he learnt only through "self-activity." In action, moreover, there was not alone the mere physical exercise, but also the actual unfolding and strengthening of the mental powers.