Arnold Guyot (1807-1884) and the Pestalozzian Approach to Geology Education
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Arnold Guyot (1807-1884) and the Pestalozzian approach to geology education Autor(en): Wilson, Philip K. Objekttyp: Article Zeitschrift: Eclogae Geologicae Helvetiae Band (Jahr): 92 (1999) Heft 3 PDF erstellt am: 04.10.2021 Persistenter Link: http://doi.org/10.5169/seals-168674 Nutzungsbedingungen Die ETH-Bibliothek ist Anbieterin der digitalisierten Zeitschriften. Sie besitzt keine Urheberrechte an den Inhalten der Zeitschriften. Die Rechte liegen in der Regel bei den Herausgebern. Die auf der Plattform e-periodica veröffentlichten Dokumente stehen für nicht-kommerzielle Zwecke in Lehre und Forschung sowie für die private Nutzung frei zur Verfügung. Einzelne Dateien oder Ausdrucke aus diesem Angebot können zusammen mit diesen Nutzungsbedingungen und den korrekten Herkunftsbezeichnungen weitergegeben werden. Das Veröffentlichen von Bildern in Print- und Online-Publikationen ist nur mit vorheriger Genehmigung der Rechteinhaber erlaubt. Die systematische Speicherung von Teilen des elektronischen Angebots auf anderen Servern bedarf ebenfalls des schriftlichen Einverständnisses der Rechteinhaber. Haftungsausschluss Alle Angaben erfolgen ohne Gewähr für Vollständigkeit oder Richtigkeit. Es wird keine Haftung übernommen für Schäden durch die Verwendung von Informationen aus diesem Online-Angebot oder durch das Fehlen von Informationen. Dies gilt auch für Inhalte Dritter, die über dieses Angebot zugänglich sind. Ein Dienst der ETH-Bibliothek ETH Zürich, Rämistrasse 101, 8092 Zürich, Schweiz, www.library.ethz.ch http://www.e-periodica.ch 0012-9402/99/030321-5 $1.50 + 0.20/0 Eclogae geol. Helv. 92 (1999) 321-325 Birkhäuser Verlag. Basel. 1999 Arnold GUYOT (1807-1884) and the Pestalozzian approach to geology education Philip K.Wilson1 (Paper presented at the meeting of the International Commission on the History of the Geological Sciences (INHIGEO). Neuchâtel. Sept. 9-11. 1998) Ke\ Words: Arnold Guyot. Carl Ritter. Johann Heinrich Pestalo/zi. geology, education ABSTRACT ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Swiss-American geologist and geographer. Arnold GUYOT's (1807-1884) Der schweizerisch-amerikanische Geologe und Geograph Arnold GUYOT Princeton University geology lectures employed three Pestalozzian methods: (1807-1884) gründete seine geologischen Vorlesungen an der Universität 1 studying local nature before comparing it with distant regions: 2) observing Princeton auf pestalozzische Methoden: 1 zuerst die Natur der näheren Umgebung nature first hand, then later integrating this perceptual knowledge with more zu untersuchen, ehe man Vergleiche mit entfernten Regionen anstellt. 2) profound analytic and synthetic thinking: and 3) utilizing extensive visuals lo zuerst die Natur selbst zu beobachten und diese Erkenntnisse erst später in ein clarify observations. These pedagogical methods remain crucial in provoking vertieftes analytisches und svnthetisches Gedankengebäude einzubringen: und an understanding of the history of the globe and of mankind's interconnectedness 3) die Beobachtungen durch ausführliche bildliche Darstellung verständlich with the cosmos zu machen. Diese pädagogischen Methoden sind nach wie vor von grundlegender Bedeutung für das Verständnis der Geschichte der Erde und der Verbundenheit der Menschheit mit dem Kosmos. The United States' mentor. Carl RITTER. RITTER had visited PESTALOZZI National Education in Yverdon - at the southern tip of Lake Neuchâtel - for several Association's 1894 months in 1807. Although he later admitted that Committee of Ten PESTALOZZI "knew less geography than a child in one of ?+> Curricular Report our primary schools", it was through him that RITTER admittedly established physical gained "his chief knowledge of this science" (De Guimps geography as the 1900:264). For it was through his extensive interactions with model general PESTALOZZI that exposed him to the "natural method" of science course for education. By applying this method to university geography secondary education. teaching, he claimed to have reduced the "chaos" of the jumbled Geography's facts of this science to an attainable "order". Using nineteenth-century rise PESTALOZZIS method. RITTER claimed "I hold in my in stature among ihe hand. the clue to such a knowledge of the globe as will satisfy sciences in American both the mind and the heart, reveal the laws of a higher education was wisdom, and contribute not a little to the science of physico-theol- primarily due to the ogy" (De Guimps 1900: 263-264). pedagogical prowess RITTER espoused PESTALOZZIS method of this new of the Neuchâtel- science in his University of Berlin lectures which typically born geographer and geologist. Arnold GUYOT. GUYOT. drew between 300 to 400 students and many fellow academics. through his education in Berlin, was exposed to the teaching One of these students was Arnold GUYOT. GUYOT later doctrine of his fellow Swiss nationalist. Johann Heinrich served as Professor of Physical Geography and Universal PESTALOZZI, under the tutelage of his own natural history History at the Academy of Neuchâtel. When the 1848 Swiss revo- 'Shimer College. 438 North Sheridan Road. P.O. Box 500, Waukegan. Illinois 60079. USA Arnold Guyot's Pestalozzian geology lectures 321 lution aganst Prussian rule closed the Academy. GUYOT. cussed GUYOT's contributions towards a better understanding following his colleague and sometimes roommate. Louis AGASSIZ. of Neuchâtel's natural history (Schaer 1988). Geographers fled t the United States. GUYOT was initially employed Sidney ROSEN and Robert ANSTEY described how the by the Massachusetts State Board of Education to conduct Guyot Geographical Series of grammar and secondary school teacher's institutes" (i.e., workshops) devoted to improving textbooks which GUYOT collaboratively produced with Mary the methids of geography teaching. His local and national Howe SMITH from 1866 to 1882 "revolutionized" geography popularity in the states escalated as he spoke to over 1500 instruction in the United States (Rosen 1957. Anstev 1958). teachers a year between 1849 and 1855 at various normal This paper focuses upon the methods GUYOT employed in schools and at teacher's institutes held at the Anderson School leaching geology in New Jersey. I have analyzed GUYOT's of Natural History on Penikese Island. Nantucket. Massachusetts Princeton University lecture notes, the notebooks of his (Libbey 1884:25). In 1855. he began what resulted in a students, and material from the university's archives to uncover thirty-year professorship in Physical Geography and Geology the extent to which his own pedagogy of geology was tied to at the Col ege of New Jersey (now. Princeton University). His Pestalo/zian principles. As GUYOT frequently lectured professorship initiated the academic study of these two extemporaneously, using only scant notes, the historical importance disciplines in the United States, and his influence through students of his students' formally prepared lecture notebooks including he geologist and paleontologist. William Berryman remains paramount. SCOTT, tie physical geographer. William LIBBEY. and the From the outset. I fully appreciate that for GUYOT and comparative anatomist. Henry Fairfield OSBORN. secured many of his contemporaries (especially those trained in the Geology's academic and professional position in the United German tradition), geology and physical geography were States. intimately intertwined. Indeed, he specifically incorporated geology GUYOT had previously gained geological renown in into his geography teaching as well as into his Biblical Switzerland for his studies on the morphology and temperatures cosmogony lectures to the Princeton Theological Seminary. Thus, of the lakes of Neuchâtel and Morat. and for uncovering for GUYOT. it would have made little sense to focus on geology the causes or laws of glacial motion as evidenced, in part, by alone. However, as it was his framework of geological thinking the positions of extant erratic boulders - the latter resulting that was most directly challenged by the evolutionary from his extensive glacial studies with AGASSIZ (Guyot 1838. discourse beginning in the l<S60s. I intentionally tease apart his 1842. 1846). In the U.S. his popularity soared following the geology and his geography for particular historiographical insight. 1849 publication of his Earth and Man: Lectures on Comparative According to GUYOT's student. T. Pickney HUGER's Physi al Geography, in its Relation to the History of 1859 geology class notes, his instructor defined geology as "the Mankind - a work subsequently translated into German and preface of the first part of the history of the world" (Huger French. Ii another physiographicai arena. GUYOT's extensive 1859:2). Indeed. GUYOT often divided his professional and comparative hypsometric measurements allowed him pursuits into two distinct categories: Geology - the "Globe as it to produce accurate topographical maps of the Appalachian. was" before mankind, and Physical Geography - the "Globe in Allegheny and Catskill Mountain ranges (Guyot. 1861. 1880). its relation to man" (Smith 1873:56). Geology embraced not In additici!, through the support of his friend. Joseph only the study of earlier terrestrial changes, but according to HENRY, then Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. GUYOT. it also incorporated an understanding of the interactions GUYOT established fifty weather stations in New York state - between the earth and all previous living "lower stage" modeled Lpon the earlier design of stations he designed in organisms as one ascended the scale of creation