Hechtius (1795–1798) – the beginnings of historical-philosophical-idiographic research in comparative education

ABSTRACT

From its very beginnings, we can discern two methodological approaches to comparative education; one broadly historical-philosophical-idiographic and another broadly empirical-positivist-nomothetic. Friedrich August Hecht's 1795–1798 De re scholastica Anglica cum Germanica comparata (English and German school education compared), with its hermeneutic textbook analysis, represents an idiographic methodology. Whilst the 1816/1817 data-driven research programme of Marc-Antoine Jullien – usually considered the origin of comparative education – represents an empirical-positivist-nomothetic approach. In this essay, we will examine the theoretical orientations of Hecht's study – his ideas of transnationality and national character, and his avoidance of the proposal of borrowing and lending. We situate the beginnings of Hecht's methodology in its social-historical context and analyse the transfer of interpretation methods from philology to comparative education. Finally, we will postulate a combination of Jullien's and Hecht's methodological approaches.

KEYWORDS:

• First treatise in comparative education
• transnationality vs. national character in education
• idiographic vs. nomothetic methodology
• transfer of philological methods to comparative education
• mixed methods in comparative education

Acknowledgements

With permission of the copyright holders, some parts of the ‘summary of the introduction’ of the author’s edition (2015) and the author’s article (2016) were re-used for this text.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Volker Lenhart is Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Education of Heidelberg University. He publishes in the fields of foundation of education, history of education and school as a social institution. In comparative and international education, he is active in research and consultancy for educational development cooperation, and recently in human rights and peace education.

Notes

1. Fraser (1964); Giraud (1975); Gautherin (1993); and Adick (2008, 22) who says:

Jullien’s model was the natural sciences. His approach was empirical, he intended to collect facts and observations, to put these together in tables, out of which mathematical calculations could be drawn that lead to rules and laws for better teaching and learning. For that purpose he developed a questionnaire with not less than 266 questions.

2. To continue speculation on Hecht’s lines one may say that the more states became nation-states, the more national character invaded (Ushinsky 1857/1975) or at least also shaped (Sadler, cf. Phillips 2006) school education. With today's supra-nationalism as in the EU or globalisation, the tendency of development is inverted again.

3. Examples include: A short introduction to grammar for the use of lower forms in the King’s School at Westminster (London 1776); Busbian Grammar, Extended and Revised. Metrical Foundations of Greek and Latin Grammar (London 1778) (noted by Hecht without more bibliographic details).

4. Cf. Abel (1948): the operation called ‘Verstehen’. American Journal of Sociology 54, 211–218.

5. Epstein (2008) calls this the middle position of ‘historical functionalism’ which he links to authors like Kazamias and Massialas (1982), Gerbert (1993) or to his own publication of 2006. To follow Epstein’s perspective in German comparative literature a look at the publications of Röhrs (e.g. 1995, 63–65 ‘hermeneutic-empirical method’) or the more recent textbook of Waterkamp (2006) or the edition by Parreira do Amaral and Amos (2015) is illustrative.