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Document: Jan Waterink, Basic Concepts in Christian Pedagogy (St. Catharines, ON.: Paideia Press, 1954).
Excerpt: Perhaps it will seem unusual to speak of the foundations of Christian pedagogics. For one might ask : Is it not true that every school of pedagogics is founded on the same principles? Indeed, pedagogics is the theory of education and one may freely concede that a Christian education is different from a humanistic one. But does it follow that the foundations of a science change as the views according to which this science is put into practice are modified?
Furthermore, it is open to question whether pedagogics is generally regarded as a science. In writing about the “International Congress for Teaching Educational Sciences in Universities” at Ghent, in the Scottish Educational Journal of October 23, 1953, Norman T. Walker makes the following observations:
Professor Campbell Stewart, in opening the discussion on British practice, remarked that the expression, education sciences, is not much used in this country. Nor can it be said that there emerged any clearly formulated concept of a “science” of education from the contributions of the various speakers. While there are naturally wide differences between countries, the general trend of development is that of education as a subject of University study emerging slowly from its subordination within the department of Philosophy (as a sort of philosophia minor) and asserting its claims to independence of other disciplines.
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Basic Concepts In Christian Pedagogy – J. Waterink.pdf