ABSTRACT

Professional training was not an end in itself, but only the means to an end, for:

'Vocational training leads to character training.' 18

Kerschensteiner' s many years of teaching experience had brought him into a very close and sincere contact with pupils from all walks oflife and of all ages and interests. His continued experience of children, both at work and at play, had furnished him with understanding of child development and psychology - of the ,vay a child thinks and acts, feels and believes, plays and works. As to the child's mental activity and receptivity, numerous examples had shown him that the child's mental activity did not remain constant but fluctuated according to the intensity of interest which the child directed on to the task in hand. This principle, which had impressed itself upon him time and time again in the fields outside Schweinfort and in the drab Niirnberg

classrooms, was strengthened and proved over and over again during his investigations into the existing general continuation schools.