Paediatrician is a combination of Greek paidos, child; iatreia, medical healing: and –ician, expert.
Paediatrics (pee-di-AT’-riks), then, is by etymology the medical healing of a child. Adjective: paediatric (pee-di-AT’-rik).
Pedagogy, which loses the ‘a’ but still combines paidos with agogos, leading, is, etymologically, the leading of children. And to what do you lead them? To learning, to development, to growth, to maturity. From the moment of birth, infants are led by adults – they are taught, first by parents and then by teachers, to be self-sufficient, to fit into the culture in which they are born.
Hence, pedagogy, which by derivation means the leading of a child, refers actually to the principles and methods of teaching. (the ped- you see in words like pedestal, pedal, and pedestrian is from the Latin pedis, foot, and despite the identical spelling in English has no relationship to Greek paidos.)
A pedagogue is versed in pedagogy. But pedagogue has an unhappy history. From its original, neutral meaning of teacher, it has deteriorated to the point where it refers, today, to a narrow-minded, strait-laced, old-fashioned, dogmatic teacher. It is a word of contempt and should be used with caution.
Like pedagogue, demagogue has also deteriorated in meaning. By derivation a leader (agogos) of the people (demos), a demogague today is actually one who attempts, in essence, to mislead the people, a politician who foments discontent among the masses, rousing them to fever pitch by wild oratory, in an attempt to be voted into office.
One elected, demagogues use political power to further their own personal ambitions or fortunes.
Masny ‘leaders’ of the past and present in countries around the world, have been accused of demagoguery.
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