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A STUDENT’S HISTORY OF EDUCATION




BOOKS ON THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION

By

DEAN FRANK P. GRAVES


A HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN THREE VOLUMES

Vol. I. Before the Middle Ages

    Vol. II. During the Middle Ages and the Transition to Modern Times

Vol. III. In Modern Times


GREAT EDUCATORS OF THREE CENTURIES

    PETER RAMUS AND THE EDUCATIONAL REFORMATION OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

A STUDENT’S HISTORY OF EDUCATION




  A STUDENT’S HISTORY
  OF EDUCATION


  BY

  FRANK PIERREPONT GRAVES

  (PH.D., COLUMBIA)

  DEAN OF THE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION AND PROFESSOR
  OF THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN THE
  UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA


  New York
  THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
  1922

  _All rights reserved_


  COPYRIGHT, 1915,
  BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

  Set up and electrotyped. Published July, 1915.


  Norwood Press:
  Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.




  TO

  WILLIAM OXLEY THOMPSON, LL.D.
  PRESIDENT OF THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

  WITH APPRECIATIVE MEMORIES OF
  SIX PLEASANT YEARS OF ASSOCIATION




PREFACE


There is a growing conviction among those engaged in training teachers
that the History of Education must justify itself. It is believed
that, if this subject is to contribute to the professional equipment
of the teacher, its material must be selected with reference to his
specific needs. Antiquarian interests and encyclopædic completeness are
alluring and may in their place prove praiseworthy and valuable, but
they do not in themselves supply any definite demand in the training
of teachers. The greatest services that the History of Education can
perform for the teacher are to impel him to analyze his problems more
completely and to throw light upon the school practices with which he
is himself concerned. By presenting a series of clear-cut views of past
conditions, often in marked contrast to his own, it should make him
conscious that the present educational situation has to a large degree
been traditionally received, and it should at the same time especially
help him to understand the origin and significance of current practices.

In this way a study of the History of Education will disrupt the
teacher’s complacent acceptance of the present, and will enable him
to reconstruct his ideas in the light of the peculiar conditions out
of which the education of his times has sprung. Whenever historical
records do not assist in such an analysis and synthesis of present
day problems, they may be frankly dismissed from discussion. This
conception of the subject, I have myself, with much reluctance, come
to accept. My own regard for the classics, philosophy, and general
history as college disciplines has caused me to view with apprehension
any disposition to curtail their scope. It now seems clear, however,
that the modern tendency to emphasize the functional aspects of the
History of Education is both necessary and wise. The present work,
therefore, is not a mere condensation of my _History of Education in
Three Volumes_, but has been very largely re-written from the new angle.

In the first place, I have sought to stress educational institutions
and practices, rather than theories that did not find embodiment in
the times. This has led to the omission of much that is unessential or
more strictly related to philosophy, general history, or literature.
For example, even the immortal work of Plato and Aristotle has been
epitomized; the entire subject of mysticism and most of scholasticism
have been dropped; the masterpieces of such pure theorists as Rabelais,
Montaigne, and Mulcaster, are barely mentioned; and the various
historical epochs are given only so much detail as may be needed to
form a social setting for the educational movements of those periods.

Secondly, it has seemed to me that our present problems in education
can best be analyzed through a knowledge of the practices that have
developed in modern times. Hence, while this book includes an account
of all educational endeavor from the day of primitive man to the
present, somewhat more than one-half the material is connected with the
last two centuries. Even the attractive period of Hellenic activity
and the fascinating stories of monasticism and of chivalry have been
reduced to a minimum. But, though most of the changes in the earlier
half of the work are in the nature of shortening, or have to do with
more immediate connections, some topics, notably the development of
commerce and cities (Chapter XI) and the analysis of formal discipline
(Chapter XVI), have seemed to be so closely connected with subsequent
progress as to deserve more adequate treatment.

Finally, since this book is intended chiefly for teachers in the United
States, I have believed it most helpful to give considerable space to
the discussion of American education. The account of each educational
movement has included at least an attempt to trace its influence upon
the content, method, and organization of education in the United
States, while three chapters have been devoted exclusively to the rise
of educational systems in this country.

My indebtedness for many valuable features in this book is heavy.
The idea of an _Outline_, which appears at the beginning of each
chapter, was first suggested to me by the _History of Modern Elementary
Education_ of Dean S. C. Parker of the College of Education, University
of Chicago, although I have adopted a different explanation of its
value. Professor Parker also read through the manuscript and sent me a
general estimate of it. Professors J. H. Coursault of the University
of Missouri, A. J. Jones of the University of Maine, W. H. Kilpatrick
of Columbia University, A. R. Mead of Ohio Wesleyan University, and A.
L. Suhrie of the West Chester (Pennsylvania) State Normal School, have
all read the manuscript through with exceeding care and furnished me
with numerous corrections and criticisms, both particular and general.
Professor T. H. Briggs of Columbia University suggested a number of
improvements in the chapter upon Present Day Tendencies in Education
(XXVII). The chapter upon the Educational Influences of the Reformation
(XIII) has been relieved of several inaccuracies, and possibly of some
Protestant bias, through the assistance of the Rev. Benedict Guldner,
S. J., of St. Joseph’s College, and of Brother Denis Edward, F. S. C.,
President of La Salle College, Philadelphia. I have also, as usual,
been greatly aided by my wife, Helen Wadsworth Graves.

  F. P. G.




CONTENTS


  _PART I_

  ANCIENT TIMES


  CHAPTER I

                                                                  PAGE

  THE EARLIEST EDUCATION                                             3

  The Value of the History of Education. Its Treatment
  in This Book. Primitive Education. Oriental
  Education. India: Its Religion and Castes. The Hindu
  Education. Effect of the Hindu Education. India as
  Typical of the Orient. Jewish Education.


  CHAPTER II

  THE EDUCATION OF THE GREEKS                                       11

  Progressive Nature of Greek Education. Spartan
  Education: Its Aim and Early Stages. Training in
  Youth and Manhood: Results. Old Athenian Education:
  Its Aim and Early Training. Training for the
  Youth. Effect of the Old Athenian Education. Causes
  and Character of the New Athenian Education. The
  Sophists and Their Training. Their Extreme Individualism.
  The Reactionaries and the Mediators. The
  Method of Socrates. Plato’s System of Education for
  the Three Classes of Society. The Weakness of Plato’s
  System. His Influence upon Educational Theory and
  Practice. Aristotle’s Ideal State and Education. The
  Permanent Value of His Work. The Post-Aristotelian
  Schools of Philosophy. The Schools of Rhetoric. The
  Hellenic Universities. Extension of Hellenic Culture.


  CHAPTER III

  THE EDUCATION OF THE ROMANS                                       32

  Roman Education Amalgamated with Greek. Early
  Education in Rome. The Absorption of Greek Culture.
  The Ludus. Grammar Schools. Rhetorical Schools.
  Universities. Subsidization of Education. Decay of
  Education. Influence of Roman Education.


  CHAPTER IV

  THE EDUCATION OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS                             42

  The Ideals of Early Christianity. Early Christian
  Life as an Education. Catechumenal Schools. Amalgamation
  of Christianity with Græco-Roman Philosophy.
  Catechetical and Episcopal or Cathedral Schools.
  Influence of Græco-Roman Culture upon Christianity.
  Rise of the Monastic Schools.


  _PART II_

  THE MIDDLE AGES


  CHAPTER V

  THE MONASTIC EDUCATION                                            53

  The Middle Ages as a Period of Assimilation and Repression.
  The Evolution and Nature of Monasticism.
  Benedict’s ‘Rule’ and the Multiplication of Manuscripts.
  Amalgamation of Roman and Irish Christianity.
  The Organization of the Monastic Schools. The
  ‘Seven Liberal Arts’ as the Curriculum. The Methods
  and Texts. Effect upon Civilization of the Monastic
  Schools.


  CHAPTER VI

  CHARLEMAGNE’S REVIVAL OF EDUCATION                                60

  Condition of Education in the Eighth Century.
  Higher Education at the Palace School. Educational
  Improvement in the Monastic, Cathedral, and Parish
  Schools. Alcuin’s Educational Work at Tours. Rabanus
  Maurus, Erigena, and Others Concerned in the
  Revival.


  CHAPTER VII

  MOSLEM LEARNING AND EDUCATION                                     65

  The Hellenization of Moslemism. Hellenized Moslemism
  in Spain. Effect upon Europe of the Moslem
  Education.


  CHAPTER VIII

  EDUCATIONAL TENDENCIES OF SCHOLASTICISM                           69

  The Nature of Scholasticism. The History of Scholastic
  Development. Scholastic Education. Its Value and
  Influence.


  CHAPTER IX

  THE MEDIÆVAL UNIVERSITIES                                         74

  The Rise of Universities. The Foundation of Universities
  at Salerno, Bologna, and Paris. Bologna and
  Paris as the Models for Other Universities. Privileges
  Granted to the Universities. Organization of the Universities.
  Course in the Four Faculties. The Methods
  of Instruction. Examinations and Degrees. The Value
  and Influence of the University Training.


  CHAPTER X

  THE EDUCATION OF CHIVALRY                                         83

  The Development of Feudalism. The Ideals of Chivalry.
  The Three Preparatory Stages of Education.
  The Effects of Chivalric Education.


  CHAPTER XI

  THE BURGHER, GILD, AND CHANTRY SCHOOLS                            88

  The Rise of Commerce and Industry. Development
  of Cities and the Burgher Class. The Gilds and Industrial
  Education. Gild Schools. Burgher Schools. Chantry
  Schools. Influence of the New Schools.


  _PART III_

  THE TRANSITION TO MODERN TIMES


  CHAPTER XII

  THE HUMANISTIC EDUCATION                                          99

  The Passing of the Middle Ages. The Renaissance
  and the Revival of Learning. Causes of the Awakening
  in Italy. The Revival of the Latin Classics. The Development
  of Greek Scholarship. The Court Schools
  and Vittorino da Feltre. The Court School at Mantua.
  The Relation of the Court Schools to the Universities.
  Decadence of Italian Humanism. The Spread and Character
  of Humanism in the Northern Countries. The Development
  of Humanism in France. French Humanistic
  Educators and Institutions. Humanism in the German
  Universities. The Hieronymians and Their Schools.
  Erasmus, Leader in the Humanistic Education of the
  North. The Development of Gymnasiums: Melanchthon’s
  Work. Sturm at Strassburg. Formalism in the
  Gymnasiums. The Humanistic Movement in England:
  Greek at Oxford and Cambridge. Humanism at the
  Court Colet and His School at St. Paul’s. Humanism
  in the English Grammar Schools. English Grammar and
  Public Schools To-day. The Grammar Schools in the
  American Colonies. The Aim and Institutions of Humanistic
  Education.


  CHAPTER XIII

  EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES OF THE REFORMATION                        124

  The Relation of the Reformation to the Renaissance.
  The Revolt and Educational Works of Luther. Luther’s
  Ideas on Education. The Embodiment of Luther’s
  Ideas in Schools by His Associates. The Revolt and
  Educational Ideas of Zwingli. Calvin’s Revolt and His
  Encouragement of Education. The Colleges of Calvin.
  Henry VIII’s Revolt and Its Effect upon Education.
  Foundation of the Society of Jesus. Organization of
  the Jesuits. The Jesuit Colleges. The Jesuit Methods
  of Teaching. Value and Influence of the Jesuit Education.
  The Organization of the Education of the Port
  Royalists. The Port Royal Course and Method of
  Teaching. La Salle and the Schools of the Christian
  Brothers. The Aim, Curriculum, and Method of the
  Christian Brothers’ Schools. Influence of the Schools of
  the Christian Brothers. Aim and Content of Education
  in the Reformation. Effect of the Reformation upon
  Elementary Education. Effect of the Reformation upon
  the Secondary Schools. Influence of the Reformation
  upon the Universities. The Lapse into Formalism.


  CHAPTER XIV

  EARLY REALISM AND THE INNOVATORS                                 151

  The Rise and Nature of Realism. Humanistic Realism.
  Social Realism. The Relations of Humanistic to
  Social Realism. The Influence of the Innovators upon
  Education. The Ritterakademien. The Academies
  In England. The Academies in America.


  CHAPTER XV

  SENSE REALISM AND THE EARLY SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT                  162

  The Development of the Sciences and Realism. Bacon
  and His Inductive Method. Bacon’s Educational
  Suggestions and Influence. Ratich’s Methods. Comenius:
  His Training and Work. His Series of Latin
  Texts. The Great Didactic. His Encyclopædic Arrangement
  of Knowledge. The Method of Nature. The
  Influence of Comenius upon Education. Realistic
  Tendencies in Elementary Schools. Secondary Schools.
  The Universities.


  CHAPTER XVI

  FORMAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION                                   179

  Locke’s Work and Its Various Classifications. Locke’s
  Disciplinary Theory in Intellectual Education. Disciplinary
  Attitude in Moral and Physical Training.
  Origin, Significance, and Influence of the Theory of
  Formal Discipline. Opposition to the Disciplinary
  Theory and More Recent Modification. Locke’s Real
  Position on Formal Discipline.


  CHAPTER XVII

  EDUCATION IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES                               187

  American Education a Development from European.
  Conditions in Europe from Which American Education
  Sprang. Colonial School Organization: The Aristocratic
  Type in Virginia. The Parochial Schools in New Netherlands.
  Sectarian Organization of Schools in Pennsylvania.
  Town Schools in Massachusetts. Education
  in the Other Colonies.


  _PART IV_

  MODERN TIMES


  CHAPTER XVIII

  GROWTH OF THE DEMOCRATIC IDEAL IN EDUCATION                      203

  The Revolt from Absolutism. The Two Epochs in
  the Eighteenth Century. Voltaire and the Encyclopedists.
  Rousseau and His Times. Rousseau’s
  Works.


  CHAPTER XIX

        PAGE

  NATURALISM IN EDUCATION                                          210

  The Influence of Rousseau’s Naturalism. Naturalistic
  Basis of the _Emile_. The Five Books of the _Emile_.
  Estimate of the _Emile_. The Sociological Movements in
  Modern Education. The Scientific Movement in Modern
  Education. The Psychological Movements in Modern
  Education. The Spread of Rousseau’s Doctrines. Development
  of Basedow’s Educational Reforms. Text-books
  and Other Works. Course and Methods of the
  Philanthropinum. Influence of the Philanthropinum.


  CHAPTER XX

  PHILANTHROPY IN EDUCATION                                        230

  Reconstructive Tendencies of the Eighteenth Century.
  The Rise of Charity Schools in England. The
  Schools of the S. P. C. K. Other Charity Schools. The
  Charity Schools of the S. P. G. Charity Schools among
  the Pennsylvania Germans. The ‘Sunday School’
  Movement in Great Britain. The ‘Sunday School’
  Movement in the United States. Value of the Instruction
  in ‘Sunday Schools.’ The Schools of the Two Monitorial
  Societies. Value of the Monitorial System in England.
  Results of the Monitorial System in the United
  States. The ‘Infant Schools’ in France. The ‘Infant
  Schools’ in England. ‘Infant Schools’ in the United
  States. The Importance of Philanthropic Education.


  CHAPTER XXI

  THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION IN AMERICAN EDUCATION                   251

  Evolution of Public Education in the United States.
  Rise of the Common School in Virginia. Similar Developments
  in the Other Southern States. Evolution of
  Public Education in New York. New York City. Development
  of Systems of Education in Pennsylvania and
  the Other Middle States. Decline of Education in Massachusetts.
  Developments in the Other New England
  States. The Extension of Educational Organization to
  the Northwest. Condition of the Common Schools
  Prior to the Awakening.


  CHAPTER XXII

  OBSERVATION AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING IN EDUCATION                 276

  Pestalozzi as the Successor of Rousseau. Pestalozzi’s
  Philanthropic and Industrial Ideals. His Industrial
  School at Neuhof and the _Leonard and Gertrude_. His
  School at Stanz and Beginning of His Observational
  Methods. Continuation of His Methods at Burgdorf,
  and _How Gertrude Teaches Her Children_. The ‘Institute’
  at Yverdon and the Culmination of the Pestalozzian
  Methods. Pestalozzi’s Educational Aim and Organization.
  His General Method. The Permanent Influence of
  Pestalozzi. The Spread of Pestalozzian Schools and
  Methods through Europe. Pestalozzianism in the
  United States. Pestalozzi’s Industrial Training Continued
  by Fellenberg. The Agricultural School and
  Other Institutions at Hofwyl. Industrial Training in the
  Schools of Europe. Industrial Institutions in the
  United States.


  CHAPTER XXIII

  DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES             302

  The Third Period in American Education. Early
  Leaders in the Common School Revival. Work of James
  G. Carter. Horace Mann as Secretary of the Massachusetts
  Board. The Educational Suggestions and Achievements
  of Mann. Henry Barnard’s Part in the Educational
  Awakening. Barnard as Secretary of the Connecticut
  State Board. Commissioner of Common
  Schools in Rhode Island. State Superintendent of
  Schools in Connecticut. _Barnard’s American Journal
  of Education._ First United States Commissioner of
  Education. Value of Barnard’s Educational Collections.
  Educational Development in New England since the
  Revival. Influence of the Awakening upon the Middle
  States. Public Education in the West. Organization of
  State Systems in the South. Development of the American
  System of Education.


  CHAPTER XXIV

  DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE                              333

  Froebel and Herbart as Disciples of Pestalozzi. The
  Early Career and Writings of Herbart. Work at Königsberg and
  Göttingen. Herbart’s Psychology. The Aim,
  Content, and Method. The Value and Influence of
  Herbart’s Principles. The Extension of His Doctrines
  in Germany. Herbartianism in the United States.
  Froebel’s Early Life. His Experiences at Frankfort,
  Yverdon, and Berlin. The School at Keilhau. Development
  of the Kindergarten. Froebel’s Fundamental
  Concept of ‘Unity.’ Motor Expression as His Method.
  The Social Aspect of Education. The Kindergarten.
  The Value and Influence of Froebel’s Principles. The
  Spread of Froebelianism through Europe. The Kindergarten
  in the United States. The Relative Influence of
  Pestalozzi, Herbart, and Froebel.


  CHAPTER XXV

  THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SYSTEMS                                370

  National Systems of Education in Europe and Canada.
  The Beginning of State Control in Prussia. Educational
  Achievements of Frederick the Great. Educational Influence
  of Zedlitz. Foundation of the Ministry of Education
  and Further Progress. The Elementary System.
  The Secondary System. Higher Education. Educational
  Development In France. The Primary School
  System. The Secondary System. The Institutions of
  Higher Education. Centralized Administration of
  the French Education. Early Development of English
  Education. Educational Movements in the Nineteenth
  Century. Subsequent Educational Movements. Development
  of Education in the Dominion of Canada.
  The Public School System of Ontario. The System of
  Ecclesiastical Schools in Quebec.


  CHAPTER XXVI

  THE SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT AND THE CURRICULUM                       397

  The Development of the Natural Sciences in Modern
  Times. The Growth of Inventions and Discoveries in
  the Nineteenth Century. Herbert Spencer and _What
  Knowledge is of Most Worth_. Advocacy of the Sciences
  by Huxley and Others. The Disciplinary Argument for
  the Sciences. Introduction of the Sciences into Educational
  Institutions in Germany, France, England, and
  the United States. Interrelation of the Scientific with
  the Psychological and Sociological Movements.


  CHAPTER XXVII

  PRESENT DAY TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION                              418

  Recent Educational Progress. The Growth of Industrial
  Training. Industrial Schools in Europe. Industrial
  Training in the United States. Commercial Education
  in Europe and America. Recent Emphasis upon Agricultural
  Training. Moral Training in the Schools To-day.
  The Development of Training for Mental Defectives.
  Education of the Deaf and Blind. Recent
  Development of Educational Method; Dewey’s Experimental
  School. Other Experiments in Method. The
  Montessori Method. The Statistical Method and
  Mental Measurements in Education. Education and
  the Theory of Evolution. Enlarging Conceptions of
  the Function of Education.


  CHAPTER XXVIII

        PAGE

  RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT                                          441

  The Development of Individualism. The Harmonization
  of the Individual and Society.

  INDEX                                                            447




ILLUSTRATIONS


    PLATE   FIG.                                            OPPOSITE PAGE
      1.     1.  Elders explaining to young men of an Australian
                 tribe at the ‘initiatory ceremonies’                   8

             2.  A Hindu school in the open air, with the
                 village schoolmaster teaching boys to write on
                 a strip of palm leaf with an iron stylus               8

      2.     3.  The _palæstra_ in education at Athens                 14
             4.  The _didascaleum_ in education at Athens              14

      3.     5.  Roman school materials                                36

             6.  Scene at a ludus or Roman elementary school           36

      4.     7.  A monk in the _scriptorium_                           56

             8.  A monastic school                                     56

      5.     9.  The temple of wisdom; an allegorical
                 representation of the mediæval course of study        72

      6.    10.  The lecture in mediæval universities                  80

            11.  The disputation in mediæval universities              80

      7.    12 and 13.  Preliminaries and termination of a
                 combat in the education of chivalry                   86

            14.  Boys playing tournament with a ‘quintain’ or
                 dummy man                                             86

      8.    15.  Apprenticeship training in a gild                     92

            16.  Gild school at Stratford, where Shakespeare
                 learned ‘little Latin and less Greek’                 92

      9.    17.  Great English Public Schools: Winchester and
                 Eton                                                 120

     10.    18.  Education of the Jesuits: Jesuit College at
                 Regensburg and diagram of a Jesuit schoolroom        136

     11.    19.  School of the Christian Brothers at Rouen            146

            20.  A Protestant school in a German village of
                 the sixteenth century                                146

     12.    21.  A page from the _Orbis Pictus_ of Comenius,
                 illustrating a lesson on a trade                     170

     13.    22.  Town school at Dedham (Massachusetts) with
                 watch-tower, built in 1648                           198

            23.  Boston Latin School, founded in 1635                 198

            24.  The buildings of Harvard College, erected in
                 1675, 1699, and 1720                                 198

     14.    25.  The child as a miniature adult                       228

            26.  A naturalistic school                                228

     15.    27.  A monitorial schoolroom                              242

            28.  Pupils reciting to monitors                          242

            29.  Monitor inspecting slates                            242

     16.    30.  A ‘kitchen school’                                   268

            31.  A colonial ‘summer school’                           268

            32.  The first ‘academy’ founded by Benjamin
                 Franklin at Philadelphia in 1750                     268

     17.    33.  ‘Father’ Pestalozzi at Stanz                         282

            34.  The ‘table of units’ of Pestalozzi                   282

     18.    35.  Court of Fellenberg’s Agricultural Institute         298

            36.  General view of Fellenberg’s schools and
                 workshops                                            298

     19.    37.  James G. Carter                                      312

            38.  Horace Mann                                          312

            39.  Henry Barnard                                        312

            40.  Francis W. Parker                                    312

     20.    41.  The first high school, established at Boston
                 in 1821                                              332

            42.  The University of Michigan in 1855                   332

     21.    43.  ‘The Carpenter’ from Froebel’s _Mother Play_         360

     22.    44.  Jean Jacques Rousseau                                368

            45.  Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi                           368

            46.  Johann Friedrich Herbart                             368

            47.  Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel                     368

  In text.  48.  Diagram of German education                          380

  In text.  49.  Diagram of French education                          392

  In text.  50.  Diagram of English education                         392

     23.    51.  Charles Darwin                                       404

            52.  Herbert Spence                                       404

            53.  Thomas H. Huxley                                     404

            54.  Charles W. Eliot                                     404

  In text.  55.  Diagram of vocational education of boys in           424
                 Germany

     24.    56.  Indian house constructed in Dewey’s
                 experimental school                                  436

            57.  Part of the Thorndike Writing Scale                  436




FOREWORD


Each chapter in this book will be prefaced by an _Outline_, or
generalized statement of the ideas to be included in it. Logically such
an epitome is needed at the beginning as well as at the end of the
chapter. At the beginning, it serves as a hypothetical or tentative
generalization of the facts; at the end, as a conclusion whose
truth has been tested in the light of these facts and accepted with
conviction.

By having this outline in mind when he studies the facts, the student
is enabled not only to see that the general statements are verified and
made more significant by the details, but at the same time to organize
the facts with reference to the generalization, and thereby secure
an easier control of them, and, through the relation of each to the
others, discover a fuller meaning in them all. Then, after this study
of the details has established the truth of the outline and enriched
its meaning, he can review the outline and fix it in mind as the
conclusion of the chapter.




PART I

ANCIENT TIMES




A STUDENTS HISTORY OF EDUCATION




CHAPTER I

THE EARLIEST EDUCATION


OUTLINE

    Even a brief survey of the history of education may greatly broaden
    one’s view.

    Starting with primitive man, we find that his training aims only
    at the necessities of life, and is acquired informally through the
    elders and the medicine-men.

    In Oriental education, the next stage in progress, illustrated by
    India, a traditional knowledge is acquired through _memoriter_ and
    imitative methods.

    While Oriental, Jewish education afforded greater development of
    individuality, but it was late in organizing schools, _memoriter_
    in methods, and restricted in content.

    Thus all education before the day of the Greeks was largely
    _non-progressive_.

[Sidenote: Breadth of view obtained]

=The Value of the History of Education.=--The History of Education from
the earliest times should contribute largely to one’s breadth of view
and prove a study of the greatest liberal culture. A record of typical
instances of the moral, æsthetic, and intellectual development of man
in all lands and at all periods should certainly enlarge one’s vision
and enable him to appreciate more fully the part that education has
played in the progress of civilization. Such cultural values may be
found even in a limited survey of the world’s educational development.

[Sidenote: Space and perspective here given to subject matter.]

=Its Treatment in This Book.=--And this is all that will be undertaken
here. For, while valuable as a liberal study, the History of Education
finds its justification chiefly in the degree to which it functions
in the professional training of a teacher, and it will be necessary
in a brief treatise to omit or pass over hastily much that might be
of interest and value in a more complete account of the development
of civilization. Therefore, the amount of space and the perspective
afforded the various peoples, epochs, and leaders must here be
determined in large measure by the part they have played in the
evolution of educational institutions and practices, and by the light
their history sheds upon the aim, organization, content, and method of
education to-day. At times, too, the history of a single epoch, state,
or educational leader will be selected as a type, to the exclusion of
others equally important, and treated with considerable intensiveness,
instead of describing all sides of the subject with encyclopædic
monotony. Now the first historical epoch to leave a real impress upon
modern practice is that of Athens at its height. Hence a mere statement
of the salient features of education preceding that period is all
that can be afforded in this brief survey. A detailed account of the
educational processes used by savage tribes, Oriental nations, and even
Judæa may prove interesting and important in other connections, but it
must here be largely curtailed.

[Sidenote: Training through elders and medicine-men ties the savage to
the present.]

=Primitive Education.=--There is little to be noted in the training of
the young among primitive peoples, save that it is intended largely
for the satisfaction of immediate wants--food, clothing, and shelter.
Naturally no such actual institution as a school has yet been evolved,
but the training is transmitted informally by the parents. The method
used is simply that of example and imitation, or, more specifically,
‘trial and success.’ But a more conscious and formal education is given
at puberty through the ‘initiatory ceremonies’ (Fig. 1). In these rites
the youths are definitely instructed by the older men about their
relation to the spirits and the totem animals, subordination to the
elders, the relations of the sexes, the sacredness of the clansman’s
obligations, and other traditional usages. Strict silence is enjoined
upon them concerning this information, and to impress it upon their
minds, and test their endurance, they are required to fast for several
days and are often tortured and mutilated. As the savage does not
clearly distinguish between himself and the tribe to which he belongs,
there is practically no development of individuality, and since the
race has not yet learned to treasure its experience in writing, he has
no record of past experience and is virtually tied to the present.

[Sidenote: Vocational training and class divisions of the Orient.]

=Oriental Education.=--The nations of the ancient Orient--Egypt,
Babylonia, Assyria, China, India, and Persia--may be said to represent
the next higher stage in civilization. Their systems of education
prepare mostly for vocations, and are not sufficiently advanced to
undertake a training for manhood or citizenship. But since a division
of labor has now been evolved, the training has become more clearly
differentiated and fits for specific occupations. In this way, class
divisions, or even castes, have generally arisen in society, and the
young people are educated according to the position in life they
desire, or are required to fill. As an illustration of this stage of
development, we may consider somewhat in detail the social environment
and education of India.

[Sidenote: Mystic religion and caste system in India.]

=India: Its Religion and Castes.=--In India, largely as a result of
the debilitating climate, there was formulated about 1200 B. C. a
dreamy philosophy, according to which nothing except Brahma, the one
universal spirit, really exists. While men would seem to be temporarily
allowed a separate existence of their own, it was held that they should
remain inactive as far as possible and seek an ultimate absorption
into the great Eternal Spirit. Although somewhat modified by the
infusion of Buddhism, between 500 B. C. and 500 A. D., and by the
British occupation of the peninsula during the nineteenth century,
this mystic and static religion still dominates in India. Connected
with it is the caste system, by which the people are divided into
four hereditary classes. These are (1) the _brahmins_, or sacerdotal
class, which includes all those trained for law, medicine, teaching,
and other professional occupations; (2) the warriors, or military and
administrative caste; (3) the industrial group; and (4) the _sudras_,
or menial caste. Altogether outside the social order are the _pariahs_,
or outcasts. The caste system is exceedingly strict. One may fall into
a lower caste, but he cannot rise, and loss of caste by one person in a
family will degrade all the rest.

[Sidenote: Knowledge of sacred books and training in laws and
traditions.]

=The Hindu Education.=--Hence Hindu education has always endeavored
to fill the pupils with the tenets of their religion, and so prepare
them for absorption into the Infinite, rather than for activities in
this life, and to preserve the caste system and keep all within the
sphere of their occupation. The three upper castes are, therefore,
supposed to gain a knowledge of certain sacred works, especially
the four _Vedas_ or books of ‘knowledge,’ the six _Angas_ on
philosophical and scientific subjects, and the _Code of Manu_, which
is a collection of traditional customs; but few, outside the brahmin
class, are ever allowed to take advantage of this opportunity. The
warriors are expected to pay more attention to martial exercises,
and the industrial caste to acquire through apprenticeship the arts
necessary for its hereditary occupations. Sudras, pariahs, and women
are generally allowed no education. Except the sudras, all the castes
obtain elementary education from a study of the laws, traditions, and
customs of the country through the medium of the family, and more
recently through village schools held in the open air (Fig. 2). The
higher education is largely carried on in brahminic colleges, called
_parishads_, and, as also in the case of the elementary work, the
teachers have to be brahmins. Since all learning has been preserved by
tradition, the chief methods of instruction are those of memorizing
and imitation. Even the later texts are so written as to be easily
committed, and the lines are sung aloud by the pupils until they have
memorized them. Writing is learned by imitating the teacher’s copy on
the sand with a stick, then on palm leaves with a stylus (Fig. 2), and
finally on plane leaves with ink.

[Sidenote: Much traditional learning, but no progress results.]

=Effect of the Hindu Education.=--Hence, among the Hindus education is
forbidden to ninety-five per cent of the population, and, as far as it
does exist, it is a mere stuffing of the memory. It concerns itself but
little with mental culture or with preparation for real living. The
brahmins have handed down considerable traditional learning, grammar,
phonetics, rhetoric, logic, ‘Arabic’ notation, algebra, astronomy, and
medicine, but new knowledge of any sort is barred. The Hindus still
plow with sticks of wood, and their crops are harvested and threshed
by devices equally primitive. They bake bricks, work metals, and weave
cloth, but with the same kind of appliances that were used by their
remote ancestors. Until recently, they have been greatly lacking in
ambition, self-reliance, and personal responsibility, and have not yet
come to any feeling of solidarity or national unity. To them prosperity
and progress are foreign ideas.

[Sidenote: Oriental education in bondage to the past.]

=India as Typical of the Orient.=--The other countries of the ancient
Orient never fixed their social classes in so hard and fast a manner,
and have never included so elaborate a philosophy among the products
of their culture. But India may well be considered broadly typical
of the stage of development in the Orient. Certain common features
appear in the education of all the nations there. In the system of
each, the classes below the sacerdotal or priestly are given little
intellectual education, and the women none at all, but both are trained
by apprenticeship in their vocations. Actual schools, both elementary
and higher, have been instituted; and the latter, except in China, are
conducted at temples or priestly colleges by members of the sacerdotal
class. The educational content is naturally traditional. It is, for
the most part, ensured against change by being embalmed in sacred
books, such as the _Vedas_. The educational method consists largely in
the memorizing of the test and imitation of the copy set, and little
attempt is made to give a reason for the customs and traditional
knowledge taught. Hence, while individuality has begun to emerge, it is
suppressed by every agency possible; and, although these peoples have
largely overcome the primitive enslavement to nature and the present,
they are completely in bondage to the past.

[Illustration: Fig. 1.--Elders explaining to young men of an Australian
tribe at the ‘initiatory ceremonies.’

(Reproduced from Spencer and Gillen’s _Across Australia_.)]

[Illustration: Fig. 2.--A Hindu school in the open air, with the
village schoolmaster teaching boys to write on a strip of palm leaf
with an iron stylus.

Reproduced from _Things as They Are_ by Amy Wilson-Carmichael, by
permission of the Fleming H. Revell Company.)]

[Sidenote: Greater development of personality,]

[Sidenote: but Oriental and non-progressive.]

=Jewish Education.=--The Jews are classed among the nations of the
Orient, but they formulated loftier aims and have exerted more
influence upon modern ideals in education. While their theology greatly
developed in the course of their history, from the first they held to
an ethical conception of God, and the chief goal of their education
was the building of moral and religious character. Not until after
the Babylonish captivity (586-536 B. C.), however, did they establish
actual schools. Before that, children were given an informal training
in the traditions and observances of their religion by their parents.
But they brought back from Babylon the idea of institutions for higher
training and started such schools through their synagogues. In the
second century B. C. the founding of elementary schools also began, and
eventually the Jews made education well-nigh universal. The beneficial
effect of this training is seen in the respect shown by the Jews for
their women, their kind treatment of children, and their reverence for
parents. The defects of their education appear in the stereotyped and
formal way in which the religious material came to be interpreted,
and the consequent hostility to science and art, except as they threw
light on some religious festival or custom. Although appeal was made
to various types of memory, systems of mnemonics devised, and other
good pedagogical features suggested, their methods of instruction
were largely _memoriter_. The Jewish system of education, as a whole,
afforded a greater development of personality than that of the other
Oriental nations, and through it have been spread some of the world’s
most exalted religious conceptions. Nevertheless, it did not depart
much from its traditions and the past, and to this extent it may be
classed with the training of the primitive tribes and of the Oriental
nations as predominantly _non-progressive_.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

For general works, see Graves, F. P., _History of Education before the
Middle Ages_ (Macmillan, 1909), chaps. I-XI; Monroe, P., _Text-book in
the History of Education_ (Macmillan, 1905), chaps. I-II. A general
interpretation of the evolution of education in savagery and barbarism
is also given in Laurie, S. S., _Pre-Christian Education_ (Longmans,
Green, 1909), pp. 1-207; Morgan, L. H., _Ancient Society_ (Holt,
1907), Part I; and Taylor, H. O., _Ancient Ideals_ (Macmillan, 1913),
vol. I, chaps. I-V. An illustration of primitive training of especial
interest to American students is found in Spencer, F. C., _Education
of the Pueblo Child_ (Columbia University, Department of Philosophy
and Psychology, vol. 7, no. 1); and a detailed description of the
puberty rites of a variety of savage tribes, in Webster, H., _Primitive
Secret Societies_, (Macmillan, 1908), chaps. I-V. A more complete
account of the Hindu philosophy and education appears in Dutt, R. C.,
_Civilization of India_ (Dent, London), and Taylor, H. O., _Ancient
Ideals_ (Macmillan, 1913), vol. I, chaps. III and IV. A systematic
statement of the Jewish training has been adapted from a German work,
in Leipziger, H. M., _Education of the Jews_ (New York Teachers
College, 1890), and a more detailed account worked out in Spiers, B.,
_School System of the Talmud_ (Stock, London, 1898).




CHAPTER II

THE EDUCATION OF THE GREEKS


OUTLINE

    The Spartan training was intended to serve the state by making
    warriors, and little attention was paid to intellectual education.

    At first the Athenian education was also mainly concerned in
    serving the state. For the earliest stage of the boy’s education,
    there were schools of two types,--one for intellectual training, as
    well as one for physical; from fifteen to eighteen a more advanced
    physical training was given; and then, for two years, a preparation
    for military life.

    After the Persian wars, the Athenians adopted ideals of education
    affording a larger recognition of individualism. The sophists
    introduced the new educational practices, and went to an extreme in
    their individualism.

    The systematic philosophers,--Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, tried
    to mediate the outworn institutional education and the extreme
    individualism. Socrates held that the sophistic ‘knowledge’ was
    only ‘opinion,’ and that the more universal knowledge could be
    reached in every person by stripping off his individualistic
    opinion.

    But Plato maintained that only the intellectual class could attain
    to knowledge. For them he formulated a new course of study, in
    addition to that in vogue, consisting of mathematical subjects and
    dialectic. Aristotle held that the training for every one before
    seven should be bodily; up to fourteen, the irrational soul should
    be trained; and until twenty-one, the rational. While Plato and
    Aristotle had little effect upon educational practice at the time,
    they have since greatly influenced education.

    After Aristotle, there arose individualistic schools of philosophy
    and formal schools of rhetoric, and out of them universities sprang
    up. Then Greek culture and education spread throughout the world.

[Sidenote: First development of individuality appeared among Greeks.]

=Progressive Nature of Greek Education.=--Real educational progress
began with the Greeks. In their training gradually appeared
considerable regard for individuality. They were the first people whose
outlook seems to have been toward the future rather than the past,
and they first made a serious attempt to promote human development in
accordance with a remote ideal progressively revealed. As a result,
they not only gave a wonderful impetus to educational practice in their
own time, but ever since then the world has had constant recourse to
them for inspiration and counsel. While this intellectual emancipation
did not appear to any extent before its development among the Athenians
in the middle of the fifth century B. C., well-planned systems of
education existed in Greece several centuries before this and paved the
way for the system in Athens during the Age of Pericles.

[Sidenote: Service to state the object.]

[Sidenote: Exposure of sickly infants.]

[Sidenote: Barracks training of boys.]

=Spartan Education: Its Aim and Early Stages.=--Among the states of
ancient Greece, Sparta possessed the earliest education of which we
have any extended information. Its citizens dwelt in the midst of
hostile peoples they had subjugated, and this made it necessary to
produce a race of hardy and patriotic warriors. Strength, courage, and
obedience to the laws were held as the aim of education. The Spartan
educational system was intended to serve the state, and the rights of
the individual were given little or no consideration. State control
began with birth. The infant was immediately inspected by a council
of elders, and, if he were sickly or deformed, he was ‘exposed’
to die in the mountains; but if he appeared physically promising,
he was formally adopted by the state and left with his mother for
rearing until seven. At that age the boys were placed in charge of a
state officer and ate and slept in a kind of public barracks. Here
their life became one of constant drill and discipline. In addition
to hard beds, scanty clothing, and little food, they were given a
graded course in gymnastics. Besides ball-playing, dancing, and the
_pentathlum_--running, jumping, throwing the discus, casting the
javelin, and wrestling--the exercises included boxing, and even
the brutal _pancratium_, in which any means of overcoming one’s
antagonist--kicking, gouging, and biting, as well as wrestling and
boxing--was permitted.

[Sidenote: Little intellectual or moral training.]

The Spartan boys, however, received only a little informal training
in the way of intellectual education. They simply committed to memory
and chanted the laws of Lycurgus and selections from Homer, and they
listened to the conversation of the older men during the meals at the
common table, and were themselves exercised in giving concise and
sensible answers to questions put to test their wisdom. Every adult was
also required to choose as his constant companion or ‘hearer’ a youth
to whom he might become an ‘inspirer.’

[Sidenote: Military training.]

=Training in Youth and Manhood: Results.=--When a youth reached
eighteen, he began the distinctive study of warfare. For two years he
was trained in the use of arms and skirmishing, and every ten days had
his courage and his physique tested by being whipped before the altar
of Artemis. Then he regularly entered the army, and for ten years
guarded some border fortress and lived upon the coarsest of fare. When
he became thirty, he was considered a man and forced to marry at once,
but even then he could visit his wife only clandestinely and was still
obliged to live in common with the boys and assist in their training.

[Sidenote: Similar education of girls.]

The education of women was very like that of the men. While the girls
were allowed to live at home, they were given a similar physical
training in the hope that they would become the mothers of sturdy sons.
Thus the Spartan education was shaped entirely with reference to the
welfare of the state. Their educational system served well its purpose
of creating strong warriors and devoted citizens, but it failed to
make for the highest manhood. Sparta developed practically no art,
literature, or philosophy, and produced little that tended to promote
civilization. She has left to the world little but examples of heroism
and foolhardiness alike.

[Sidenote: Two types of schools: (1) the _palaestra_, furnishing
physical training; (2) the _didascaleum_, furnishing music, reading,
and writing.]

[Sidenote: The _paedagogus_.]

=Old Athenian Education: Its Aim and Early Training.=--For many
centuries the Athenian education was not unlike the Spartan in
promoting the welfare of the state without much consideration of
individual interests. But even in early days Athens felt that the
state was best served when the individual secured the most complete
personal development. Hence, the Athenian boys began to receive at
seven years of age two kinds of training,--(1) the _pentathlum_ and
other physical exercises in the palaestra (Fig. 3) or exercising
ground, and (2) singing and playing upon the flute or lyre, and reading
and writing at the _didascaleum_ (Fig. 4.) or music school. After
the boy had learned his letters by tracing them in the sand, he was
taught to copy verses and selections from well-known authors, at first
upon wax-tablets with a stylus, and later upon parchment with pen
and ink. It was, moreover, necessary for the pupils in singing to be
taught the rhythm and melody, and to understand the poem so as to bring
out its meaning. Hence the explanations and interpretations given by
the teachers brought in all the learning of the times, and the moral
and intellectual value of the studies must have been much greater
than would be suggested by the meagerness of the course. Some moral
training and discipline were also given the boy by a slave called the
_paedagogus_, who conducted him to school and carried his lyre and
other appurtenances. This functionary was often advanced in years or
incapacitated for other duties by physical disability.

[Illustration: Fig. 3.--The _palaestra_.]

[Illustration: Fig. 4.--The _didascaleum_.]

(Reproduced from illustrations taken from old vases by Freeman in his
_Schools of Hellas_.)

[Sidenote: Advanced physical training in _gymnasia_, and ephebic course
in military duties.]

=Training for the Youth.=--At fifteen the Athenian boy might take
physical training of a more advanced character at one of the exercising
grounds just outside Athens, which were known as _gymnasia_. He was now
permitted to go wherever he wished and become acquainted with public
life through first-hand contact. When eighteen the youth took the
oath of loyalty to Athens, and for two years as an _ephebus_ or cadet
continued his education with a course in military duties. The first
year he spent in the neighborhood of Athens and formed part of the city
garrison, but in the second year he was transferred to some fortress on
the frontier. At twenty the young man became a citizen, but even then
his training continued through the drama, architecture, sculpture, and
art that were all about him.

[Sidenote: Women given little training.]

[Sidenote: Resemblance of old Athenian education to Spartan.]

=Effect of the Old Athenian Education.=--Little attention was, however,
given by the Athenians to the education of woman. It was felt that
her duties demanded no knowledge beyond ordinary skill in household
affairs. With this exception, the Athenian education was superior to
the Spartan in allowing greater opportunity for individual development
and in furnishing a more rounded training. Nevertheless, until about
the middle of the fifth century B. C., while differing considerably in
degree from Sparta, Athens may be grouped with that country as adhering
to the ‘old’ education, where the individual was subordinated to the
good of the social whole.

[Sidenote: Extreme individualism in new Athenian education.]

=Causes and Character of the New Athenian Education.=--This
characterization is, of course, in contrast to Greek education in the
‘new’ period, which is represented by Athens alone. This later type
of education was probably somewhat the result of the gradual rise of
democratic ideals in Athens, but a more immediate set of factors grew
out of the Persian wars (492-479 B. C.). This extended conflict with
a powerful Oriental people, possessing a well-organized but widely
different body of traditions tended to broaden the views of the
Athenians greatly, and the ensuing political and commercial intercourse
with a variety of dependent states and nations in the Delian League,
together with social contact with the foreigners from every land that
were thronging the streets of Athens, led even more directly to a
reconstruction of practices and beliefs. A rapid transition in the
old traditions took place and society seems for a time to have been
sadly disorganized. The old was shattered, and while new ideals were
being constructed, a groping ensued. Although the latitude given the
individual was destined, as always, to produce progress in the long
run, and was of great ultimate service to the world, more immediately a
low ebb in morals at Athens resulted. Individualism ran riot. Education
reflected the conditions of the period. Its ideals became more and
more individualistic. The times demanded a training that would promote
the happiness of the individual with little consideration for the
welfare of the state as a whole. The old education seemed narrow and
barren of content; and there arose a desire for all sorts of knowledge
that might contribute to one’s advancement, whether it increased his
social usefulness or not. Skill in debate and public speaking was
especially sought, because of the unusual opportunity for personal
achievement in politics.

[Sidenote: Study of grammatical and rhetorical subtleties, in the place
of the old education.]

=The Sophists and Their Training.=--To meet these new demands, a set of
teachers known as the _sophists_ came into prominence. They professed
to train young men for a political career, and some of them even
claimed to teach any subject whatsoever, or how to defend either side
of an argument. These pretensions, together with their charging a fee
for their services, contrary to Athenian custom, seriously offended
the more conservative of the citizens of Athens. But many of the first
sophists afforded an honest and careful training. The effect of their
teaching was especially felt by the adolescents in the _gymnasium_
stage of education, since they were ambitious to distinguish
themselves politically. The physical training that had hitherto
dominated the gymnasium course gave way to a study of grammatical and
rhetorical subtleties, and whenever a sophist appeared in the street,
market-place, or house, the young men crowded about him to borrow from
his store of experience and wisdom, and acquire his method of argument.
To a less degree the same influence was felt in the lower schools and
by the cadets and younger citizens. The exercises of the palaestra were
no longer as rigorous, and existed for the sake of individual health
and pleasure rather than for the making of citizens. The literary work
of the didascaleum came to include, besides the Homeric epics, a wide
range of didactic, reflective, and lyric poetry, with a superabundance
of discussions. In music the old patriotic and religious songs sung to
the simple Doric airs and accompanied upon the seven-stringed lyre,
were replaced by rhythms of great difficulty, like the Lydian and
Phrygian, and by complicated instruments of all sorts.

[Sidenote: Reaction from the old subordination of the individual to the
state.]

=Their Extreme Individualism.=--All this inroad upon the time honored
curriculum shows how fully the sophists embodied the individualism of
the times. Although they held no body of doctrine common to them all,
they were generally at one in their position of extreme individualism.
They often went so far as to insist that there could not safely be
any universal criteria in knowledge or morals; that no satisfactory
interpretation of life could be made for all, but that every fact and
situation should be subject to the judgment of the individual. No doubt
the formula attributed to Protagoras, “Man (i. e. the individual) is
the measure of all things, both of the seen and the unseen,” would have
expressed the attitude common to most of them. They but carried to
its legitimate conclusion the complete reaction from the old ideal of
subordination of the individual to the state.

[Sidenote: The attitude of Pythagoras and Aristophanes;]

[Sidenote: and of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.]

=The Reactionaries and the Mediators.=--Meanwhile, the conservative
element was making its usual attempt to adjust the unsettled conditions
by suggesting a return to the old. Various schemes had been advanced,
even before the sophists had come into prominence. Of these the most
complete plan was that of Pythagoras (about 580-500 B. C.). By
adopting an analogy from the ‘harmony’ of the celestial bodies and from
the relation of the powers in the individual to each other, he arranged
a definite hierarchy in society, so that each member should have his
proper place, and complete harmony and social order should ensue. As
the influence of the sophists began to be felt, later representatives
of the reactionary movement, such as the matchless caricaturist,
Aristophanes (445-380 B. C.), began to appear and inveigh against
the new conditions. But the social process can never move backward,
and reconstruction on some higher plane was needed to overcome the
destructive tendencies of the times. To furnish this, was the task
set themselves by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Like the sophists,
they recognized that the traditional beliefs and sanctions, the old
social order, and the former ideals and content of education, had been
outlived, and that the individual could not find truth and morality
through an institutional system. At the same time they felt that the
extreme individualism of the sophists was too negative a basis upon
which to build, and that a more socialized standard of knowledge and
morality must be sought.

[Sidenote: ‘Knowledge’ versus ‘opinion’.]

[Sidenote: The ‘dialectic’ of Socrates.]

=The Method of Socrates.=--This mediating effort was begun by Socrates
(469-399 B. C.). While he started with the formula of Protagoras, he
maintained that the ‘man’ indicated thereby was not the individual, but
mankind as a whole. It is not the peculiar view of any individual that
represents the truth, but the knowledge that is the same for everyone.
The former, which the sophists considered ‘knowledge,’ Socrates held
to be only ‘opinion,’ and declared that the reason men think so
differently is because each sees but one side of the truth. He believed
that everyone could get at universal knowledge by stripping off
individual differences and laying bare the essentials upon which all
men are agreed. He conceived it to be the mission of the philosopher or
teacher to enable the individual to do this, and he endeavored to deal
with the mind of all those with whom he came in contact, so that they
would form valid conclusions. By his method, known as the _dialectic_,
or ‘conversational,’ he first encouraged the individual to make a
definite statement of his belief, and then, through a set of clever
questions, caused the person to develop his thought, until he became so
involved in manifest contradictions that he was forced to admit that
his view had been imperfectly formed. He thus caused the individual to
see that the view he had first expressed was mere ‘opinion’ and but
a single phase of the universal truth. As Socrates further held that
morality consists in right knowledge and made no distinction between
the knowledge of an action and the impulse to perform it, he strove
through his methods of developing knowledge to harmonize the individual
welfare with that of the social group.

[Sidenote: In the _Republic_ government was to be by the intellectual
class.]

[Sidenote: Early education.]

[Sidenote: Cadet training.]

=Plato’s System of Education for the Three Classes of Society.=--But
the believers in the old traditions and institutional morality felt
that Socrates was atheistic and immoral. They persuaded Athens to give
him the hemlock, and thus destroyed the man who might have proved her
savior. A pupil, Plato (427-347 B. C.), undertook to continue his work,
but his aristocratic birth and temperament caused him to underestimate
the intelligence of the masses. He held that they were incapable of
attaining to ‘knowledge’--that they possessed only ‘opinion.’ In his
most famous dialogue, _The Republic_, he endeavors to show that the
ideal state can exist only when the entire control of the government
is entrusted to the ‘philosophers,’ or intellectual class, who alone
possess ‘real knowledge.’ Those who are to compose the three classes
of society Plato would have selected during the educational process on
the basis of their ability. For all boys up to eighteen years of age
he prescribes an education similar to that in vogue in the palaestra,
didascaleum, and gymnasium, except that he would somewhat expurgate
the literary element, and would confine the musical training to the
simpler melodies and instruments. The youths who prove capable of going
beyond this lower education are next to take up the cadet training
between eighteen and twenty, but those who are incapable of further
education are to be relegated to the industrial class. During the cadet
period are to be determined those capable of going on with the higher
education of philosophers, while those who here reach their limit
become members of the military class.

[Sidenote: Higher education for philosophers:]

[Sidenote: (1) mathematical subjects;]

[Sidenote: (2) dialectic.]

As Athenian education did not extend beyond the twentieth year, Plato
is here obliged to invent a new course of study that will enable
the future philosophers to acquire the habit of speculation. This
additional course, he declares, should also be graded, in order that
a further test of intellectual and moral qualities may be made.
Arithmetic, plane and solid geometry, music, and astronomy, are to
occupy the first ten years of the course. These subjects, however,
are not to be studied for calculation or practical purposes of any
sort, but entirely from the standpoint of theory or the universal
relations underlying them, since only thus can they furnish a capacity
for abstract thought. After this, at thirty, the young men who can go
no further, are to be placed in the minor offices of the state, while
those who have shown themselves capable of the study of dialectic, go
on with that subject for five years longer. It then becomes the duty of
these highest philosophers to guide and control the state until they
have reached the age of fifty, when they may be allowed to retire.

[Sidenote: Return to subordination of the individual;]

[Sidenote: neglect of human will;]

[Sidenote: failure to see all human traits in each individual;]

[Sidenote: no means of evolution.]

=The Weakness of Plato’s System.=--Thus, where Socrates found the
basis of universal truth in everyone, Plato held that only one class
of people, the most intellectual, could attain to real knowledge. He,
therefore, maintained that the philosophers should absolutely guide
the conduct of the state, and that education should be organized
with that in view. Plato’s ideal state would thus become a sort of
intellectual oligarchy, and in a way was a return to the old principle
of subordinating the individual to society. _The Republic_ thus quite
neglected human will as a factor in society and assumed that men
can be moved about in life like pieces upon the chess board. Plato
failed to see, too, that each individual really possesses all human
characteristics. The workers have reason, and the philosophers have
passions, and a human being is not a man unless all these functions are
his. But even if his scheme had been a happy one, the treatise provided
no method of evolution from current conditions, and if it were further
granted that this order of things could be established at once. Plato
put the ban upon all innovation or change, and so closed the door to
progress.

[Sidenote: _The Laws_ offered a more practical and traditional system
of education.]

Hence _The Republic_ was viewed as a visionary conception, and had no
immediate effect upon education or any other institution of Athens. So
in his declining years, without denying _The Republic_ as ideal, he
wrote the more practical dialogue known as _The Laws_. In it he welded
elements from the educational systems of Sparta and older Athens, and
reverted to traditions and ideals not dissimilar to the doctrines of
Pythagoras. He replaced the philosophers with priests, an hereditary
ruler, a superintendent of education, and various other officials; and
the course of study reached its height with the subject of mathematics,
while dialectic was not mentioned.

[Sidenote: Model for later Utopias.]

[Sidenote: The ‘quadrivium’ and ‘formal discipline.’]

=His Influence upon Educational Theory and Practice.=--Thus the efforts
of Socrates, as continued by Plato, to obtain the benefit of the
growing individualism for society and education without disrupting
them, had seemingly come to naught. Nevertheless, Plato has had
considerable influence upon the thought and practice of men since the
Greek period. The ideal society where everything is well managed and
everyone is in the position for which nature intended him, has ever
since the day of _The Republic_ been a favorite theme for writers, as
witness More’s _Utopia_ and the _New Atlantis_ of Bacon. A specific
movement that shows the impress of Plato, as we shall see later, is the
formulation of the more advanced studies of the mediæval ‘seven liberal
arts’ under the name of the ‘quadrivium.’ It is even possible that the
whole conception of ‘liberal’ studies, and so the doctrine of ‘formal
discipline’ (see p. 182), may be traced back to Plato’s idea that the
mathematical subjects in the course for philosophers should never be
studied from a practical point of view. On the whole, Plato has been a
factor in educational theory and practice that cannot be overlooked.

[Sidenote: Theoretically a monarchy, but practically a democracy is
best.]

=Aristotle’s Ideal State and Education.=--A more practical attempt to
unify the new with the old in Athenian society and education was made
by Aristotle (386-322 B. C.), the pupil of Plato. From his father, the
court physician at Macedon, and from his study under Plato, Aristotle
obtained an excellent scientific training, which is evident in the
way he approaches his problems. It is in his _Politics_ especially
that he discusses the ideal state and the training of a citizen. His
method of investigation to determine the nature of this ideal state
is inductive, and before formulating his conception of it, he makes a
critical analysis of Plato’s _Republic_ and _Laws_, and analyzes the
organization of many other states, both ideal and actual. He concludes
that a monarchy is theoretically the best type of government, but that
the form most likely to be exercised for the good of the governed is
the democracy. He then considers in detail the best natural and social
conditions for a state. Among these practical considerations is the
proper education to make its citizens virtuous.

[Sidenote: Education necessary for virtue.]

[Sidenote: Training of the body,--]

[Sidenote: sensible advice.]

Since virtue is of two kinds, moral or practical, and intellectual or
speculative, and the former is merely the stepping-stone to the latter,
the education needed for the virtue of the state must not, like that
of Sparta, be purely a training for war and practical affairs. In
marking off the periods of education, Aristotle holds that “the care
of the body ought to precede that of the soul, and the training of the
impulsive side of the soul ought to come next; nevertheless, the care
of it must be for the sake of the reason, and the care of the body
for the sake of the soul.” The development of the body he wishes to
start even before birth by having the legislator “consider at what age
his citizens should marry and who are fit to marry.” Also he deems it
necessary to sanction the usage of his time of ‘exposing’ (see p. 13)
all deformed and weakly children. However, his advice concerning the
food, clothing, and exercise of children is humane and in keeping with
the best modern hygiene.

[Sidenote: Training of the irrational soul,--]

[Sidenote: gymnastics, music, and literary subjects.]

The training of the body is a preparation for the formal schooling,
which is to last from seven to twenty-one. This is divided into two
periods by puberty, the first to be devoted to the training of the
impulsive or irrational side of the soul, and the second to that of the
rational side. Education, he claims, should be public, as in Sparta,
for it is the business of the state to see that its citizens are all
rendered virtuous. However, the industrial classes, not being citizens,
have no need of education, and women are to be limited in the scope
of their training. The course of study for the irrational period is
largely the same as that in use at Athens,--gymnastics, music, and
literary subjects, although he recommends some reforms. Gymnastics
is intended for self-control and beauty of form, and the making of
neither athletes nor warriors should be the object, since the training
of the former exhausts the constitution, and that of the latter is
brutalizing. The literary subjects, which with Aristotle includes
drawing, as well as reading and writing, are not to be taught merely
for utilitarian reasons. Music is to be used not so much for relaxation
or intellectual enjoyment as for higher development. Since melodies
that afford pleasure are connected with noble ideas, and those
which give us pain are joined to debased ideas, the study of music
“cultivates the habit of forming right judgments, and of taking delight
in good dispositions and noble actions.” Another moral effect of music
is that it produces _katharsis_ or ‘purification’; that is, by arousing
in us pity and fear for humanity at large, it lifts us out of ourselves
and affords a safe vent for our emotions.

[Sidenote: Training of the rational soul,--mathematical subjects,
dialectic, and sciences.]

Such was to be the training for the body and for the irrational period,
but how Aristotle would have advised that the education of the rational
soul be carried on can only be surmised, since the treatise breaks off
suddenly at this point. It is probable that it would have included
a higher training in mathematical subjects and dialectic similar to
that advocated by Plato, and, from Aristotle’s own predilections, he
would have been likely also to add some of the physical and biological
sciences.

[Sidenote: Somewhat in bondage to his times.]

[Sidenote: Contribution to sciences, formulation of laws of thought,
and invention of terminology.]

[Sidenote: Formulation of Church doctrine.]

=The Permanent Value of His Work.=--Thus Aristotle, like Plato,
endeavored to work out the harmonizing of individual with social
interests by the creation of an ideal state, and he similarly failed
to answer the demand of the times. His work was much less visionary
than _The Republic_, but he did not fully recognize that the day of
the small isolated states of Greece, with their narrow prescriptions
for patriotism and social order, had passed forever. Hence he hoped to
achieve some reform by departing but little from existing conditions
and reading a philosophy into them, and this bondage to the times
prevented his educational system from making any advance beyond that
of Plato. But while Aristotle had little effect upon the society of
the times, his works have since been considered of great value, and
the methods that he formulated have been most important. He not
only started, or made the first great contributions to a number of
sciences, but he crystallized the laws of thought itself. Also, as
instruments to assist in fashioning the various sciences, Aristotle
invented a complete system of terminology, and created such pairs as
‘matter’ and ‘form,’ ‘mean’ and ‘extreme,’ and ‘cause’ and ‘effect,’
and such convenient expressions as ‘principle,’ ‘maxim,’ ‘habit,’ and
‘faculty.’ A more important effect of Aristotle’s ideas has been that
upon the formulation of doctrine in the Christian Church. After the
spread of Mohammedanism, which had largely absorbed the Aristotelian
principles, the Church, though at first bitterly opposing them, finally
found it impossible to suppress them, and began to clothe her own
doctrine in their dress. The greatest of the scholastics began to study
Aristotelianism, and soon made it the effective weapon of the Church
by reducing all human knowledge to a finished Aristotelian system with
theology at the top.

[Sidenote: Triumph of individualism.]

=The Post-Aristotelian Schools of Philosophy.=--But the harmonizing
attempt of Aristotle was fruitless. Like Socrates and Plato, he failed
to reconcile with the old and settled order the ever-expanding movement
toward individualism. Thus all efforts to control the individualistic
and disintegrating tendencies of the times were in vain, and the
conquest of the Greek states by Philip of Macedon (358-338 B. C.) was
only symptomatic of the complete collapse of corporate life and the
inability to reconstruct it successfully. All possibility of social
unity disappeared, and philosophy no longer considered the individual
from the standpoint of membership in society. It was occupied no
further with the harmonization of the individual and the state, but
concerned itself with the welfare of the individual and the art of
living. Individualism was completely triumphant, and education was
considered simply as a means to personal development or happiness,
without regard to one’s fellows. The new theories of life and education
were formulated by such schools of philosophy as the Epicureans,
Stoics, and Skeptics, which kept themselves far removed from society.
None of these ‘schools’ could be so termed in the sense of offering
an education, but rather in the modern usage of a group of adherents
to certain teachings. They spent their energy, for the most part, in
interpreting, elaborating, and lauding the original teachings of the
founders, and with them a stereotyped dogmatism took the place of
philosophy.

[Sidenote: Formal study and general knowledge.]

=The Schools of Rhetoric.=--But these schools were not the only outcome
of the teaching of the sophists. Just as they came about gradually from
the speculative tendencies of the sophists as developed through certain
famous philosophers, there likewise grew up more directly from the
sophistic efforts to train young men in rhetoric and public speaking a
multitude of rhetorical schools. In these a formal study was made of
oratory and the knowledge of the day. Their professed object was to
make successful men of the world, and, although they at first included
such reputable and influential schools as that of Isocrates (436-338
B. C.), they laid little claim to teaching anything solid or profound,
much less to forming any philosophic habits. They succeeded in
spreading a popular education among a people that had lost all hope of
a political life, but they soon degenerated into the use of narrow and
formal methods. The later rhetoricians attempted to hasten oratorical
training and preparation for life, by teaching their pupils ready-made
speeches and dialogues, together with a general knowledge of current
questions. Nevertheless, these schools flourished for several centuries
and closely rivalled those of the philosophers.

[Sidenote: Origin of University of Athens.]

[Sidenote: Other universities.]

[Sidenote: Philosophy and science at Alexandria.]

=The Hellenic Universities.=--From these two classes of schools, the
philosophical and the rhetorical, the fame of Athens spread rapidly,
and from the fourth century B. C. onward the number of young men
from all over the civilized world who came there to study steadily
increased. Before the close of the century the old cadet training of
Athens was united with this intellectual education, and there sprang
up a regular institution or university, which the young Athenians
and students from outside might attend. Before long, the Hellenic
world boasted other universities, such as those at Rhodes, Pergamon,
Alexandria, and Rome. Until almost 300 A. D. Athens remained the chief
intellectual center of civilization, and attracted students from all
parts of the Roman Empire. Gradually, however, the higher education
there tended toward the study of rhetoric alone and artificiality
grew apace. In consequence, Alexandria came to displace Athens as
the center of culture, and her university became the leading one of
the world. Here the various philosophic and religious sects gathered
to study and discuss, and the abstract Greek philosophy united with
the more concrete beliefs of the Orient, especially Zoroastrianism,
Judaism, and Christianity. Thus there flourished here the various
systems of religious philosophy known collectively as ‘Hellenistic,’
such as Neopythagoreanism, Neomazdeism, Philonism, Gnosticism, and
Neoplatonism. Considerably before this, too, there had developed
at Alexandria the Ptolemaic theory of the universe. Other noted
investigations, like those of Euclid in geometry, Archimedes in
physics, Eratosthenes in astronomy, and Diophantus in algebra, also
bore witness to the intellectual activity of this university.

[Sidenote: Spread through the Orient]

[Sidenote: and the Roman world.]

=Extension of Hellenic Culture.=--It can thus be seen that the
political downfall of Athens had only prepared the way for a larger
intellectual influence. As Alexander extended his yoke over one Eastern
country after another, he had carried with him all the culture of
Greece, and within a century of his death the whole Orient was dotted
with Greek gymnasia, stadia, and theaters, and saturated with Greek
literature, art, philosophy, and education. Similarly Rome, which had
come somewhat into contact with Greece before conquering her, had been
tinctured with Greek life and learning; and, after her absorption
of Macedon and Greece, she fell under the spiritual thrall of the
subjugated people. The history of Greek civilization and education was
so intermingled with the Roman that it can scarcely be distinguished
from it. The Greek schools of philosophy and rhetoric were continued
in Rome, Roman youths made up a great body of the attendance at the
universities of Athens and Alexandria, and the Roman emperors did much
for the support and extension of the work in these institutions. Hence
from the Greeks have developed some of the most advanced intellectual
and æsthetic ideas that civilization has known.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _Before the Middle Ages_ (Macmillan, 1909), chap. XII;
Monroe, _Text-book_ (Macmillan, 1905), chap. III. See also Laurie,
_Pre-Christian Education_ (Longmans, Green, 1900), pp. 208-318.
Davidson, T., in his _Aristotle_ (Scribner, 1896), develops the
periods of Greek education in chronological order, and his _Education
of the Greek People_ (Appleton, 1903) gives the social setting of
its development. A most scholarly and brilliant work is Freeman, K.
J., _Schools of Hellas_ (Macmillan, 1907), which is illustrated by
vase-scenes and other reproductions of Greek education. Bosanquet, B.,
_The Education of the Young in Plato’s Republic_ (Cambridge University
Press, 1908), Nettleship, R. L., _Theory of Greek Education in Plato’s
Republic_ (See Evelyn Abbott’s _Hellenica_, Longmans, Green, 1908),
and Burnet, J., _Aristotle on Education_ (Cambridge University Press)
afford a good interpretation of the theorists mentioned; while Capes,
W. W., in the _University Life in Ancient Athens_ (Harper, 1877), and
Walden, J. W., in the _Universities of Ancient Greece_ (Scribner,
1909), furnish a lively description of the students and professors.




CHAPTER III

THE EDUCATION OF THE ROMANS


OUTLINE

    The contribution of the Romans to progress was largely due to their
    absorption of Greek culture, but their primitive training had an
    influence in itself. This was mostly civic and practical, and was
    given informally in the family and the forum.

    Through amalgamation with the Greek, Roman education maintained
    three grades of schools: (1) the elementary school or _ludus_, (2)
    the ‘grammar’ school, and (3) the rhetorical school. Beyond the
    education of these schools, a young Roman might attend a university.

    Schools were gradually subsidized by the emperors, but education
    eventually deteriorated into a formal qualification for senatorial
    rank. The practical Romans, however, created a universal empire
    and legal system, a universal religion, and other institutions for
    modern society.

[Sidenote: Until Hellenized, Roman ideals were narrow.]

=Roman Education Amalgamated with Greek.=--The name of Rome is still
suggestive of power and organization. These characteristics seem to
have been innate; but the significance of Roman development to the
history of progress and education was largely due to the fact that,
in her spread over the civilized world, the Eternal City amalgamated
the Greek civilization with her own. Until then her ideals of life,
while effective in conquest, had been narrow and little adapted to
the development of individuality or of cosmopolitanism. Unconsciously
realizing the need of broader ideals, she absorbed those of Greece.
But Rome could not be Hellenized without making some contributions to
the result from her own genius, and for that reason it is important
to learn something of Roman civilization and education, crude as they
were, before they came into contact with Greek culture.

[Sidenote: Its civic and practical aim.]

=Early Education in Rome.=--In the early days Rome was animated by
intense patriotism and love for military life, and felt that each
citizen was bound to merge his identity in that of the state. In
the surrender of individuality they were, to be sure, not unlike
the Spartans, although they believed that this subordination should
be brought about voluntarily rather than by compulsion of law and
state organization. But, with such a love as theirs for mere material
achievement, the Athenian ideal of a full and harmonious development
of one’s whole nature could scarcely be expected to make any appeal.
They looked not for harmony, proportion, or grace, but for stern
utility. They were sedate, grave, and serious, and their education was
practical, prosaic, and utilitarian.

[Sidenote: Informal training in the family and in public.]

Until the Greek institutions began to be adopted, schools did not exist
in Rome, except possibly the _ludus_ or elementary school. During this
pristine period education consisted in a practical training in Roman
ideals and everyday living conducted largely through the family. In
childhood the boys and girls alike were given a physical and moral
training by their mother, but, as the boy grew older, he went more in
the company of his father, and learned efficiency in life informally
through his example and that of the older men, while the girl was
taught at home by her mother. If the boy belonged to a patrician
family, he might acquire much knowledge concerning Roman custom and
law by hearing his father advise and aid the family _clients_, or
‘dependents,’ and by attending banquets with him. He might also receive
an apprenticeship training from his parent or some other older man in
the profession of soldier, advocate, or statesman. In case he was born
in a less exalted station, he might learn his father’s occupation at
the farm or shop. The girl, whatever her social status, was trained by
her mother in the domestic arts, especially in spinning and weaving
wool. Through their parents children probably learned to read and
write; and they committed to memory stories of Roman heroes, ballads,
martial and religious songs, and the _Twelve Tables_ of national laws,
after these had been codified (451 B. C.). Physical exercise was
secured largely by games, which were mostly in imitation of future
occupations, and gymnastics were employed simply as training for war.
The usages of home and public religion also played an important part
in the education of the young Romans, especially since almost every
activity in life was presided over by some deity, whom it was necessary
to propitiate when engaging in it.

[Sidenote: Practical and occupational character.]

Thus education in early Rome was practical, and, to some extent,
occupational. It was intended to produce efficiency as fathers,
citizens, and soldiers. It consisted in training the youths to
be healthy and strong in mind and body, and sedate and simple in
their habits; to reverence the gods, their parents, the laws, and
institutions; and to be courageous in war, and familiar with the
traditional agriculture, or the conduct of some business. It did
produce a nation of warriors and loyal citizens, but it inevitably
tended to make them calculating, selfish, overbearing, cruel, and
rapacious. They never possessed either lofty ideals or enthusiasm.
Their training was best adapted to a small state, and became
unsatisfactory when they had spread over the entire Italian peninsula.
The golden age of valor and stern virtue had then largely departed, and
they began unconsciously to seek a more universal culture. While such a
people regarded the Greeks as visionary, just as the Greeks looked upon
them as barbarians, they felt instinctively that only by absorption of
the Hellenic ideals could their cosmopolitan ambitions be carried out.
On the other hand, it was through the organization which the Romans
were able to furnish, that the great ideals formulated by the Greeks
were destined to be rendered effective and to become a matter of value
and concern to civilization ever since.

[Sidenote: Spread through Alexander and Roman conquests.]

[Sidenote: The schools resulting.]

=The Absorption of Greek Culture.=--There was a gradual infiltration
of Greek culture into Rome from very early days. This received a great
impulse through the conquests of Alexander (334-323 B. C.) and the
absorption of Macedon by Rome (168 B. C.), but it was not until about
half a century after Greece itself had become a Roman province (146 B.
C.), that the Greek educational ideals and institutions can be said to
have been completely absorbed by Rome. This new type of education was
thus well established early in the first century B. C. It may be said
to have remained almost unmodified until toward the end of the second
century A. D., when political conditions at Rome became most unstable
and the period of degeneracy set in. During these three centuries of
Hellenized Roman education, three grades of schools resulted from the
amalgamation. They were the (1) _ludus_ or school of the _litterator_,
as the lowest school was called; (2) the ‘grammar’ school, taught by
a _grammaticus_ or _litteratus_; and (3) the schools of rhetoric and
oratory, which furnished a somewhat higher education.

[Sidenote: Its content and methods.]

=The Ludus.=--The ludus, or lowest school, may possibly have existed
before the process of Hellenization even began, but if it did, it must
have been intended simply to supplement the more informal training
of the home. Whenever originated, it probably taught at first only
reading, writing, and rudimentary calculation, as in the family,
through the medium of historical anecdotes, ballads, religious songs,
and the _Twelve Tables_. But as the Greek influence crept in more and
more, the literary content was somewhat extended. About the middle of
the third century B. C., Livius Andronicus translated the _Odyssey_
into Latin; and a number of epics, dramas, and epigrams were soon
composed after Greek models. These works, in whole or part, were
introduced into the curricula of the _ludi_ and by the beginning of
the first century B. C., the _Twelve Tables_ had been displaced by
the Latinized _Odyssey_ of Andronicus. The methods of instruction
were _memoriter_ and imitative. The names and alphabetic order of the
letters were first taught without any indication of their significance
or even shape, and all possible combinations of syllables were
committed before any words were learned. Reading and writing were then
taught by dictation, and, in tracing the letters on wax-tablets with
the stylus (Fig. 5), the hand of the pupil was at first guided by the
teacher. Calculation was learned by counting on the fingers, by means
of pebbles, or upon the abacus, and eventually sums were worked upon
the tablets.

[Illustration:

  (_a_)      (_b_)      (_c_)

Fig. 5.--School materials from wall paintings: (_a_) Wax tablet and
_capsa_, containing rolls, or books. (_b_) Three _stili_, _capsa_, and
roll leaning against it. (_c_) Wax tablet, with _stilus_ tied to it.]

[Illustration: Fig. 6.--Scene at a _ludus_ or Roman elementary school,
taken from a fresco found at Herculaneum.]

[Sidenote: Discipline and teachers.]

[Sidenote: Slaves to accompany pupils.]

[Sidenote: Buildings.]

Methods so devoid of interest were naturally accompanied by severe
discipline. The rod, lash, and whip seem to have been in frequent use,
and the names ordinarily applied to schoolmasters in Latin literature
are suggestive of harshness and brutality. Moreover, a fresco found
at Herculaneum depicts a boy held over the shoulders of another, with
the master beating the victim upon the bare back (Fig. 6). Under
these circumstances, no real qualifications were required of the
teacher, and his social standing was low. The Greek custom of having
the boy accompanied to and from school by a slave that was otherwise
incapacitated by age or physical disability soon came to be imitated
by the Romans. When a special building was employed for the school, it
was usually a mere booth or veranda, and the pupils sat on the floor or
upon stones.

[Sidenote: Curriculum.]

[Sidenote: Methods and discipline.]

[Sidenote: Buildings.]

=Grammar Schools.=--The ‘grammar’ school grew out of the increasing
literary work of the _ludus_. But, while offering a more advanced
course, it would seem to belong in part at least to the elementary
stage of education, especially as its work was never sharply divided
from that of the _ludus_. The young Roman might attend both a Greek
and a Latin grammar school, but, in case he did, usually went first to
the former. The curriculum in each consisted, according to Quintilian,
of ‘the art of speaking correctly’ and ‘the interpretation of the
poets,’ or, in other words, of a training in grammar and literature.
‘Grammar’ may, however, have included some knowledge of philology and
derivations, as well as drill on the parts of speech, inflections,
syntax, and prosody, and practice in composition and paragraphing.
The literary training was obtained by writing paraphrases of the best
authors, textual and literary criticism, commentaries, and exercises
in diction and verse-writing. Some other studies, like arithmetic,
geometry, astronomy, geography, and music may also have been added in
time, from the suggestions of Plato, but the Romans naturally gave them
a practical bearing. Some gymnastics, mostly for military training,
were often in the course. The methods in the grammar schools were
somewhat better than those of the _ludus_, but the commentary of the
teacher on the text was usually taken down _verbatim_ by the pupil.
The discipline, in consequence, was not much in advance of that of the
lower schools. But the accommodations for these secondary schools were
decidedly superior, and the buildings not only possessed suitable seats
for the pupils and teacher, but were even adorned with paintings and
sculpture.

[Sidenote: Professional, but broad training.]

=Rhetorical Schools.=--The ‘rhetorical’ schools were a development of
work in debate that had gradually grown up in the grammar schools. The
earliest of these institutions at Rome were Greek, but by the first
century B. C., there had arisen a number in which Latin was used. While
they afforded a legal and forensic training, and seem more professional
in spirit than the grammar schools, they were by no means narrow. The
orator was for the Roman the typical man of culture and education, and
he was supposed not only to have been trained in eloquence and law and
history, but to possess wide learning, grace, culture, and knowledge of
human emotions, sound judgment, and good memory. Besides a training in
oratory, these schools furnished a linguistic and literary education
of some breadth. They may be considered as belonging partly to the
secondary and partly to the higher stage of education. The youths were
exercised first in declamation on ethical and political subjects, which
would bring in fine distinctions in Roman law and ethics, and later
they were given practice in three types of speeches,--deliberative,
judicial, and panegyric. Attention was given to all the various factors
in making a successful oration: the matter, arrangement, style,
memorizing, and delivery.

[Sidenote: Spread throughout the empire.]

=Universities.=--When the young Roman had completed his course at a
rhetorical school, he might, if he were ambitious, go to the university
at Athens, Alexandria, or Rhodes for a higher training. Later, a
university also sprang up at Rome, and before long these institutions
spread throughout the empire. The Greek influence caused a large number
of these institutions to be established in the East, but some were
also located in the West. The latter gave more emphasis to practical
subjects. In several instances the universities found their nucleus in
one of the many libraries that were started with books brought from the
sacking of Greece and Asia Minor.

[Sidenote: Imperial control of schools.]

=Subsidization of Education.=--Thus, through the adoption of the
institutions of the Greeks, Roman education became thoroughly
Hellenized. Although all the types of schools spread everywhere in the
empire, there was, of course, no such thing as a real school system,
except as the government gradually came to subsidize all schools. This
the different emperors accomplished in various ways,--by contributing
to school support, paying a salary to certain teachers, or granting
them exemption from taxation and military service, or offering
scholarships to a given number of pupils. As a result, schools came to
be established in many cases for the purpose of getting these special
privileges for the teachers, rather than for promoting education. To
stop these abuses, the emperor in 425 A. D. decreed that he had the
sole authority to establish schools, and that a penalty would be laid
upon anyone else assuming this prerogative. In this way the schools
came fully into the hands of the imperial government, and the basis for
the idea of public education was laid for the first time in history.

[Sidenote: Formal and superficial character.]

=Decay of Education.=--Before this, however, Roman education had
deteriorated. With the political and moral decay that were obvious
after the second century A. D., it became a mere form and mark of the
aristocracy. The training in oratory was continued, because it was
a necessary qualification for entering the senatorial class, but it
had lost its real function, since there was no longer any occasion
for oratory when the emperor dominated all the government and law.
It was not intended to furnish a training of any value in life, and
the careful literary preparation was more and more shirked. While the
grammarians and rhetoricians were still held in high esteem, they
contented themselves with mere display, and wandered from town to town
more for the purpose of entertaining than of teaching. Glittering
phrases, epigrams, and other artificialities took the place of
instruction and argument.

[Sidenote: Institutions furnished for the ideals of Judea and Greece.]

=Influence of Roman Education.=--But the Roman education and
civilization had left their impress upon the world. This was
accomplished by the practical nature of the Romans, and by their
ability to make abstract ideals concrete and embody them in
institutions that have been useful to civilization and progress.
Through them was created the idea of a universal empire, which has been
influential throughout the world’s history. Similarly, the concept of
law originating with the Greek philosophers became in the hands of the
Romans the great system of principles that underlies and guides all our
present civilization. And it was the Roman genius for organization that
institutionalized a despised religious sect and expanded it into the
position of the greatest world religion. If Judaism furnished the world
with exalted religious ideals, and if from Hellenism came striking
intellectual and æsthetic concepts, the institutions for realizing
these ideals originated with Rome.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _Before the Middle Ages_ (Macmillan, 1909), chap. XIII;
Monroe, _Text-book_ (Macmillan, 1905), chap. IV. Interesting brief
monographs on the subject are Clarke, G., _Education of Children
at Rome_ (Macmillan, 1896), and Wilkins, A. S., _Roman Education_,
(Cambridge University Press, 1905). See also the treatment in Laurie,
_Pre-Christian Education_ (Longmans, Green, 1900), pp. 319-436.




CHAPTER IV

THE EDUCATION OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS


OUTLINE

    Christianity accomplished much in the reform of the degraded
    Roman society. The earliest education of the Christians came
    through their ‘otherworldly’ life, but actual schools, called
    ‘catechumenal,’ before long furnished a moral and religious
    training.

    After the amalgamation of Christianity with Græco-Roman philosophy,
    ‘catechetical’ schools furnished a higher training. When higher
    education came to be utilized by the bishops for training their
    clergy, institutions known as ‘episcopal’ or ‘cathedral’ schools
    were founded.

    Later, although opposition grew up among the Christians to the
    culture of Greece and Rome, its impress was found to have been left
    upon the doctrines and organization of Christianity.

[Sidenote: Impotence of Roman and other ideals.]

[Sidenote: Universal appeal of Christianity.]

=The Ideals of Early Christianity.=--The actual social conditions amid
which the religion of Christ was born, and which it was destined to
reform, were most degraded. The Roman world had become sunk in vice and
corruption. The Roman virtues of patriotism, bravery, and service to
the state had largely disappeared with the development of the empire,
and were impotent in checking the widespread depravity. Nor could the
lofty Greek thought accomplish much, since it was too intellectual
and philosophic to touch the masses. The debased Eastern religions,
which Rome had admitted in her easy-going skepticism, were still
less productive of good. While the more philosophic forms of Judaism
and the Roman development of Stoicism tended to raise the tone of
morals and pave the way for Christianity, not even these forces could
have accomplished a successful reform in Roman society, without the
stimulus and wide appeal of the Christian teachings. Christianity was
the ethical and universal religion needed as a leaven. Its truths were
based on faith rather than understanding, and its appeal was to the
instinctive promptings and emotions rather than to the intellect. This
made it democratic and enabled it to reach the masses, for everybody
can feel and have faith, even where he cannot understand.

[Sidenote: Segregation.]

[Sidenote: ‘Otherworldliness.’]

=Early Christian Life as an Education.=--Thus it came about that,
while the earliest Christians were without schools of their own and
were largely illiterate, their religion itself served as an education.
They were practically deprived of intellectual development, but they
received moral training of a very high order. The very dishonor and
unpopularity of the Christian religion, and the segregation of their
Church membership, gave the Christian life itself all the effect of a
species of schooling. The early Christians showed an extreme reaction
to the vicious morals of the time, and endeavored to cultivate the
higher ideals inculcated by the teachings of Christ. They had gathered
from the statements of the Master that he would soon return and this
world would come to an end. They, therefore, concerned themselves
entirely with a preparation for ‘Jerusalem the golden’ and ‘the life
everlasting,’ and the ideal of this most primitive Christian training
may be described as ‘otherworldly.’

[Sidenote: Cause of their organization.]

[Sidenote: Elementary content.]

=Catechumenal Schools.=--Early in the second century, however, when
the Church began to extend itself rapidly, it seemed necessary to
insist upon some sort of formal instruction as preliminary to Church
membership. It was also deemed wise to fix a period of probation after
the profession of one’s faith in Christ, in order that informers might
not be admitted to the services, or the Church disgraced by apostasy or
the lapses of those who had not well considered the step. These demands
were met by the gradual institution of popular instruction in Christian
principles for the Jewish and pagan proselytes, who were known as
_catechumens_. While some effort was made to lift the pupils of these
‘catechumenal’ schools from the bondage of ignorance, they were
primarily trained in the things needful for their souls’ salvation, and
the ideal of Christian education remained prevailingly ‘otherworldly.’
The instruction was carried on in the portico or other special portion
of the church; and consisted in moral and religious teachings, reading
and memorizing the Scriptures, together with some training in early
psalmody. The course usually lasted three years, and while some
distinction was made between the general division of catechumens and
those almost ready for baptism, there is little ground for supposing
that the schools were divided into actual classes. The meetings in the
church were held several times a week, or even every day.

[Sidenote: Græco-Roman training a worldly one.]

[Sidenote: Union of the worldly and otherworldly,--]

[Sidenote: Apologists]

[Sidenote: and Gnostics.]

=Amalgamation of Christianity with Græco-Roman Philosophy.=--But while
the Christian ideals and training were developing and crystallizing,
the Greek philosophy in its Roman form was being continued and
expanded. This movement has been seen to be very different from early
Christianity in its general purpose. It concerned itself chiefly
with life in this world. The problem it attempted to solve was how
one should live so as to get the most satisfaction out of life. The
Hellenized Roman schools may, therefore, be accounted as ‘worldly’
as the Christian schools were ‘otherworldly’ in their aim. A general
feeling of this marked difference in purpose and organization between
Christianity and the contemporaneous Græco-Roman culture was destined
to cause an opposition to pagan learning to spring up among the
Christians. But for two or three centuries this is scarcely noticeable,
especially in the Eastern empire, where it was felt that philosophy
was, like Christianity, a search after truth; and, as far as it went,
confirmed the Bible. There was even a tendency to unite the two
movements. As the new religion spread throughout the Roman world, and
was compelled to defend itself against charges of immorality, atheism,
and treason, the educated converts attempted to set forth the Christian
teachings in terms of Greek thought, and to solve speculative problems
that had never been considered by Jesus and his disciples. The first
Hellenizing Christians are known as _Apologists_, since their efforts
were directed toward reconciling Christianity with the Græco-Roman
philosophy. In general, they mingled Stoicism with the teachings of
Jesus. Later, other Hellenistic philosophers unified Christian doctrine
with the principles of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle. Perhaps
the most extreme of these philosophic positions within Christianity
was a combination with Platonism known as _Gnosticism_, which was
intended to be a sort of esoteric knowledge and to show the relation of
Christianity to other religions and to the universe.

[Sidenote: Pupils in the school at Alexandria allowed to study all
Greek subjects.]

=Catechetical and Episcopal or Cathedral Schools.=--In this way, during
the second and third centuries, all the Christians at Alexandria, which
had become the great seat of Hellenistic philosophy, had their theology
tinctured with Greek thought. Before long, a sort of theological, or
‘catechetical’ school, was gradually organized at this center, to
counteract the heathen schools there and to afford higher instruction
for Christian teachers and leaders. This school had no building of its
own, and the students met at the teacher’s house, but they were able to
take advantage of the facilities at the University of Alexandria. In
addition to a thorough training in the Bible, the pupils were allowed
to study all types of Greek philosophy, except Epicureanism, the whole
range of sciences, classical Greek literature, grammar, rhetoric, and
other higher subjects of the pagan schools, but from a different point
of view. Thus the Græco-Roman and the Christian movements had formed
an alliance in education, and in this catechetical school we find an
attempted union of the ‘otherworldly’ ideal with the ‘worldly.’

[Sidenote: Other catechetical schools.]

The best known heads of this school at Alexandria were Clement
(150-215) and Origen (185-253). They were among the most noted of the
Eastern Fathers in the philosophic interpretation of Christianity,
and their work contributed not a little to heretical doctrine. Origen
may even have been expelled for heresy. At any rate, he opened a new
school of the same sort at Cæsarea, where he was kindly received. Other
catechetical schools sprang up rapidly at Antioch, Edessa, Nisibis, and
elsewhere throughout the East. Later the accession of the followers
of Nestorius, whose Hellenized theology had in 431 been proscribed
by the Church at the Council of Ephesus, very greatly increased the
importance of these cities as intellectual centers. In addition to the
translations already there, the Nestorian Christians accumulated a
larger range of the original Greek treatises on philosophy, science,
and medicine.

[Sidenote: Bishops start Hellenic schools for their clergy.]

But before this, higher training of the Hellenic type came to be
regularly used by the bishops in training their clergy, and promotion
in the Church began to depend upon having had this education. So higher
schools of this sort were gradually instituted in every bishopric
at the see city, and became known eventually as ‘episcopal’ or
‘bishop’s’ schools, or, from their location at the bishop’s church, as
‘cathedral’ schools. These cathedral schools became the most important
educational institutions of the Middle Ages. From them were derived
all the schools of Western Europe, but the bishop soon became too busy
to attend to them himself and was forced to commit them to various
officials. Thus they developed in time into at least three types,--the
‘grammar’ school, taught by one of the cathedral canons, known as the
_scholasticus_; the ‘song’ or music school, taught by the _cantor_ or
_precentor_; and the ‘chorister’s’ school, which offered a combination
of the training in the two other schools. Thus the cathedral schools
virtually took the place of the old pagan schools supported by the
Roman emperors.

[Sidenote: Growth of opposition to the Græco-Roman culture.]

=Influence of Græco-Roman Culture upon Christianity.=--However, by the
century after the foundation of the catechetical school at Alexandria,
the Christians had begun to grow suspicious of Græco-Roman culture and
the ‘worldly’ ideal in education. Even the Eastern or Greek Fathers of
the Church appear to have cooled considerably in their attitude toward
philosophy, and the Western or Latin Fathers were more pronounced in
their opposition. Roman Christians could not forget the immorality
of those who had been connected with this culture, nor the abuse and
insults that these pagans had heaped upon them. They felt, too, that
the one great mission of the Church was ethical, and that Christ’s
second coming was at hand, and that all philosophy and learning were
somewhat impertinent.

[Sidenote: But great influence of Greece and Rome upon Christian
doctrine and Church organization.]

Nevertheless, despite this growth of opposition to pagan philosophy,
primitive Christianity could not endure in its simplicity after it
had been in contact with the advanced intellectual concepts of the
Greeks, as modified by the organizing genius of the Romans. Both
Greece and Rome left a permanent impress upon Christianity; and,
though dead, they yet live in the Christian Church. The influence of
Greek philosophy is seen in the formulation of a system of Christian
doctrine. This appears in the development of the _Apostles’ Creed_
during the second century, in the selection of a canon of sacred
writings or _New Testament_ during the third century, and still more in
the _Nicene Creed_ (325), which was not formulated until Christianity
had been largely Hellenized. Similarly, the Greek tendency to attribute
universal validity to their sacred writings, and the pomp, ceremonies,
and mysteries of the Hellenic worship, are more or less apparent in the
various ecclesiastical tenets and usages. On the other hand, the Roman
concepts of administration appear in the organization of the Church,
which seems to have closely paralleled the Roman civil polity. By the
third century priests and bishops had largely come to be similarly
located, and to correspond in control, to the Roman district and city
magistrates respectively. And in 445 the recognition of the supremacy
of the Bishop of Rome established a visible head of the entire Church,
corresponding to the position of the emperor on the civic side.

[Sidenote: Reversion to otherworldliness.]

=Rise of the Monastic Schools.=--Thus it has been seen how the
two great movements of Græco-Roman culture and Christian teaching
arose independently, in time united and later separated, although,
after separation, the Christian doctrines were somewhat affected by
their long association with pagan philosophy. Eventually the pagan
schools were suppressed by the edict of Justinian in 529 A. D.,
and the Christian education was left alone in the field. It then
found an additional means of expression in the ‘monastic’ schools,
in which there was naturally a tendency to revert to an ascetic or
‘otherworldly’ ideal, and to leave intellectual attainments largely out
of consideration. But these monastic institutions are to be grouped
with mediævalism and belong more distinctly to the next chapter.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _Before the Middle Ages_ (Macmillan, 1909), chap. XII; Monroe,
_Text-book_ (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 221-243. For the moral effect
of Christianity, see Lecky, W. E. H., _History of European Morals_
(Appleton, 1869), vol. II, pp. 1-100. Other places in the chapter
will be illumined by reading Ayer, J. C., Jr., _Catechumenal Schools_
and _Catechetical Schools_ (Monroe Cyclopædia of Education, vol. I);
Dill, D., _Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire_
(Macmillan, 1899), especially book V; Hatch, E., _The Influence of
Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church_ (Hibbert Lectures,
1888, Williams, London, 1891); Hodgson, G., _Primitive Christian
Education_ (Clark, Edinburgh, 1906); and Leach, A. F., _Bishop’s
Schools_ and _Cathedral Schools_ (Monroe Cyclopædia of Education, vol.
I).




PART II

THE MIDDLE AGES




CHAPTER V

THE MONASTIC EDUCATION


OUTLINE

    During the Middle Ages the German hordes absorbed ancient
    civilization under the authoritative guidance of the Church, and
    the chief means of leavening the barbarian lump was found in the
    cathedral and monastic schools.

    Monasteries grew up to counteract the prevailing worldliness.
    To keep the monks busy, Benedict prescribed the copying of
    manuscripts, and this literary work rendered schools necessary.
    In these monastic schools were taught the ‘seven liberal arts’ by
    catechetical methods.

    Thus monasticism helped preserve learning and education, although
    it was somewhat hostile to the classics and science.

[Sidenote: Absorption of Greek, Roman and Christian civilization.]

=The Middle Ages as a Period of Assimilation and Repression.=--The
Middle Ages may be regarded as an era of assimilation and of
repression. On the one hand, the rude German hordes, who had by the
sixth century everywhere taken possession of the decadent ancient
world, were enabled during this period to rise gradually to such a
plane of intelligence and achievement that they could absorb the Greek,
Roman, and Christian civilization, and become its carriers to modern
times. On the other hand, that this absorption might take place, it
was necessary that the individual should conform to the model set,
and it was inevitable that a bondage to authority, convention, and
institutions should ensue.

[Sidenote: Authoritative attitude of the Church.]

The main power in effecting this subservience on the part of mediæval
society was the Christian Church. For it was but natural during the
period of assimilation that the Church, which had become completely
organized and unlimited in power, should stand as the chief guide and
schoolmaster of the Germanic hosts. By the decree of Justinian in
529 A. D., which closed the pagan schools and marks the beginning of
the Middle Ages, Christian education was left without a rival. Hence
the cathedral and monastic schools became almost the sole means of
leavening the barbarian lump. Contrary to the view commonly accepted,
the educational activities of the cathedral institutions were more
important and general than those of the monastic schools. But the
former have already been somewhat discussed, and so much relating to
the course and services of the latter will also apply to them that we
may now turn to a detailed description of the monastic schools.

[Sidenote: Reaction to prevailing vice.]

=The Evolution and Nature of Monasticism.=--To understand these
schools, it will be necessary to examine the movement out of which they
arose. Monasticism grew up through the corruption in Roman society and
the desire of those within the Church for a deeper religious life.
Christianity was no longer confined to small extra-social groups
meeting secretly, but was represented in all walks of society, and
mingled with the world. It had become thoroughly secularized, and even
the clergy had in many instances yielded to the prevailing worldliness
and vice.

[Sidenote: Hermits and monasteries.]

[Sidenote: Monasticism in the West.]

Under these circumstances there were Christians who felt that the only
hope for salvation rested in fleeing from the world and its temptations
and taking refuge in an isolated life of asceticism and devotion. This
led eventually to the foundation of monasteries, in which the monks
lived apart in separate cells, but met for meals, prayers, communion,
and counsel. Monasticism started in Egypt, but soon spread into Syria
and Palestine, and then into Greece, Italy, and Gaul. But in the
West monasticism gradually adopted more active pursuits and milder
discipline, and the monks turned to the cultivation of the soil and the
preservation of literature.

[Sidenote: Manual labor and reading required.]

[Sidenote: Resulting literary activities.]

=Benedict’s ‘Rule’ and the Multiplication of Manuscripts.=--These
monastic activities were especially crystallized and promoted by the
Benedictine ‘rule.’ This was a code formulated by St. Benedict in
529 for his monastery at Monte Cassino in Southwest Italy, and it
was generally adopted by the monasteries of Western Europe. In the
forty-eighth chapter of the ‘rule’ he commanded that the monks each
day engage in manual labor for at least seven hours and in systematic
reading for at least two hours. The requirement of daily reading led
to the collection and reproduction of manuscripts, and each monastery
soon had a _scriptorium_, or ‘writing-room,’ in one end of the building
(Fig. 7). Most of the works copied were of a religious nature and
were limited in number, but the monks were occasionally occupied with
the Latin classics, and they also became the authors of some original
literature, which included histories of the Church, the monasteries,
and the times, as well as works upon religious topics.

[Sidenote: Especial preservation of learning in English monasteries.]

=Amalgamation of and Irish Christianity.=--This preservation of
learning and development of literature was especially apparent in
the monasteries of England It came about through the amalgamation at
the Council of Whitby, in 664, of the Roman Church in England, with
Irish Christianity, which had preserved an unusually high order of
learning after its isolation. An immense enthusiasm for the Church,
culture, and literature of Rome resulted from this merging of the
rival organizations, and the English monasteries, such as Jarrow
and Wearmouth, and cathedral schools, like York, became the great
educational centers for Europe.

[Sidenote: Length of course.]

[Sidenote: Types of pupils.]

=The Organization of the Monastic Schools.=--The literary work of
the monasteries soon led to the establishment of regular schools
within their walls (Fig. 8). The course in these monastic schools may
often have lasted eight or ten years, as boys of ten or even less
were sometimes received, and no one could become a regular member of
the order before he was eighteen. By the ninth century the schools
sometimes also admitted pupils who never expected to enter the order.
These latter were called _externi_ in distinction to the _oblati_, who
were preparing to become monks. Some training was also given women in
convents for nuns, such as that established by the sister of Benedict.

[Illustration: Fig. 7.--A monk in the _scriptorium_.]

[Illustration: Fig. 8.--A monastic school.]

[Sidenote: Evolution and scope of the _trivium_ and _quadrivium_.]

=The ‘Seven Liberal Arts’ as the Curriculum.=--The curriculum of the
monastic schools was at first elementary and narrow. It included only
reading, in order to study the Bible; writing, to copy the sacred
books; and calculation, for the sake of computing Church festivals. But
after a while the classical learning was gradually introduced in that
dry and condensed form of the ‘seven liberal arts’, which was also used
by the cathedral schools. This mediæval canon of studies was a gradual
evolution from Græco-Roman days. The discrimination of these liberal
subjects may be said to have begun with Plato, whose educational
scheme included a higher group of studies, consisting of arithmetic,
geometry, music, and astronomy; and during the later days of Greece
and Rome these ‘liberal’ subjects of Plato were combined with the
‘practical’ studies of the sophists,--grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic.
These ‘seven liberal arts’ were definitely fixed during the fifth
and sixth centuries A. D., through several treatises by such writers
as Martianus Capella, Boëthius, and Cassiodorus; and the grammar,
rhetoric, and dialectic eventually became classed as the _trivium_ or
lower studies, and the arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy as
the _quadrivium_ or higher (Fig. 9). While this curriculum was not a
broad one, the scope was much wider than would be supposed. ‘Grammar’
was an introduction to literature, ‘rhetoric’ included some knowledge
of law and history, ‘dialectic’ paved the way for metaphysics,
‘arithmetic’ extended beyond mere calculation, ‘geometry’ embraced
geography and surveying, ‘music’ covered a broad course in theory, and
‘astronomy’ comprehended some physics and advanced mathematics.

[Sidenote: Dictation and memorizing.]

[Sidenote: Donatus and Priscian,]

[Sidenote: Aristotle, Euclid, Boëthius, and Ptolemy.]

=The Methods and Texts.=--The general method of teaching in the
monastic schools was that of question and answer. As copies of the
various books were scarce, the instructor often resorted to dictation,
explaining the meaning as he read, and the pupils took the passage down
upon tablets and committed it. The reading books preparatory to the
study of literature, many of which are still extant, were generally
arranged by each teacher, and careful attention was given to the
etymological and literary study of the authors to be read. As to texts,
the leading works upon grammar were at first the elementary work of
Donatus (fourth century) and the more advanced treatise of Priscian
(sixth century), but by the thirteenth century there had sprung up
a series of simplified grammars, which, for the sake of memorizing,
were often written in verse. As rhetoric was no longer much concerned
with declamation, Cicero and Quintilian were rarely used as texts, but
various mediæval treatises upon official letters, legal documents, and
forms came into use. Dialectic was studied through translations of the
_Organon_ of Aristotle, Euclid furnished the text on geometry, the
works of Boëthius were generally used for arithmetic and music, and in
astronomy adaptations of the treatises of Aristotle and Ptolemy became
the texts.

[Sidenote: Maintenance of classical literature and education.]

=Effect upon Civilization of the Monastic Schools.=--Thus monasticism
accomplished not a little for civilization. While the works produced in
the monasteries were uncritical and superstitious, they compose most of
our historical documents and sources in the Middle Ages. And, although
monastic schools were decidedly hostile to classical literature as
representing the temptations of the world, and at all times their rigid
orthodoxy prevented every possibility of science and the development of
individualism, they, together with the cathedral schools, preserved a
considerable amount of Græco-Roman culture. Without the cathedral and
monastic schools, the Latin and Greek manuscripts and learning could
scarcely have survived and have been available at the Renaissance.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _History of Education during the Middle Ages and the Transition
to Modern Times_ (Macmillan, 1910), chaps. I-II; Monroe, _Text-book_
(Macmillan, 1905), pp. 243-274. For the evolution of the ascetic life,
see Lecky, _History of European Morals_ (Appleton, 1869), vol. II,
pp. 101-274; for the development of monasticism, Taylor, H. O., _The
Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages_ (Macmillan, 1913), chap. VII,
and Wishart, A. W., _A Short History of Monks and Monasticism_ (Brandt,
Trenton, 1902). The contribution of Irish monasticism is shown in
Healy, J., _Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum_ (Sealy, Dublin, 1897), and
Zimmer, H., _The Irish Element in Mediæval Culture_ (Putnam, 1891).
Succinct articles on _Abbey Schools_, _Bishop’s Schools_, _Church
Schools_, and _Cloister Schools_ by Leach, A. F. (Monroe Cyclopædia of
Education, vols. I and II), furnish the most accurate ideas of monastic
education as far as it is known. An account of the monastic libraries
is given in Clark, J. W., _Libraries in the Mediæval and Renaissance
Monasteries_ (Macmillan and Bowes, Cambridge, 1894), and Putnam, G. H.,
_Books and Their Makers during the Middle Ages_ (Putnam, 1896). The
best account of _The Seven Liberal Arts_ in English is that by Abelson,
P. (Columbia University, Teachers College Contributions, No. 11, 1906).




CHAPTER VI

CHARLEMAGNE’S REVIVAL OF EDUCATION


OUTLINE

    Learning and schools had by the eighth century been sadly
    disrupted, and, to restore them, Charlemagne invited Alcuin of York
    to become his adviser in education. Alcuin induced Charlemagne to
    conduct higher education at the Palace School, and to improve the
    cathedral, monastic, and parish schools.

    Even after Alcuin retired from the active direction of education,
    he continued his educational influence, but he became set and
    narrow. A broader spirit, however, appeared in his pupils, and
    intellectual stagnation never again prevailed.

[Sidenote: Decay of learning.]

[Sidenote: Charlemagne]

[Sidenote: and Alcuin.]

=Condition of Education in the Eighth Century.=--In the course of the
seventh and eighth centuries mediæval education met with considerable
retrogression. The learning of the sixth century was disappearing,
the copying of manuscripts had almost ceased, and the cathedral and
monastic schools had been sadly disrupted. The secular clergy, monks,
nobility, and others who might have been expected to be trained,
at times seem even to have lost the art of writing, although the
leading churchmen must generally have maintained their knowledge of
ecclesiastical Latin and some acquaintance with the classical authors
and various compilations of the seven liberal arts. Just before this
time the Franks had succeeded in establishing a supremacy over the
other barbarian tribes and had spread their rule through what is now
France, Belgium, and Holland, and most of Western Germany. Under a
dynasty of vigorous kings, they now drove back the Moslems, conquered
the Lombards and Saxons, and subdued the Slavs and Bohemians, and
finally Charlemagne (742-814) even planned to re-establish the Western
Roman Empire under his sovereignty. This monarch greatly strengthened
and centralized his dominions by a number of improvements in external
administration, but, even before his recognition as emperor by the
pope (800), he had realized that a genuine unity of his people could
be brought about only through a much more effective and universal
education. He had a keen sense of the unfortunate educational
situation, and made every effort to improve it. To assist him in his
endeavors, in 782 he called Alcuin (735-804) from the headship of the
famous cathedral school at York (see p. 56) to be his chief adviser in
education.

[Sidenote: Methods and curriculum.]

=Higher Education at the Palace School.=--Through this noted scholar
Charlemagne proceeded to revive the cathedral, monastic, and parish
schools, and to increase the importance of the ‘Palace School.’ At this
latter school the great king, all his family, and many of his relatives
and intellectual friends studied under the Saxon educator. Alcuin
must, however, have used a more discursive and less _memoriter_ method
with his adult students than the formal catechetical plan employed
in instructing the youth. Among the subjects taught were grammar,
including some study of the Latin poets and the writings of the Church
Fathers, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, astronomy, and theology, but
Alcuin appears to have had but little command of the Greek learning.
Charlemagne himself seems to have become proficient in Latin and other
languages, but, in spite of strenuous efforts, he began too late in
life to train his hand to write.

[Sidenote: Capitularies to abbots and bishops.]

[Sidenote: Course in the monastic, cathedral, and village schools.]

[Sidenote: Free tuition.]

=Educational Improvement in the Cathedral, Monastic, and Parish
Schools.=--With the coöperation of Alcuin, Charlemagne also did
everything in his power to increase facilities and improve standards
in the existing types of schools. In 787 he issued an educational
‘capitulary’ or decree to the bishops and abbots, “urging diligence in
the pursuit of learning and the selection of teachers for this work
who are able, willing, and zealous to learn themselves and to teach
others.” Two years later he wrote a more urgent capitulary to the
bishops and abbots, in which he specified the subjects to be taught in
the cathedral and monastic schools and the care to be taken in teaching
them. Schools seem to have been everywhere established or revived in
the various cathedrals, monasteries, and villages, and the instruction
in several places became famous. All these schools came to offer at
least a complete elementary course, and some added considerable work
in higher education. Reading, writing, computation, singing, and
the Scriptures were taught first, but, beyond this, instruction in
grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic was often given, and at the more
noted cathedral and monastic schools the _quadrivium_ also appeared in
the course. The schools in the villages, under the care of the parish
priests, taught only the rudiments, the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed,
and the Psalms. Tuition was free in all schools for those intending
to become monks or priests, but for the higher work a small fee was
sometimes paid by the laity. It seems to have been generally intended
that education should be gratuitous and open to all. A letter of the
Bishop of Orleans required it of his clergy; and through a capitulary
in 802 Charlemagne strove to make it compulsory.

[Sidenote: After retirement Alcuin’s influence continued, but he became
narrow.]

=Alcuin’s Educational Work at Tours.=--After fourteen years of
strenuous service, Alcuin retired from the active headship of the
educational system to the abbacy of the monastery at Tours. But even
here his educational work did not cease. He soon established a model
house of learning and education, whither flocked the most brilliant
youths in the empire, and since they rapidly became prominent as
teachers and churchmen, his influence upon the schools remained fully
as marked as before. He also wrote a number of educational works,
mostly on the seven liberal arts, and had a large correspondence about
education with kings and the higher clergy. Alcuin, however, was by
nature conservative, and with his retirement he became decidedly set
and narrow. His fear of dialectic and the more advanced views of
certain Irish scholars is almost ludicrous, and his repudiation of the
classic poets, even his former favorite, Vergil, is pathetic.

[Sidenote: His pupils retained his broader spirit.]

=Rabanus Maurus, Erigena, and Others Concerned in the
Revival.=--Fortunately, Alcuin’s pupils, who at his death occupied
practically all positions of educational importance, retained his
broader spirit. This was true in particular of Rabanus Maurus
(776-856), whose leadership caused the monastic school at Fulda
to become the great center of learning. Rabanus wrote even more
prolifically than Alcuin upon grammar, language, and theology, but
was not afraid to emphasize the study of classic literature or the
new training in dialectic. He also greatly expanded the mathematical
subjects of the curriculum, and tended to ascribe all phenomena
to natural laws. Rabanus, in his turn, influenced a large number
of pupils, and a further impetus was given to the movement by a
cross-fertilization of Irish learning, which was also introduced,
especially through the mastership of Joannes Scotus Erigena (810-876)
at the Palace School.

[Sidenote: Permanent effects of the revival.]

Thus during the ninth century and the first half of the tenth there
arose, through the initiative of Charlemagne and Alcuin, a marked
revival in education, and for several generations the cathedral and
monastic schools enthusiastically fostered education and learning.
Curricula were expanded, and many famous scholars appeared. While,
owing to the weakness of Charlemagne’s successors and the attacks
of the Northmen, learning gradually faded once more, intellectual
stagnation never again prevailed. Through the revival of the great
Frankish monarch, classical learning had to some extent been recalled
to continental Europe from its insular asylum in the extreme West.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _During the Transition_ (Macmillan, 1910), chap. III; Monroe,
_Text-book_ (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 274-279. Read also Gaskoin, C. J.
C., _Alcuin, His Life and His Work_ (Clay, London, 1904), or West, A.
F., _Alcuin and the Rise of Christian Schools_ (Scribner, 1892), and
Mullinger, J. B., _The Schools of Charles the Great_ (Longmans, London,
1877).




CHAPTER VII

MOSLEM LEARNING AND EDUCATION


OUTLINE

    Moslemism amalgamated in Syria with Greek philosophy and science,
    and the Moslem cities there became renowned for their learning.

    The masses of the Moslems were suspicious of the Greek learning,
    however, and those who had absorbed the Hellenized philosophy were
    driven from the Orient into Spain, where they founded Moorish
    colleges.

    The Moslems thus stimulated learning in the Christian schools, and
    introduced Aristotle once more, but, after bringing learning back,
    Moslemism itself reverted to its primitive stage.

[Sidenote: Illiteracy of early Moslemism.]

[Sidenote: Learning of the Mohammedan cities of Syria.]

=The Hellenization of Moslemism.=--One of the most important influences
in awakening mediæval Europe was the revival of learning and education
that came through the advent of the Moslems. Mohammed, the founder
of Moslemism, had been almost illiterate, and the _Koran_, or sacred
book, was a curious jumble of Judaistic, Christian, and other religious
elements with which Mohammed had become acquainted during his early
travels. As long as this religion was confined to the ignorant
and unreflecting tribes of Arabia, it served its purpose without
modification. But when it spread into Syria and came in contact with
Greek philosophy, in order to appeal to the people there, it had to
be interpreted in Hellenistic terms, and during the eighth, ninth,
and tenth centuries, through the influence of the Nestorian scholars
(see p. 46), the Mohammedans were engaged in rendering into Arabic
from the Syriac, or from the original Greek, the works of the great
philosophers, mathematicians, and physicians. The Mohammedan cities
of Syria soon became renowned for their learning. In them arose
such scholars as Avicenna (980-1037), who wrote many treatises on
mathematics and philosophy, and a _Canon of Medicine_ that remained
authoritative for five centuries. Similarly, there grew up a society
called the ‘Brothers of Sincerity,’ which in its course of study
amalgamated the Moslem theology with Hellenistic philosophy.

[Sidenote: Averroës and the Moorish colleges.]

=Hellenized Moslemism in Spain.=--But the masses of the Mohammedans
were as suspicious of the Greek learning as the orthodox Christians had
been, and toward the end of the eleventh century Hellenized Moslemism
was driven from the Orient and found a refuge in Northern Africa and
in Spain. Here the advanced Mohammedans became known as ‘Moors,’ and
their works were destined to have a pronounced influence upon the
Christians. There soon appeared such scholars as Averroës (1126-1198),
who became the authoritative commentator on Aristotle for several
centuries; and Moorish colleges were founded at Cordova, Granada,
Toledo, and elsewhere. In these institutions, while learning was
still at a low ebb in the Christian schools, were taught arithmetic,
geometry, trigonometry, astronomy, physics, biology, medicine,
surgery, jurisprudence, logic, and metaphysics. Arabic notation was
also introduced in place of the cumbersome Roman numerals and many
inventions and discoveries were made.

[Sidenote: Learning stimulated in Christian education.]

=Effect upon Europe of the Moslem Education.=--These schools and
colleges of the Moslems soon had their effect upon Christian education.
Through their influence, Raymund, Archbishop of Toledo, by the middle
of the twelfth century had the chief Arabic treatises on philosophy
translated into Castilian by a learned Jew, and then into Latin by
the monks; and Frederick II had scholars render the works of Averroës
into Latin. Such translations had, however, passed through several
media--Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Castilian, Latin--and could not be at
all accurate. But, stimulated by this taste of Greek learning, the
Christians sought a more immediate version, and a half century later
when the Venetians took the city of Constantinople, the works of
Aristotle were recovered in the original and translated directly into
Latin. Meanwhile the orthodox Mohammedanism had been coming to the
front in Spain and overwhelming the Hellenized form, and it was left
to Christian schools to continue the work of the advanced Moorish
institutions. Moslemism had returned to its primitive stage, but it
had helped bring back learning, especially the works of Aristotle, to
Christendom. As the classical learning had been restored from the West
during the revival of Charlemagne, it now returned from its refuge in
the East through the coming of the Moslems.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _During the Transition_ (Macmillan, 1910), chap. V; Monroe,
_Text-book_ (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 331-334. For a further account of
Saracen education, see Coppée, H., _History of the Conquest of Spain
by the Arab-Moors_ (Little, Brown, Boston, 1881), especially bk. X;
Davidson, T., _The Brothers of Sincerity_ (International Journal of
Ethics, July, 1898), and Draper, J. W., _History of the Intellectual
Development of Europe_ (Harper, 1875), vol. I, chaps. XI and XIII, and
vol. II, chaps. II and IV.




CHAPTER VIII

EDUCATIONAL TENDENCIES OF SCHOLASTICISM


OUTLINE

    Scholasticism was a peculiar method of philosophic speculation in
    the later mediæval period. At first, scholastic philosophers held
    that faith must precede reason, but eventually reason itself tended
    to become the means of testing the truth.

    Scholastic education was organized in the monastic and episcopal
    schools, and consisted in the limited learning of the times,
    systematized on the basis of Aristotelian deduction. Scholasticism
    was extreme in its discussions, but it tended to rationalize the
    Church doctrines.

[Sidenote: Not a set of doctrines, but a peculiar method.]

=The Nature of Scholasticism.=--One of the movements that most tended
to awaken the mediæval mind, especially during the latter part of
the Middle Ages, was the development of the Church philosophy known
as ‘scholasticism.’ This movement does not indicate any one set of
doctrines, but is rather a general designation for the peculiar methods
and tendencies of philosophic speculation that became prominent within
the Church in the eleventh century, came to their height during the
twelfth and thirteenth, and declined rapidly the following century. The
name is derived from _doctor scholasticus_, which was the title given
during the mediæval period to the authorized teachers in a monastic or
episcopal school, for it was among these ‘schoolmen’ that the movement
started and developed. Its most striking characteristics are the
narrowness of its field and the thoroughness with which it was worked.

[Sidenote: Anselm]

[Sidenote: and Abelard.]

=The History of Scholastic Development.=--The history of scholasticism
belongs properly to the field of philosophy, but its influence in
bringing on the Renaissance and its effect upon education make a brief
consideration of its development necessary here. It began as an effort
to vanquish heresy in the interest of the Church dogmas, which until
late in the Middle Ages it had not generally been necessary to explain.
Even then it was assumed that the Church was in possession of all final
truth, which had come to it by Divine revelation, and was in harmony
with reason, when fully understood. It was, therefore, the aim of the
earlier schoolmen to show how these doctrines were consistent with
each other and in accordance with reason. At first, as with Anselm
(1033-1109), it was held that faith must precede reason, and where
reason was incapable of penetrating the mysteries of revealed doctrine,
it must desist from its efforts. But the conviction gradually gained
ground that human reason is reliable and that truth can be reached
only through investigation. Abelard (1079-1142) declared that the only
justification of a doctrine is its reasonableness, that reason must
precede faith, and that it is not sinful to doubt.

[Sidenote: Aquinas, Scotus, and Occam.]

A new epoch for scholasticism dawned in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries through contact with the Greek philosophy of the Moors
in Spain and the subsequent recovery of some original treatises of
Aristotle (see p. 67). For a time the Church endeavored to suppress the
great philosopher, but, failing to do so, soon utilized his works for
its own defense, and even made reason identical with Aristotle, whose
authority was not to be disputed. A group of most prominent schoolmen
arose, and, as a result of the discussions of Aquinas (1225-1274),
Duns Scotus (1274-1308), and William of Occam (1280-1347), it came
to be held that truth is established by the _fiat_ of God, and that
ecclesiastical dogmas are, consequently, not matters of reason, but
purely of faith. As a result of this breach between revelation and
reason, there arose two types of truth, and a tendency to choose that
type which was supported by reason.

[Sidenote: Aim,]

[Sidenote: content,]

[Sidenote: and method.]

=Scholastic Education.=--The schoolmen were thus throughout attempting
to rationalize the teachings of the Church, and to present them
in scientific form. As an education, scholasticism aimed also at
furnishing a training in dialectic and intellectual discipline that
should make the student both keen and learned in the knowledge of
the times. The scholastic course of study, which was given at first
in the monastic and episcopal schools and later in the universities,
consisted in the beliefs of the Church and the limited learning of the
times arranged in a systematized form largely on the deductive basis
of the Aristotelian logic. This knowledge could all be grouped under
the head of philosophical theology. The best illustration of the formal
and dogmatic way in which these doctrines were usually presented can
be found in the _Sententiæ_ of Peter the Lombard (1100-1160) and the
_Summa Theologiæ_ of Aquinas (1225-1274), which were the standard texts
of the day upon theology. The work of Aquinas has four main parts,
under each of which is grouped a number of problems. Every problem
is concerned with some fundamental doctrine, and is further divided
into several subtopics. After the problem has been stated, first the
arguments and authorities for the various solutions other than the
orthodox one are given and refuted in regular order, then the proper
solution with its arguments is set forth, and finally, the different
objections to it are answered in a similarly systematic way. Peter the
Lombard’s work has a like arrangement.

[Sidenote: It systematized Church doctrines, and liberated philosophy
from theology.]

=Its Value and Influence.=--As a whole, the work of scholastic
education has been underestimated. It has been urged that it ruined
all spiritual realities by its extreme systemization of religion, that
it dealt with mere abstractions, and that it indulged in over-subtle
distinctions and verbal quibbles. But the scholastic arguments were
not as purposeless or absurd as they seem. For example, the celebrated
inquiry of Aquinas as to the number of angels that could stand on the
point of a needle is simply an attempt to present the nature of the
Infinite in concrete form. It is the characteristic of reasoning beings
to analyze, compare, abstract, and classify, and while scholasticism
may have carried its abstractions, hair-splittings, and scientific
terminology to an extreme, it performed a great service for knowledge.
It found a confused mass of traditional and irrational doctrines
and practices, made them systematic, rational, and scientific,
and greatly assisted accuracy in thinking. The discussions of the
schoolmen resulted in liberating philosophy from theology, and, without
intending it perhaps, scholastic education aided the cause of human
reason against dogmatism and absolute authority. It greatly stimulated
intellectual interests, produced the most acute and subtle minds of the
age, and helped to prepare the way for the Renaissance.

[Illustration: Fig. 9.--The temple of wisdom.

An allegorical representation of the mediæval course of study
reproduced from the _Margarita Philosophica_ of Gregorius Reisch,
Freiburg, 1504. Donatus (elementary grammar) on the first floor;
Priscian (advanced grammar) on second; Aristotle (logic), Cicero
(rhetoric), and Boethius (arithmetic) on the third; Pythagoras (music),
Euclid (geometry), and Ptolemy (astronomy) on the fourth; Pliny
(natural history) and Seneca (ethics) on the fifth; and Peter the
Lombard (theology) on top.]


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _During the Transition_ (Macmillan, 1910), chap. VI; Monroe,
_Text-book_ (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 292-313. For a good account of all
_The Great Schoolmen of the Middle Ages_ (Hodder, London, 1881), see
the work of Townsend, W. J.; for the beginnings of scholasticism,
Mullinger, J. B., _The University of Cambridge_ (Longmans, Green,
1888), vol. I, pp. 47-64; for the life and influence of Abelard,
Compayré, G., _Abelard_ (Scribner, 1893), chap. I; McCabe, J.,
_Abelard_ (Putnam, 1901); and Rashdall, H., _The Universities of Europe
in the Middle Ages_ (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1895), vol. I, chap. II.




CHAPTER IX

THE MEDIÆVAL UNIVERSITIES


OUTLINE

    Universities began to spring up toward the close of the Middle
    Ages. Through local conditions, a course in medicine arose at
    Salerno; in civil and canon law at Bologna; and in theology at
    Paris. Bologna became the pattern for numerous universities in the
    South; and Paris for many in the North.

    Popes and sovereigns granted privileges by charter to the various
    universities. The term ‘university’ originally signified a
    ‘corporation’ of students and teachers, and the students were
    usually grouped according to ‘nations.’ The teaching body was
    divided into four or five ‘faculties.’

    The course in arts included the seven liberal arts and portions of
    Aristotle; in civil and canon law, the _Corpus Juris Civilis_ of
    Justinian and the _Decree_ of Gratian respectively; in medicine,
    the treatises of Greek and other medical writers; and in theology,
    mostly the _Sententiæ_ of Peter the Lombard. The texts were read
    and explained by the lecturers, and a practical training in debate
    was furnished.

    While the courses and methods were narrow and formal, the mediæval
    university contained the germ of modern inquiry and did much to
    foster independence of thought and action.

[Sidenote: In general a product of all that was best in the Middle
Ages.]

=The Rise of Universities.=--A most important effect upon subsequent
education came through the foundation of the mediæval universities.
These institutions grew out of the old cathedral and monastic schools,
but found their models largely in the liberal and professional courses
of the Moorish colleges. In general, they came into existence through
the many broadening influences of the later Middle Ages. Their rise
was intimately connected with the stimulus of the Moslem presentation
of Greek philosophy and science, with the interest in dialectic and
theological discussions, which led to the development of scholasticism,
with the reaction from ‘otherworldliness’ resulting from the ideals of
chivalry, and with the growth of cities and wealth, and the consequent
emphasis upon secular interests and knowledge (see chap. xi). However,
while they were all more or less the product of the same factors, no
two sprang from exactly the same set of causes, and special conditions
played a part in the evolution of each university.

[Sidenote: Causes of the medical school at Salerno.]

=The Foundation of Universities at Salerno, Bologna, and Paris.=--The
oldest of these institutions, that at Salerno, near Naples, was simply
a school of medicine, and originated through the survival of the old
Greek medical works in Southwestern Italy, and through the attraction
of the mineral springs and salubrity of this particular place. By the
middle of the eleventh century Salerno was well known as the leading
place for medical study. It was, however, never chartered as a regular
university, although in 1231 Frederick II recognized it as the school
of medicine for the university he had created at Naples some seven
years earlier.

[Sidenote: Origin of the courses at Bologna]

[Sidenote: in civil law]

[Sidenote: and canon law.]

On the other hand, Northern Italy became known as a center for
the study of Roman law. The cities here, in order to defend their
independence, were led to study this subject, and endeavored to find
some special charter, grant, or edict from the old Roman emperors upon
which to base their claims. Several northern centers were renowned for
their investigation of the Roman civil law, but early in the twelfth
century Bologna became preëminent through the lectures of Irnerius.
By him the entire _Corpus Juris Civilis_, a compilation of Roman law
made by eminent jurists in the sixth century at the command of the
emperor Justinian, was collected and critically discussed. Influenced
by this example, a monk of Bologna, named Gratian, undertook to codify
all edicts and formulations of popes and councils in a convenient
text-book. The _Decree_ of Gratian, which resulted, was almost
immediately recognized as the authority upon the subject, and canon law
came to be studied here with the same thoroughness as civil law. The
university at Bologna was regularly chartered by Frederick Barbarossa
in 1158, probably as a recognition of the services of its masters in
support of his imperial claims, and faculties of arts, medicine, and
theology were established at various times. It was thus the first real
university, and its reputation soon became widespread.

[Sidenote: Development of liberal arts and theology at Paris.]

Next in order of foundation came the university at Paris, which was by
far the most famous of all. The special interest here, as in this part
of Europe generally, was dialectic and scholasticism. The university
grew out of the cathedral school at Notre Dame, which had acquired
considerable reputation under the headship of William of Champeaux,
Abelard, and Peter the Lombard, but it was not until 1200, after canon
law and medicine had been added to the liberal arts and theology, that
it received complete recognition by the charter of Philip Augustus.

[Sidenote: ‘Master-universities’ in the North, but
‘student-universities’ in the South.]

=Bologna and Paris as the Models for Other Universities.=--Salerno,
as we have seen, was not a real university, and it did not reproduce
its type; but Bologna, and even more Paris, became the mother of
universities, for many other institutions were organized after their
general plans. At Bologna the students, who were usually mature
men, had entire charge of the government of the university. They
selected the masters and determined the fees, length of term, and
time of beginning. But in Paris, where the students were younger,
the government was in the hands of the masters. Consequently,
new foundations in the North, where Paris was the type, usually
became ‘master-universities,’ while those of the South were
‘student-universities.’ During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
it became fashionable for the authorities, civil and ecclesiastical,
to charter existing organizations or to found new institutions on one
of these two plans, and by the time the Renaissance was well started
about eighty universities had been established in Europe. Not all of
these foundations were permanent, however, for some thirty have, in the
course of time, become extinct, and those which remain are much changed
in character.

[Sidenote: Protection and autonomy.]

[Sidenote: immunity from taxation and military service, and right to
license masters and to ‘strike’.]

=Privileges Granted to the Universities.=--From the time of the
earliest official recognition of the universities, a large variety of
exemptions, immunities, and other special privileges were conferred
upon the organizations or upon their masters and students, by the
charters of popes, emperors, kings, and municipalities. The students
of the universities were in many instances taken under the immediate
protection of the sovereign, and were allowed to be tried in special
courts of their own, independent of civil jurisdiction, and to possess
complete autonomy in all their internal affairs. Generally masters,
students, and their retainers alike were relieved from all taxation
and from military service. Likewise, universities were granted
the right to license masters to lecture anywhere without further
examination (_jus ubique docendi_), and the privilege of ‘striking’
(_cessatio_), when university rights were infringed. If no redress
were given in the latter case, the suspension of lectures was followed
by emigration of the university to another town. This could easily be
done, since none of the mediæval universities had buildings of their
own, and there was no need of expensive libraries, laboratories, and
other equipment.

[Sidenote: Wandering students.]

Through such special rights the universities obtained great power
and became very independent. Soon the liberty allowed to students
degenerated into recklessness and license, and they became dissipated
and quarrelsome. This is especially seen in the life of the so-called
‘wandering students,’ who migrated from university to university,
begging their way, and were shiftless, rollicking, and vicious. The
one compensating feature of such degeneracy was their production of
jovial Latin and German songs to voice their appreciation of forbidden
pleasures and their protest against restraint.

[Sidenote: The ‘university’ a corporation.]

[Sidenote: The nations,]

[Sidenote: councilors,]

[Sidenote: faculties, deans, and rector.]

=Organization of the Universities.=--The term _universitas_, or
‘university,’ did not imply originally, as often claimed since, an
institution where ‘everything’ is taught, but it was used of any legal
corporation, and only in the course of time was it limited to an
organization of masters and students. The phrase _studium generale_
was also often used of a university, to indicate a school where the
students from all parts of civilization were received, and to contrast
it with a _studium particulare_, which was confined to pupils of a
limited neighborhood. The formation of a university had been preceded
by the organization of ‘nations,’ or bodies of students grouped
according to the part of Europe from which they came, but these nations
soon began to combine for the sake of obtaining greater privileges and
power. Every year each nation chose a ‘councilor,’ who was to represent
it and guard its interests. On the side of the masters, the university
became organized into ‘faculties,’ of which there might be at least
four,--arts, law, medicine, and theology; and each faculty came to
elect a ‘dean’ as its representative. The deans and the councilors
jointly elected the ‘rector,’ or head of the university.

[Sidenote: Arts.]

[Sidenote: Law.]

[Sidenote: Medicine.]

[Sidenote: Theology.]

=Course in the Four Faculties.=--The course of study to be offered
by each faculty was largely fixed by papal decree or university
legislation during the thirteenth century. The course in arts, which
occupied six years, included the texts on the liberal arts mentioned
for the monastic schools (see pp. 56 f.) and several of the treatises
of Aristotle, as rapidly as they were recovered. In the law course,
_Corpus Juris Civilis_ was the authorized text for civil law, and the
_Decree_ of Gratian for canon law. The faculty of medicine utilized the
Greek treatises by Hippocrates (c. 460-375 B. C.) and Galen (c. 130-200
A. D.), the _Canon_ of Avicenna (see p. 66), and the works of certain
Jewish and Salernitan physicians. The students of theology put most of
their time upon the four books of Peter the Lombard’s _Sententiæ_ (Fig.
9), although the _Bible_ was studied incidentally.

[Sidenote: Lectures.]

[Sidenote: Debates.]

=The Methods of Instruction.=--The training of a mediæval student
consisted not only in acquiring the subjects mentioned, but in
learning to debate upon them. The acquisition of the subject-matter
was accomplished through lectures, which consisted in reading and
explaining the text-book under consideration (Fig. 10). Beside the text
itself, the teacher would read all the explanatory notes, summaries,
cross-references, and objections to the author’s statements, which
often quite overshadowed the original, and might even add a commentary
of his own. The passage was read slowly and repeated whenever
necessary. The whole exercise was carried on in Latin, which had to be
learned by the student before coming to the university. The training
in debate was furnished by means of formal disputations, in which one
student, or group of students, was pitted against another (Fig. 11).
In these contests, which also were conducted in Latin, not only were
authorities cited, but the debaters might add arguments of their own.
Thus, compared with the memorizing of lectures, debating afforded some
acuteness and vigor of intellect, but by the close of the fifteenth
century it had become no longer reputable. The aim came to be to win
and to secure applause without regard to truth or consistency.

[Sidenote: Master or doctor.]

[Sidenote: Baccalaureate.]

=Examinations and Degrees.=--At the close of the course, the student
was examined in his ability to define and dispute; and if he passed,
he was admitted to the grade of master, doctor, or professor. These
degrees seem originally to have been about on a par with each other,
and signified that the candidate was now ready to practice the craft of
teaching. The baccalaureate was at first not a real degree, but simply
permission to become a candidate for the license to teach. During the
thirteenth century, however, it came to be sought as an honor by many
not intending to teach, and eventually became a separate degree.

[Illustration:

  The Mediæval Universities:
  Fig. 10.--The lecture.
  Fig. 11.--The disputation.
]

[Sidenote: Meager and authoritative,]

[Sidenote: but somewhat productive of inquiry and freedom.]

=The Value and Influence of the University Training.=--Obviously the
mediæval universities had most of the defects of their times. From a
modern point of view, the content of their course of study was meager,
fixed, and formal, and the methods of teaching were stereotyped and
authoritative. They largely neglected the real literature of the
classical age, and permitted but little that savored of investigation
or thinking. Yet the universities were a product of the growing
tendencies that later burst the fetters of mediævalism. They were a
great encouragement to subtlety, industry, and thoroughness, and their
efforts toward philosophic speculation contained the germs of the
modern spirit of inquiry and rationality. They were even of immediate
assistance in promoting freedom of discussion and advancing democracy,
and to their arbitration were often referred disputes between the civil
and ecclesiastical powers. Thus they aided greatly in advancing the
cause of individualism and carrying forward the torch of civilization
and progress.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _During the Transition_ (Macmillan, 1910), chap. IX; Monroe,
_Text-book_ (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 313-327. Standard works on the
universities in general are Laurie, S. S., _The Rise and Early
Constitution of Universities_ (Appleton, 1886), and the more complete
and accurate _Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages_ (Oxford,
Clarendon Press, 1895), by Rashdall, H. For a brief source account of
the privileges, courses, methods, and student life of universities,
see Norton, A. O., _Readings in the History of Education; Mediæval
Universities_ (Harvard University, 1909), or Munro, D. C., _The
Mediæval Student_ (Longmans, Green, 1899). For the history of
individual universities, see Compayré, G., _Abelard and the Origin and
Early History of Universities_ (Scribner, 1893); Lyte, H. C. M., _A
History of the University of Oxford_ (Macmillan, 1886); Mullinger, J.
B., _University of Cambridge_ (Longmans, London, 1888); and Paulsen,
F., _The German Universities_ (Macmillan, 1895; Scribner, 1906).




CHAPTER X

THE EDUCATION OF CHIVALRY


OUTLINE

    Owing to the weakness of the regular sovereignty after
    Charlemagne’s day, the feudal system sprang up, and by the middle
    of the twelfth century it had developed a code of manners known as
    chivalry.

    Out of this there arose a training for knighthood in religion,
    honor, and gallantry. Before becoming a knight, the boy was early
    trained at home, then at some castle, first as ‘page,’ and later as
    ‘squire.’

    This chivalric education produced many contradictory results, but
    it tended to refine the times and to counteract ‘otherworldliness.’

[Sidenote: Dependence upon a powerful neighbor became a regular form of
government.]

=The Development of Feudalism.=--The mediæval education thus far
described has had to do mostly with the schooling of the ecclesiastical
and other select professional classes. Quite a different type of
training was that given the knight. This has generally been known as
the education of chivalry. Chivalry is a name for the code of manners
in usage during the days of the feudal system. By this system is
meant an order of society and government that gradually grew up in
the Middle Ages alongside the regular political organization, and
when, under the successors of Charlemagne, the monarchy became weak,
tended to be substituted for it. Under feudalism small landowners and
freemen lacking land had come to depend upon some powerful neighbor
for protection, and even to seek from him a dependent tenure of land.
Then, in time, the lords acquired a species of sovereignty over their
tenants, and by the tenth century there had come to be a great social
gulf between the nobility, who owned the land and lived in castles, and
the peasantry, who tilled the soil and supported them. The only serious
business of the former was fighting with spear, sword, or battle-axe,
in their own quarrels or those of their feudal superiors. To prepare
for this warfare, mock combats may occasionally have been engaged in as
early as the tenth century (Fig. 12).

[Sidenote: Religion, honor, and gallantry.]

=The Ideals of Chivalry.=--But by the middle of the twelfth century,
when the old heroic age had lapsed into an age of courtesy, with
extravagant devotion to women and romantic adventure as its chief
ideals, these encounters were organized into a definite species of
pastime called ‘tournaments,’ and soon degenerated into mere pageantry.
Hence the rules of chivalry became fixed and formal, and the art of
horsemanship and the management of the lance and spear were developed
and settled. The ideals of knightly conduct and education could then
be stated as ‘service and obedience’ to God, as represented by the
organized church, to one’s lord, or feudal superior, and to one’s lady,
whose favor the knight wore in battle or tournament. The three ruling
motives of chivalric education were, therefore, held to be ‘religion,
honor, and gallantry.’

[Sidenote: Training (1) at home,]

[Sidenote: (2) as a page,]

[Sidenote: and]

[Sidenote: (3) as a squire.]

[Sidenote: The knighting.]

=The Three Preparatory Stages of Education.=--There were three periods
in the preparatory training of a knight. First, until the child was
seven or eight, he was trained in religion, politeness, and physique at
home by his mother. After this he became a ‘valet’ or ‘page’ at the
home of a nobleman, who was generally his father’s feudal superior.
Here he performed personal duties for his lord and lady, and his
education was conducted mostly by the latter. He learned the game of
chess, acquired the etiquette of love and honor, and was taught to
play the harp and pipe and to sing, to read and write, and to compose
in verse. Outside the castle, the pages were trained in running,
wrestling, boxing, riding, and rudimentary tilting (Fig. 14). In the
third stage, at fourteen or fifteen the youth passed to the grade of
‘squire,’ and, while he still attended the lady and carved the meat
or handed around the viands for the guests, his chief service was to
the knight and his training came through him. He slept near him at
night, groomed his horses, kept his armor and weapons in condition,
and attended him at the tournament or upon the battlefield. Through
this service the squire himself was practiced in all the warlike
arts. Toward the close of the period the embryo knight also chose his
lady-love, and learned to write verses and dance. When the squire
became twenty-one, he was knighted with many religious ceremonies.
After a season of fasting, the candidate entered the church in full
armor and spent a night in vigil and holy meditation. In the morning he
confessed, had his sword blessed upon the altar by the priest, and took
an oath to defend the church, protect women, and succor the poor. He
then knelt before his lord, who laid his own sword upon the candidate
and dubbed him knight.

[Sidenote: Courage, but cruelty;]

[Sidenote: self-respect, but pride;]

[Sidenote: liberality, but extravagance;]

[Sidenote: and other anomalies.]

[Sidenote: Counteraction of otherworldliness.]

=The Effects of Chivalric Education.=--Such was the training of the
knight in the ‘rudiments of love, war, and religion.’ It contained
many apparent anomalies and contradictions, and every virtue seems to
have been balanced by a correlative vice. The knights were recklessly
courageous in battle, but their anger was ungovernable and their
cruelty extreme. A great self-respect was supposed to characterize
the true knight, but this often reacted into an overweening pride.
Likewise, while the knights were rated largely according to their
liberality and hospitality, these virtues degenerated into a great
love of display and extravagance beyond measure. Again, although great
respect for womanhood was inculcated, not much consideration could be
expected by the woman beneath a certain rank. Similarly, the knightly
word of honor, if accompanied by certain forms, would be held sacred,
but should these forms be omitted, a decided breach of faith was not
uncommon. As a whole, however, the chivalric training had a beneficial
effect upon the society of the times. It helped to organize the turmoil
and to refine the barbarism of mediæval Europe, and was an effective
instrument in raising the position of women. Moreover, while this
peculiar training was artificial and worldly, by that very tendency it
did much to counteract the ‘otherworldly’ ideal of monasticism and the
general asceticism of the period. It encouraged an activity in earthly
affairs and a frank enjoyment of this life, and thus helped to develop
a striking characteristic of the Renaissance.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _During the Transition_ (Macmillan, 1910), chap. VII; Monroe,
_Text-book_ (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 284-291. Detailed descriptions of
the stages of chivalric training can be found in Cornish, F. W.,
_Chivalry_ (Sonnenschein, London, 1901) (Macmillan, 1908); Furnival, F.
J., _Early Education in England (Forewords to The Babees Book_, Early
English Text Society, Original Series, vol. 32); and Mills, C., _The
History of Chivalry_ (Lea and Blanchard, Philadelphia, 1844), vol.
I, chaps. I-V, and vol. II, chap. VII. An ingenious, but uncritical
reconstruction of the life of a knight in story form, is found in
Gautier, L., _Chivalry_, chaps. V-XX.

[Illustration: The Education of Chivalry:

Figs. 12 and 13.--Preliminaries and termination of a combat.

Fig. 14.--Boys playing tournament with a ‘quintain,’ or dummy opponent.

(Reproduced from Strutt, _Sports and Pastimes of England_.)]




CHAPTER XI

THE BURGHER, GILD, AND CHANTRY SCHOOLS


OUTLINE

    In the later Middle Ages the commerce of Europe was greatly
    increased. Soon the towns received a large impulse from serfs that
    flocked into them, and before long an influential ‘burgher class’
    arose.

    There also sprang up merchant and craft gilds, which afforded an
    industrial training through apprenticeship, and a more formal
    education through ‘gild schools.’ As the gilds merged with the
    town, these institutions became ‘burgher schools,’ and afforded a
    practical education in reading, writing, and reckoning. Various
    ‘adventure,’ ‘chantry,’ and other schools were also absorbed by the
    burgher schools.

    Thus these institutions came to represent the educational interests
    of the industrial classes, and paved the way for the civic control
    of education.

[Sidenote: Impulse caused by Crusades and desire for luxuries.]

=The Rise of Commerce and Industry.=--A most important influence in
producing a transition from the mediæval to modern times is found in
the increase of commerce during the later Middle Ages. From the Roman
days down, trade had never died out in Western Europe, especially
Italy, despite the injuries wrought by barbarian invasions, as the
nobles had always need of luxuries, and the Church of articles of
utility in its services. But the demand for vessels and transports
during the Crusades, and the desire for the precious stones, silks,
perfumes, drugs, spices, and porcelain from the Orient afterward,
gave a tremendous impulse to commercial and industrial activity. The
people of Europe began to think of what articles others outside their
own little groups might want in exchange for these luxuries, and to
strive to produce such commodities. They also undertook themselves
to make some of the new articles, such as light and gauzy cotton and
linen fabrics, silks, velvets, and tapestries. Thus the means of
communication between the European states was greatly facilitated, new
commercial routes and new regions were opened, geographical knowledge
was increased, navigation was developed, maritime and mercantile
affairs were organized, manufactures and industries were enlarged,
currency was increased, and forms of credit were improved. All this
tended toward a larger intellectual view and a partial dissipation of
provincialism and intolerance.

[Sidenote: Contributed to the growth of cities,]

=Development of Cities and the Burgher Class.=--The most noteworthy
consequence of this industrial and commercial awakening was the growth
of towns and cities. There was little town life in Western Europe
during the Middle Ages before the twelfth century, as the old Roman
towns had, through the invasions of the Germans, largely disintegrated,
and but few new organizations had sprung up in their place. While
some towns still existed in Italy and Southern France, most of the
people of Europe lived in the country upon feudal estates. These
little communities were largely isolated and independent of the rest
of the world. They produced among themselves all that their members
needed, and little or no money was necessary for their crude forms of
exchange. Their life was unbroken in its monotony, there was little
opportunity for them to better their condition, and their industries
were carried on in a perfunctory and wasteful fashion. But with the
growth of commerce and population, these serfs began to find it more
profitable to work in the towns and compensate the lord of the manor
with money rather than work, and the lords, in turn, found it of
advantage to accept money in lieu of services, especially as many of
them had been impoverished by the Crusades. Great bodies of serfs
flocked to the towns, and new centers sprang up around the manorial
estates and monasteries as manufactures, trades, and commerce increased.

[Sidenote: and to the development of a burgher class.]

Feudalism thus began to be threatened as early as the twelfth
century, and within a hundred years the extinction of serfdom was
assured. The people soon rebelled against the rule of their lords and
either expelled them altogether or secured from them for a monetary
consideration a charter conferring more liberal rights and privileges.
By these charters, the lord agreed to recognize the gild of merchants,
and to permit the people to govern themselves. As industries, trade,
and commerce continued to develop, the craftsmen and merchants grew
rapidly in wealth and importance. They were soon enabled to rival the
clergy in education, and the nobility in the luxury of their dwellings
and living. They began to read, and books were written or adapted for
their needs. The ‘burgher class’ came to have a recognized position by
the side of the clergy and nobility; and the king, in order to retain
their support, was forced to take counsel with them. This development
of industry and commerce, growth of town and city life, and rise of a
‘third estate’ is one of the most noteworthy changes of the late Middle
Ages.

[Sidenote: Stages of]

[Sidenote: (1) apprentice]

[Sidenote: (2) journeyman, and]

(3) master.]

=The Gilds and Industrial Education.=--Such a new social attitude
naturally gave rise to new forms of education. An informal type of
training soon sprang up in connection with the development of ‘gilds.’
Besides the original gild of merchants, through which the town had
presented a united front and gained its privileges, separate gilds
for the various crafts had been established in each town. These craft
gilds were the sole repositories of the traditional lore of the
vocations, and became the chief channel for transmitting it. While
their number and variety differed in each town, all the gilds sought to
prevent anyone who had not been regularly approved and admitted to the
corporation from practicing the trade he represented. In consequence
of this attempt at regulation, industrial training in the craft of
each gild grew up through an apprenticeship system. This was provided
upon a domestic basis. The ‘apprentice’ entered the household of his
‘master,’ and learned the craft under his direction (Fig. 15). The time
necessary for this varied greatly in different crafts. For example,
in Paris it took two years to learn to become a cook, eight years an
embroiderer, and ten years a goldsmith. While the apprentice received
no wages during this period, he was under the protection of the gild,
and might appeal to the organization against ill-treatment or defective
training. At the end of his apprenticeship, he became a ‘journeyman’
and could earn wages, but only by working for a master, and not through
direct service for the public. After an examination by the gild,
which might include the presentation of a ‘masterpiece,’ or sample of
his work, the journeyman eventually became a master. In other ways,
the organization regulated and protected its craft. In order that
journeymen and masters might not become too numerous, all masters, save
those on the governing board of the gild, were forbidden to take more
than one apprentice. The methods of practicing each trade and the hours
to be devoted to it each day were specified, and the handiwork of each
man carefully scrutinized. In many instances, the gild put its own
stamp upon good work, and might often seize products that it considered
defective.

[Sidenote: A more formal means of education was instituted through
priests of the gilds and endowments.]

=Gild Schools.=--In this way there grew up a species of industrial
education, with three definite stages in its organization and with
inspection at every point. Before long, too, the gilds developed a
more formal means of education. The existing ecclesiastical schools
did not altogether meet the needs of the gilds, and they undertook
the establishment of additional institutions for this purpose. Where
the gilds had retained one or more priests to perform the necessary
religious offices for their members, before long they also utilized
these functionaries to keep a school for the benefit of their own and
sometimes other children in the town. Later, endowments were furnished
especially for a priest to teach school, or an amount sufficient for
the purpose was paid out of the common funds of the gild. Some of these
gild schools, like ‘Merchant Taylors’’ of London, or the Grammar School
at Stratford-on-Avon, where Shakespeare was educated (Fig. 16), still
survive as secondary institutions. Many instances, too, are recorded
where the members of a certain gild were appointed trustees of a
school established by an individual, and were granted the right of
appointing and dismissing the master, admitting the pupils, managing
the property, and formulating statutes. In some such fashion Colet
later vested the management of the famous St. Paul’s school (see p.
118) in the gild of mercers.

[Illustration: Fig. 15.--Apprenticeship training in a gild. (The master
bootmaker and his wife, two journeymen, and an apprentice.)]

[Illustration: Fig. 16.--Gild school and church at Stratford-on-Avon.
(In this ‘grammar’ school Shakespeare learned ‘little Latin and less
Greek.’)]

[Sidenote: Gild schools absorbed by the burgher schools.]

[Sidenote: Practical course.]

=Burgher Schools.=--As the gild organizations gradually merged with
those of the towns, the gild schools were generally absorbed in the
institutions known as ‘burgher’ or town schools. At first these burgher
schools were not very dissimilar to those established by the Church,
except that they were more conveniently located, but later various
types of vernacular schools arose to meet special practical demands,
especially writing and reckoning. The Latin burgher schools were also
somewhat practical in their course, and often admitted some pupils who
desired to learn only to read, write, and reckon. Writing had become
an important vocation, since printing had not yet been invented; and
there was a definite demand for writers in public offices, private
secretaries, letter writers for the illiterate, and teachers of
writing. Reckoning grew directly out of the new commercial life, and
was often taught in the writing schools. It was not taught from the
standpoint of theory or discipline, as was the arithmetic in the Latin
schools, but for the sake of practical calculation and bookkeeping. But
even all the facilities of the regular Latin and vernacular schools of
the town were not sufficient to meet the demand for a more practical
education. In consequence, private ‘adventure’ schools, taught by
wandering teachers or by women, likewise often sprang up, and some
teachers were even licensed by the town authorities to teach the
vernacular. In most instances, however, these institutions were also
combined with the burgher schools.

[Sidenote: Arose from foundations for masses for the dead.]

=Chantry Schools.=--Another type of institution that came into
prominence toward the close of the Middle Ages was the ‘chantry
school.’ Schools of this sort at first arose out of bequests by wealthy
persons to support priests who should ‘chant’ masses for the repose of
their souls. Since these religious duties did not absorb all the time
of the priests, they were able to do some teaching. And before long,
the founders of chantries themselves came to direct that the priests
carrying out their will should be required to teach. Often two chantry
priests were provided, one to teach a ‘grammar’ school, and the other
a ‘song’ or vernacular school. From the first most of these chantry
schools were free of all tuition charges, the priest being requested
to “teach gratis, without asking anything beyond his stipend for his
pains,” but occasionally they were gratuitous only to the children of
his parishioners or to poor children whose parents or guardians asked
for the privilege.

[Sidenote: Paved the way for a more secularized education.]

=Influence of the New Schools.=--The chantry schools likewise were
often united with various other schools within a town, and became
jointly known as ‘burgher schools.’ Many new foundations of a similar
nature were also made. These burgher schools were largely controlled
and supported by the public authorities, although still generally
taught by the priests. They came to represent the interests of the
mercantile and industrial classes, and gave instruction in subjects
of more practical value than had any of the schools hitherto. Such
institutions sprang up everywhere during the later Middle Ages. They
were often strongly opposed by the ecclesiastical authorities, who
struggled hard to abolish them or bring them under control, but they
continued to grow and hold their own. The number of lay teachers in
them gradually increased, and thus paved the way for the tendency
toward the secularization and civic control of education that appeared
later on. The new schools, therefore, that arose in connection with the
development of commerce and industry and the growth of towns, were one
of the largest factors that led into the broadening of outlook known as
the Renaissance.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _During the Transition_ (Macmillan, 1910), chap. X; Monroe,
_Text-book_ (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 337-339. Adams, G. B., _Civilization
during the Middle Ages_ (Scribner, 1894), furnishes an illuminating
chapter (XII) upon the _Growth of Commerce and Its Results_. The
development of towns and gilds in various countries of Europe is
described in detail by Ashley, W. J., _English Economic History and
Theory_ (Putnam, 1892), vol. I, chap. II; Green, Alice S., _Town Life
in the Fifteenth Century_ (Macmillan, 1894); Gross, C., _The Gild
Merchant_ (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1890); Staley, E., _The Guilds
of Florence_ (Methuen, London, 1906); and Unwin, G., _The Gilds and
Companies of London_ (Methuen, London, 1908; Scribner, 1909). Accounts
of the new types of schools are found in Leach, A. F., _English Schools
at the Reformation_ (Constable, 1896), chaps. 7-9; Nohle, E., _History
of the German School System_ (Report of the U. S. Commissioner of
Education, 1897-1898, vol. I), pp. 22-26; and Watson, F., _English
Grammar Schools to 1660_ (Cambridge University Press, 1909), chap.
VII.




PART III

THE TRANSITION TO MODERN TIMES




CHAPTER XII

THE HUMANISTIC EDUCATION


OUTLINE

    By the fourteenth century there appeared an intellectual awakening,
    known as the _Renaissance_. It was accompanied by a ‘revival of
    learning’ and an education called ‘humanistic.’

    Italy first showed evidence of the new movement. The
    characteristics of the Renaissance were embodied in Petrarch and
    Boccaccio, but little was done with the Greek classics until
    Chrysoloras came from Constantinople.

    The tyrants of various cities often had humanistic schools started
    at their courts. Of these the most typical was that under Vittorino
    da Feltre. These schools eventually forced the universities to
    admit the humanities to their course. But humanism gradually
    degenerated into ‘Ciceronianism.’

    Humanistic education also gradually spread to the countries north
    of Italy, but it there took on more of a moral color. In France,
    the protection of Francis I encouraged the introduction of humanism
    into educational institutions by various scholars. The German
    universities likewise began to respond to humanistic influences.

    The Hieronymians first introduced the classics into the schools,
    and Erasmus, who was trained by them, became the leader in
    humanistic education. Through other humanistic schools started by
    Sturm and others, the ‘gymnasium,’ the typical classical school of
    Germany, was evolved, and the humanistic education became fixed and
    formal.

    In England the movement gradually developed at Oxford and
    Cambridge, and Colet started St. Paul’s school, which became the
    model for all secondary schools. Humanism in England, however,
    soon retrograded into a formalism, and the ‘grammar’ and ‘public’
    schools there are little changed to-day.

    The first secondary schools in the American colonies were modeled
    after the grammar schools of the mother country.

[Sidenote: Mediævalism contained the germ of its own emancipation.]

=The Passing of the Middle Ages.=--It can now be seen that a new
spirit had crept into European civilization, and that the Middle Ages
were passing. We have previously noted (pp. 53f.) that, in order
to bring the German barbarians up to the level of the past, it was
necessary for the Church to set an authoritative standard and repress
all variation on the part of the individual. Yet such bondage of the
human spirit was unnatural, and there were periodic tendencies to
rebel against the system. In fact, mediævalism contained within itself
the germ of its own emancipation. During the eighth century there
came about a new political order, which culminated in Charlemagne’s
revival of education. While conditions were never again as desperate
after this stimulus, with the disruption of Charlemagne’s empire
another decline set in. But by the thirteenth century a new revival,
material and intellectual, had also appeared. Several developments gave
evidence of the expansion within, and assisted in producing it. The
broadening of horizon through contact with the Moors, the development
of scholasticism, the evolution of universities, the worldly appeal
of chivalry, and the growth of cities, gilds, and commerce were all
helping by accumulation to dispel the mediæval spirit.

[Sidenote: The general tendencies of the Awakening]

And by the fourteenth century a new dawn had been ushered in. The
period that followed was marked by a general intellectual and cultural
progress that began to free men from their bondage to ecclesiasticism
and to induce them to look at the world about them. The adherence to
an ‘otherworldly’ ideal, the restriction of learning, the reception of
the teachings of the Church without investigation, and the conformity
of the individual were by this time rapidly disappearing. Such
tendencies were clearly being replaced by a genuine joy in the life
of this world, a broader field of knowledge and thought, a desire to
reason and deal with all ideas more critically, and enlarged ideals of
individualism. The days of mere absorption and assimilation had passed.

[Sidenote: While the Renaissance was caused by internal factors, it was
promoted by the Revival of Learning.]

[Sidenote: Humanists and humanistic education.]

=The Renaissance and the Revival of Learning.=--This tremendous
widening of horizon has been generally known as the _Renaissance_
or ‘new birth.’ The term is used to indicate that the spirit of
the Græco-Roman development had returned, and that opportunity for
expression was granted to the individual once more. But this period
is also appropriately known as the ‘Revival of Learning.’ For, while
the awakening preceded and was caused by internal factors, rather than
by the recovery of classical literature and learning, intellectual
freedom was very greatly heightened and forwarded after a restoration
of the classics once began. The only food at hand that could satisfy
the awakened intelligence of the times was the literature and culture
of the classical peoples. The discovery that the writings of the
ancient world were filled with a genuine vitality and virility, and
that the old authors had dealt with world problems in a profound and
masterly fashion, and with far more vision than had ever been possible
for the mediævalists, gave rise to an eager desire and enthusiasm for
the classics that went beyond all bounds. A knowledge of classical
literature had never altogether disappeared, and various works had
been preserved by the monks and others. To search out the manuscripts
of the Latin and Greek writers, the monasteries, cathedrals, and
castles were now ransacked from end to end. The manuscripts found were
rapidly multiplied, and the greatest pains taken to secure the correct
form of every passage. The devotees of the new movement were generally
called ‘humanists,’ and the training embodying the classics has since
been termed ‘humanistic education.’

[Sidenote: Political storm center.]

[Sidenote: Commercial activity.]

[Sidenote: Home of the classics.]

=Causes of the Awakening in Italy.=--While the general tendency toward
an awakening was apparent throughout Western Europe, it first became
evident in Italy. This was due to the fact that Italy was at the time
a seat of intellectual activity resulting from several factors. It was
a storm center for civic and interstate quarrels, and, as a result
of this political unrest, the citizens were kept constantly on the
outlook for their own safety and interests, and their wits were greatly
sharpened. Even the exile, into which one civic faction or another
was constantly forced, had the effect of broadening their vision
and bringing out the greatest possibilities within them. Again, the
commercial intercourse of the Italian cities with other countries had,
for various physiographic and historic reasons, become extraordinarily
active. This tended to open the minds of the Italians, break up their
old conceptions, free them of prejudice, and increase their thirst for
learning. Furthermore, the ghost of the classic ages still haunted its
old home. A knowledge of the Latin tongue had never ceased to exist in
Italy, and many manuscripts of the Latin and Greek authors had been
preserved. There was only needed an intellectual awakening sufficient
to shake off the thraldom to the Church and produce an appreciation of
classical literature and culture, in order to bring back this spirit of
the past into real pulsating life.

[Sidenote: Petrarch embodied the Renaissance spirit,]

[Sidenote: and was an enthusiast on the Latin classics.]

[Sidenote: His influence.]

=The Revival of the Latin Classics.=--The earliest of the great
humanists was Petrarch (1304-1374). In him we find the very embodiment
of the Renaissance spirit. He completely repudiated the ‘otherworldly’
ideal of mediævalism, and was keenly aware of the beauties and joys of
this life. He did not hesitate to attack the most hoary of traditions,
nor to rely upon observation, investigation, and reason. He likewise
felt a kinship with the thinkers and writers of the classic age, when
independence and breadth were given more scope, and held that their
works must be recovered before their spirit could be continued. This
led to a tremendous enthusiasm for the Latin classics, and he spent
much of his life in restoring ancient culture. He devoted himself
during his extensive travels largely to collecting manuscripts of the
old Latin writers, which previously had been widely scattered, and
endeavoring to repair in them the ravages of time. And he inspired
every one he met with a desire to gather and study the works of the
classic authors. He also wrote a number of Latin works that were
filled with the classic spirit. Among them were several collections
of _Letters_, a work of erudition _On Famous Men_, and an epic poem
in honor of Scipio Africanus that he called _Africa_. Some of his
letters were indited to Cicero, Homer, and other classical authors as
if they were still living. After he had been crowned as poet laureate
by the University of Rome in 1341, he spent most of his time visiting
various Italian cities and spreading the humanistic spirit. Of the
younger scholars and literary men influenced by him probably the most
noted was Boccaccio (1313-1375). Through Petrarch this youthful poet
developed a perfect passion for the ancient writers, and devoted the
rest of his life to classical culture. He obtained a wide knowledge of
the Latin writers, and searched out, preserved, and had copied as many
manuscripts as possible.

[Sidenote: Little was at first known of the Greek classics.]

[Sidenote: Chrysoloras]

[Sidenote: and his pupils.]

=The Development of Greek Scholarship.=--With all this revival of
Latin literature by the _côterie_ of Petrarch, for some time there was
little done with the Greek. That language had almost disappeared in
Europe, and the greatest Greek authors were known only through Latin
translations. But a knowledge of the Greek language and literature
still persisted in the Eastern empire, and the humanists of Italy were,
through the works of the Latin authors, constantly directed back to the
writings of the Greeks. They became eager to read them in the original,
and several humanists began the study of Greek. Nevertheless, Petrarch
pathetically confessed: “Homer is dumb to me, while I am most certainly
deaf to him.” And while, with the aid of his Greek teacher, Boccaccio
made a translation of Homer, it showed little real appreciation of the
original. Not until Chrysoloras (1350-1415) came as an envoy from the
Eastern emperor and was induced in 1396 to settle in Italy and teach
Greek, was any systematic training possible. During the next sixteen
years this man of learning taught in the leading centers, established
schools, made translations of Greek authors, and wrote a Greek grammar.
From his efforts sprang a number of famous scholars, such as Vergerio,
Niccolo de’ Niccoli, Bruni, and Guarino da Verona and his son. These
men collected or copied hundreds of volumes, started libraries and
schools, made excellent translations, wrote treatises on humanistic
education, and trained a number of humanists, who became distinguished
later.

[Sidenote: City tyrants fostered humanism and started court schools.]

=The Court Schools and Vittorino da Feltre.=--A powerful support
for the work of these humanists resulted from the rivalry of the
Italian cities. The princes at the head of these centers were often
usurpers, and depended largely upon city pride to maintain their
power. To appeal to the classical enthusiasm of their people, they
did everything possible to propagate the humanistic movement and make
their cities illustrious. Probably the most typical examples of these
humanistic tyrants are found among the Visconti at Milan and the Medici
at Florence. In some instances these court circles promoted the new
learning informally, but often, where a scholar had been taken into
the family of a prince as private tutor, children of the neighboring
aristocracy were associated and a regular school was started. ‘Court
schools’ of this sort soon existed at Florence, Venice, Padua, Pavia,
Verona, Ferrara, and several other cities, but the best known of all
was that organized by Vittorino da Feltre (1378-1446) at Mantua.

[Sidenote: Types of pupils.]

[Sidenote: The aim was harmonious development of mind, body, and
morals.]

=The Court School at Mantua.=--Vittorino undertook this school at
forty-five, when he had received the best possible education of the
times in Latin, Greek, and mathematics, and had greatly distinguished
himself as a teacher and a man of piety. He received into the school
not only the royal princes and the scions of the leading Mantuan
families, but, by special permission, the sons of his personal friends
and promising boys of every degree. He dwelt with his pupils, and was
most strict in his selection of masters and of attendants, that the
morals of his pupils might be of the highest. Likewise, ‘the father
of his pupils,’ as Vittorino held himself to be, looked out for their
food, clothing, and health, and shared in their games, interests,
and pleasures. It was his intention to secure for his pupils that
harmonious development of mind, body, and morals that the old Greeks
had known as a ‘liberal education,’ but he emphasized the practical and
social side of the individual’s efficiency, and wished to prepare his
pupils for a life of activity and service rather than to create mere
rhetoricians and pedants.

[Sidenote: Course and methods.]

[Sidenote: Classics and mathematical subjects.]

[Sidenote: Physical and moral and religious training.]

This he felt could be accomplished largely through a grammatical and
literary study of the Greek and Roman writers. The pupils learned from
the first to converse in Latin, and there were games with letters for
the youngest and simple exercises to train them in clear articulation
and proper accent and emphasis. Before they were ten, they were also
drilled in memorizing and reciting with intelligence the easier
portions of the classic authors. This elocutionary work, which was
increased in length and difficulty as the boys grew older, gave them an
excellent grasp of vocabulary, rhythm, and style. As they advanced, the
pupils read a variety of Latin writers, and soon took up a study of the
Greek authors and of the Church Fathers. The mathematical subjects were
also taught with an enlarged scope, especially in their applications
to drawing, mensuration, and surveying. Because of the lack of books,
the teaching was carried on largely by dictation. Vittorino, however,
carefully studied the ability, interests, and future career of his
pupils, and selected the subjects and methods best suited to each
intelligence. He thus inaugurated a thoroughly elastic course for the
school. Physical and moral education were likewise insisted upon quite
as fully as intellectual. Vittorino introduced especially fencing,
wrestling, dancing, ball-playing, running, and leaping, in all of
which he was himself an expert, but the purpose of these was to aid
and stimulate the mental powers. He also by both precept and example
inculcated piety, reverence, and religious observances. He believed,
moreover, that truth and moral beauty could be derived not only from
the Christian authors, but also, by means of expurgation, from the
classic writings.

[Sidenote: Rivalry and adoption of the new learning by the
universities.]

=The Relation of the Court Schools to the Universities.=--The court
school at Mantua had thus a most potent influence upon the educational
practice of the times, and trained a large number of distinguished
ecclesiastics, statesmen, scholars, and rulers. It doubtless was
broadly typical of the court schools and of the humanistic education of
Italy in general. These court schools, while taking pupils very early,
often retained them until they were twenty-one, and covered as much,
if not more, ground than the arts course of the university. They were,
in a way, competitors of the older institutions. A student might, for
the sake of a degree, go from a court school to a university, but, as
a rule, if what he wished were a general course, he would be satisfied
with the greater prestige that came from being a pupil of one of the
distinguished humanists that the court schools were generally able to
retain at their head. In fact, the want of hospitality, if not actual
hostility, of universities to the new learning, often stimulated the
growth of court schools. In many instances where the university was
especially conservative, a court school was set up by its side as a
professed rival. Gradually, however, the humanistic training crept
into all the universities of Italy, and the classical literature of
the Greeks and Romans largely took the place of the former grammar,
rhetoric, and dialectic. Before the close of the fifteenth century,
Florence, Padua, Pavia, Milan, Ferrara, Rome, and other cities had
admitted the humanities to their universities, and the other university
seats were not long in following their example.

[Sidenote: Humanism eventually became formalized and largely a drill in
grammar.]

[Sidenote: ‘Ciceronianism.’]

=Decadence of Italian Humanism.=--Toward the close of the fifteenth
century, however, this liberal education of the humanists in Italy
began to be fixed and formal. Until the middle of the century the
ideals, content, and meaning of this training were constantly
expanding, but after that there was a gradual narrowing and hardening,
and during the early years of the sixteenth century the degeneration
became complete. As the subject-matter became institutionalized,
the literature of the Greeks and Romans failed more and more to be
interpreted in terms of life. Emphasis was placed upon the form rather
than the content of the classical writings, and grammatical drill
was more and more emphasized as a means of formal discipline. Before
long the course was limited largely to Cicero, and the new learning
fell into that decadent state known as ‘Ciceronianism.’ It consisted
simply in an attempt to teach a perfect style with Cicero as a model,
and to give one a conversational knowledge of Ciceronian Latin. The
structure, metaphors, and vocabulary of all Latin writing had to be
copied from the phrases of Cicero, and the literature of the day became
little more than a sequence of model passages from that author.

[Sidenote: Through the invention of printing humanism leaped the Alps.]

=The Spread and Character of Humanism in the Northern Countries.=--Such
was the effect of the Renaissance upon education in the country of its
birth. But the humanistic training could not be confined to Italy. By
the middle of the fifteenth century, with the invention of printing,
the texts of the classic authors were rapidly multiplied and spread
everywhere. The Renaissance and the classic literature leaped the Alps,
and made their way into France, the Teutonic countries, England, and
elsewhere. At first, humanistic scholars wandered into the North, soon
others were invited in large numbers by patrons of learning, and, at
length, students from the Northern countries thronged into Italy for
instruction. Towards the close of the fifteenth century the humanists
outside the peninsula became very numerous, and during the sixteenth
century the movement came to its height in the Northern lands.

[Sidenote: Less individual and more social in the North.]

[Sidenote: Use of Greek and Hebrew.]

But the character and effects of the Renaissance and humanism in the
North differed greatly from those in the country of their origin. The
peoples of the North, especially those of Germanic stock, were by
nature more religious than the brilliant and mercurial Italians. With
them the Renaissance led less to a desire for personal development,
self-realization, and individual achievement, and took on more of
a social and moral color. The prime purpose of humanism became the
improvement of society, morally and religiously, and the classical
revival pointed the way to obtaining a new and more exalted meaning
from the Scriptures. Through the revival of Greek, Northern scholars,
especially the German and English, sought to get away from the
ecclesiastical doctrines and traditions, and turn back to the essence
of Christianity by studying the New Testament in the original. This
suggested a similar insight into the Old Testament, and an interest in
Hebrew was thereby aroused. In consequence, to most people in the North
a renewed study of the Bible became as important a feature of humanism
as an appreciation of the classics.

[Sidenote: Expeditions of French kings into Italy.]

[Sidenote: Francis I,]

=The Development of Humanism in France.=--In France humanism appeared
early. In 1458 a professorship of Greek was established at the
University of Paris, but the humanistic movement did not amount to
much in France until it was stimulated by the expeditions of Charles
VIII (1494) and Louis XII (1498) into Italy. These undertakings of the
monarchs did not attain the military and political objects intended,
but through them France came into direct contact with humanism at
its sources, and a definite impression was made upon French art,
literature, and education. Even then, owing to the conservatism of the
university, the new learning met at first with formidable opposition.
Happily, it found an influential patron in the youthful Francis I (_r._
1515-1547).

[Sidenote: and Budæus.]

[Sidenote: Corderius, and Ramus.]

[Sidenote: College of Guyenne.]

=French Humanistic Educators and Institutions.=--Under the protection
of Francis, many prominent humanistic scholars and educators, like
Budæus (1468-1540), appeared, classical manuscripts were collected,
Greek and Latin authors were translated, treatises on humanistic
education were produced, and the College of France, with chairs of
Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, was established (1530). Humanism was also
introduced into various colleges in Paris and Bordeaux by such scholars
and practical teachers as Corderius (1479-1564) and Ramus (1515-1572),
and many text-books and editions of the classics were published. Soon
most of the schools of France responded to the new training. It would
hardly be possible to consider many of them, but a brief description
of the course and administration in vogue at the College of Guyenne,
taken from an account of one of its teachers, may prove illuminating.
This college contained ten classes in secondary work, and two years
more in philosophy, which partially overlapped the faculty of arts in
the university. Latin and religion were taught throughout the secondary
school, and Greek, mathematics, rhetoric, and declamation could be
taken in the last three or four classes. The pupils were introduced
to the rudiments of Latin through the vernacular, and developmental
methods and enlivening disputations were used. Probably the general
conditions here were typical of the French humanistic schools
everywhere during the sixteenth century.

[Sidenote: Erfurt and other existing universities.]

[Sidenote: New universities.]

=Humanism in the German Universities.=--Before humanism was well
established in France, however, it had also spread through the
Teutonic countries. By the end of the sixteenth century the German
universities had begun to adopt the new learning. In 1494 Erfurt
established a professorship of Poetry and Eloquence, which covered the
field of classic literature, and lectures on humanistic subjects were
before long given in Leipzig, Heidelberg, Tübingen, Ingoldstadt, and
Vienna. Likewise, a number of new universities, Wittenberg, Marburg,
Königsberg, and Jena, were started upon a humanistic basis, and before
the middle of the sixteenth century humanism prevailed in practically
all of the German universities.

[Sidenote: At first instruction only in Bible and vernacular,]

[Sidenote: but humanism added.]

[Sidenote: Wessel, Agricola, Reuchlin,]

[Sidenote: and]

[Sidenote: Wimpfeling.]

=The Hieronymians and Their Schools.=--The earliest factor in Germanic
humanism, however, appeared in the education furnished by the
Hieronymians, or Brethren of the Common Lot. For the instruction of
the poor, this order had started schools, or established teachers in
institutions already existing, throughout the Netherlands, Germany,
and France. At first, they stressed instruction in the Bible and the
vernacular, but, as the Italian influence began to be felt in the
upper countries, they broadened the course by the addition of classic
literature and Hebrew, and the schools soon became recognized centers
of humanism and intellectual interests. The pupils that were trained
there strengthened the new learning as teachers in the universities and
schools throughout Germany and the Netherlands. The first educator of
importance to introduce humanism into the Hieronymian training seems
to have been Wessel (1420-1489). He was preëminently interested in
teaching, and among his earliest pupils of distinction were Agricola
(1443-1485), who had a most potent influence in introducing classics,
and Reuchlin (1455-1522), who taught the classics and Hebrew at various
universities, and produced a monumental grammar and lexicon upon
the latter subject. An even more noteworthy teacher was Wimpfeling
(1450-1528), who became professor, dean, and rector at Heidelberg. He
lectured upon the classical authors and the Church Fathers, and wrote a
number of treatises upon education, in which he held to the attitude
of Northern humanism that all learning is vain which does not lead to
the advancement of mankind. But, while a true reformer, he never broke
from the Church.

[Sidenote: Attitude of Erasmus.]

[Sidenote: His text-books,]

[Sidenote: satires,]

[Sidenote: and educational treatises.]

=Erasmus, Leader in the Humanistic Education of the North.=--A
similar attitude was held by Erasmus (1467-1531), the greatest of the
humanists trained by the Hieronymians. While he was bitterly opposed
to the corruption and obscurantism of ecclesiastics, he believed that
the remedy lay, not in a division of the Church, but in the study
of the classics and the Church Fathers, and in the general removal
of ignorance. Accordingly, to advance education, he assisted in the
preparation of Lily’s Latin grammar, translated into Latin the Greek
grammar of Theodore of Gaza, and wrote a work on Latin composition,
called _De Copia Verborum et Rerum_, and an elementary text-book
of Latin conversation on topics of the day, known as _Colloquies_.
Similarly, he produced treatises on the New Testament, and popularized
the Gospels and Church Fathers through paraphrases. Even better known
are the satires that he wrote in Latin to reform the abuses and
foibles of his times. His _Adages and Praise of Folly_ mercilessly
scored the absurdities and vices of the Church and the priesthood,
and in his _Dialogue on Ciceronianism_ he ridiculed some of the
narrower tendencies into which humanism had fallen. He also made
direct contributions to educational theory in his Latin treatises on
_The Liberal Education of Children_, _The Right Method of Study_, and
_Courteous Manners in Boys_, which are almost modern in some of their
recommendations. Learning, morality, religion, and good manners, he
held, must be trained together, and education must be open to everyone,
according to his or her ability. It should be started in infancy by
the mothers, and reading, writing, drawing, and some knowledge of
familiar animals and objects taught by informal methods. At seven
the boy is to be given a thorough training in the Scriptures, Church
Fathers, and the classics, and the content rather than the language and
form of these works is to be stressed.

[Sidenote: Developed out of old schools for benefit of municipalities.]

[Sidenote: Latin schools for Electorate of Saxony.]

=The Development of Gymnasiums: Melanchthon’s Work.=--It can thus be
seen what a profound effect the humanists trained in the Hieronymian
schools had upon the Teutonic universities and other educational
institutions. But there sprang up another set of schools, known as
_Gymnasien_, that was an even more typical and lasting institutional
development of the Northern Renaissance. These ‘gymnasiums’ grew
largely out of the old cathedral and upper burgher schools, and
were established for the benefit of the municipality, rather than
for State and Church. Their development was gradual, but they were
given their first definite shaping by Melanchthon (1497-1560). After
a thorough humanistic training from his great-uncle, Reuchlin, and
from the universities at Heidelberg and Tübingen, that scholar had
become associated with Luther at the University of Wittenberg, and was
requested by the Elector of Saxony in 1528 to organize the schools in
his state. The ‘Latin Schools,’ which he planned for every town and
village of the electorate, were divided into three classes, and the
work in Latin and religion was adapted to the grade. Not even Greek or
Hebrew appeared in the course; much less the vernacular, mathematics,
science, and history. Nevertheless, it was from these municipal Latin
schools, when the course had been somewhat modified and expanded, that
the ‘gymnasium’ may be said to have sprung.

[Sidenote: Piety, knowledge, and eloquence as ideals.]

[Sidenote: Course of the ten classes.]

=Sturm at Strassburg.=--A further step in fixing the type and the
first use of the term ‘gymnasium’ are found in the case of the
classical school organized by Johann Sturm (1507-1589) at Strassburg
in 1538. Here during his forty-five years as rector, Sturm worked
out a gymnasial course of ten classes, upon which the pupils entered
at six or seven years of age. The aim of this training he held to be
‘piety, knowledge, and eloquence,’ meaning by the last an ability to
speak and write Latin readily. For ‘piety,’ the Lutheran catechism was
studied in German for three years, and in Latin for three years longer.
The _Sunday Sermons_ were read in the fourth and fifth years, and
the _Letters_ of Jerome also in the fifth year, while the _Epistles_
of St. Paul were carefully studied from the sixth year through the
rest of the course. On the ‘knowledge’ and ‘eloquence’ side, Latin
grammar was begun immediately and the drill continued for four years,
during which the pupil passed gradually from memorizing lists of words
used in everyday life and reading dialogues that embodied them to
the translation of Cicero and the easier Latin poets. In the fourth
year exercises in style were begun, and this was accompanied by a
grammatical and literary study of Cicero, Vergil, Plautus, Terence,
Martial, Horace, Sallust, and other authors, together with letter
writing, declamation, disputation, and the acting of plays. Greek was
begun in the fifth year, and after three years of grammatical training,
Demosthenes, the dramatists, Homer, and Thucydides were undertaken.

[Sidenote: Formalism,]

[Sidenote: but wide influence.]

=Formalism in the Gymnasiums.=--This training, like that of the
Italian humanists, soon became set, formal, and mechanical. While other
authors than Cicero were read, the object was to acquire an ability
to read, write, and speak Ciceronian Latin, and words, phrases, and
expressions were carefully committed. The main emphasis throughout was
upon form, with little regard for content, and the Latin and Greek
were largely regarded as an end in themselves. Yet the gymnasium of
Sturm was an enormous success, and was soon crowded with students.
His pupils became the headmasters of all the most prominent schools,
and through his wide correspondence with sovereigns and educators,
the course of study formulated by Sturm became a model not only for
Germany, but, in a sense, for the rest of Europe. At any rate, most
of the existing secondary schools in Germany, and many founded later,
became gymnasiums. The majority of the Hieronymian schools soon adopted
the gymnasial course. This was also the case with the _Fürstenschulen_,
or ‘princes’ schools,’ a type of institution started in 1543 by Duke
Moritz of Saxony to train well-prepared officials for Church and
State at public expense, and afterward absorbed into the gymnasial
system. And the gymnasiums have to-day changed but little from Sturm’s
organization. Owing to the later influence of realism, the addition of
mathematics, modern languages, and the natural sciences has somewhat
mitigated the amount of classics prescribed, but otherwise the German
gymnasiums adhere to their formal humanism as tenaciously as in the
sixteenth century.

[Sidenote: Grocyn and Linacre.]

[Sidenote: Erasmus, Colet, and More.]

[Sidenote: Cheke and Ascham.]

=The Humanistic Movement in England: Greek at Oxford and
Cambridge.=--In its northward march the humanistic education also
effected profound changes in England. By the middle of the fifteenth
century many former students of Oxford began to study at various
humanistic centers in Italy. But the influence of such innovators was
scarcely felt until Grocyn and Linacre, who had gone to Florence about
1488, undertook to introduce Greek into education upon their return
home. Grocyn (1442-1519) became the first lecturer on Greek at Oxford,
but he was greatly assisted in the humanistic training by Linacre
(1460-1524), although his lectureship was nominally on medicine. Among
their pupils were Erasmus, More, and Colet. Humanistic education
did not reach Cambridge, however, until the close of the fifteenth
century, but, with the progress of the sixteenth, that university
rapidly overtook her sister institution. The real development began
when Erasmus, while a professor of theology at Cambridge (1510-1514),
consented also to lecture upon Greek as a labor of love. Erasmus was
succeeded by a number of lecturers, and in 1540 the new _regius_
professorship was held for four years each by the great teachers, Cheke
(1514-1557) and Ascham (1515-1568).

[Sidenote: More and Wolsey.]

[Sidenote: Ascham’s _Scholemaster_.]

=Humanism at the Court.=--As Cheke became private tutor to Prince
Edward and Ascham to Princess Elizabeth, an Hellenic atmosphere
was soon promoted in royal circles. A powerful assistance to the
development of humanism was also found at the court through the
influence of More, who was especially close to Cardinal Wolsey, and
so for a time to the king, Henry VIII. A number of treatises upon
humanistic education were written by members of the court, like More
and Vives; while Ascham produced his _Scholemaster_, a well-known work
on teaching Latin and Greek by ‘double translation.’ This famous
method consisted in having the child translate a passage into English,
and then, after an hour, render it back into the original and have the
master compare it with the text.

[Sidenote: Religious training combined with the classics.]

[Sidenote: Influence upon other grammar schools.]

=Colet and His School at St Paul’s.=--The humanistic changes in English
education, however, were not limited to the universities and the
court. The schools also felt the effect of the new movement, and the
most important factor in bringing this about was the foundation of
St. Paul’s School in 1509 by Colet. This scholar devoted most of the
fortune left him by his father to establishing a humanistic school in
St. Paul’s churchyard, dedicated to ‘the child Jesus.’ The institution
was thus an outgrowth of Northern humanism, and combined religious
training with a study of the classics. In connection with certain
Latin authors and Church Fathers, the pupils studied the catechism in
English, the _Latin Grammar_ of Lily, who was the first headmaster of
the school, and the _De Copia_ of Erasmus. St. Paul’s school trained a
long list of brilliant scholars, literary men, clergy, and statesmen,
and became the immediate model for a host of other institutions. There
were in existence at the time St. Paul’s was founded some three hundred
‘grammar’ schools of various types. These had come down from the Middle
Ages, and their chief purpose had been the training of young men for
the priesthood. Their curriculum was usually of the mediæval monastic
type, but they soon felt the influence of the new school. Those which
survived the general dissolution of ecclesiastical foundations by Henry
VIII and Edward VI were gradually remodeled on the classical basis of
St. Paul’s. New schools were also established in accordance with the
humanistic ideals.

[Sidenote: Soon became narrow and formal.]

=Humanism in the English ‘Grammar’ Schools.=--But the humanism of the
‘grammar’ schools in England, as in Italy and Germany, soon became
narrow and formal. The purpose of humanistic education came to be
not so much a real training in literature as a practical command of
Latin as a means of communication in all lands and ages. Accordingly,
the training became one of dictionaries, grammars, and phrase-books.
Expressions and selections were culled from authors and treasured in
notebooks, and the methods became largely _memoriter_ and passive.
The formalism into which the schools of England had thus fallen by
the seventeenth century is depicted in Brinsley’s _Ludus literarius:
or the Grammar Schoole_, a work intended to ridicule and reform these
conditions. It indicates that the training in Latin was devoted to
drill in inflecting, parsing, and construing a fixed set of texts.
Lily’s _Grammar_ was memorized by the pupils, and references to it
were glibly repeated, with little understanding of their meaning. All
conversation was based upon some phrase-book, like the _Colloquies_ of
Corderius, and a Latin theme had to be ground out each week.

[Sidenote: Largely unchanged.]

[Sidenote: The great ‘public’ schools.]

=English ‘Grammar’ and ‘Public’ Schools To-day.=--Although reforms have
since been made in many of these directions, the organization and the
formal humanism of the English ‘grammar’ school have been preserved
in principle even to this day. Mathematics, modern languages, and
sciences have been added, and a ‘modern side’ has been established
as an alternate for the old course, but the classics are still the
emphasized feature, and, to a large degree, the drill methods prevail.
But, while it was originally intended that the grammar schools should,
by means of the endowment, be open to rich and poor alike, because of
the great increase in expenses, necessary and unnecessary, there are
now not many opportunities for any one in the lower classes of society
to attend a grammar school. Similarly, a distinction has come to be
drawn between ‘grammar’ and ‘public’ schools, although it is not a
very clear one. In general, a ‘public school’ has a more aristocratic
and wealthier patronage. Nine ‘great public schools’ were recognized
by the Clarendon Commission in 1864,--Winchester (Fig. 17), Eton, St.
Paul’s, Shrewsbury, Westminster, Rugby, Harrow, Merchant Taylors’,
and Charterhouse; but several other old schools and a number of the
stronger foundations of Victoria’s reign are generally admitted, and
many others claim the dignity of the name that would not be considered
eligible outside of the immediate locality.

[Sidenote: First American secondary schools modeled after English.]

=The ‘Grammar’ Schools in the American Colonies.=--It was after these
‘grammar’ schools of the mother country that the first secondary
schools in America were modeled and named. In many instances the
fathers of the colonies, such as Edward Hopkins, William Penn, and
Roger Williams, had been educated in the grammar schools of England,
and naturally sought to model the institutions in their new home after
them as nearly as the different conditions would permit. The Boston
Latin (Grammar) School was founded as early as 1635 (Fig. 23), and
other towns of Massachusetts,--Charlestown, Ipswich, Salem, Dorchester,
Newbury, Cambridge, and Roxbury, also before long established grammar
schools. Similarly, towns of Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York,
Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the other colonies, had in many cases
founded grammar schools before the close of the century. Moreover,
the legislatures of Massachusetts (1647) and Connecticut (1650) soon
ordered that a ‘grammar’ school be established in every town having one
hundred families. The American grammar schools, like their prototypes,
were secondary and sustained no real relation to the elementary
schools. They were mostly intended to fit pupils for college, although
sometimes the college had not yet been established, and thus to
furnish a preliminary step to preparation for the Christian ministry.
Hence their course consisted chiefly in reading the classics and the
New Testament, and used among its texts Lily’s _Grammar_ and the
_Colloquies_ of Corderius. And while the hold of formal humanism upon
secondary education was somewhat relaxed during the subsequent stages
of the ‘academy’ and the ‘high school,’ the formal classical training
was considered the only means of a liberal education until well into
the nineteenth century.

[Illustration:

_a._ Drawing of Winchester College and its inmates by Warden Chandler
of New College, Oxford, in 1460. The picture reveals the relationship
of Winchester to the old monastic institutions, before it became
humanistic.]

[Illustration: _b._ Eton College in 1688, from the drawing of David
Loggan.

Fig. 17.--Great English Public Schools.]

[Sidenote: Interests of this life.]

[Sidenote: More social and moral in the North, and more individual in
Italy.]

=The Aim and Institutions of Humanistic Education.=--It can now be
seen how far the ideals of humanism had departed from those of the
mediæval period. The ‘otherworldly’ aim, the monastic isolation, and
the scholastic discussions had given way to the interests of this
life, personal and social development, and a study of the classics.
In the North the movement took on rather a different color from what
it did in the peninsula that gave it birth. While Northern humanism
was narrower in not concerning itself so much with self-culture,
personal expression, and the various opportunities of life, it had a
wider vision through interesting itself in society as a whole and in
endeavoring to advance morality and religion. It was democratic and
social in its trend, where Italian humanism was more aristocratic and
individual.

[Sidenote: Organization,]

[Sidenote: content,]

[Sidenote: methods,]

[Sidenote: and effect.]

In Italy the chief educational institutions resulting from the
humanistic movement were the schools that arose at the brilliant courts
of the city tyrants. These institutions were sometimes connected with
the universities, and gradually the universities themselves were forced
to admit the new learning to the curriculum. In the North a number of
new institutions--Hieronymian schools, princes’ schools, gymnasiums,
and grammar schools--were developed from humanism, and the existing
institutions soon showed the influence of the movement, but all of
them stressed moral and religious studies, as well as classical.
Everywhere the curriculum of the humanistic foundations consisted
mostly in the mastery of Latin and Greek, but in the North the renewal
of Greek meant also a study of the New and Old Testaments and the
Church Fathers. Where the Italian Renaissance re-created the liberal
education of Plato and Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian, the movement
in its Northern spread found in the classical revival a means of moral
and religious training. But just as humanism in Italy by the beginning
of the sixteenth century had degenerated into mere Ciceronianism,
so the humanistic education in the North, after about a century of
development, began to grow narrow, hard, and fixed. By the middle of
the sixteenth century the spirit of criticism, investigation, and
intellectual activity had begun to abate, and by the opening of the
seventeenth humanism had been completely formalized. In the study of
the classics all emphasis was placed upon grammar, linguistics, and
style; form was preferred to content; and methods became _memoriter_
and imitative. Humanism had largely performed its mission, and a new
awakening was needed to revivify education and society in general.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _During the Transition_ (Macmillan, 1910), chaps. XII-XIV;
Monroe, _Text-book_ (Macmillan, 1905), chap. VI. An interesting
interpretation of the Renaissance both in Italy and the North is found
in Adams, G. B., _Civilization during the Middle Ages_ (Scribner,
1894), chap. XV. An account of the movement, including its educational
aspects in Italy, is found in Burckhardt, J., _Civilization of the
Renaissance in Italy_ (Sonnenschein, London, 1892; Macmillan), vol.
I, especially part III; Symonds, J. A., _Renaissance in Italy_ (Holt,
Scribner), vol. II, especially chaps. III-VIII; or Symonds’ _Short
History of the Renaissance_ (Holt, 1894), especially chaps. I and
VII, and IX-XI. Woodward, W. H., gives us a vivid account of the
educational work of _Vittorino da Feltre and Other Humanist Educators_
(Cambridge University Press, 1897), and of _Erasmus concerning
Education_ (Cambridge University Press, 1904), and of _Education
during the Renaissance_ (Cambridge University Press, 1906) as a whole.
_Peter Ramus and the Educational Reformation of the Sixteenth Century_
(Macmillan, 1912), by Graves, F. P., furnishes some idea of conditions
in France. _The Italian Renaissance in England_ (Columbia University
Press, 1905), especially chap. I, is succinctly described by Einstein,
L.; and an account of Colet and St. Paul’s School can be found in
Barnard, H., _English Pedagogy_, second series, pp. 49-117.




CHAPTER XIII

EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES OF THE REFORMATION


OUTLINE

    Luther’s educational positions are most fully revealed in his
    well-known _Letter_ and _Sermon_. He holds that education should
    prepare for citizenship, and should be state-supported, and these
    recommendations were somewhat embodied in actual schools by his
    associates.

    Zwingli was killed before he could greatly influence education,
    but the educational institutions of Calvin spread rapidly through
    Switzerland, France, Netherlands, Puritan England, and Scotland.

    In England Henry VIII and Edward VI confiscated the property of
    some three hundred monastic and other ecclesiastical schools, but
    subsequently many of these were refounded.

    The Jesuit colleges were organized to extend Catholic Christianity.
    The lower colleges were humanistic, and the higher taught
    ‘philosophy’ and theology. The teachers were trained, and the
    methods, though _memoriter_ and emulative, were effective. The
    influence of the Jesuit colleges was phenomenal, but they have
    failed to meet new conditions.

    The Port Royalists held that reason was more important than memory,
    but, while their ‘little schools’ stressed vernacular, logic, and
    geometry, they offered nothing beyond the best elements in the
    education of the past.

    Elementary and industrial education was given an impulse for
    the Catholics by the schools of the Christian Brothers. They
    also opened training schools for teachers, and perfected the
    ‘simultaneous’ method.

    Among the Protestants and some Catholics in Germany, Holland,
    Scotland, and certain of the American colonies, the Reformation
    inclined toward universal elementary education and control of the
    schools by the state. The secondary schools in Protestant countries
    also came largely under civic authorities, although the clergy
    still taught and inspected them; while Catholic secondary education
    was furnished mostly by the Jesuit colleges. In many instances the
    universities turned Protestant; and new universities, Protestant
    and Catholic, were founded.

[Sidenote: A series of revolts from the Church accompanied Northern
humanism.]

=The Relation of the Reformation to the Renaissance.=--The series
of revolts from the Catholic Church, generally known collectively
as the ‘Reformation,’ may be regarded as closely connected with the
Renaissance. As shown in the last chapter, humanism in the North led
to a renewed study of the Scriptures and a reform of ecclesiastical
doctrines and abuses, and took on a moral and religious color.
Reformers arose, like Wimpfeling and Erasmus, who, while remaining
within the Church, sought to purify it of corruption and obscurantism.
But the Church at first stubbornly resisted all efforts at internal
reform. Its immense wealth, large numbers, and training enabled it
for a long time to thwart the spirit of the age, and a condition of
ecclesiastical upheaval followed. Revolts against papal authority
ensued in various parts of Europe north of Italy, and were furnished
support by the awakened intellectual and social conditions of the
sixteenth century. The result was the establishment of a church, or
rather a set of churches, outside of Catholic Christianity. While
each revolt had some peculiarities of its own, there were underlying
them all certain general causes that indicated their relation to the
Renaissance.

[Sidenote: In his revolt, Luther relied upon the individualistic spirit
of the times.]

=The Revolt and Educational Works of Luther.=--Even the attitude
of Martin Luther (1483-1546) seems to have been bound up with the
tendencies of the day. Apparently he had at first no idea of breaking
from the Church, and supposed that the ninety-five theses he nailed
to the church door at Wittenberg (1517) were quite consistent with
Catholic allegiance. But even before this he had attacked Aristotle and
scholasticism with great vigor, appealing to primitive Christianity
and the right of free thought, and thus identified himself in spirit
with the Northern Renaissance. And two years later, in his contest
with Eck, when he was actually led to deny the authority of both
pope and council, he was evidently relying upon the humanistic and
individualistic atmosphere of the times.

[Sidenote: His translation of the Bible]

[Sidenote: and his catechisms.]

[Sidenote: His _Letter_ and _Sermon_.]

When once he had revolted, Luther gave much of his time to promoting
the reform and education of the masses by writing. All his works,
whether religious or pedagogical, were clearly intended, in a broad
sense, to be educational. After his condemnation at the Diet of Worms
(1521), when he had taken refuge at the Wartburg, he undertook to
awaken the minds and hearts of the common people by a translation of
the Greek Testament. Contrary to general opinion, a large number of
translations had preceded that of Luther, and their popularity must
have proved suggestive to him, but his edition was unusually close
to the colloquial language of the times. A dozen years later, he
had completed a translation of the entire Bible, which contributed
greatly to education by getting the masses to read and reflect. For
the further instruction of the people, he also followed the fashion of
the day in producing two catechisms, one for adults and the other for
children, together with many tracts, addresses, and letters, filled
with allusions to the organization and methods of education. But the
documents which most fully reveal his educational positions are his
_Letter to the Mayors and Aldermen of All Cities of Germany in behalf
of Christian Schools_ (1524), and his _Sermon on the Duty of Sending
Children to School_ (1530).

[Sidenote: Civic aim.]

[Sidenote: Industrial and academic training.]

[Sidenote: Enlarged content.]

[Sidenote: Rational methods.]

=Luther’s Ideas on Education.=--The purpose of education, Luther
everywhere holds, involves the promotion of the State’s welfare quite
as much as that of the Church. The schools were to make good citizens
as well as religious men. Educational institutions should, on that
account, be maintained at public expense for every one,--rich and poor,
high and low, boys and girls, alike, and attendance should be compelled
by the civic authorities. Realizing that some pupils may find it hard
to give the time to school, Luther planned that “they should spend an
hour or two a day in school, and the rest of the time in work at home,
learn some trade and do whatever is desired, so that study and work may
go on together.” But he also desired a more academic course “for the
brightest pupils, who give promise of becoming accomplished teachers,
preachers, and workers.” In any case, Luther naturally believed that
the chief studies should be the Bible and the catechism. But, as a
Northern humanist, he recommended the ancient languages--Latin, Greek,
and Hebrew--for the light they would throw on the Scriptures and the
patristic writers. He likewise approved of rhetoric and dialectic,
which were very valuable subjects in those days of controversy; and
he made a decided advance in advocating history, natural science,
vocal and instrumental music, and gymnastic exercises. History is
advised, not only, as was common with the humanists, for the sake of
illustrating moral truth, but also for the purpose of understanding
social institutions. The study of nature was intended to reveal “the
wonders of Divine Goodness and the omnipotence of God.” Gymnastics he
considered of value both for the body and the soul, and music a means
of “driving away all care and melancholy from the heart.” The methods
he recommended were equally rational. He would utilize the natural
activity of children and not attempt to repress them, and would make
use of concrete examples, wherever possible. Languages he would teach
less by grammar than by practice. This belief in the importance of
selecting the proper content and method in education led him to rate
the function of the teacher as higher, if anything, than that of the
preacher.

[Sidenote: Melanchthon and Sturm.]

[Sidenote: Bugenhagen in Northern Germany.]

[Sidenote: Other associates.]

=The Embodiment of Luther’s Ideas in Schools by His Associates.=--These
recommendations of Luther were largely embodied in actual institutions
by his associates. The year after his _Letter to the Mayors_ was
published, the Protestants were requested by the Count of Mansfeld
to establish in Luther’s native town, Eisleben, a school that should
put his educational theories into practice, and this was performed by
Melanchthon. The subsequent organization of Latin schools throughout
the Electorate of Saxony, and the foundation of the gymnasium of Sturm
at Strassburg upon the Protestant basis have already been touched upon
(pp. 114 ff.). But of fully as much importance were the educational
foundations of Bugenhagen (1485-1558). While engaged in reorganizing
the churches in the cities and states of Northern Germany, by his
general ‘church orders’ to each, he made ample provision for schools
of the Lutheran type. For instance, at Hamburg in 1520 he organized a
single Latin school with a rector and seven teachers, together with a
German school for boys and one for girls in every parish. Eight years
afterward, the ‘church orders’ of Brunswick provided two classical
schools, two vernacular schools for boys, and four for girls, so
located in the city that all children could conveniently reach a
school. Within a half dozen years he made similar requirements for
Lübeck, Minden, Göttingen, Soest, Bremen, Osnabrück, and other cities,
and throughout some entire states of Germany, such as Holstein and his
own native duchy of Pomerania. The educational theories of Luther were
also put into practice in a number of schools taught by Trotzendorf,
Neander, and other pupils of Melanchthon.

[Sidenote: Sprang from Northern humanism.]

[Sidenote: Schools and course similar to Luther’s.]

=The Revolt and Educational Ideas of Zwingli.=--The revolt under
Zwingli (1484-1531) was more directly the outcome of Northern humanism
than was that of Luther. Through Erasmus and others he had come to
believe that there was little basis in the Bible for the traditional
theology, and he carefully read the accounts himself in the original
Greek and Hebrew. After he took charge of the cathedral at Zurich, he
began his attack upon the dogmas and traditions of the Church, and, by
securing the support of the town, managed in a fairly peaceful way to
drop one form of the Church after another, until, within five years,
he had abolished even the mass. Zwingli likewise made the extension
of educational facilities a part of his reform. He founded a number
of humanistic institutions, and introduced elementary schools into
Switzerland. He also published a _Brief Treatise on the Christian
Education of Youth_ (1523), which recommended a course of studies not
unlike that of Luther, except that, from his practical temperament, he
did not mention history, but did add arithmetic and surveying.

[Sidenote: Also began through Northern humanism.]

[Sidenote: Calvin’s colleges]

[Sidenote: and Corderius.]

=Calvin’s Revolt and His Encouragement of Education.=--While
endeavoring to spread his reforms, Zwingli was slain in the prime of
life. His positions were maintained by his successor in the cathedral,
but the work was soon overshadowed and merged in the movement of Calvin
(1509-1564). Calvin’s break with the Church, like that of French
Protestants generally, also began through the influence of Northern
humanism and the study of the Greek Testament. He had, however,
received an excellent legal and theological education, and did not
content himself with merely attacking Catholic doctrine, but was the
first Protestant to formulate an elaborate system of theology. The
call of Calvin to reorganize the civil and religious administration of
the city of Geneva gave him an excellent opportunity for working out
his theories. Although he was much engrossed in religious disputes,
he established ‘colleges’ at Geneva and elsewhere, and in other ways
undertook to found schools and promote education. He succeeded, too,
in persuading his former teacher, Corderius (see p. 111), to come
to Switzerland, and organize, administer, and teach in the reformed
colleges.

[Sidenote: Aim, content, and organization.]

[Sidenote: Spread in Switzerland, France, Netherlands, England, and
Scotland.]

=The Colleges of Calvin.=--Corderius here wrote four books of
_Colloquies_, with the purpose of training boys by means of
conversation on timely topics to speak Latin with facility, and from
this work we can learn much of the character of the Calvinistic
colleges. Clearly the ideal was the ‘learned piety’ of Melanchthon,
Sturm, and the other Northern humanists and Protestants. An attempt
seems to have been made to teach Latin in such a way as to cultivate a
moral and religious life, and psalms were sung, public prayers offered,
and selections from the Bible repeated each day. We also know that in
the seven classes of a college at Geneva the pupils learned reading
and grammar from the Latin catechism, and then studied Vergil, Cicero,
Ovid, Cæsar, Livy, and Latin composition. Greek seems to have been
begun in the fourth year, and, beside classical Greek authors, the
Gospels and Epistles were read. Likewise, as in the other Reformation
schools, logic and rhetoric were studied in the higher classes.
The colleges of this type not only spread rapidly among Calvin’s
co-religionists in Switzerland and France, but, as Geneva became a city
of refuge for all the oppressed, a regard for humanistic, religious,
and universal education was absorbed by the persecuted Netherlander,
the English Protestants of Mary’s time, and the Scotch under the
leadership of Knox in the days of Mary, Queen of Scots (1505-1572).

[Sidenote: Due to personal reasons.]

[Sidenote: Suppression of grammar schools.]

=Henry VIII’s Revolt and Its Effect upon Education.=--In England a
revolt from the Church likewise occurred. This also may have been
due in part to the investigative spirit of Northern humanism, but
the immediate cause of the breach was the desire of Henry VIII (_r._
1509-1547) to control the national Church, that he might divorce
his wife, and there was at first little change in doctrine. Once in
ecclesiastical power, Henry began in 1536 to confiscate the monastic
lands and property, and enlarged the scope of his operations until
he had suppressed a large number of monastic, cathedral, collegiate,
hospital, and other schools. During the reign (1547-1553) of his
successor, Edward VI, the acts of suppression were extended to chantry
and gild foundations, and it is estimated that, of the three hundred
grammar schools that had come down in England from the Middle Ages,
but few were not destroyed under Henry and Edward. Some, however,
remained by the terms of the parliamentary acts of suppression, and
popular sentiment caused others to be refounded. And during the reign
of Elizabeth (1558-1603) and of the first two Stuart kings (1603-1649)
these foundations were greatly increased out of royal funds or through
the philanthropy of wealthy men. All of these schools, as we have seen
(p. 118), following the example of St. Paul’s, adopted the Northern
ideals of humanism and furnished a curriculum of classics and religious
training. The latter became based, of course, upon the teachings of the
Church of England.

[Sidenote: Aimed to strengthen the authority of the pope.]

=Foundation of the Society of Jesus.=--We may now turn back to
the Mother Church and see what efforts she was putting forth in
behalf of education during the period of Protestant revolts. Both
before and after the time of Luther there were reformers inside the
Church who wished to improve its practices without changing its
administration, but the Catholics in general felt it their chief
duty to crush the Protestant heresy and recover the ground they had
lost. This resulted in a number of religious wars, in which both
sides displayed great bitterness and cruelty. But a more effective
and constructive instrument in advancing the interests of Catholicism
was the organization of the ‘Society of Jesus.’ This order was
founded by Ignatius de Loyola (1491-1556) in 1534. He persuaded six
fellow-students at Paris to join with him in devoting themselves to
the conversion of the heathen, and to strengthening the authority of
the pope. Six years later, after considerable opposition, the new order
was recognized by the pope and began to add rapidly to its numbers.
The Jesuits have always striven first through missionary labors to
extend Catholic Christianity throughout the world, and then by means
of schools to hold their converts and educate all peoples to papal
allegiance.

[Sidenote: The _Constitution_ and the _Ratio Studiorum_.]

[Sidenote: The ‘general,’]

[Sidenote: ‘provincial,’]

[Sidenote: ‘rector,’ and other officials.]

=Organization of the Jesuits.=--The organization of the Society of
Jesus was outlined in its _Constitution_. This fundamental document of
the order received its final revision shortly after Loyola’s death,
but the _Ratio Studiorum_, which was an expansion of Part IV of the
_Constitution_ and described the educational administration in detail,
was not finally formulated until 1599. It thus summed up the experience
of the Jesuit schools during more than sixty years. The administration
of the society has always been of a military type. Loyola had
originally started upon the career of a soldier, and did not believe
that any system could be effective unless it were based upon implicit
obedience to one’s official superiors. At the head of the order is the
‘general,’ who is elected for life and has vast administrative powers.
As the society spread, the countries that came under its control were
divided into provinces, and at the head of the Jesuit interests in
each of these districts is the ‘provincial,’ who is appointed by the
general for three years. In each province there are various colleges,
whose presiding officer, or ‘rector,’ is chosen for three years by the
general, but is directly responsible to the provincial and reports
to him. Similarly, within each college are ‘prefects,’ immediately
subordinate to the rector, but selected by the provincial; and under
the inspection of the prefects are the ‘professors’ or ‘preceptors.’

[Sidenote: The lower colleges are secondary and humanistic,]

[Sidenote: with curriculum largely unchanged.]

=The Jesuit Colleges.=--The Jesuits have never engaged in elementary
education, but have required that pupils know how to read and write
before being admitted to any of their schools. This may have been
brought about in the first place by the fact that the number of their
teachers was limited, or that the public elementary school was just
coming to be regarded as of importance, and secondary education of
the humanistic type was everywhere dominant. The Jesuit educational
organization has, therefore, consisted of ‘lower colleges’ with a
gymnasia course, and of ‘upper colleges,’ which are of university
grade. Boys are admitted to the lower colleges at from ten to fourteen
years of age, and spend five or six years there. The first three
classes were at first devoted to a careful study of Latin grammar, and
a little of Greek; in the fourth year a number of the Greek and Latin
poets and historians were read; while the last class, to which two
years were usually given, took up a rhetorical study of the classical
authors. Only slight variations in the curriculum have ever been
allowed since the _Ratio Studiorum_ was issued, until the revision
in 1832. In that year work in mathematics, natural science, history,
and geography was added in the lower colleges, but the classics still
compose the body of the course.

[Sidenote: The upper colleges furnish training in ‘philosophy’ and
theology.]

The full course of the upper colleges lasts seven or nine years,-the
first three in ‘philosophy,’ followed by four or six in theology. The
training in ‘philosophy’ now includes not only logic, metaphysics,
psychology, ethics, and natural theology, but also work in algebra,
geometry, trigonometry, analytics, calculus, and mechanics, and such
natural sciences as physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, and
physiology. A successful completion of the course leads to the degree
of Master of Arts. After the course in philosophy, most of the Jesuits
teach in the lower colleges five or six years before going on with the
work in theology. In the theological course four years are devoted to a
study of the Scriptures, Hebrew, and other Oriental languages, together
with Church history, canon law, and various branches of theology.
After this one may elect a further training of two years, to review
the work in philosophy and theology, and to prepare a thesis. After a
public examination and defense of his thesis, the successful candidate
is awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Hence a complete Jesuit
training will take from eighteen to twenty years, and a member of the
order may be from thirty to thirty-five years of age before completing
his formal education.

[Sidenote: Trained teachers,]

[Sidenote: the ‘prelection,’]

[Sidenote: memorizing,]

[Sidenote: reviews,]

[Sidenote: and rivalry.]

=The Jesuit Methods of Teaching.=--The methods of teaching and
the splendid qualification of the instructors were from the first
distinctive features in the Jesuit colleges, especially when one
considers how little attention up to their time had been given to the
preparation of teachers. No one could teach in the lower colleges who
had not passed through the course in philosophy, while professors
in the universities had first to complete the theological course.
Instruction was generally imparted orally, and then memorized or taken
down in lecture notes. The method was the ‘prelection,’ which meant
a preliminary explanation of the passage or lectures upon the topic
under consideration by the teacher. It consisted in giving, first, the
general meaning of the whole passage or proposition; then, a more
detailed explanation of the construction or phraseology; next similar
thoughts in other authors; fourthly, ‘erudition’, or informational
comment upon the passage; then, a study of the rhetorical figures; and
finally, the moral lesson to be drawn. Obviously, with such a method,
great stress would be placed upon memorizing, especially in the lower
colleges. To fix subjects firmly in mind, short hours, few studies, and
brief lessons were early found to be necessary. Likewise, reviews have
always been frequent and systematic, and the Latin motto of the Jesuit
method declares that “repetition is the mother of learning.” Each day
begins with a review of the preceding day’s work, and closes with a
review of the work just accomplished. Each week ends with a repetition
of all that has been covered in that time, and the last month of every
year reviews the course of the year. To maintain interest in the midst
of so much memorizing and reviewing, many devices to promote emulation
are used. The pupils are arranged in pairs as ‘rivals,’ whose business
it is to check on the conduct and studies of each other (Fig. 18); and
public ‘disputations’ between two sides are engaged in each week.

[Sidenote: Systematic,]

[Sidenote: interesting, and devoted,]

[Sidenote: but authoritative and uniform.]

=Value and Influence of the Jesuit Education.=--The Jesuit system,
then, seems to have been in advance of that in the schools at the time
of its foundation. It was organized upon a systematic and thorough
basis, and was administered by a set of splendidly trained teachers
through the best methods that were known in that day. The schools were
interesting and pleasant, and were free to all who had the ability and
desire to attend. The Jesuit teachers, too, were indefatigable and
devoted to their duty. The criticism that has been offered to this
educational system is based on its insistence upon absolute authority
and the consequent opposition to the development of individuality. The
Jesuit courses, subjects, and methods have become somewhat uniform and
fixed. In the lower colleges they depend largely upon memory and appeal
to interest through a system of rivalry, honors, and rewards. Such a
system is likely to tend toward a reproductive attitude in the pupil.

[Illustration: _a._ Jesuit College at Regensburg in 1600.]

[Illustration:

_b._ Plan of a Jesuit schoolroom of the seventeenth century. B
represents the teacher, C the monitors, and D, E, O, X, and I various
student officials. The numbered lines represent rows of students, known
as _decuriae_. When a student was called upon, his ‘rival’ arose from
the corresponding place in the other group; and as each recited, the
other endeavored to correct him in some error.

Fig. 18.--Education of the Jesuits.]

[Sidenote: Phenomenal growth of the number of colleges and students.]

[Sidenote: Prominent graduates.]

[Sidenote: Quarrels and banishments.]

Nevertheless, the Jesuits furnished the most effective education during
the latter half of the sixteenth, the entire seventeenth, and the
early part of the eighteenth centuries. The growth of their schools
was phenomenal. By the death of Loyola (1556) there were already one
hundred colleges, and a century and a half later they had increased
to seven hundred and sixty-nine institutions, spread throughout the
world. The average number of students in attendance at any of these
colleges during the seventeenth century was about three hundred, and in
several of the larger centers there were between one and two thousand,
and the famous College of Clermont (now _Lycée Louis le Grand_) at
Paris is said to have run up to three thousand. At a modest estimate,
there must have been some two hundred thousand students in the Jesuit
colleges when they were at their height. Their graduates seem to have
become prominent in every important activity of life, and included a
large number of the noted authors, prelates, statesmen, and generals of
the time. By the middle of the eighteenth century, however, the ideals
and content of education had somewhat changed, and the Jesuits did
not adapt their course to the new conditions. Moreover, the Jesuits
seem to have become powerful, ambitious, and somewhat arrogant. They
quarreled frequently with bishops, other monastic orders, governments,
and universities. Finally, after they had been banished from France,
Spain, and Portugal, in 1773 the pope himself dissolved the Society
of Jesus. Forty years later the order was restored, but, owing to the
development of educational ideals and organization and the increase of
educational institutions, their work has never since become relatively
as effective or held as important a place in education.

[Sidenote: Adopted rationalistic philosophy.]

[Sidenote: ‘Little’ schools.]

=The Organization of the Education of the Port Royalists.=--A type
of Catholic education radically opposed to that of the Jesuits was
created by a group of men belonging to the religious body known as
the Jansenists. The doctrines of the Jansenists were formulated in
1621 by Cornelius Jansen, a professor in the University of Louvain.
While striving to retain their place within the Church, the Jansenists
opposed the prevailing doctrines of confession and penance, and adopted
the rationalistic philosophy of Descartes. They also held that humanity
is naturally corrupt, except as it is watched and guided, and that only
a relatively few can be saved. These doctrines probably influenced
a body of Jansenists that established a new departure in the way of
education at the convent of Port Royal at Chevreuse. In 1643 the ‘Port
Royalists’ endeavored to remove what few children they could from the
temptations of the world to a school started in this convent. Similar
institutions quickly sprang up in the vicinity and then spread through
Paris. To carry out their ideal of careful oversight, these schools
usually took only twenty to twenty-five pupils, and each master had
under him five or six boys, whom he never allowed out of his immediate
supervision day or night. Hence these institutions were known as
‘little schools.’

[Sidenote: Reason rather than memory.]

[Sidenote: Latin through the vernacular.]

[Sidenote: Logic and geometry.]

[Sidenote: Phonetic method.]

[Sidenote: Indifference.]

=The Port Royal Course and Method of Teaching.=--Since the Port
Royalists held that character was of more importance than knowledge,
and reason was to be developed rather than memory, these ‘little
schools’ sought to impart an education that should be sound and
lasting, rather than brilliant. Unlike the Jesuits, they did not start
their pupils with Latin, but with the vernacular, since this was within
their comprehension. As soon as they possessed a feeling for good
literature, they began the study of Latin through a minimum grammar
written in French, and soon took up the Latin authors, rendering them
into the vernacular. Greek literature was treated in similar fashion.
To train the reason, the older pupils were also taught logic and
geometry. The course of study, however, was mostly literary, and had
no regard for science or investigation. Port Royal presented the best
elements of the education of the past, but did not see beyond it. The
methods introduced some striking innovations. The leaders in the Port
Royal education departed from the alphabetic plan in teaching their
pupils to read, and developed a phonetic method. The Port Royalists
also refused to permit the use of emulation and prizes in their
schools, but their exclusion of rivalry resulted in indifference.
They were never able to secure the energy, earnestness, and pleasing
environment of the Jesuit colleges. They did, however, succeed in
inculcating a general spirit of piety without the formal teaching of
doctrine.

[Sidenote: Jesuits lost sympathy.]

[Sidenote: Port Royalists produced educational treatises.]

=Closing of the Port Royalist Schools and Its Effects.=--In 1661 the
Port Royalist schools were closed by the order of Louis XIV through the
influence of the Jesuits. But this act cost the Jesuits dearly. Not
only did it lose them sympathy, but it furnished the Port Royalists
occasion to issue tracts against Jesuitism that have injured its repute
ever since. This closing of their schools also gave the Port Royalists
the opportunity of becoming educators in a larger sense by producing
a great variety of writings upon their system. Later on, too, Rollin
(1661-1741), who was twice elected rector of the University of Paris,
summarized in his _Treatise on Studies_ the Port Royalist reforms
wrought in that institution.

[Sidenote: Little elementary education before La Salle.]

[Sidenote: Development of the schools at Rheims:]

=La Salle and the Schools of the Christian Brothers.=--The Port
Royalists were, however, like the Jesuits, engrossed with secondary
and higher education, and gave little heed to the education of all
the people in the rudiments. In fact, until toward the close of the
seventeenth century, the Catholics generally did not succeed in
inaugurating any effective or widespread movement toward elementary
education. Numerous attempts before this were made through catechism
schools and various reformers and religious orders, but teachers were
scarce and often ignorant and poorly trained, and there was little
progress before the organization of the Brothers of the Christian
Schools through the self-sacrificing efforts of Jean Baptiste de la
Salle (1651-1719). The organization sprang out of a group of five
masters engaged in teaching schools for the poor in the city of Rheims
in 1679, but it was not until three years later that La Salle completed
his regulations, founded the brotherhood, and moved the members into
a permanent home. The order flourished, and neighboring towns soon
endeavored to secure its members as teachers in their schools for the
poor. Within a year or two, four schools in and about Rheims were
placed under masters trained in the house of the Christian Brothers,
and a number of other institutions were soon organized in the vicinity
upon the same basis.

[Sidenote: Paris,]

[Sidenote: and Saint Yon.]

But, being unable to supply the constant demands for his teachers that
came from districts outside the towns, La Salle undertook to train boys
who were sent him by the rural clergy, and were expected to return
to their homes to teach after their training. To accomplish this, he
established in 1684 a ‘seminary for schoolmasters’ in a wing of the
house of the brotherhood, and two other seminaries were opened in
neighboring towns the following year. Four years later La Salle opened
a house for the brotherhood near Paris, and the Christian Brothers
were speedily requested to take charge of the schools of several
parishes. Despite the jealousy and opposition of the established order
of schoolmasters and of many parties in Church and State, the schools
and seminaries of the Brothers greatly increased in Paris, and were
rapidly extended throughout France. At Paris also La Salle started
the ‘Christian academy,’ in which drawing, geometry, and architecture
were taught ambitious poor boys on Sunday, and introduced boarding
colleges for higher secondary training. And these institutions likewise
spread through France and the rest of Europe (Fig. 19). In 1705 La
Salle retired to the estate known as Saint Yon, near Rouen, and there
opened a home for the brotherhood. Here he also founded a famous
boarding-school in which he trained boys for soldiery, farming, trade,
and various other vocations. Before long he likewise organized in
conjunction an industrial training for youthful delinquents, and both
the vocational school and the ‘protectory’ soon became models for many
similar institutions in France and elsewhere.

[Sidenote: Religious aim.]

[Sidenote: Besides rudiments and religion, more practical subjects.]

[Sidenote: ‘Simultaneous’ method.]

[Sidenote: Training of teachers.]

=The Aim, Curriculum, and Method of the Christian Brothers’
Schools.=--The plan of the schools of the Christian Brothers was
eventually worked out and crystallized in a fixed system under the
title of _Conduct of Schools_. This code has not remained quite as
definite and uniform as the _Ratio Studiorum_ of the Jesuits, for
changes and revisions are permitted, and modern methods and subjects
have from time to time been introduced. Considerable latitude,
moreover, has been allowed to the individual houses by the Superior
General at the head of the order, and by the Brothers Visitors, who
have charge of the districts. The educational aim of the Christian
Brothers has been preëminently religious, and the chief means
of attaining this have been strict vigilance, good example, and
catechetical instruction. The course has included the studies of the
best schools of the time, and added other more practical subjects.
Besides the rudiments--reading, writing, and arithmetic--and religious
instruction and good manners, mathematics, history, botany, geography,
drawing, architecture, hydrography, navigation, and other technical
subjects have often been taught, and in the industrial schools a manual
and vocational training has been furnished. La Salle seems to have made
a great advance, too, in educational economy by perfecting and applying
the ‘simultaneous’ method, which had been practiced in a crude form by
some of his forerunners. By this method is meant grading the children
according to their capacity, and having those in each grade use the
same book and follow the same lesson under a single master, instead of
instructing each pupil individually, as was generally the custom then.
Likewise, the seminaries or training schools of the Christian Brothers
contributed much to the advancement of efficiency in teaching. For the
first time teachers of ability and training were made possible for the
elementary schools.

[Sidenote: Spread]

[Sidenote: and expansion of the work.]

=Influence of the Schools of the Christian Brothers.=--The work of the
Christian Brothers has met with steady growth and development. By the
time of La Salle’s death (1719), there had come to be twenty-seven
houses of the order, with two hundred and seventy-four brothers,
educating about nine thousand pupils. Before the close of the century
these numbers had about quadrupled, and now they have increased nearly
a hundredfold since the founder’s day. During the nineteenth century
these institutions were established in all the states of Europe,
Asia, Northern Africa, and America. The educational system has been
much modified and expanded, and now includes colleges, technical and
industrial schools, academies and high schools, elementary and grammar
schools, commercial schools, asylums, and protectories. Thus La Salle
and his schools of the Christian Brothers have performed a great
service for education in all lines, but especially in the promotion
and enrichment of elementary training, which had previously been so
neglected.

[Sidenote: Religious and theological.]

=Aim and Content of Education in the Reformation.=--It can now be seen
that, as a result of the Reformation, the religious and theological aim
of education at all stages became very prominent with Catholics and
Protestants alike. In the elementary schools, beside the rudiments, the
Scriptures, the Lord’s prayer, the ten commandments, and the Catholic,
Lutheran, Calvinist, or Anglican creed and catechism were taught, and,
with the Protestants, also the hymns of the church. The courses in the
secondary schools and universities contained large religious elements,
as well as the formal humanism into which the Renaissance of the North
had degenerated. Likewise, there was furnished in all universities a
training in dialectic, rhetoric, and theology for the sake of efficient
controversy with ecclesiastical opponents.

[Sidenote: Coöperation with civil officials.]

=Effect of the Reformation upon Elementary Schools.=--But while the
Catholics were inclined to leave the organization of education in the
hands of various religious bodies, the Protestants more often thought
it wise to have its support and control administered by the princes
and the state. Owing to this secular management and their position
on universal education, the Protestants, with the exception of the
Anglicans, who had altered but little in doctrine, were inclined to
establish state school systems and hold to the duty of providing and
requiring elementary education at public expense. In this way the germs
of the modern tendency toward universal, free, and compulsory education
began to appear, although they did not ripen until much later.

[Sidenote: Germany,]

In the German states there were many illustrations of the spread of
elementary education and civic control. As an immediate result of
Luther’s _Letter to the Mayors_ in 1524, the city of Magdeburg united
its parish schools under one management and adopted the Protestant
ideals. So, in 1525, the school at Eisleben, organized upon a
Protestant basis (see p. 128), included elementary as well as secondary
work. Similar ideals and organization appear in the provision for
‘German’ schools in the ‘Church orders’ sent out by Bugenhagen (see
pp. 128 f.) to the Protestant cities and states of Northern Germany.
A further step was taken in 1528 when Melanchthon drew up a plan for
schools throughout the entire Electorate of Saxony. This, the first
state school system in history, was followed by one in Würtemberg,
where in 1559 Duke Christopher adopted an improvement upon the Saxon
plan, which called for a religious and elementary training for the
children of the common people in every village of the duchy. Brunswick
in 1569, and Saxony in 1580, followed the lead of Würtemberg in
revising their school systems. Before the middle of the next century,
a number of other states of Germany, such as Weimar, Hessen-Darmstadt,
Mecklenburg, Holstein, Hessen-Cassel, and Gotha modeled elementary
school systems after those of Saxony and Würtemberg. While the
Catholics did not in general maintain public elementary education, the
Christian Brothers and others undertook a great work in this direction,
and Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria even ordered throughout his state
the establishment of ‘German’ schools with instruction in reading,
writing, and the Catholic creed. This organization of universal
education continued its advance, despite the decimation and the general
havoc upon finance and education wrought by the Thirty Years’ War
(1618-1648), and by the end of the eighteenth century practically every
village throughout the German states had its _Volksschule_ or ‘people’s
school.’ These institutions were under the direction of the pastor of
each parish, and while actual conditions may often have been somewhat
below the statutory level and in many cases were a wretched apology,
every child not studying at a secondary school was in theory obliged,
between the ages of six and thirteen, to attend one of these schools of
the people (Fig. 20).

[Sidenote: Holland,]

[Sidenote: Scotland,]

[Sidenote: and the American colonies.]

As a result of the Dutch Reformed movement, Holland also made early
provision for instruction in religion, reading, and writing. The Church
at various synods, and civic authorities in many statutes, recognized
the need of universal training, and finally the great Synod of Dort,
by a combination with the civil government, in 1618 required every
parish to furnish elementary education for all. Similarly, through
Knox, Scotland established elementary schools under the control of the
parishes. Preliminary steps in this direction were taken by the Privy
Council and the Scotch Parliament early in the seventeenth century,
and in 1646 the parliament further enacted that there be “a Schoole
founded, and a Schoole master appointed in every Parish,” and provided
that if a parish should fail in this duty, the presbytery should have
power to establish the school and compel the parish to maintain it.
Half a century later this school system was given over more fully to
the control of the State, but even then much of the old connection
with the Church was apparent. These schools gave instruction in
reading, writing, and religion, with the Bible as text, and have done
a wonderful work in raising the level of intelligence and affording an
opportunity to the children of the lower classes in Scotland. England
herself continued to hold to aristocratic and ‘selective’ education,
and gave little heed to the establishment of elementary schools; but
the American colonies, as far as they were founded by Calvinists or
Lutherans, provided early for elementary education (see p. 189). The
Puritan towns of the Massachusetts colony established schools almost
as soon as they were settled, and in 1647 the legislature enacted that
all towns with fifty families should provide an elementary school.
Connecticut followed the example three years later, and before the
close of the century, similar action was taken by New Hampshire
and Vermont (see pp. 197 and 199). Likewise, New Amsterdam and the
villages of New Netherlands followed the example of the Mother Country
and provided public schools in connection with each church through
the support of the Dutch West India Company or of the civil and
ecclesiastical bodies jointly (see pp. 193 f).

[Illustration:

Fig. 19.--A school of the Christian Brothers. (Visit of James II and
the Archbishop of Paris to the school at Rouen.)]

[Illustration:

Fig. 20.--A Protestant school in a German village of the sixteenth
century. (Visit of the school committee and catechising by the pastor.)]

[Sidenote: Civic control among Protestants,]

[Sidenote: though direct management through the Church.]

[Sidenote: Catholic education largely in hands of Jesuits.]

=Effect of the Reformation upon the Secondary Schools.=--While the
development of elementary instruction and state systems of education
was the most important educational outcome of the Reformation, the
movement had a somewhat similar effect upon the humanistic secondary
education of the time. In Protestant Germany the Latin schools and
gymnasia came under the control of the princes and the State rather
than the Church, and gradually became the backbone of the state school
systems. But they stressed the religious element in their curriculum,
and the direct management of education was simply transferred to
Protestant ministers or leaders. The schools were still taught and
inspected by representatives of the Church, but the form of the
organization and administration of education was radically changed. In
England there was a similar transfer of management to the Protestant
clergy. The existence of the schools had to be authorized and their
teachers licensed by the bishop, and they were at all times liable to
visitation from ecclesiastical authority. The grammar schools, however,
were never organized like the gymnasia, but each school remained
independent of the rest and of any national combination. Nor were
the Calvinistic colleges united into a national system, except where
they came into Germany, when they were absorbed into the system of
the gymnasia. The state system of education established by the Scotch
parliament in the parishes, often gave secondary training, as well
as elementary. And in America the establishment and control of the
‘grammar’ schools, inherited from the mother country, were vested in
the authorities of the state and the several towns. On the other hand,
the Catholic education in all countries found its secondary schools
largely in the colleges of the Jesuits, and the subordination of the
individual to authority and the Church was insisted upon.

[Sidenote: Many universities adhered to Catholic authority.]

[Sidenote: Others changed to Protestantism with their princes.]

=Influence of the Reformation upon the Universities.=--In the case of
the universities, many remained loyal to Catholicism and a few new
Catholic foundations grew out of the Reformation. All these adhered
to the principle of submission to ecclesiastical authority. But the
majority of the universities in the Protestant states of Germany
followed their princes when they changed from the old creed to the new.
Wittenberg, through its connection with Luther and Melanchthon, was the
first German university to become Protestant, but others, like Marburg,
Königsberg, Jena, Helmstadt, and Dorpat followed rapidly. Altdorf and
Strassburg were developed out of gymnasia. The English universities,
Oxford and Cambridge, went over to Protestantism with the national
Church. In America, too, Harvard and other early colleges were closely
connected with the various commonwealths and with the Calvinistic or
the Anglican communion, according to the colony.

[Sidenote: Memory stressed, rather than reason; authority emphasized;
and individuality repressed.]

=The Lapse into Formalism.=--There came to be both in Catholic and
Protestant institutions a tendency to regard the subjects taught as
materials for discipline rather than as valuable for their content. The
studies largely became an end in themselves and were deprived of almost
all their vitality. The curriculum of the institutions became fixed and
stereotyped in nature, and education lapsed into a formalism but little
superior to that of the mediæval scholastics. The methods of teaching
came to stress memory more than reason. The Protestants had claimed
to depend less upon uncritical and obedient acceptance of dogma than
upon the constant application of reason to the Scriptures, but they
soon tended to emphasize the importance of authority and the repression
of the individual quite as clearly as the Catholics, who definitely
held that reason is out of place and unreliable as a final guide in
education and life. Hence, except for launching the great conception of
state support and control of education, the Reformation accomplished
but little directly making for individualism and progress, either
through the Catholic awakening or the Protestant revolts. Education
fell back before long into the grooves of formalism, repression, and
distrust of reason. There resulted a tendency to test life and the
educational preparation for living by a formulation of belief almost as
much as in the days of scholasticism.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _During the Transition_ (Macmillan, 1910), chap. XV-XVI;
Monroe, _Text-book_ (Macmillan, 1905), chap. VII. An excellent
interpretative account of the Reformation is that in Adams, G. B.,
_Civilization during the Middle Ages_ (Scribner, 1894), chaps. XVI and
XVII. Painter, F. V. N., furnishes a good translation of _Luther on
Education_ (Lutheran Publication Society, Philadelphia). Richard, J.
W., gives a good account of _Melanchthon, the Protestant Preceptor of
Germany_ (Putnam, 1898), especially chaps. II-IV and VII; Watson, F.,
of _Maturinus Corderius, the Schoolmaster of Calvin_ (School Review,
vol. XII, nos. 4, 7, and 9); Graves, F. P., _Ramus and the Educational
Reformation of the Sixteenth Century_ (Macmillan, 1912) of conditions
in France; and Leach, A. F., of the dissolution acts of Henry VIII and
Edward VI in _English Schools at the Reformation_ (Constable, London,
1896), pp. 58-122. On the side of Catholic education, one should read
Schwickerath, R., _Jesuit Education_ (Herder, St. Louis), chaps.
III-VIII and XV-XVIII; Cadet, F., _Port Royal Education_ (Bardeen,
Syracuse, 1899; George Allen and Co., London) pp. 9-119; and Wilson,
Mrs. R. F., _Christian Brothers_ (London, 1883), which gives an epitome
of Ravelet, A., _Life of La Salle_. The influence of the Reformation
upon the German schools and universities, both Protestant and Catholic,
is shown in Nohle E., _History of the German School System_ (Report
of the United States Commissioner of Education, 1897-98, vol. I), pp.
30-40; and Paulsen, F., _German Education_ (Scribner, 1908), pp. 79-85.




CHAPTER XIV

EARLY REALISM AND THE INNOVATORS


OUTLINE

    The intellectual awakening that appeared in the Renaissance and the
    Reformation found another avenue for expression in early realism.

    This movement had two phases: (1) humanistic realism, which
    emphasized the content of classical literature; and (2) social
    realism, which strove to adapt education to actual life. But the
    two phases generally occurred together, and the classification
    of a treatise under one head or the other is largely a matter of
    emphasis.

    The influence of the two phases was mostly indirect, but through
    social realism a special training arose in the _Ritterakademien_
    in Germany, while Milton’s humanistic realism was embodied in the
    ‘academies’ of England, and afterward of America.

[Sidenote: A new channel for the emancipation of the individual.]

[Sidenote: A method by which ‘real things’ may be known.]

[Sidenote: ‘Sense realism’]

[Sidenote: and the earlier realism.]

=The Rise and Nature of Realism.=--By the seventeenth century it
is obvious that humanism was everywhere losing its vitality and
declining into a narrow ‘Ciceronianism,’ and that the Reformation was
hardening once more into fixed concepts and a dogmatic formalism.
The awakened intellect of Europe, however, was tending to find still
another mode of expression in the educational movement that is usually
known as ‘realism.’ The process of emancipating the individual from
tradition and repressive authority had not altogether ceased, but it
was manifesting itself mainly through a rather different channel.
The movement of realism implied a search for a method by which ‘real
things’ may be known. In its most distinct and latest form,--‘sense
realism,’ it held that real knowledge comes through the senses and
reason rather than through memory and reliance on tradition, and in
this way it interpreted the ‘real things’ as being individual objects.
Educational realism, therefore, concerned itself ultimately with
investigation in the natural sciences; and it might well be denominated
‘the beginnings of the scientific movement,’ were it not that such a
description neglects the earlier phases of the realistic development.

[Sidenote: ‘Real things’ in ideas, rather than words.]

[Sidenote: Milton’s _Tractate_ as an illustration.]

=Humanistic Realism.=--For, even before objects were regarded as
the true realities, there seems to have been an effort among some
later humanists to seek for the ‘real things’ in the ideas that were
represented by the written words. This broader type of humanism, in
consequence, tended to break from a restriction to words and set forms
and return to the interest in the content of classical literature that
marked the Renaissance before its decline into formalism. It may,
therefore, properly be called ‘humanistic realism.’ With its emphasis
upon content usually went a study of social and physical phenomena,
in order to throw light upon the passages under consideration.
Illustrations of this humanistic realism are found in many writers
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Milton (1608-1674), for
example, while a remarkable classicist himself, in his _Tractate
of Education_ objects to the usual humanistic education with “its
grammatic flats and shallows where they stuck unreasonably to learn a
few words with lamentable construction”; and says of the pupil, “if
he have not studied the solid things in them as well as the words
and lexicons, he were nothing so much to be esteemed as any yeoman
or tradesman competently wise in his mother dialect only.” And he
would teach the Latin writers on agriculture, and the Greek writers
on natural history, geography, and medicine for the sake of the
subject-matter.

[Sidenote: Preparation for living in a real world.]

[Sidenote: Its content.]

=Social Realism.=--But there was another phase of early realism, which
often appeared in conjunction with humanistic education, and may be
called ‘social realism.’ Its adherents strove to adapt education
to actual living in a real world, and to afford direct practical
preparation for the opportunities and duties of life. It was generally
recommended as the means of education for all members of the upper
social class. It sought to combine with the literary elements taught
the clergy in the Middle Ages and the scholar in the Renaissance,
certain remnants of the old chivalric education as the proper training
for gentlemen. It held schools to be of less value as an agency for
educating the young aristocrats than training through a tutor and
travel. Hence an education in social realism usually included a study
of heraldry, genealogy, riding, fencing, and gymnastics, and involved
a study of modern languages and the customs and institutions of
neighboring countries.

[Sidenote: Montaigne’s _Education of Children_ as an example.]

A good illustration of this type of education is found in the
educational essays of Montaigne (1533-1592). In the _Education of
Children_ he holds that virtue comes from experience and breadth of
vision rather than from reading, and declares: “I would have travel the
book my young gentleman should study with most attention; for so many
humors, so many sects, so many judgments, opinions, laws, and customs,
teach us to judge aright of our own, and inform our understanding to
discover its imperfection and natural infirmity.” This training, too,
he feels, should be under the care of a tutor, who is to be a man of
the world, one “whose head is well tempered, rather than well filled.”
While a gentleman has need of Latin and Greek, Montaigne maintains that
one should first study his own language and those of his neighbors. He
also stresses physical exercise, and fears the training of boys near
their mothers, who “will not endure to see them mount an unruly horse,
nor take a foil in hand against a rude fencer.”

[Sidenote: Locke’s _Thoughts_ better known.]

[Sidenote: Aim of education.]

[Sidenote: ‘Accomplishments’ as part of its content.]

An educational work based on social realism that has been studied
even more than the _Essays_ of Montaigne is _Some Thoughts concerning
Education_ by John Locke (1632-1704). Locke states the aims of
education in the order of their value as ‘_Virtue_, _Wisdom_ (i. e.,
worldly wisdom), _Breeding_, and _Learning_’; and holds that such a
training can be secured by the young gentleman only through a tutor,
who “should himself be well-bred, understanding the Ways of Carriage
and Measures of Civility in all the Variety of Persons, Times and
Places, and keep his Pupil, as much as his Age requires, constantly
to the Observation of them.” In considering the subject-matter of
the training, he maintains that “besides what is to be had from
Study and Books, there are other _Accomplishments_ necessary for a
Gentleman,--dancing, horseback riding, fencing and wrestling.”

[Sidenote: Difficult to distinguish an author as of one type or the
other, as can be seen in Milton.]

[Sidenote: Montaigne,]

=The Relations of Humanistic to Social Realism.=--Humanistic and
social realism, however, constantly appear together in the works of
the same author, and it is often difficult to distinguish a writer
as advocating one type or the other. The differentiation seems to
be largely a matter of emphasis. While one element or the other
may seem to be more prominent in the treatise of a certain author,
the two phases of education are largely bound up in each other.
While Milton, for instance, is in the main a humanistic realist and
advises an education in languages and books, he recommends that
considerable time be given, toward the end of the course, to the social
sciences--history, ethics, politics, economics, theology--and to such
practical training as would bring one in touch with life. He also
specifically advocates the experience and knowledge that would come
from travel in England and abroad; and defines education as “that which
fits a man to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously all the
offices both private and public of peace and war.” On the other hand,
Montaigne, the social realist, seems quite as strenuous in urging a
more realistic humanism. In his essay, _On Pedantry_, he launches most
vigorous ridicule against the prevailing narrow humanistic education,
with its memorizing of words and forms, and insists: “Let the master
not only examine him about the words of his lesson, but also as to the
sense and meaning of them, and let him judge of the profit he has made,
not by the testimony of his memory, but that of his understanding.”

[Sidenote: and others.]

[Sidenote: Distinctive social realists.]

And it is equally difficult to state whether humanistic or social
elements prevail in Locke’s _Thoughts_, the _Gargantua_ of Rabelais
(1495-1553), the _Positions_ of Mulcaster (1530-1611), and other
treatises of the period. It is true, of course, that in certain other
works written upon the training of the aristocracy, social realism
is more exclusively stressed. The titles of most of these reveal
their content, as can easily be seen in the case of such productions
as Castiglione’s _The Courtier_ (1528), Elyot’s _The Governour_
(1531), Peacham’s _The Compleat Gentleman_ (1622), and Brathwaite’s
_The English Gentleman_ (1630). But, in most of the early realistic
works, humanistic and social elements are inextricably interwoven; and
humanistic and social realism, taken together, seem to constitute a
natural bridge from humanism over to sense realism.

[Sidenote: Other suggestions in the early realists.]

[Sidenote: But their influence was indirect.]

=The Influence of the Innovators upon Education.=--There is, however,
a variety of other brilliant educational suggestions in each of
these early realists. All of them hold to a broader and better
rounded training and more natural and informal methods than those
in vogue. Mulcaster even advocates universal elementary education,
the professional training of teachers, and the education of girls,
and undertakes to make a naïve analysis of the mind as the basis of
a philosophy of education. So suggestive have the recommendations
of the early realists proved to modern education that these authors
are often known as the ‘innovators.’ Yet their theories do not seem
to have affected greatly the educational practice of the times. They
did tend to disrupt traditionalism and the formal humanism, to bring
education into touch with society and preparation for real life, and
to popularize a wider content and a more informal procedure, but their
influence appeared through their successors and later education rather
than directly in the schools of the period. Locke, for instance, in
addition to the influence he had upon Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and other
reformers, must in some measure have been responsible for the great
development of the physical and ethical sides of education in the
public and grammar schools of England, together with the tendency of
these institutions to consider such aspects of rather more importance
than the purely intellectual. His plea for a tutor as the means of
shaping manners and morals has also probably had its effect upon the
education of the English aristocracy.

[Sidenote: Training for the nobility in modern languages, chivalric
arts, and the sciences.]

[Sidenote: Absorbed into secondary system.]

=The Ritterakademien.=--In the German states, on the other hand, there
arose at the courts during the seventeenth century an actually new
type of educational institution as the outgrowth of social realism.
Here, in place of the old humanistic education, there was developed a
special training for the young nobles in French, Italian, Spanish, and
English, in such accomplishments as courtly conduct, dancing, fencing,
and riding, and in philosophy, mathematics, physics, geography,
statistics, law, genealogy, and heraldry. The educational institutions
in which this training was embodied were known as _Ritterakademien_ or
‘academies for the nobles.’ Such academies were founded at Colberg,
Luneberg, Vienna, Wolffenbüttel, and many other centers before the
close of the century. They originally covered the work of the gymnasia,
although substituting the modern languages, sciences, and the knightly
arts that have been mentioned for the Greek and Hebrew, and adding a
little from the course of the university. Gradually, however, they
became part of the regular secondary system.

[Sidenote: Milton’s suggestions adopted by Puritans after the Act of
Uniformity.]

[Sidenote: The first academies.]

[Sidenote: Their content.]

=The Academies in England.=--Milton’s suggestions were ultimately
materialized in an even more influential type of school. In the
_Tractate_ he had recommended that his ideal education be carried
out in an institution to be known as an ‘academy.’ Such a school was
to be erected ‘in every city throughout this land.’ It should train
boys from the age of twelve to twenty-one, and should provide both
secondary and higher education. ‘Academies,’ based very closely upon
this plan, were about a generation later actually organized in a number
of places by the Puritans. Under the harsh Act of Uniformity (1662) two
thousand non-conforming clergymen were driven from their parishes, and
in many instances found school-teaching a congenial means of earning
a livelihood, and at the same time of furnishing higher education to
the young dissenters, who were excluded from the universities and
grammar schools. The first of these academies was that established by
Richard Frankland at Rathmill in 1665, and this was followed by the
institutions of John Woodhouse at Sheriffhales, of Charles Morton at
Newington Green, and of some thirty other educators of whom we have
record at other places. These academies were largely humanistic in
their realism, and, since their chief function was to fit for the
ministry, they included Latin, Greek, and Hebrew in their course, but
they were also rich in mathematics, natural and social sciences, modern
languages, and the vernacular. The new tendency was also broadened and
amplified by Locke’s _Thoughts_ (1693), which became the great guide
for the managers of the Puritan academies. In 1689, when the Act of
Toleration put non-conformity upon a legal footing, the academies were
allowed to be regularly incorporated.

[Sidenote: Their rise as a supplement to the narrow ‘grammar schools’.]

[Sidenote: The early academies.]

=The Academies in America.=--Academies arose also in America. When
the number of religious denominations had greatly increased and
the demands upon secondary education had expanded, the ‘grammar
schools’ (see pp. 120 f.), with their narrow denominational ideals
and their limitation to a classical training and college preparation,
proved inadequate, and efforts were made to organize academies as a
supplement. There may have been earlier academies in America, but
the first well-known suggestion of an academy was made in 1743 by
Benjamin Franklin. He wished to inaugurate an education that would
prepare for life, and not merely for college. Accordingly, he proposed
for the youth of Pennsylvania a course in which English grammar and
composition, penmanship, arithmetic, drawing, geography, history, the
natural sciences, oratory, civics, and logic were to be emphasized. He
would gladly have excluded Latin and other languages altogether, but
for politic reasons these courses were allowed to be elective. Through
the efforts of a number of leading citizens, such an academy was opened
at Philadelphia (Fig. 32), in January, 1750 (although not chartered
until July, 1753). During the next generation a number of similar
institutions sprang up, especially in the middle and southern colonies.
A great impulse was given the movement by the foundation of the two
Phillips academies,--one in 1780 at Andover, Massachusetts, and the
other the next year at Exeter, New Hampshire. The Dummer Grammar School
was reorganized as an academy in 1782, and the movement spread rapidly
throughout New England during the last two decades of the eighteenth
century.

[Sidenote: After the Revolution the prevailing type of secondary
education.]

[Sidenote: Support, location, and functions.]

Shortly after the Revolution, owing in part to the inability or
unwillingness of the towns to maintain grammar schools, and in part
to the wider appeal and greater usefulness of the academies, the
latter institutions quite eclipsed the former, and became for about
half a century the prevailing type of secondary school in the United
States. They were usually endowed institutions managed by a close
corporation, but were often largely supported by subscriptions from the
neighborhood, and sometimes subsidized by the state. Located in small
towns or villages, they served a wide constituency and made provision
for boarding, as well as day pupils. Unlike the grammar schools, they
were not originally intended to prepare for the learned professions
exclusively, but, as time passed, they tended more and more to become
preparatory schools for the colleges, instead of finishing schools
for the middle classes of society. The academies were also the first
institutions of secondary education to offer opportunities to women.
Many of them were co-educational, and others, frequently burdened with
the name of ‘female seminary,’ were for girls exclusively. Academies
for some time likewise furnished the only means of training teachers
for the elementary schools, and have generally played an important part
in education in the United States.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _During the Transition_ (Macmillan, 1910), chap. XVII; and
_Great Educators of Three Centuries_ (Macmillan, 1912), chaps. I and
V; Monroe, _Text-book_ (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 442-460. An excellent
edition of Milton’s _Tractate of Education_ is that by Morris, E.
E. (Macmillan, 1895); of Montaigne’s _Education of Children_ that
by Rector, L. E. (Appleton, 1899); of Locke’s _Thoughts concerning
Education_, and of Mulcaster’s _Positions_, those by Quick, R. H.
(Cambridge University Press, 1895, and Longmans, 1888, respectively);
and of Rabelais’ _Gargantua_, that by Besant, W. (Lippincott, Foreign
Classics for English Readers). The works of Castiglione, Elyot,
Peacham, Brathwaite, etc., are also extant. For an account of the
_Ritterakademien_, see Nohle, E., _History of the German School System_
(Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1897-98), pp. 41 f.,
and Paulsen, F., _German Education_ (Scribner, 1908), pp. 112-116; and
of the academies, Brown, E. E., _The Making of Our Middle Schools_
(Longmans, Green, 1902), chaps. VIII and IX.




CHAPTER XV

SENSE REALISM AND THE EARLY SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT


OUTLINE

    In the seventeenth century scientific investigation developed
    rapidly, and led theorists to introduce science into the curriculum
    and to advocate a study of ‘real things.’

    Bacon undertook to formulate induction, and while he did not
    understand the importance of an hypothesis, he did much to rid the
    times of _a priori_ reasoning.

    On the basis of sense realism, Ratich anticipated many principles
    of modern pedagogy, but he was unsuccessful in applying his ideas.

    Comenius (1) produced texts for teaching Latin objectively, (2)
    crystallized his educational principles in the _Great Didactic_,
    and (3) attempted an encyclopædic organization of knowledge. He
    wished to make this knowledge part of the course at every stage of
    education, and, while he was not consistently inductive, he made a
    great advance in the use of this method.

    Through sense realism, rudimentary science was introduced into the
    elementary schools; the _Ritterakademien_ and the pietist schools
    stressed the subject; and professorships of science were founded in
    the universities.

[Sidenote: Earlier realism a transition to sense realism.]

[Sidenote: Opposition to the sciences.]

=The Development of the Sciences and Realism.=--The realistic tendency
did not pause with reviving the ideas represented by the words nor
with the endeavor to bring the pupil into touch with the life he was
to lead. The earlier realism seems to have been simply a stage in the
process of transition from the narrow and formal humanism to a realism
obtained through the senses, which may be regarded as the beginning
of the modern movement to develop the natural sciences. Science had
started to develop as early as the time of the schoolman, Roger Bacon
(1214-1294), but for three centuries it was not kindly received. Even
during the Renaissance the Church had continued to oppose it bitterly,
because it tended to conflict with religious dogma, although this age
did not object to the revival of the classics. Accordingly, the latter
subject became strongly intrenched in educational tradition, and its
advocates offered the most obstinate opposition to the sciences. Its
numerous representatives struggled hard to keep the sciences out of
education.

[Sidenote: Development of physics and astronomy in the seventeenth
century.]

However, concomitant with the growth of reason and the partial removal
of the theological ban, there was developed a remarkable scientific
movement, with a variety of discoveries and inventions. For more than
a millennium the Greek developments in astronomy and physics had been
accepted as final, but toward the close of the sixteenth and during the
seventeenth century these _dicta_ were completely upset. The hypothesis
of a solar system, which replaced the Ptolemaic interpretation, was
published by Copernicus (1473-1543); Kepler (1571-1630) explained
the motion of the planets by three simple laws; and, through the
construction of a telescope, Galileo (1564-1642) revealed new celestial
phenomena. Galileo also demonstrated that all bodies, allowing for
the resistance of the air, fall at the same rate; by means of the
barometer, Torricelli (1608-1647) and Boyle (1627-1691) proved the
existing theories of a vacuum incorrect, and formulated important
laws concerning the pressure of gases; and Guericke (1602-1686),
inspired by their discoveries, succeeded in constructing an air-pump.
Investigations of this kind paved the way for the formulation of the
law of universal gravitation and the laws of motion by Sir Isaac Newton
(1642-1727), which united the universe into a single comprehensive
system and completed the foundations for modern mechanics.

[Sidenote: Development of anatomy and physiology.]

Likewise, about the same time, the other great development in
science among the Greeks,--anatomy and physiology, was completely
revolutionized. Through the discovery of valves in the veins by
means of dissection and vivisection, the hypothesis of the double
circulation of the blood by Harvey (1578-1657), and the microscopic
demonstrations by Malpighi (1628-1694) of the existence of capillaries
connecting the veins and the arteries, the old theory of the motion of
the blood through suction, which had been promulgated by Galen, was
completely shattered, and a great impetus was given to investigations
in anatomy and physiology. In consequence of this scientific progress,
the educational theorists began to introduce science and a knowledge
of real things into the curriculum. It came to be widely felt that
humanism gave a knowledge only of words, books, and opinions, and did
not even at its best lead to a study of real things. Hence, new methods
and new books were produced, to shorten and improve the study of the
classical languages, and new content was imported into the courses
of study. The movement also included an attempt at a formulation of
scientific principles in education and an adaptation to the nature of
the child.

[Sidenote: Bacon rejected the deductive method of the day,]

[Sidenote: but created a mechanical procedure.]

=Bacon and His Inductive Method.=--The new tendency, however, did not
appear in education until after the time of Francis Bacon (1561-1626).
The use of the scientific method by the various discoverers was
largely unconscious, and it remained for Bacon to formulate what he
called the method of ‘induction’ and by advocating its use, to point
the way to its development as a scientific method in education. He is,
therefore, ordinarily known as the first sense realist. He reacted from
deductive logic, which was currently supposed to be the sole method of
Aristotle, and took his cue in formulating a new method of reasoning
from the many scientific workers of his time. He made a great advance
in his rejection of the contemporary method of attempting to establish
the first principles of a science, and then deducing from them by
means of the syllogism all the propositions which that science could
contain. However, his _Novum Organum_, or ‘new instrument’ as he called
his treatise, in endeavoring to create a method whereby anyone could
attain all the knowledge of which the human mind was capable, undertook
far too much, and resulted in a merely mechanical procedure. Briefly
stated, his plan was, after ridding the mind of individual prejudices,
to observe and carefully tabulate lists of all the facts of nature, and
from these discover the underlying law by comparing the cases where a
certain phenomenon appears and where it does not.

[Sidenote: He failed to formulate the true inductive method,]

[Sidenote: though he rid the times of _a priori_ reasoning.]

But by this method neither Bacon himself nor anyone else has ever made
any real contribution to science. It does not follow that, because all
observed cases under certain conditions produce a particular effect,
every other instance not yet observed will necessarily have the same
effect. The true method of induction, which was evident even in the
work of Kepler, and came to be more so in the discoveries of Harvey and
Newton, stresses rather the part played by scientific imagination, as
it is manifested by men of genius in the forming of an hypothesis. The
modern procedure is as follows:--When certain effects are observed, of
which the cause or law is unknown, the scientist frames an hypothesis
(i. e., makes a conjecture) to account for them; then he tests this
hypothesis, by collecting facts and comparing with these facts the
conclusions to which his hypothesis would lead; and, if they correspond
or agree, he holds that his hypothesis has been confirmed or verified,
and maintains that he has discovered the cause or law. Nevertheless,
while Bacon did not formulate the inductive method of modern science,
he largely helped to rid the times of an unwise dependence upon _a
priori_ reasoning, and he did call attention to the necessity of
careful observation and experimentation, and thus opened the way
for real inductive procedure. Probably no book ever made a greater
revolution in modes of thinking or overthrew more prejudices than
Bacon’s _Novum Organum_.

[Sidenote: Bacon was not especially interested in education,]

[Sidenote: but his suggestions influenced Ratich and Comenius.]

=Bacon’s Educational Suggestions and Influence.=--Bacon was not a
teacher, and his treatment of educational problems appears in brief and
scattered passages. While he offers isolated suggestions concerning
the mental and moral training of the young, he plans no serious
modification in the existing organization of schools. He does, however,
in his _New Atlantis_ imply an interest in promoting scientific
research and higher education. In the ideal society depicted in that
work, he describes an organization of scholars called ‘Salomon’s
House,’ whose members in their investigations anticipate much that
scientists and inventors have to-day only just begun to realize. Among
these anticipations were the variation of species, the infusion of
serums, vivisection, telescopes, telephones, flying-machines, submarine
boats, and steam-engines. From this description Bacon would seem to
believe that education should be organized upon the basis of society’s
gradually accumulating a knowledge of nature and imparting it to all
pupils at every stage. At any rate, in his _Advancement of Learning_,
he definitely suggests a wider course of study, more complete equipment
for scientific investigation, a closer coöperation among institutions
of learning, and a forwarding of ‘unfinished sciences.’ And such a
plan of _pansophia_, or ‘universal knowledge,’ was specified in the
educational creed of the later sense realists, who worked out the
Baconian theory of education. Hence, while not skilled or greatly
interested in education himself, Bacon influenced profoundly the
writing of many who were, and has done much to shape the spirit of
modern practice. His method was first applied directly to education by
a German known as Ratich, and, in a more effective way, by Comenius, a
Moravian.

[Sidenote: Linguistic training.]

[Sidenote: Other realistic principles.]

[Sidenote: Influence.]

=Ratich’s Methods.=--Ratich (1571-1635) probably became acquainted with
the sense realism of Bacon while studying in England, and, when about
forty years of age, undertook to found a system of education upon it.
In linguistic training, like all realists, he insisted that one “should
first study the vernacular” as an introduction to other languages. He
also held to the principle of “one thing at a time and often repeated.”
By this he meant that, in studying a language, one should master a
single book before taking up another. In his teaching at Köthen, as
soon as his pupils knew their letters, they were required to learn
_Genesis_ thoroughly for the sake of their German. Each chapter was
read twice by the teacher, while the pupil followed the text with his
finger. When the pupils could read the book perfectly, they were taught
grammar from it as a text. The teacher pointed out the various parts
of speech and made the boys find other examples, and had them decline,
conjugate, and parse. In taking up Latin, a play of Terence was treated
in similar fashion. Others of the principles that he used in teaching
language and grammar, and especially those which applied to education
in general, were even more distinctly realistic. Such, for example,
were his precepts,--“follow the order of nature” and “everything by
experiment and induction,” and his additional recommendation that
“nothing is to be learned by rote.” Thus Ratich not only helped shape
some of the best methods for teaching languages, but anticipated
the main principles of modern pedagogy. While, owing to obtrusive
failings in character and experience, he was uniformly unsuccessful
in his practice, he, nevertheless, stirred up considerable thought
and stimulated many treatises of others. Thus, through Comenius,
who carried out his principles more fully, this German innovator,
impractical as he was, became a spiritual ancestor to Pestalozzi,
Froebel, and Herbart.

[Sidenote: Education,]

[Sidenote: wanderings,]

[Sidenote: and achievements.]

=Comenius: His Training and Work.=--John Amos Comenius (1592-1670) was
born at Nivnitz, Moravia, and was by religious inheritance a staunch
adherent of the Moravian Church. After a course in a Latin school, he
spent a couple of years in higher education at the Lutheran College
of Herborn and at the University of Heidelberg. In consequence of
many vicissitudes in life, he lived and wrote in a number of places,
and became acquainted with the work of a variety of men engaged in
educational reform and advancement. While the problems with which
they were dealing were similar to his own and largely influenced his
educational positions, he far surpassed them all in scope of work and
greatness of repute. His educational achievements were the outgrowth of
sense realism, and appear in three directions:--(1) the series of texts
for learning Latin; (2) his _Great Didactic_; and (3) his attempts to
create an encyclopædic organization of knowledge (_pansophia_).

[Sidenote: The plan of the _Janua_.]

=His Series of Latin Texts.=--The first of the famous texts that
Comenius produced to facilitate the study of Latin was issued in 1631,
and has generally been known by the name of _Janua Linguarum Reserata_
(The Gate of Languages Unlocked). It was intended as an introductory
book to the study of Latin, and consisted of an arrangement into
sentences of several thousand Latin words for the most familiar objects
and ideas. The Latin was printed on the right-hand side of the page,
and on the left was given a translation in the vernacular. By this
means the pupil obtained a grasp of all ordinary scientific knowledge
and at the same time a start in his Latin vocabulary. In writing this
text, Comenius may have been somewhat influenced by Ratich, a review of
whose methods he had read at Herborn, but he seems to have been more
specifically indebted both for his method and the felicitous name of
his book to a Jesuit known as Bateus, who had written a similar work.

[Sidenote: The _Vestibulum_,]

[Sidenote: _Atrium_,]

[Sidenote: _Palatium_,]

[Sidenote: and _Orbis Pictus_.]

It was soon apparent that the _Janua_ would be too difficult for
beginners, and two years later Comenius issued his _Vestibulum_
(Vestibule), as an introduction to it. While the _Janua_ contained
all the ordinary words of the language,--some eight thousand, there
were but a few hundred of the most common in the _Vestibulum_. Later
both of the works were several times revised, modified, and enlarged;
and grammars, lexicons, and treatises were written to accompany them.
He also published a third Latin reader, the _Atrium_ (Entrance Hall),
which took the pupil one stage beyond the _Janua_. We know, too, that
he intended also to write a still more advanced work, to be called
_Sapientiae Palatium_ (Palace of Wisdom). This fourth book was to
consist of selections from the best Latin authors, but it was never
completed. He did, however, produce as a supplementary text-book a
simpler and more extensive edition of the _Janua_, accompanied with
pictures. Each object in the illustrations of this book was marked with
a number corresponding to one in the text. This work, which he called
_Orbis Sensualium Pictus_ (The World of Sense Objects Pictured), is the
first illustrated reading book on record (Fig. 21).

[Sidenote: Indebtedness to others.]

[Sidenote: His aim and organization of education.]

=_The Great Didactic._=--But these books on teaching Latin
realistically were only part of the work that Comenius contemplated.
During his whole career he had in mind a definite idea of the aim of
education, and of what, in consequence, he wished the organization,
subject-matter, and methods to be. His ideas on the whole question
of education were formulated in his _Great Didactic_ even before the
_Janua_ appeared, but the work was not published until 1657. In it
he strove to assimilate all that was good in the realistic movement
and use it as a foundation. He developed many of the principles and
methods of Ratich, Bateus, and others, but he owed a greater debt for
the suggestions he took from Bacon’s _Advancement of Learning_, and
even more from the _Encyclopædia_ of Alsted, one of his teachers at
Herborn. In the _Great Didactic_ Comenius formulated an educational
aim and constructed an educational organization of his own. Probably,
as an outgrowth of his religious attitude, he held to ‘knowledge,
morality, and piety’ as the ideals of education, and advocated
universal education for ‘boys and girls, both noble and ignoble, rich
and poor.’ His organization of education consisted of four periods
of six years each. The first period of instruction was that through
infancy, or up to the age of six. It was to be given in the school of
‘the mother’s lap,’ which should exist in every house. For childhood,
or from six to twelve, was to be organized the ‘vernacular school,’
which should appear in every hamlet and village. From that time up to
eighteen comes the ‘Latin school,’ to be maintained in every city;
and, finally, for youth from eighteen to twenty-four, there should be
a university in every kingdom or province. Such an organization would
have made education universal, and would tend to bring about the custom
of education according to ability, rather than social status, which was
a suggestion some three centuries in advance of the times.


  _Muntero Caps_, 20. &c.     | _Amiculum_, 20. &c.
    So the _Furrier_          |   Sic _Pellio_
  maketh _Furred Garments_    | facit _Pellicia_
  of _Furs_.                  | è _Pellibus_.
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
  The Shoemaker.             LXIII.               Sutor.

[Illustration]


    The _Shoemaker_, 1.       |   _Sutor_, 1.
  maketh _Slippers_, 7.       | conficit _Crepidas_
                            | (Sandalia,) 7.
  _Shoes_, 8.                 | _Calceos_, 8.
  (in which is seen         | (in quibus spectatur
  above, the _Upper-leather_, | superne _Obstragulum_,
  beneath the _Sole_,         | inferne _Solea_,
  and on both sides         | et utrinque
  the _Latchets_)             | _Ansæ_)
  _Boots_, 9.                 | _Ocreas_, 9.
  and _High Shoes_, 10.       | et _Perones_, 10.
  of _Leather_, 5.            | e _Corio_, 5.
  (which is cut with a      | (quod discinditur
  _Cutting-knife_), 6.        | _Scalpro Sutorio_, 6.)
  by means of an _Awl_, 2.    | ope _Subulæ_, 2.
  and _Lingel_, 3.            | et Fili _picati_, 3.
  upon a _Last_, 4.           | super _Modum_, 4.

Fig. 21.--A page from the _Orbis Pictus_ of Comenius, illustrating a
lesson on a trade.

(Reproduced from the edition published by C. W. Bardeen, 1887.)

[Sidenote: Pansophic training at every stage of education.]

=His Encyclopædic Arrangement of Knowledge.=--The rest of the works
of Comenius may be regarded as amplifications of various parts of
this _Great Didactic_. Besides the Janual series, which he seems to
have written for the Latin school, he produced a set of texts for
the vernacular school, which soon disappeared, and a handbook for
the lowest work, called _The School of Infancy_. But the phase of
the _Great Didactic_ most often elaborated was the realistic one of
_pansophia_ or ‘universal knowledge.’ This principle was not only
exemplified in such works as the _Janua_ and _Orbis Pictus_ and
in treatises he wrote upon astronomy and physics, but in various
educational institutions that he undertook to found, and it remained
the ruling passion throughout his life. In the _Great Didactic_ he
went so far as to hold that an encyclopædic training should be given
at every stage of education,--mother school, vernacular school, Latin
school, and university.

[Sidenote: Each succeeding stage to enlarge the body of knowledge.]

[Sidenote: The ‘didactic college’ for all nations.]

But, while even in the mother school the infant was to make a beginning
with geography, history, and various sciences, grammar, rhetoric,
and dialectic, music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, and the
rudiments of economics, politics, ethics, metaphysics, and religion,
his attainment was not expected to be as formidable as the names of
the subjects sound. It was to consist merely in understanding simple
causal, temporal, spatial, and numerical relations; in distinguishing
sun, moon, and stars, hills, valleys, lakes, and rivers, and animals
and plants; in learning to express oneself; and in acquiring proper
habits. It was, in fact, not unlike the training of the modern
kindergarten. In a similar way each succeeding stage is to enlarge
the body of knowledge along all these lines. “The different schools
are not to deal with different subjects, but should treat the same
subjects in different ways; throughout graduating the instruction to
the age of the pupil and the knowledge that he already possesses. In
the earlier schools everything is taught in a general and undefined
manner, while in those which follow the information is particularized
and exact.” Moreover, beyond the university, which, like the lower
schools, was to make teaching its chief function, Comenius held it to
be important that somewhere in the world there should be a ‘didactic
college’ devoted to scientific investigation, in which learned men from
all nations should coöperate. Such an institution would form a logical
climax to his system of schools, bearing the same relation to them that
the stomach does to the other members of the body by “supplying blood,
life, and strength to all.”

[Sidenote: Often fanciful analogies,]

=The Method of Nature.=--The way in which this pansophic instruction
should be given, Comenius also intended to have in full accord with
sense realism. He insists that the ‘method of nature’ must be observed
and followed, and then shows how nature accomplishes all things ‘with
certainty, ease, and thoroughness,’ in what respects schools have
deviated from the principles of nature, and how they can be rectified
only by following her plans. These principles concerning the working
of nature were laid down _a priori_, but it is probable that they had
been previously worked out inductively from his schoolroom experience.
At times, though, they were put in the form of fanciful analogies. For
example, he declares that because a bird by nature hatches her young
in the spring or early part of the year, schools have erred (1) in not
requiring education to begin in the springtime of life, or boyhood, and
(2) in not selecting the springtime of the day, or the morning hours,
for study.

[Sidenote: but more fully inductive elsewhere.]

But it is not remarkable that, with all his realistic tendencies,
Comenius did not consistently employ induction. The natural sciences
were young in his day, so that he did not altogether grasp their
content and method, and he had partially inherited the scholastic
notion that truth cannot be fully secured through the senses or by
reason. It is sufficient merit that Comenius, for the first time in
history, applied anything like induction to teaching. Moreover, in the
application of his general method to the specific teaching of various
lines,--sciences, reading, writing, singing, languages, morality, and
piety, he utilized more fully the induction of Bacon. For example,
after showing the necessity for careful observation in obtaining a
knowledge of the sciences, he gives nine useful precepts for their
study that are clearly the inductive result of his own experience as
a teacher. Likewise, he insists that, in teaching the sciences, in
order to make a genuine impression upon the mind, one must deal with
realities rather than books. The objects themselves, or where this
is not possible, such representations of them as can be conveyed by
copies, models, and pictures, must be studied. After the same principle
he formulates inductive rules and methods for instruction in the other
subjects.

[Sidenote: Popularity of his Latin text-books,]

[Sidenote: but ignorance of the _Great Didactic_,]

[Sidenote: which was the indirect basis of modern education.]

=The Influence of Comenius upon Education.=--Thus the work of
Comenius was based primarily upon sense realism, but he added many
modifications and new elements of his own. He may in the fullest sense
be considered the great educational theorist and practical reformer
of the seventeenth century. His practical ability is especially shown
in the series of Latin text-books, which far excelled the works of
several contemporaries on similar lines. The _Janua_ was translated
into a dozen European, and at least three Asiatic languages; the
_Orbis Pictus_ proved even more popular, and went through an almost
unlimited number of editions in various tongues; and the whole series
became for many generations the favorite means of introducing young
people to the study of Latin. But the remarkable theoretical work
of Comenius had little effect upon the schools of the period, and
until about the middle of the nineteenth century the _Great Didactic_
was scarcely known. At that time, when this treatise of Comenius was
brought to light by German investigators, it was discovered that the
old realist of the seventeenth century had been the first to deal
with education in a scientific spirit, and work out its problems
practically in the schools. And the principles of Comenius were at the
time unconsciously taken up by others and indirectly became the basis
of modern education. His spirit appeared not only in the ideas of
subsequent theorists--Francke, Rousseau, Basedow, Pestalozzi, Herbart,
Froebel--but even in the actual curricula and methods of educational
institutions.

[Sidenote: Slow and indirect, but the vernacular and elementary science
introduced.]

=Realistic Tendencies in Elementary Schools.=--While the effect of
sense realism upon the schools seems to have been slow and indirect,
the movement was obvious even in the seventeenth century. In Germany
there came a decided tendency throughout the elementary schools to
increase instruction in the vernacular, as recommended by Ratich
and Comenius, and to learn first the German grammar rather than the
Latin. With this movement was joined the increase in universal and
compulsory education urged by the reformers, and an introduction of
elementary science, in addition to reading, writing, arithmetic,
religion, and singing. At Weimar in 1619, through a pupil of Ratich,
a new school system was organized; and in 1642, under the order of
Duke Ernst, Andreas Reyher prepared a new course for Gotha, which
afforded elementary instruction in the natural sciences, as well as
the rudiments and religion. This work included teaching the children
to measure with the hour-glass and sun-dial, to observe the ordinary
plants and animals, and to carry on other objective studies of a simple
character. Many other attempts at instruction in science were made
elsewhere in the German states, both in private and public education,
and the same tendency appeared in the states of Italy, and in France,
Holland, and England.

[Sidenote: Science in the _Ritterakademien_,]

[Sidenote: _Pädagogium_,]

[Sidenote: and _Realschule_,]

[Sidenote: and in grammar schools and academies.]

=Secondary Schools.=--But the new realistic tendencies appeared also in
secondary education. While in Germany it was not until the eighteenth
century that there were any evidences of sense realism in the gymnasia,
languages of neighboring countries and considerable science appeared in
the _Ritterakademien_ (see p. 157) by the middle of the seventeenth,
and toward the end of the century in the schools of Francke and
other ‘pietists’ at Halle were embodied all the realistic elements
of Comenius. While the pietists adopted these ideas largely for
their religious side, as a protest and reaction to the rationalistic
_Ritterakademien_, they did not hesitate also to stress the science
content and the study of the vernacular. In the secondary school known
as the _Pädagogium_, which he had started for well-to-do boys, Francke
included training in the vernacular, mathematics, geography, natural
science, astronomy, anatomy, and materia medica; and the _Realschule_,
established by his colleague, Semler, went even more fully into
the vernacular, mathematics, and the sciences, pure and applied.
This realistic instruction of the pietists was brought by Hecker to
Berlin, where he started his famous _Realschule_ in 1747, and similar
institutions soon spread throughout Prussia. In England, while very few
of the grammar and public schools (see p. 120) as yet introduced even
the elements of science into their course, the academies (see p. 157)
were rich in sciences, mathematics, and the vernacular. This was also
true of the academies that sprang up in America (see p. 158).

[Sidenote: Sciences in Halle, Göttingen, and other universities,]

[Sidenote: and in Oxford and Cambridge.]

[Sidenote: Great work of Newton.]

[Sidenote: Science in American colleges.]

=The Universities.=--The universities were slower in responding
to the movement of sense realism. As the result of its pietistic
origin, however, the University of Halle was realistic almost from
its beginning in 1692. Göttingen, the next institution to become
hospitable to the tendency, did not start it until 1737. But soon
afterward the movement became general, and by the end of the eighteenth
century all the German universities--at least, all under Protestant
auspices--had created professorships in the sciences. While the English
universities, Oxford and Cambridge, were much slower than those of
Germany in adopting the new subjects, and it was a century and a half
before these institutions became known for their science, during the
professorship of Isaac Newton (1669-1702) considerable was done toward
making Cambridge mathematical and scientific, and in the course of the
eighteenth century several chairs in the sciences were established.
Besides formulating the law of gravitation, Newton lectured and wrote
at Cambridge upon calculus, astronomy, optics, and the spectrum. He
became one of the greatest mathematicians and physicists the world
has known, and he did much to create a scientific atmosphere in other
educational institutions, as well as Cambridge. America also felt the
scientific impulse in its higher institutions. Some study of astronomy,
botany, and physics was possible at Harvard even in the seventeenth
century, and during the eighteenth Yale, Princeton, King’s (afterward
Columbia), Dartmouth, Union, and Pennsylvania all came to offer a
little work in physics, and at times in chemistry, geology, astronomy,
and biology. In his proposals for the prospective ‘seminary’ in New
York (1753), which was destined to become Columbia University, and in
the actual course of the academy at Philadelphia (later the University
of Pennsylvania), over which he presided, Dr. William Smith put a
most progressive program of sciences, including the rudiments of
mechanics, physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, botany, zoölogy, and
physiology. But for half a century after this American institutions did
little with the sciences as laboratory studies.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _During the Transition_ (Macmillan, 1910), chap. XVIII; and
_Great Educators of Three Centuries_ (Macmillan, 1912), chaps. II,
IV, and VI; Monroe, _Text-book_ (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 461-501. The
following works are standard for the authors mentioned: Adamson, J. W.,
_Pioneers of Modern Education_ (Macmillan, 1905), chap. III (Bacon);
Barnard, H., _German Teachers and Educators_, pp. 343-370 (Ratich);
Fowler, T., Bacon’s _Novum Organum_ (Oxford, Clarendon Press); Laurie,
S. S., _John Amos Comenius_ (Bardeen, Syracuse, 1892); Monroe, W. S.,
_Comenius_ (Scribner, 1900); and Quick, R. H., _Educational Reformers_
(Appleton, 1896), chap. IX (Ratich) and X (Comenius). An account of
sense realism is afforded by Adamson, _op. cit._, chap. I, and of its
effect upon the schools by Barnard, _op. cit._, pp. 302-317, and by
Paulsen, F., _German Education_ (Scribner, 1908), pp. 117-133.




CHAPTER XVI

FORMAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION


OUTLINE

    Locke is often classed with the advocates of realism or of
    naturalism, but the keynote to his thought is ‘discipline.’ This
    is to be obtained in intellectual training through mathematics; in
    moral training, through the control of desires by reason; and in
    physical training, through a ‘hardening process.’

    Locke has, therefore, often been viewed as the great advocate
    of the theory of formal discipline, according to which certain
    subjects yield a general power that may be applied in any
    direction, and should be studied by all.

    This doctrine has greatly influenced education, but in the late
    nineteenth century there was a decided reaction from it. Recently
    this extreme reaction has been modified, and a position taken with
    which Locke’s real attitude would seem to be in harmony.

[Sidenote: Often classed as an early realist, a sense realist, or a
naturalist.]

=Locke’s Work and Its Various Classifications.=--Because of their
relation to an important topic in modern education, the theories of
John Locke (1632-1704) should receive further attention than they
have yet been given. No writer on education has been more variously
classified than he. We have already seen (p. 154) that the general
tenor of his _Thoughts concerning Education_ would lead us to group
him with the early realistic movement. There are also elements in this
work that would seem to place him with the sense realists, and many
of his ideas proved so similar and suggestive to Rousseau’s thought
(see p. 213), that he has sometimes been classed among the advocates
of naturalism. But Locke’s _Thoughts_, by which his educational
position is often exclusively judged, were simply a set of practical
suggestions for the education of a gentleman, written for a friend as
advice in bringing up his son. They make clear his general sympathy
with the current educational reform, but do not bring out his main
point of view. His central thought appears more definitely through the
philosophical principles in his famous _Essay concerning the Human
Understanding_, and through the intellectual training suggested in
his other educational work, _Conduct of the Understanding_, which was
originally an additional book and application of the _Essay_.

[Sidenote: But his underlying thought is ‘discipline’.]

[Sidenote: To train the mind, mathematics and a range of sciences
should be studied.]

=Locke’s Disciplinary Theory in Intellectual Education.=--Probably
Locke’s underlying thought as to the proper method of intellectual,
moral, and physical training may best be summed up in the word
‘discipline.’ This educational attitude is a natural corollary of his
philosophic position. In his _Essay_ he holds that ideas are not born
in one, but that all knowledge comes from experience. The mind, he
declares, is like ‘white paper, or wax,’ upon which impressions from
the outside world are made through our senses. When the ideas are once
in mind, it is necessary to determine what they tell us in the way
of truth. Hence, to train the mind to make proper discriminations,
he declares in the _Conduct of the Understanding_ that practice and
discipline are necessary. “Would you have a man reason well, you must
use him to it betimes, exercise his mind in observing the connection
of ideas and following them in train.” As to the means of effecting
this mental discipline, Locke holds: “Nothing does this better than
mathematics, which therefore I think should be taught all those who
have the time and opportunity, not so much to make them mathematicians
as to make them reasonable creatures, that having got the way of
reasoning, which that study necessarily brings the mind to, they might
be able to transfer it to other parts of knowledge as they shall have
occasion.” Similarly, he advises a wide range of sciences, “to accustom
our minds to all sorts of ideas and the proper ways of examining their
habitudes and relations; not to make them perfect in any one of the
sciences, but so to open and dispose their minds as may best make them
capable of any, when they shall apply themselves to it.”

[Sidenote: For moral training, the desires should be guided by reason.]

[Sidenote: For physical training, the ‘hardening process’ should be
used.]

=Disciplinary Attitude in Moral and Physical Training.=--The same
disciplinary conception of education underlies Locke’s ideals of
moral training: “That a man is able to deny himself his own desires,
cross his own inclinations, and purely follow what reason directs as
best, tho’ the appetite lean the other way. This power is to be got
and improved by custom, made easy and familiar by an early practice.”
And even more definitely disciplinary is the well-known ‘hardening
process,’ which he recommends in physical training: “The first thing to
be taken care of is that children be not too warmly clad or covered,
winter or summer. The face, when we are born, is no less tender than
any other part of the body. It is use alone hardens it, and makes it
more able to endure the cold.” He likewise advises that a boy’s “feet
be washed every day in cold water,” that he “have his shoes so thin
that they might leak and let in water,” that he “play in the wind and
sun without a hat,” and that “his bed be hard.”

[Sidenote: Evolved through the disappearance of the utilitarian
argument.]

[Sidenote: A general power afforded.]

[Sidenote: Every one should take certain studies, regardless of
interest.]

=Origin, Significance, and Influence of the Theory of Formal
Discipline.=--This emphasis upon discipline in training of every
sort--intellectual, moral, physical--has often caused Locke to be
regarded as the first great exponent of the educational doctrine of
‘formal discipline.’ That theory has been so widespread and important
during the past two centuries as to require consideration here. During
the Middle Ages and the early period of humanism Latin was not only of
cultural, but of practical utilitarian value. It was the language of
the Church and of diplomacy, and in it was locked up all the learning
of the times. All guidance in science, literature, philosophy, and
politics that received any consideration was couched in its terms.
But with the decline of ecclesiastical influence, the development of
vernacular languages, and the scientific awakening in the seventeenth
century (see pp. 163 f.), this utilitarian argument for the study of
Latin was largely swept away. Appeal was then made in behalf of the
subject to the doctrine of ‘formal discipline,’ which was supported
by the ‘faculty’ psychology of Aristotle. It was held that the study
of Latin yields results out of all proportion to the effort expended,
and gives a general power that may be applied in any direction.
A similar claim was before long made for Greek and mathematics.
Mathematics was declared to sharpen the ‘faculty of reason,’ while the
classic languages were believed to improve the ‘faculty of memory.’
Consequently, it gradually came to be argued by formal disciplinarians
that every one should take these all-important studies, regardless
of his interest, ability, or purpose in life, since he would thus
best prepare himself for any field of labor. All who proved unfitted
for these particular subjects have, therefore, been supposed to be
not qualified for the higher duties and responsibilities, and to be
unworthy of consideration in higher education.

[Sidenote: Used by scientists.]

[Sidenote: Effect upon institutions of various countries.]

This doctrine of formal discipline has had a tremendous effect upon
each stage of education in practically every country and during
every period until recently. Even the scientists and advocates of a
variety of other subjects, instead of arguing for content value and
particular training, have made strenuous efforts to meet this argument
by pointing out the formal discipline in their own studies (see pp. 404
f.). Excellent examples of the effect of this theory upon educational
institutions are found in the formal classicism of the English grammar
and public schools and universities and of the German gymnasiums. While
in the United States a newer and more flexible society has enabled
changes to be more readily made, as late as the last decade of the
nineteenth century, Greek, Latin, and mathematics largely made up the
staples in many high schools, colleges, and universities, and the husks
of formal grammar were often defended in elementary education upon the
score of formal discipline.

[Sidenote: Specific, not general, power.]

[Sidenote: Content, rather than form, stressed.]

[Sidenote: But some generalized powers possible.]

=Opposition to the Disciplinary Theory and More Recent
Modification.=--At the beginning of the twentieth century, however,
with the abandonment of the ‘faculty psychology’ and the development
of educational theory, a decided reaction from the doctrines of formal
discipline began among psychologists and common sense educators. It is
now almost universally conceded that specific, rather than general,
power is developed by the various studies, and no student is held to
be unworthy of education or impervious to culture, simply because he
is not adapted to the classics or mathematics. In consequence, the
content of studies, rather than the process of acquisition, has come
to be emphasized, the curriculum has everywhere been broadened, and
the principle of the election of subjects largely recognized. It has,
however, been felt within the last half dozen years that in reacting
from the old theory of formal discipline, educators went too far. While
it is still held that emphasis must be laid upon the specific character
of mental training, there are some generalized powers and values to
be obtained. It is realized that “a general benefit can be derived
from specific training in so far as the person trained has consciously
wrought out in connection with the specific training a general concept
of method, based upon the specific methods used in that training” (F.
A. Hodge). Thus a student who has once realized the value of close
reasoning through mathematical demonstrations is likely to develop
a general concept of method, and can hardly be satisfied any longer
with slovenly thinking in other fields; and the fine discriminations
discovered in the classical authors, the balanced judgment used in
historical method, and the accuracy required in the study of the
sciences, may well be abstracted and tend to furnish a generalized
ideal for other lines of endeavor.

[Sidenote: And Locke’s ‘discipline’ is of this kind.]

[Sidenote: Generalized values of mathematics.]

[Sidenote: Locke did not defend the formalism of public schools.]

=Locke’s Real Position on Formal Discipline.=--It would seem as if
this modified form of general power were all that Locke had in mind.
He definitely concedes that “learning pages of Latin by heart, no more
fits the memory for retention of anything else, than the graving of
one sentence in lead makes it the more capable of retaining firmly any
other characters.” And while he holds that the method of reasoning
in mathematics can be transferred ‘to other parts of knowledge,’ he
declares that men who are reasonable in some things are often very
unreasonable in others, and “men who may reason well in one sort of
matters to-day may not do so at all a year hence.” The generalized
benefits that students may obtain from mathematics are simply that it
“would show them the necessity there is, in reasoning, to separate all
distinct ideas, and see the habitudes that all those concerned in the
present inquiry have to one another, and to lay by those which relate
not to the proposition in hand and wholly to leave them out of the
reckoning. This is that which in other subjects is absolutely requisite
to just reasoning.” Thus Locke appears to be rather in harmony with
modern educational theory than a thorough-going advocate of formal
discipline. At any rate, it should be recognized that he did not
defend, but vigorously assailed, the grammatical and linguistic grind
in the English public schools. His attitude toward formal discipline
seems to have sprung from his desire to root out the traditional and
false, rather than to support the narrow humanistic curricula of the
times.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _During the Transition_ (Macmillan, 1910), pp. 305-311; and
_Great Educators_ (Macmillan, 1912), chap. VI; Monroe, _Text-book_
(Macmillan, 1905), chap. IX. For a more extended account of Locke, read
his _Thoughts_ and _Conduct_, and Fowler, T., _John Locke_ (Macmillan,
1901). The literature of formal discipline is most extensive and the
subject is still under discussion; but a good summary of all written
up to 1911 is furnished in Heck, W. H., _Mental Discipline and
Educational Values_ (John Lane, New York), and later articles can be
found by consulting the index of _The American Psychological Review_.
In a doctoral dissertation (University of Virginia), _John Locke and
Formal Discipline_, Hodge, F. A., makes it clear that the common
interpretation of Locke as a formal disciplinarian is unfair. The
most typical of the earliest opposition to the disciplinary argument
is probably found in Thorndike, E. L., _Educational Psychology_
(Teachers College, New York, 1910), chap. VIII; the sanest discussion
of the possible transfer of ideals appears in Bagley, W. C.,
_Educative Process_ (Macmillan, 1905), chap. XIII; and the reaction
to the reaction is best portrayed by Angell, Pillsbury, and Judd in
_Educational Review_, vol. XXXVI, pp. 1-43. Lyans, C. K., in his
article upon _Formal Discipline_ (_Pedagogical Seminary_, vol. XXI,
pp. 343-393) makes a most careful analysis of the interpretations of
the defenders and opponents of the theory, and gives a very thorough
discussion of transfers.




CHAPTER XVII

EDUCATION IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES


OUTLINE

    The schools of the American colonies closely resembled those of
    the European countries from which the colonists came, and were
    influenced by the various religious conceptions of education that
    were current in each case. In general, where the Calvinistic
    attitude prevailed, the colonies attempted universal education, but
    where the Anglican communion dominated, the aristocratic ideal of
    education was in evidence.

    Three types of colonial school organization appeared: (1) _laissez
    faire_ in Virginia; (2) ‘parochial’ in New Netherlands; and (3)
    governmental activity in Massachusetts. The South generally
    followed the same plan as Virginia, and New York (after the English
    occupation) and Rhode Island also developed on this basis. The
    other Middle and New England colonies followed the parochial and
    governmental patterns respectively.

[Sidenote: The seventeenth century a period of ‘transplantation of
schools.’]

=American Education a Development from European.=--We have hitherto
had little occasion to speak of American education, except by way
of anticipating certain great waves of influence and important
institutions that have come into America from Europe. But we have
now reached the period when the New World began to be extensively
colonized, and in the rest of our study educational practices in
America will become increasingly distinctive and influential. The
schools of America are the offspring of European institutions, and
have their roots deep in the social soil of the lands from which the
colonists came. While the universal, free, and secular schools of the
United States are a natural accompaniment of its republican form of
government, like the new democracy itself, this development of popular
education was not reached at a bound. At first the American schools
resembled the institutions of the Mother Country as closely as the
frontier life would permit. The seventeenth century was, therefore, for
American education distinctly a period of ‘transplantation of schools,’
with little or no conscious change; and it is only toward the middle of
the next century, as new social and political conditions were evolving
and the days of the Revolution were approaching, that there are evident
the gradual modification of European ideals and the differentiation of
American schools toward an ideal of their own.

[Sidenote: Influence of Reformation period upon the colonists.]

=Conditions in Europe from Which American Education Sprang.=--Hence, in
order to understand American education in the colonial period, we must
briefly consider the social and educational conditions in Europe during
the early part of the seventeenth century, when the colonists began
their migrations. The thirteen American colonies were started while
the fierce agitations of the Reformation period were still at their
height. The settlers, for the most part, were Protestants, and many
of them had emigrated in order to establish institutions--political,
ecclesiastical, educational--that would conform to their own ideals,
and in all cases education in the New World was given a peculiar
importance by the dominant religious interests and conflicts of the
old. At this time in practically all the states of Europe, educational
institutions were controlled and supported by the Church and religious
orders, with the assistance of private benevolence; but a few schools
everywhere, and especially in Teutonic countries, were maintained
by pre-Reformation craft gilds, and so had a close connection with
municipalities (see p. 92). Thus the American schools at first
naturally adopted the religious conception of education and religious
domination, but had some acquaintance with free schools and municipal
management.

[Sidenote: Tendency toward universal education among Calvinists, but
aristocratic ideals among Anglicans.]

In addition to these characteristics, the religious reformers, like
Luther and Calvin, generally held to the idea that a system of schools
should be supported, or at least established, by the state, and
that all children should have an opportunity to secure an education
sufficient to make them familiar with the Scriptures. If people were
to be guided by the word of God, they must all be able to read it.
But this view of education was not held by those for whom, as in the
English Church, the Reformation was not primarily a religious and
theological, but rather an ecclesiastical and political revolt. In
Holland and Scotland, for example, where Calvinism prevailed, universal
education was upheld by the mass of the people, but in France and
England only a small minority, the Huguenots and Puritans respectively,
adopted this attitude. Hence it happens that, wherever in America
the influence of Puritanism, the Dutch Reformed religion, Scotch
Presbyterianism, or other forms of Calvinism was felt, the nucleus of
public education appeared, while in the colonies where the Anglican
communion was dominant, the aristocratic idea of education prevailed
and training of the masses was neglected. However, even among the
Calvinists, who held that elementary education should be universal,
and that the State as well as the Church should hold itself responsible
for its being furnished, the logical solution of the problem was not
perceived for scores of years. In the Calvinistic colonies it was not
at first believed that education should be the same in character for
all or that the State should bear the expense through taxation. This
distinctively American interpretation of public education did develop
later, but in the beginning even the most advanced colonies to some
extent placed the financial responsibility upon the parent or guardian.

[Sidenote: Three chief types.]

[Sidenote: In Virginia, selective education, inherited from England.]

[Sidenote: Consequent educational legislation.]

=Colonial School Organization: The Aristocratic Type in Virginia.=--As
a result of these general traditions and characteristics, there
would seem to have been three chief types of school organization in
the colonies. These were (1) the _laissez faire_ method, current
in Virginia and the South; (2) the parochial organization of New
Netherlands and the Middle Colonies in general; (3) the governmental
activity in Massachusetts and most of the other New England colonies.
We may profitably discuss these typical organizations in order.
Turning first to the aristocratic colonies of the South, we may select
Virginia, the oldest of these provinces, as representative of the type.
That colony constituted the first attempt of England at reproducing
herself in the New World, and here are found an order of society, form
of government, established church, and distinction between classes,
similar to those of the Mother Country. For some time there existed a
sharp line of demarcation between the gentry, or landowning class, and
the masses, which included the landless, indentured servants, and other
dependents. In education, the colonists had brought with them the idea
of a classical higher and secondary training for the upper classes in
the semi-monastic type of university and the (Latin) grammar school
(see pp. 120 f.), and but little in the way of elementary education,
except private ‘dame’ schools and the catechetical training by the
clergy. There were, in addition, the family ‘tutorial’ education,
both secondary and elementary, for the children of the wealthy, and
evident attempts at perpetuating the old English industrial training
through apprenticeship for orphans and children of the poor. But no
such institution as a public elementary school was at first known.
In consequence, the educational legislation in colonial Virginia is
concerned mainly with (a) the organization of a college or university,
(b) individual schools of secondary grade, and (c) apprenticeship
education for the poor.

[Sidenote: Efforts to found a college]

[Sidenote: and secondary schools.]

During the first quarter of a century most educational efforts in
Virginia were in behalf of the foundation of an institution of higher
learning, and were aided by the king, the Anglican bishops, and the
London Company. By 1619 over £2000 and a grant of ten thousand acres
of land had been obtained for a University at Henrico, but this rather
indefinite plan was brought to a violent end by the Indian massacre
of 1622, and the funds were diverted to a school in the Bahamas. An
even more fruitless endeavor to found a college was made in 1624 by
Sir Edwin Palmer upon an island in the Susquehanna. During this period
also there was at least one abortive attempt to establish a school by
collections and gifts, and during the second quarter century of the
colony there were chartered a number of secondary schools, endowed with
bequests of land, money, cows, horses, slaves, or other property.
These schools, however, were local, and resembled the endowed Latin
schools of England, except that they may sometimes have been obliged
by circumstances to include more or less elementary instruction. In
1660 there was also a renewed attempt to establish by subscriptions
a college and “free (secondary) school for the advance of learning,
education of youth, supply of the ministry and promotion of piety.”
But none of the efforts at founding schools could have been very
successful, for, a decade later, when interrogated as to what kind of
education existed in the colonies, Governor Berkeley made his famous
reply: “The same course that is taken in England out of towns; every
man according to his ability instructing his children.... I thank God
there are no free schools, and I hope we shall not have them these
hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience and heresy and
sects into the world.”

[Sidenote: Apprenticeship education for the poor.]

However, despite these biased remarks of the testy governor, by
1692 the constant efforts to obtain an institution of learning were
finally rewarded. Through the management of the Reverend James
Blair, D. D., the bishop’s commissary in Virginia, a charter for the
College of William and Mary, a gift of £2000 and of twenty thousand
acres of land, and the right to certain colonial taxes were obtained
from the king, and large donations were made by the planters and
additional support provided by the assembly. In fact, the college was
munificently endowed for the times, and it did a great work in training
the greatest scholars, statesmen, judges, military officers, and
other leaders during the struggle for independence. Moreover, ‘free’
schools now greatly increased in number and their courses were much
improved. But education was throughout this early period regarded as
a special privilege, and the masses were mostly employed in making
tobacco, and other manual pursuits. For the sons of these people
the only educational legislation was that provided between 1643 and
1748 in various acts concerning the industrial training of the poor,
apprentices, wards, and orphans. In keeping with English precedents,
these children were taught a trade by the masters to whom they were
indentured, or trained in the flax-house established by public funds
at James City. Thus, by the middle of the eighteenth century a fair
provision of secondary and higher education had been voluntarily made
in various localities, but as yet no real interest in common schools
had been shown by the responsible classes in Virginia. Education was
there predominantly ‘selective’ in character.

[Sidenote: Calvinistic conception of universal education, as in
Holland.]

[Sidenote: Catechism and prayers of Reformed Church, as well as
elementary branches, taught.]

[Sidenote: But, with English occupation, replaced by _laissez faire_
organization.]

=The Parochial Schools in New Netherlands.=--A second type of colonial
organization of education appears in the New Netherlands, as the
country between the Delaware and Connecticut rivers was called during
the period of Dutch control (1621-1674). In contrast to the _laissez
faire_ attitude of Virginia, the foundation of schools was parochial.
Instead of the chance endowment of schools wherever the benefactors
happened to be located, a school was founded in connection with every
church. This arrangement grew out of the Calvinistic conception of
universal education, which formed an essential part of the social
traditions in Holland during the seventeenth century. Long before the
Dutch came to America, the parochial school, as a means of preserving
the Reformed faith, had become an indispensable part of church
organization. But the Dutch state also had concerned itself with the
facilities for education. The Reformed Dutch Church was granted the
right to examine teachers, enforce subscription to the creed, and,
in the case of the elementary schools at least, largely determine
the appointments, but the legal support and control of education
were vested in the civil authorities. Hence there early arose in New
Amsterdam and the villages of New Netherlands a parochial school system
and a distribution of control between Church and State very similar
to that in Holland. Besides the ordinary elementary branches, these
parochial schools of the New Netherlands taught the ‘true principles
of Christian religion,’ and the catechism and prayers of the Reformed
Church. Thus the Dutch school differed from those in the Anglican
colonies of the South, which stressed secondary education, in being
chiefly elementary, although some attempt at conducting a Latin or
‘grammar’ (see p. 120) school was also made in New Amsterdam from 1652
on. However, after the English took permanent possession of New York
(1674), the parochial school of the city was limited to the support
of the Reformed Church, and, as a result of its long refusal to adopt
the English language, its possible influence toward the realization
of universal education was completely lost. While the Dutch schools
of the villages generally retained the joint control and support of
the local court and church, with a constantly increasing domination of
the former, as a whole the English occupation of New York would seem
to have set public education back about a hundred years. At any rate,
by the eighteenth century colonial New York seems to have fallen
into the same _laissez faire_ support of education that prevailed in
the Southern colonies. The policy of universal education by means of
parochial schools no longer existed.

[Sidenote: More sects and the municipality not coördinated.]

[Sidenote: Friends,]

[Sidenote: Lutherans,]

[Sidenote: Mennonites,]

[Sidenote: and others.]

=Sectarian Organization of Schools in Pennsylvania.=--As a colony,
Pennsylvania developed a church school organization, similar to that
of the New Netherlands, except that it was carried on in connection
with a number of creeds, and that the municipality was seldom a
coördinate factor. Pennsylvania was more heterogeneous in population
than New York, as the tolerant attitude of the Quaker government had
attracted a large variety of German sects, Swedes, Dutch, English,
Welsh, and Scotch and Irish Presbyterians, and each was devoted to
its own denominational schools. Early in the eighteenth century all
Protestant religious bodies were authorized by statute to conduct
schools and to receive bequests and hold land for their support. Even
before this the Friends had started the ‘Penn Charter School,’ which,
while itself a secondary school, soon established elementary schools
as branches throughout the city upon various arrangements. In keeping
with the conclusions of various ‘Yearly Meetings’ (1722, 1746, etc.),
the Friends also provided elementary, and to some extent secondary,
schools in close proximity to all meeting-houses throughout the colony.
Similarly, the Lutheran congregations, for example, each set up a
school alongside of the church as early as possible. Likewise the
Mennonites included in their system the famous schools of Christopher
Dock, who in 1750 produced the first elaborate educational treatise
in America. There was also some attempt at ‘grammar’ schools (see p.
120) or secondary education, especially in the case of the well-known
Moravian institutions at Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Lititz, and the
Presbyterian Log College at Neshaminy, which became the cradle of
Princeton, Washington and Jefferson, Hampden-Sidney, and Union Colleges.

[Sidenote: Broader attempts.]

A somewhat broader spirit was manifest in the voluntary ‘neighborhood’
schools of Western Pennsylvania and elsewhere, in the attempts at
universal education of the Connecticut colonists in the Wyoming Valley,
and in the ‘academy’ (see p. 159) set up at Philadelphia through
Franklin, to train public men and teachers, and fuse the various
nations in a common citizenship. But, as a whole, parochial schools
exerted the greatest influence in the colony of Pennsylvania.

[Sidenote: Democratic and homogeneous society produced governmental
activity.]

=Town Schools in Massachusetts.=--The third type of colonial school
organization appeared first in Massachusetts. As compared with the
_laissez faire_ and the parochial methods, governmental activity here
prevailed. Accordingly, Massachusetts may be said to have inaugurated
the first real system of public education in America. The character of
the schools in this colony developed from its peculiar form of society
and government. It was democratic, concentrated, and homogeneous,
as compared with the cosmopolitan and sectarian social structure
in the Middle colonies, or the class distinctions and scattered
population of the South. While there were some servants and dependents
in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and a distinction was made between
‘freemen’ and others, there were at no time rival elements that were
unable to combine. The settlements were not a mere confederation,
but the blending of all elements into a single organism, where the
individuality of each was merged in a new social whole. This condition
was a result of the radical ingrained religious conviction that every
one was a child of God, capable of becoming a vital and useful member
of society, and that the community was obligated to give him training
to that end in the home, the church, and the school.

[Sidenote: Acts of 1642]

[Sidenote: and 1647.]

Out of this Calvinistic attitude sprang a spirit of coöperation
and helpfulness, a general participation of all townsmen in local
government, and the Massachusetts type of school organization. Common
schools seem to have been supported in most towns from the first by
voluntary or compulsory subscriptions, and before the close of the
first quarter of a century there had been established by the colony
at large an educational system in which every citizen had a working
share. Because of this inclusiveness and unity in matters theological,
the schools, while religious and moral, could hardly be considered
sectarian. The first educational act of the colony, passed in 1642,
was similar to the old English apprenticeship law in its provision for
industrial education, and, while it was broadened so as to include some
literary elements and a rate to procure materials was established, no
school is mentioned in it. But in 1647 each town of fifty families was
required, under a penalty of £5, to maintain an elementary school (Fig.
22), and every one of a hundred families a (Latin) ‘grammar’ (Fig. 23)
school. These schools might be supported in part by tuition fees, as
well as by the town rate, and the obligation seems to have still rested
on the parents to see that the children did ‘resort’ to the school, but
the germs of the present common school system in the United States
appear in the educational activity of the legislature in colonial
Massachusetts. The ‘grammar’ schools were to prepare boys for Harvard
College (Fig. 24), which had been founded in 1636.

[Sidenote: County schools in Maryland.]

[Sidenote: Parish schools in South Carolina.]

[Sidenote: Georgia financed by parliament.]

[Sidenote: Democratic tendencies in North Carolina.]

=Education in the Other Colonies.=--In general, the organization of
education in the remaining nine colonies can be classed under one of
the three types, described above, but there are various modifications
and some exceptions to be noted. The _laissez faire_ foundation of
schools and colleges during the colonial period, which was evident in
Virginia, seems to be characteristic of the four other colonies of the
South. But the problems were in every case a little different, and in
each there were variations in development. Maryland, for example, while
mainly following the same random foundation of schools as Virginia,
also seriously endeavored (1696) to support schools in every county by
a general colonial tax. South Carolina likewise made an unsuccessful
attempt (1722) at establishing a county system of schools, and, a
decade before, it undertook to subsidize a school in each parish.
Georgia, on the other hand, until the Revolution, had its entire
budget, including the items for education, financed by the English
parliament. And North Carolina, through a large number of Irish and
Scotch Presbyterians, German Protestants, and other immigrants, mostly
from Pennsylvania, after 1728 began to break away from the aristocratic
policy.

[Sidenote: Random organization in New York and Rhode Island.]

[Sidenote: Governmental activity in New England.]

Moreover, after the permanent occupation (1674) by the English, New
York went over to the _laissez faire_ plan (see p. 194). And, although
in the remaining ‘middle’ colonies, New Jersey and Delaware, something
was accomplished by the parochial schools of the various sects, much
of the school organization there was _laissez faire_. Likewise, Rhode
Island, dominated by a fanatical devotion to freedom in thought and
speech, failed throughout colonial days to pass any general regulations
on education, like those of Massachusetts, and followed more closely
the random organization of schools in Virginia. But the other New
England colonies, Connecticut and New Hampshire, when it separated
from Massachusetts, tended to provide schools after the Massachusetts
plan. The Hartford colony of Connecticut in its statutes of 1650
copied almost _verbatim_ the phraseology used by Massachusetts in the
establishment of schools. It remains for later chapters to show how
the practices suggested by this type of organization have eventually
overcome those of the other two, for that did not come to pass until
after the colonial period.

[Illustration: Fig. 22.--Town school at Dedham (Massachusetts) with
watch-tower, built in 1648.]

[Illustration: Fig. 23.--Boston Latin School, founded in 1635.]

[Illustration: Fig. 24.--The buildings of Harvard College (founded
1636) erected in 1675, 1699, and 1720.]


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _History of Education in Modern Times_ (Macmillan, 1913), chap,
iv; Clews, Elsie W., affords primary source material in _Educational
Legislation and Administration of the Colonial Governments_ (Columbia
University, Department of Philosophy and Psychology, No. 6). The
interpretation of educational organization in _Colonial Schools_ used
in this chapter is furnished by Monroe and Kilpatrick in the Monroe
_Cyclopædia of Education_ (Macmillan, 1910-14). For conditions in the
various colonies, consult Dexter, E. G., _History of Education in the
United States_ (Macmillan, 1904), chaps. I-VI; Jackson, G. L., _The
Development of School Support in Colonial Massachusetts_ (Columbia
University, Teachers College Contributions, No. 25, 1909); Kilpatrick,
W. H., _The Dutch Schools of New Netherland_ (Bulletin, U. S. Bureau
of Education, 1912); McCrady, E., _Education in South Carolina_
(Collections of the Historical Society of South Carolina, vol. IV);
Smith, C. L., _History of Education in North Carolina_ (U. S. Bureau
of Education, Circular of Information, no. 2, 1894); Steiner, B. C.,
_History of Education in Connecticut_ (U. S. Bureau of Education,
Circular of Information, no. 2, 1893) and _History of Education in
Maryland_ (U. S. Bureau of Education, Circular of Information, no. 2,
1894), chaps. I-IV; Stockwell, T. B., _History of Public Education
in Rhode Island_ (Providence Press Co., Providence, 1876), pp.
281-404; and Wickersham, J. P., _History of Education in Pennsylvania_
(Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1886), chaps. I-XII.




PART IV

MODERN TIMES




CHAPTER XVIII

GROWTH OF THE DEMOCRATIC IDEAL IN EDUCATION


OUTLINE

    During the eighteenth century, there appeared the climax to the
    revolt against absolutism.

    This movement was directed against repression of intellect in the
    first half of the century, and against repression of political
    rights in the second half. The former phase, through Voltaire,
    made reason the basis of society and education, but introduced
    the tyranny of an intellectual few; the latter, through Rousseau,
    promoted an emotionalism and ‘naturalism’ that were in keeping with
    the sentiments of the times.

    The early treatises of Rousseau advocated a complete return to
    nature, but his later works somewhat modified this attitude.

[Sidenote: The eighteenth century marked the climax of the rebellion
against the enslavement of the individual.]

=The Revolt from Absolutism.=--The ideal of universality and of state
control in the education of America and other countries was greatly
assisted by the climax to the general revolt against absolutism and
ecclesiasticism that appeared in the eighteenth century. During this
period of time most strenuous efforts were made to interpret life
from a more reasonable and natural point of view and to overthrow
all customs and institutions that did not square with these tests.
This century marked the climax of the rebellion against authority and
against the enslavement of the individual that had been manifesting
itself in one form or another from the close of the Middle Ages. One
revival after another--the Renaissance, the Reformation, realism,
Puritanism, Pietism--had burst forth only to fade away or harden into
a new formalism and authoritative standard. Yet with each effort
something was really accomplished for freedom and progress, and the
way was paved for the seemingly abrupt break from tradition that
appears to mark the period roughly included in the eighteenth century.
At this point despotism and ecclesiasticism were becoming thoroughly
intolerable, and the individual tended more and more to assert his
right to be an end in himself. At times all institutional barriers
were swept aside, and in the French Revolution destruction went to an
extreme. The logical consequence of these movements would have been
complete social disintegration, had not the nineteenth century happily
made conscious efforts to justify the eighteenth, and bring out the
positions that were only implied in the negations of the latter. Thus
the revolutionary tendencies and destruction of absolutism in the
eighteenth century led to evolutionary movements and the construction
of democracy in the nineteenth.

[Sidenote: The revolt against repression (1) of intellect and (2) of
political rights.]

=The Two Epochs in the Eighteenth Century.=--But this revolt of the
eighteenth century from absolutism in politics, religion, and thought,
falls naturally into two parts. During the first half of the century
the movement was directed against repression in theology and intellect,
and during the second half against repression in politics and the
rights of man. The former tendency appears in the rationalism and
skepticism of such men as Voltaire and, the ‘encyclopedists,’ while the
latter becomes evident chiefly in the emotionalism and ‘naturalism’
of Rousseau. Although these aspects of the revolutionary movement
somewhat overlapped each other and had certain features in common,
they should be clearly distinguished. The one prepared the way for the
other by seeking to destroy existing abuses, especially of the Church,
by the application of reason, but it gave no ear to the claims of the
masses, and sought merely to replace the traditionalism of the clergy
and monarch with the tyranny of an intellectual few. In distinction to
this rule of ‘reason,’ ‘naturalism’ declared that the intellect could
not always be trusted as the proper monitor, but that conduct could
better be guided by the emotions as the true expression of nature. It
opposed the control of intellectual aristocracy and demanded rights for
the common man.


[Sidenote: Championed reason against traditions,]

[Sidenote: and undertook to transplant English scientific movement.]

=Voltaire and the Encyclopedists.=--The rationalistic and scientific
tendency was chiefly developed by Diderot, Voltaire, Condillac,
D’Alembert, and others interested in the production of the French
_Encyclopédie_. Of all these ‘encyclopedists’ the most keen and
brilliant was Voltaire (1694-1778), who may well serve as the type
of the whole movement. With matchless wit and literary skill, in a
remarkable range of poems, epistles, epigrams, and other writings, he
championed reason against the traditional institutions of State and
Church. His chief object of attack was the powerful Roman Catholic
Church, which seemed to him to stand seriously in the way of all
liberty, individuality, and progress, and the slogan with which
he often closed his letters was,--“crush the infamous thing.” The
Protestant beliefs he likewise condemned as hysterical and irrational.
While an exile in England, as the result of a quarrel with a member of
the nobility, he became acquainted with the work of Newton, Harvey,
Bacon, Locke, and others (see pp. 164 f.), and undertook to transplant
the English scientific movement to France, and make it the basis of a
new régime in society, religion, and education.

[Sidenote: New theories of education.]

[Sidenote: Degenerated into skepticism and license.]

The other rationalistic writers had similar doctrines and purposes,
and, although details of their ideas are hardly worthy of consideration
here, most of them produced treatises upon education. In these they
freely criticised the traditional school systems, and proposed new
theories of organization, content, and method, which must later have
assisted to demolish the existing theory and practice in France.
Thus rationalism sought to destroy despotism and superstition, and
to establish in their place freedom in action, social justice, and
religious toleration. But in casting away the old, it swung to the
opposite extreme and often degenerated into skepticism, anarchy,
and license. In their fight against despotic ecclesiasticism, the
rationalists often failed to distinguish it from Christianity, and they
opposed the Church because it was irrational rather than because it was
not sincere. They felt that it might have a mission with the masses who
were too dull and uneducated to be able to reason. So while rationalism
wielded a mighty weapon against the fettering of the human intellect,
it cared little about improving the condition of the lower classes, who
were sunk in poverty and ignorance, and were universally oppressed.


[Sidenote: Sentimentalism and want of control.]

[Sidenote: Love of nature.]

[Sidenote: Sympathy with poor.]

[Sidenote: Sporadic education.]

=Rousseau and His Times.=--In opposition to this intellectualistic and
rationalistic attitude, Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) developed his
emotionalism and ‘naturalism.’ The social and educational positions of
this reformer find a ready explanation in his antecedents and career.
From his father he inherited a mercurial temperament, love of pleasure,
and irresponsibility, and from his mother a morbid and emotional
disposition. His tendency toward sentimentalism, idleness, and want of
control was also strengthened by the indulgent aunt that brought him
up, and by low companions during his trade apprenticeships in the city
of Geneva. At sixteen he ran away from the city, and spent several
years in vagrancy, menial service, and dissoluteness. A love of nature
was impressed upon him by the wonderful scenery of the country in which
he spent his boyhood and his years of wandering. He also learned to
sympathize with the poor and oppressed, whose condition was at this
time forced upon his attention. He received some sporadic instruction,
but his education was inaccurate and unsystematic.

[Sidenote: Blended well with inchoate sentiments of the period.]

At twenty-nine Rousseau settled down in Paris, but his days of
vagabondage had left an ineffaceable stamp upon him. His sensitiveness,
impulsiveness, love of nature, and sympathy for the poor were ever
afterward in evidence. These characteristics blended well with a body
of inchoate sentiments and vague longings of this period. It was the
day of Louis XV and royal absolutism, when affairs in the kingdom
were controlled by a small clique of idle and extravagant courtiers.
A most artificial system of conduct had grown up in society. Under
this veneer the degraded peasants were ground down by taxation and
forced to minister to the pleasure of a vicious leisure class. But
against this oppression there had gradually arisen an undefined spirit
of protest and a desire to return to the original beneficent state of
nature from which it was felt that man had departed. Hence it happened
that Rousseau, emotional, uncontrolled, and half-trained, was destined
to bring into consciousness and give voice to the revolutionary and
naturalistic ideas and tendencies of the century.

[Sidenote: His discourses,]

[Sidenote: _New Heloise_,]

[Sidenote: _Social Contract_,]

[Sidenote: and _Emile_.]

=Rousseau’s Works.=--In 1750 he first crystallized this spirit of the
age and resultant of his own experience in a discourse on _The Progress
of the Arts and Sciences_. In this he declared with much fervor and
conviction, though rather illogically, that the existing oppression
and corruption of society were due to the advancement of civilization.
Three years later he wrote his discourse on _The Origin of Inequality
among Men_. Here again he held that the physical and intellectual
inequalities of nature which existed in primitive society were scarcely
noticeable, but that, with the growth of civilization, most oppressive
distinctions arose. This point of view in a somewhat modified form he
continued in his remarkable romance, _The New Heloise_, published in
1759, and three years afterward in his influential essay on political
ethics, known as the _Social Contract_, and in that most revolutionary
treatise on education, the _Emile_. The _New Heloise_ commends as
much of primitive conditions as the crystallized institutions of
society will permit. In the _Social Contract_, Rousseau also finds the
ideal state, not in that of nature, but in a society managed by the
people, where simplicity and natural wants control, and aristocracy
and artificiality do not exist. But the work that has made the name
of Rousseau famous is the _Emile_. This, while an outgrowth of his
naturalism, assumes the modified position of the later works, and
undertakes to show how education might minimize the drawbacks of
civilization and bring man as near to nature as possible. But the
educational influence of the _Emile_ has been so far-reaching that we
must turn to another chapter to study the positions of Rousseau and the
effects of naturalism in education.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _During the Transition_ (Macmillan, 1910), pp. 311-313;
_History of Education in Modern Times_ (Macmillan, 1913), pp. 1-10; and
_Great Educators_ (Macmillan, 1912), pp. 77-85; Monroe, _Text-book_
(Macmillan, 1905), pp. 533-542. See also Boyd, W., _The Educational
Theory of Rousseau_ (Longmans, Green, 1911); Morley, J., _Voltaire_ and
_Rousseau_ (Macmillan).




CHAPTER XIX

NATURALISM IN EDUCATION


OUTLINE

    Rousseau attempts in the _Emile_ to outline a natural education
    from birth to manhood. The first book takes Emile from birth
    to five years of age, and deals with the training of physical
    activities; the second, from five to twelve, treats of body and
    sense training; the third, from twelve to fifteen, is concerned
    with intellectual education in the natural sciences; the fourth,
    from fifteen to twenty, outlines his social and moral development;
    and the fifth describes the parasitic training of the girl he is to
    marry.

    The _Emile_ is often inconsistent, but brilliant and suggestive;
    and, while anti-social, the times demanded such a radical
    presentation. Through it Rousseau became the progenitor of the
    social, scientific, and psychological movements in education.

    The first attempt to put the naturalism of Rousseau into actual
    practice was made by Basedow. He suggested that education should be
    practical in content and playful in method, and he produced texts
    on his system, and started a school known as the ‘Philanthropinum.’
    He planned a broad course, and taught languages through
    conversation, games, and drawing, and other subjects by natural
    methods. The Philanthropinum was at first successful, and this type
    of school grew rapidly, but it soon became a fad.

[Sidenote: The _Emile_ forced educational thinking.]

=The Influence of Rousseau’s Naturalism.=--The influence of Rousseau’s
_Emile_ upon education in all its aspects has been tremendous. It is
shown by the library of books since written to contradict, correct, or
disseminate his doctrines. During the quarter of a century following
the publication of the _Emile_, probably more than twice as many books
upon education were published as in the preceding three-quarters of a
century. This epoch-making work forced a rich harvest of educational
thinking for a century after its appearance, and has affected our ideas
upon education from that day to this.

[Sidenote: The substitution of a natural education for the conventional
type in vogue.]

=Naturalistic Basis of the _Emile_.=--In the _Emile_ Rousseau aims
to replace the conventional and formal education of the day with a
training that should be natural and spontaneous. Under the existing
_régime_ it was customary for boys and girls to be dressed like men
and women of fashion (Fig. 25), and for education to be largely one
of deportment and the dancing master. On the intellectual side,
education was largely traditional and consisted chiefly of a training
in Latin grammar, words, and _memoriter_ work. Rousseau scathingly
criticises these practices, and applies his naturalistic principles
to an imaginary pupil named Emile “from the moment of his birth up to
the time when, having become a mature man, he will no longer need any
other guide than himself.” He begins the work with a restatement of his
basal principle that “everything is good as it comes from the hands of
the Author of Nature; but everything degenerates in the hands of man.”
After elaborating this, he shows that we are educated by “three kinds
of teachers--nature, man, and things, and since the coöperation of the
three educations is necessary for their perfection, it is to the one
over which we have no control (i e., nature) that we must direct the
other two.” Education must, therefore, conform to nature.

[Sidenote: Emile’s impulses examined and trained at different periods:]

=The Five Books of the _Emile_.=--Now the natural objects, through
which Emile is to be educated, remain the same, but Emile himself
changes from time to time. In so far, therefore, as he is to be the
guide of how he is to be educated in a natural environment, his
impulses must be examined at different times in his life. Hence the
work is divided into five parts, four of which deal with Emile’s
education in the stages of infancy, childhood, boyhood, and youth
respectively, and the fifth with the training of the girl who is to
become his wife. The characteristics of the different periods in the
life of Emile are marked by the different kinds of things he desires.

[Sidenote: In infancy, physical activities.]

In the first book, which takes him from birth to five years of age,
his main desire is for physical activities, and he should, therefore,
be placed under simple, free, and healthful conditions, which will
enable him to make the most of these. He must be removed to the
country, where he will be close to nature, and farthest from the
contaminating influence of civilization. His growth and training must
be as spontaneous as possible. He must have nothing to do with either
medicine or doctors, “unless his life is in evident danger; for then
they can do nothing worse than kill him.” His natural movements must
not be restrained by caps, bands, or swaddling clothes, and he should
be nursed by his own mother. He should likewise be used to baths of
all sorts of temperature. In fact, the child should not be forced into
any fixed ways whatsoever, since with Rousseau, habit is necessarily
something contrary to impulse and so unnatural. “The only habit,” says
he, “which the child should be allowed to form is to contract no habit
whatsoever.” His playthings should be such simple products of nature as
“branches with their fruits and flowers, or a poppy-head in which the
seeds are heard to rattle.” Language that is simple, plain, and hence
natural, should be used with him, and he should not be hurried beyond
nature in learning to talk. He should be restricted to a few words that
express real thoughts for him.

[Sidenote: In childhood, limb and sense development,]

The education of Emile during infancy is thus to be ‘negative’ and
purely physical. The aim is simply to keep his instincts and impulses,
which Rousseau holds to be good by nature, free from vice, and to
afford him the natural activity he craves. Next, in the period of
childhood, between the years of five and twelve, which is treated in
the second book, Emile desires most to exercise his legs and arms, and
to touch, to see, and in other ways to sense things. This, therefore,
is the time for training his limbs and senses. “As all that enters the
human understanding comes there through the senses, the first reason
of man is a sensuous reason. Our first teachers of philosophy are our
feet, our hands, and our eyes.... In order to learn to think, we must
then exercise our limbs, our senses, and our organs, which are the
instruments of our intelligence.” To obtain this training, Emile is
to wear short, loose, and scanty clothing, go bareheaded, and have
the body inured to cold and heat, and be generally subjected to a
‘hardening process’ similar to that recommended by Locke (see p. 181).
He is to learn to swim, and practice long and high jumps, leaping
walls, and scaling rocks. But, what is more important, his eyes and
ears are also to be exercised through natural problems in weighing,
measuring, and estimating masses, heights, and distances. Drawing and
constructive geometry are to be taught him, to render him more capable
of observing accurately. His ear is to be rendered sensitive to
harmony by learning to sing.

[Sidenote: no geography, history, or reading,]

This body and sense training should be the nearest approach to an
intellectual training at this period. Rousseau condemns the usual
unnatural practice of requiring pupils to learn so much before
they have reached the proper years. In keeping with his ‘negative’
education, he asks rhetorically: “Shall I venture to state at this
point the most important, the most useful, rule of all education? It
is not to gain time, but to lose it.” During his childhood Emile is
not to study geography, history, or languages, upon which pedagogues
ordinarily depend to exhibit the attainments of their pupils, although
these understand nothing of what they have memorized. “At the age of
twelve, Emile will hardly know what a book is. But I shall be told
it is very necessary that he know how to read. This I grant. It is
necessary that he know how to read when reading is useful to him. Until
then, it serves only to annoy him.”

[Sidenote: though moral training through ‘natural consequences.’]

Incidentally, however, in order to make Emile tolerable in society, for
he cannot entirely escape it, he must be given the idea of property
and some ideas about conduct. But this is simply because of practical
necessity, and no moral education is to be given as such, for, “until
he reaches the age of reason, he can form no idea of moral beings or
social relations.” He is to learn through ‘natural consequences’ until
he arrives at the age for understanding moral precepts. If he breaks
the furniture or the windows, let him suffer the consequences that
arise from his act. Do not preach to him or punish him for lying, but
afterward affect not to believe him even when he has spoken the truth.
If he carelessly digs up the sprouting melons of the gardener, in order
to plant beans for himself, let the gardener in turn uproot the beans,
and thus cause him to learn the sacredness of property. As far as this
moral training is given, then, it is to be indirect and incidental.

[Sidenote: In boyhood, intellectual training through curiosity
concerning natural phenomena.]

However, between twelve and fifteen, after the demands of the boy’s
physical activities and of his senses have somewhat abated, there
comes “an interval when his faculties and powers are greater than his
desires,” when he displays an insistent curiosity concerning natural
phenomena and a constant appetite for rational knowledge. This period,
which is dealt with in his third book, Rousseau declares to be intended
by nature itself as the time for instruction. But as not much can be
learned within three years, the boy is to study only those subjects
which are useful and not incomprehensible and misleading, and so is
limited to the natural sciences. Later in this third book, in order
that Emile may informally learn the interdependence of men and may
himself become economically independent, Rousseau adds industrial
experience and the acquisition of cabinet-making to his training. The
most effective method of instruction, Rousseau holds, comes through
appealing to the curiosity and interest in investigation, which
are so prominent in the boy at this time. He contrasts the current
methods of teaching astronomy and geography by means of globes, maps,
and other misleading representations, with the more natural plan of
stimulating inquiry through observing the sun when rising and setting
during the different seasons, and through problems concerning the
topography of the neighborhood. Emile is taught to appreciate the
value of these subjects by being lost in the forest, and endeavoring
to find a way out. He learns the elements of electricity through
meeting with a juggler, who attracts an artificial duck by means of a
concealed magnet. He similarly discovers through experience the effect
of cold and heat upon solids and liquids, and so comes to understand
the thermometer and other instruments. Hence Rousseau feels that all
knowledge of real value may be acquired most clearly and naturally
without the use of rivalry or textbooks. But he finds an exception
to this irrational method in one book, _Robinson Crusoe_, “where all
the natural needs of man are exhibited in a manner obvious to the
mind of a child, and where the means of providing for these needs are
successively developed with the same facility.”

[Sidenote: In youth, sex interests, as basis of moral and social
training.]

The fourth book takes Emile from the age of fifteen to twenty. At
this period the sex interests appear and should be properly guided
and trained, especially as they are the basis of social and moral
relationships. Emile’s first passion calls him into relations with his
species, and he must now learn to live with others. “We have formed
his body, his senses, and his intelligence; it remains to give him a
heart.” He is to become moral, affectionate, and religious. Here again
Rousseau insists that the training is not to be accomplished by the
formal method of precepts, but in a natural way by bringing the youth
into contact with his fellowmen and appealing to his emotions. Emile
is to visit infirmaries, hospitals, and prisons, and witness concrete
examples of wretchedness in all stages, although not so frequently as
to become hardened. That this training may not render him cynical or
hypercritical, it should be corrected by the study of history, where
one sees men simply as a spectator without feeling or passion. Further,
in order to deliver Emile from vanity, so common during adolescence, he
is to be exposed to flatterers, spendthrifts, and sharpers, and allowed
to suffer the consequences. He may at this time also be guided in his
conduct by the use of fables, for “by censuring the wrongdoer under an
unknown mask, we instruct without offending him.”

[Sidenote: The passive and parasitic education of woman.]

Emile at length becomes a man, and a life companion must be found for
him. A search should be made for a suitable lady, but “in order to
find her, we must know her.” Accordingly, the last book of the Emile
deals with the model Sophie and the education of woman. It is the
weakest part of Rousseau’s work. He entirely misinterprets the nature
of women, and does not allow them any individuality of their own, but
considers them as simply supplementary to the nature of men. Like
men, women should be given adequate bodily training, but rather for
the sake of physical charms and of producing vigorous offspring than
for their own development. Their instinctive love of pleasing through
dress should be made of service by teaching them sewing, embroidery,
lacework, and designing. They ought to be obedient and industrious,
and they ought early to be brought under restraint. Girls should also
be taught singing, dancing, and other accomplishments. They should be
instructed dogmatically in religion, and in ethical matters they should
be largely guided by public opinion. A woman may not learn philosophy,
art, or science, but she should study men. “She must learn to penetrate
their feelings through their conversation, their actions, their looks,
and their gestures, and know how to give them the feelings which are
pleasing to her, without even seeming to think of them.”

[Sidenote: Defects outweighed by merits.]

=Estimate of the _Emile_.=--Such was Rousseau’s notion of the natural
individualistic education for a man and the passive and repressive
training suitable for a woman, and of the happiness and prosperity
that were bound to ensue. To make a fair estimate of the _Emile_ and
its influence is not easy. It is necessary to put aside all of one’s
prejudices against the weak and offensive personality of the author,
and to forget the inconsistencies and contradictions of the work
itself. The _Emile_ has always been accounted a work of great richness,
power, and underlying wisdom, and each of its defects is more than
balanced by a corresponding merit. Moreover, the most fundamental
movements in modern educational progress--sociological, scientific, and
psychological--may be said to have germinated through the _Emile_.

[Sidenote: Revolt from social control,]

[Sidenote: but extreme doctrine needed,]

[Sidenote: and those who followed Rousseau stressed social activities.]

=The Sociological Movements in Modern Education.=--The most marked
feature of the Rousselian education and the one most subject to
criticism has been its extreme revolt against civilization and all
social control. A state of nature is held to be the ideal condition,
and all social relations are regarded as degenerate. The child is to
be brought up in isolation by the laws of brute necessity and to have
no social education until he is fifteen, when an impossible set of
expedients for bringing him into touch with his fellows is devised.
One should remember, however, that the times and the cause had need
of just so extreme a doctrine. Such radical individualism alone could
enable him to break the bondage to the past. By means of paradoxes
and exaggerations he was able to emphasize the crying need of a
natural development of man, and to tear down the effete traditions
in educational organization, content, and methods. And many of the
social movements in modern educational organization and content were
made possible and even suggested by him, after having thus cleared
the ground. He held that all members of society should be trained
industrially so as to contribute to their own support and should be
taught to be sympathetic and benevolent toward their fellows. Thus
through him education has been more closely related to human welfare.
The industrial work of Pestalozzi and Fellenberg, the moral aim of
education held by Herbart, the ‘social participation’ in the practice
of Froebel, and the present-day emphasis upon vocational education,
moral instruction, and training of defectives and of other extreme
variations, alike find some of their roots in the _Emile_. In fact,
the fallacy involved in Rousseau’s isolated education is too palpable
to mislead anyone, and those who have best caught his spirit and
endeavored to develop his practice have in all cases most insistently
stressed social activities in the training of children and striven to
make education lead to a closer and more sympathetic coöperation in
society.

[Sidenote: Opposed to all books, but emphasized observational work.]

=The Scientific Movement in Modern Education.=--Moreover, since
Rousseau repudiated all social traditions and accepted nature as
his only guide, he was absolutely opposed to all book learning and
exaggerated the value of observation. He consequently neglected the
past, and would have robbed the pupil of all the experience of his
fellows and of those who had gone before. But he emphasized the use
of natural objects in the curriculum and developed the details of
nature study and observational work to an extent never previously
undertaken. Partly as a result of this influence, schools and colleges
have come to include in their course the study of physical forces,
natural environment, plants, and animals. Therein Rousseau not only
anticipates somewhat the nature study and geography of Pestalozzi,
Basedow, Salzmann, and Ritter, but, in a way, foreshadows the arguments
of Spencer and Huxley, and the modern scientific movement in education.

[Sidenote: Though defective in knowledge of children, Rousseau saw the
need of studying them.]

=The Psychological Movements in Modern Education.=--A matter of even
greater importance is Rousseau’s belief that education should be in
accordance with the natural interests of the child. Although his
knowledge of children was defective, and his recommendations were
marred by unnatural breaks and filled with sentimentality, he saw
the need of studying the child as the only basis for education. In
the Preface to the _Emile_ he declares that “the wisest among us are
engrossed in what the adult needs to know and fail to consider what
children are able to apprehend. We are always looking for the man in
the child, without thinking of what he is before he becomes a man. This
is the study to which I have devoted myself, to the end that, even
though my whole method may be chimerical and false, the reader may
still profit by my observation.” As a result of such appeals, the child
has become the center of discussion in modern training. Despite his
limitations and prejudices, this unnatural and neglectful parent stated
many details of child development with much force and clearness and
gave an impetus to later reformers.

[Sidenote: Theory of ‘delayed maturing.’]

[Sidenote: Physical activities and sense training]

[Sidenote: Sympathetic understanding of the child.]

In this connection should especially be considered Rousseau’s theory
of stages of development. He makes a sharp division of the pupil’s
development into definite periods that seem but little connected with
one another, and prescribes a distinct education for each stage.
This seems like a breach of the evolution of the individual, and the
_reductio ad absurdum_ of such an atomic training is reached in his
hope of rendering Emile warm-hearted and pious, after keeping him
in the meshes of self-interest and doubt until he is fifteen. But,
as in the case of his attitude toward society, Rousseau takes an
extreme view, and he has thereby shown that there are characteristic
differences at different stages in the child’s life, and that only
as the proper activities are provided for each stage will it reach
maturity or perfection. He may, therefore, be credited to a great
degree with the increasing tendency to cease from forcing upon children
a fixed method of thinking, feeling, and acting, and for the gradual
disappearance of the old ideas that a task is of educational value
according as it is distasteful, and that real education consists in
overcoming meaningless difficulties. Curiosity and interest rather
are to be used as motives for study, and Rousseau therein points the
way for the Herbartians. It is likewise due to him primarily that we
have recognized the need of physical activities and sense training in
the earlier development of the child as a foundation for its later
growth and learning. To these recommendations may be traced much of
the object teaching of Pestalozzianism and the motor expression of
Froebelianism. Thus Rousseau made a large contribution to educational
method by showing the value of motivation, of creating problems, and of
utilizing the senses and activities of the child, and may be regarded
as the father of the psychological movements in modern education. He
could not, however, have based his study of children and his advanced
methods upon any real psychological foundation, for in his day the
‘faculty’ psychology (see p. 182) absolutely prevailed. Instead of
working out his methods from scientific principles, he obtained them,
as did Pestalozzi afterwards, through his sympathetic understanding of
the child and his ability to place himself in the child’s situation and
see the world through the eyes of the child.

[Sidenote: Intellectual progenitor of modern reformers, but influence
upon schools not immediate.]

[Sidenote: First attempt through Basedow.]

=The Spread of Rousseau’s Doctrines.=--Thus seeds of many modern
developments in educational organization, method, and content, were
sown by Rousseau, and he is seen to be the intellectual progenitor
of Pestalozzi, Herbart, Froebel, Spencer, and many other modern
reformers. But his principles did not take immediate hold on the
schools themselves, although their influence is manifest there as
the nineteenth century advanced. In France they were apparent in the
complaints and recommendations concerning schools in the lists of
desired reforms (_cahiers_) that were issued by the various towns,
and afterward clearly formed a basis for much of the legislation
concerning the universal, free, and secular organization of educational
institutions. In England, since there was no national system of
schools, little direct impression was made upon educational practice.
But in America this revolutionary thought would seem to have had much
to do with causing the unrest that gradually resulted in upsetting the
aristocratic and formal training of the young and in secularizing and
universalizing the public school system. The first definite attempt,
however, to put into actual practice the naturalistic education of
Rousseau occurred in Germany through the writings of Basedow and the
foundation of the ‘Philanthropinum,’ and is of sufficient importance to
demand separate discussion.

[Sidenote: Naturally captivated by Rousseau’s doctrines.]

[Sidenote: Education of the day needed naturalism.]

=Development of Basedow’s Educational Reforms.=--Johann Bernhard
Basedow (1723-1790) was by nature the very person to be captivated
by Rousseau’s doctrines. He was talented, but erratic, unorthodox,
tactless, and irregular in life. He had been prepared at the University
of Leipzig for the Lutheran ministry, but proved too heretical, and,
giving up this vocation, became a tutor in Holstein to a Herr von
Quaalen’s children. With these aristocratic pupils he first developed
methods of teaching through conversation and play connected with
surrounding objects. A few years after this, in 1763, Basedow fell
under the spell of Rousseau’s _Emile_, which was most congenial to his
methods of thinking and teaching, and turned all his energy toward
educational reform. As in the case of Rousseau with education in
France, he realized that German education of the day was sadly in need
of just such an antidote as ‘naturalism’ was calculated to furnish. The
schoolrooms were dismal and the work was unpleasant, physical training
was neglected, and the discipline was severe. Children were regarded
as adults in miniature (Fig. 25), and were so treated both in their
dress and their education. The current schooling consisted largely of
instruction in artificial deportment. The study of classics composed
the entire intellectual curriculum, and the methods were purely
grammatical. As a result, suggestions made by Basedow for educational
improvement attained as great popularity as his advanced theological
propositions had received abuse.

[Sidenote: Success of his _Address_ and production of his text-books.]

In 1768 by his _Address on Schools and Studies, and their Influence
on the Public Weal_, he called generally upon princes, governments,
ecclesiastics, and others in power, to assist him financially in
certain definite educational reforms. In addition to suggesting that
the schools be made nonsectarian and that public instruction be placed
under a National Council of Education, he proposed that, in contrast
to the formal and unattractive training of the day, education should
be rendered practical in content and playful in method. To assist this
reform, he planned to bring out a work on elementary education, which
he described in outline. Great interest in his proposals was shown
throughout Europe by sovereigns, nobles, prominent men, and others
desiring a nonsectarian and more effective education, and a subsidy of
some ten thousand dollars was speedily raised, to enable him to perfect
his plans. Six years later, Basedow completed his promised text-book,
_Elementarwerk_, and the companion work for teachers and parents known
as _Methodenbuch_. The _Elementarwerk_ was accompanied by a volume
containing ninety-six plates, which illustrated the subject-matter of
the text, but were too large to be bound in with it. While in these
manuals Basedow included many naturalistic ideas from Rousseau, he also
embodied features from other reformers and even additions of his own.

[Sidenote: _Elementarwerk_]

[Sidenote: and _Methodenbuch_.]

[Sidenote: Popular story books for children.]

=Text-books and Other Works.=--The _Elementarwerk_ clearly combines
many of the principles of Comenius as well as of Rousseau. It has,
in fact, been often called ‘the _Orbis Pictus_ (see p. 170) of the
eighteenth century,’ and gives a knowledge of things and words in the
form of a dialogue. The _Methodenbuch_, while not following Rousseau
completely, contains many ideas concerning natural training that are
suggestive of him. In this study of the nature of children, the book
makes some advance upon the Rousselian doctrine by finding that they
are especially interested in motion and noise, although Basedow would
have shocked Rousseau by being so much under the control of tradition
as to suggest using these interests in the teaching of Latin. Later,
Basedow, together with Campe, Salzmann, and others of his followers,
also produced a series of popular story books especially adapted to
the character, interests, and needs of children. These works are all
largely filled with didactics, moralizing, religiosity, and scraps
of scientific information. The best known of them is _Robinson der
Jüngere_ (Robinson Crusoe Junior), which was published by Campe in
1779. It seems to have been suggested by Rousseau’s recommendation of
_Robinson Crusoe_ as a text-book, and in turn a generation later it
became the model for _Der Schweizerische Robinson_ (The Swiss Family
Robinson) of Wyss, which has been so popular with children in America
and elsewhere.

[Sidenote: Salary, equipment,]

[Sidenote: teachers,]

[Sidenote: and pupils.]

=Course and Methods of the Philanthropinum.=--Eight years before this,
however, Prince Leopold of Dessau had been induced to allow Basedow to
found there a model school called the ‘Philanthropinum,’ which should
embody that reformer’s ideas. Leopold granted him a generous salary,
and three years later gave him an equipment of buildings, grounds, and
endowment. At first Basedow had but three assistants, but later the
number was considerably increased. The staff then included several very
able men, such as Campe, formerly chaplain at Potsdam, and Salzmann,
who had been a professor at Erfurt. The underlying principle of the
Philanthropinum was ‘everything according to nature.’ The natural
instincts and interests of the children were only to be directed and
not altogether suppressed. They were to be trained as children and not
as adults, and the methods of learning were to be adapted to their
stage of mentality. That all of the customary fashion and unnaturalness
might be eliminated, the boys were plainly dressed and their hair cut
short.

[Sidenote: Universal education, but social distinctions.]

[Sidenote: Industrial training]

[Sidenote: and wide objective course.]

While universal education was believed in, and rich and poor alike were
to be trained, the traditional idea still obtained that the natural
education of the one class was for social activity and leadership,
and of the other for teaching. Consequently, the wealthy boys were to
spend six hours in school and two in manual labor, while those from
families of small means labored six hours and studied two. Every one,
however, was taught handicrafts,--carpentry, turning, planing, and
threshing, as suggested in the third book of the _Emile_, and there
were also physical exercises and games for all. On the intellectual
side, while Latin was not neglected, considerable attention was paid
to the vernacular and French. In keeping with the _Elementarwerk_,
Basedow planned a wide objective and practical course very similar
to that suggested by Comenius. It was to give some account of man,
including bits of anthropology, anatomy, and physiology; of brute
creation, especially the uses of domestic animals and their relation to
industry; of trees and plants with their growth, culture, and products;
of minerals and chemicals; of mathematical and physical instruments;
and of trades, history, and commerce. He afterward admitted that he had
overestimated the amount of content that was possible for a child, and
greatly abridged the material.

[Sidenote: Languages taught by conversation and games.]

[Sidenote: Progressive methods in other subjects.]

The most striking characteristic of the school, however, was its
recognition of child interests and the consequently improved methods.
Languages were taught by speaking and then by reading, and grammar
was not brought in until late in the course. Facility in Latin was
acquired through conversation, games, pictures, drawing, acting
plays, and reading on practical and interesting subjects (Fig. 26).
His instruction in arithmetic, geometry, geography, physics, nature
study, and history was fully as progressive as that in languages,
and, while continuing Rousseau’s suggestions, seems to anticipate
much of the ‘object teaching’ of Pestalozzi. Arithmetic was taught by
mental methods, geometry by drawing figures accurately and neatly,
and geography by beginning with one’s home and extending out into the
neighborhood, the town, the country, and the continent.

[Sidenote: Great expectations.]

[Sidenote: Stimulus for younger pupils.]

=Influence of the Philanthropinum.=--The attendance at the
Philanthropinum was very small in the beginning, since the institution
was regarded as an experiment, but eventually the number of pupils
rose to more than fifty. Most visitors were greatly pleased with the
school, especially on account of the interested and alert appearance
of the pupils. Kant declared that it meant “not a slow reform, but a
quick revolution,” although afterward he admitted that he had been too
optimistic. While it may not have served well for older pupils, it was
certainly excellent in its stimulus to children under ten or twelve,
who can be reached by appeals to physical activities and the senses
better than by books.

[Sidenote: Similar institutions of Campe,]

[Sidenote: Salzmann,]

[Sidenote: and Rochow.]

Basedow, however, proved temperamentally unfit to direct the
institution. Joachim Heinrich Campe (1746-1818), who first succeeded
him, withdrew within a year to found a similar school at Hamburg.
Institutions of the same type sprang up elsewhere, and some of them
had a large influence upon education. The most striking and enduring
of these schools was that established in 1784 by Christian Gotthilf
Salzmann (1744-1811) at Schnepfenthal under the patronage of the royal
family of Saxe-Gotha. The natural surroundings--mountains, valleys,
lakes--were most favorable for the purpose of the institution, and much
attention was given to nature study, ‘lessons on things,’ organized
excursions, gardening, agricultural work, and care of domestic animals.
Manual training, gymnastics, sports, informal moral and religious
culture, and other features that anticipated later developments in
education also formed part of the course. During the decade before the
establishment of Salzmann’s school, institutions embodying many of
Basedow’s ideas were also opened at Rechahn and his other Brandenburg
estates by Baron Eberhard von Rochow (1734-1805). His schools were
simply intended to improve the peasantry in their methods of farming
and living, but, when this step toward universal education proved
extraordinarily successful, Rochow advocated the adoption of a complete
national system of schools on a nonsectarian basis.

[Sidenote: Becomes a fad, but accomplished some good.]

In 1793 the Philanthropinum at Dessau was closed permanently. Its
teachers were scattered through Europe, and gave a great impulse to the
new education. An unfortunate result of this popularity was that the
Philanthropinum became a fad, and schools with this name were opened
everywhere in Germany by educational mountebanks. These teachers
prostituted the system to their own ends, degraded the profession into
a mere trade, and became the subject of much satire and ridicule.
Nevertheless, the philanthropinic movement seems not to have been
without good results, especially when we consider the educational
conditions and the pedagogy of the times. It introduced many new ideas
concerning methods and industrial training into all parts of France and
Switzerland, as well as Germany, and these were carefully worked out by
such reformers as Pestalozzi, Froebel, and Herbart. In this way there
were embodied in education the first positive results of Rousseau’s
‘naturalism.’

[Illustration: Fig. 25.--The child as a miniature adult.

(Reproduced from a French fashion plate of the eighteenth century.)]

[Illustration: Fig. 26.--A naturalistic school.

(Reproduced from the _Elementarwerk_ of Basedow.)]


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _In Modern Times_ (Macmillan, 1913), chap. II; and _Great
Educators_ (Macmillan, 1912), chaps. VII and VIII; Monroe,
_Text-book_ (Macmillan, 1905), chap. X; Parker, S. C., _History
of Modern Elementary Education_ (Ginn, 1912), chaps. VIII-X. The
_Emile_ (Translated by Payne; Appleton, 1895) should be read, and
the _Elementarwerk_ (Wiegandt, Leipzig, 1909) should be examined.
A judicial description of the life and work of Rousseau is that by
Morley, J. (Macmillan), while Davidson, T., furnishes an interesting
interpretation of _Rousseau and Education from Nature_ (Scribner,
1902), but the standard treatise on _The Educational Theory of
Rousseau_ (Longmans, Green, 1911) at present has been written by
Boyd, W. A good brief account of _Basedow: His Educational Work and
Principles_ (Kellogg, New York, 1891) is afforded by Lang, O. H. See
also Barnard, H., _American Journal of Education_, vol. V, pp. 487-520.




CHAPTER XX

PHILANTHROPY IN EDUCATION


OUTLINE

    In England, during the eighteenth century, there were numerous
    attempts to provide education for the poor through charity schools.
    The most important factor in maintaining these institutions was the
    Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge.

    Among other organizations, there sprang up a Society for the
    Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, which supported schools
    throughout the American colonies, except Virginia. Charity schools
    were also maintained in America by various other agencies.

    An attempt was likewise made by Raikes of Gloucester, England, to
    establish Sunday schools, for training the poor to read, and these
    institutions spread throughout the British Isles and America.

    A system of instruction through monitors, developed by Lancaster
    and Bell, while formal and mechanical, furnished a sort of
    substitute for national education in England, and, spreading
    throughout the United States, paved the way for state support, and
    greatly improved the methods of teaching.

    ‘Infant schools’ for poor children also grew up during the
    nineteenth century in France, England, and the United States, and
    found a permanent place in the national systems, but they soon
    became formalized and mechanical.

    Philanthropic education proved a first step toward universal and
    national education.

[Sidenote: Even in Rousseau and the philanthropinists,]

[Sidenote: and especially in England.]

=Reconstructive Tendencies of the Eighteenth Century.=--The eighteenth
century cannot be regarded altogether as a period of revolution and
destruction. While such a characterization describes the prevailing
tendencies, there were also social and educational forces that looked
to evolution and reform rather than to a complete disintegration
of society and a return to primitive living. Even in Rousseau,
the arch-destroyer of traditions, we found many evidences of a
reconstruction along higher lines, and such a positive movement was
decidedly obvious in Basedow, Salzmann, and other philanthropinists.
But in England reforms were especially apparent. In the land of the
Briton, progress is proverbially gradual, and sweeping victories
and Waterloo defeats in affairs of society and education are alike
unwonted. The French tendency to cut short the social and educational
process and to substitute revolution for evolution is out of accord
with the spirit across the English Channel.

[Sidenote: Wretched conditions of laboring class.]

[Sidenote: Charity schools as remedy.]

=The Rise of Charity Schools in England.=--And yet conditions in
England at this time might well have incited people to revolution.
Wages were low, employment was irregular, and the laboring classes, who
numbered fully one-sixth of the population, were clad in rags, lived in
hovels, and often went hungry. Opportunities for elementary education
were rare. The few schools that remained after the Reformation had
largely lost their endowments or had been perverted into secondary
institutions, and had suffered from incompetent and negligent masters
and from the religious upheaval of the times. It was as a partial
remedy for this situation, that, toward the close of the seventeenth
century, there sprang up a succession of ‘charity schools,’ in which
children of the poor were not only taught, but boarded and sometimes
provided with clothes, and the boys were prepared for apprenticeship
and the girls for domestic service. Probably about one thousand schools
upon this general philanthropic basis had been established in England
and Wales by the middle of the eighteenth century. Most of these had
received substantial endowment, but numbers of them were maintained by
private subscriptions.

[Sidenote: Foundation,]

[Sidenote: management,]

[Sidenote: books,]

[Sidenote: teachers,]

[Sidenote: and course.]

=The Schools of the S. P. C. K.=--A factor that was even more important
in opening charity schools was the ‘Society for the Promotion of
Christian Knowledge’ (often abbreviated to S. P. C. K.). This society
was founded in 1698 by Reverend Thomas Bray, D. D., and four other
clergymen and philanthropists. As a rule, its schools were established,
supported, and managed by local people, but the Society guaranteed
their maintenance, and assisted them from its own treasury whenever
a stringency in funds arose. The S. P. C. K. also inspected schools,
and advised and encouraged the local managers, and furnished bibles,
prayer books, and catechisms at the cheapest rates possible. It made
stringent regulations of eligibility for its schoolmasters, requiring,
in addition to the usual religious, moral, pedagogical, and age tests,
that they be members of the Church of England and approved by the
minister of the parish. Each master was expected to teach the children
their catechism, and purge them of bad morals and manners, besides
training them in reading, writing, and elementary arithmetic. The
pupils were, moreover, clothed, boarded, and at times even lodged.

[Sidenote: Development,]

[Sidenote: opposition and advocacy,]

[Sidenote: decadence,]

[Sidenote: and influence.]

The number of charity schools of the S. P. C. K. grew by leaps and
bounds, and by the close of the first decade there were eighty-eight
within a radius of ten miles of London. The gifts made had amounted to
almost ten thousand pounds, and nearly one thousand boys and over four
hundred girls had been sent out as apprentices. And before the middle
of the eighteenth century the total number of these charity schools
in England and Wales reached nearly two thousand, with about fifty
thousand boys and girls in attendance. This increase in facilities for
the education of the poor was not kindly received by many in the upper
classes, who often felt that “there is no need for any learning at all
for the meanest ranks of mankind: their business is to labour, not to
think.” But the charity schools had also many warm supporters, and
Addison even believed that as a result of them there would be “few in
the next generation who will not at least be able to write and read,
and have not an early tincture of religion.” The benefactions for these
institutions continued to increase for nearly half a century, but by
the middle of the eighteenth century popular interest had waned. The
subscriptions began to fall off, the system of inspection and the
teaching became less effective, and the schools ceased to expand.
Nevertheless, the S. P. C. K. had succeeded in impressing the Church
of England with a sense of responsibility for the establishment of a
national school system upon a religious basis. Its schools were largely
continued throughout the eighteenth century, and in most instances
after 1811 were absorbed by the new educational organization of the
English Church, the so-called ‘National Society’ (see p. 239).

[Sidenote: Nonconformist schools.]

[Sidenote: ‘Circulating schools.’]

[Sidenote: Foundation of the S. P. G.]

=Other British Charity Schools.=--These institutions of the Church of
England society may be regarded as typical of British charity schools
in general. There were, however, also a dozen well-known foundations
by nonconformists, including the ‘Gravel Lane School’ of Southwark,
London, which was started over a decade before the S. P. C. K. was
organized. And an interesting type of philanthropic institution known
as ‘circulating schools’ was founded in Wales. These schools simply
aimed to teach pupils to read the Bible in Welsh, and when this had
been accomplished in one neighborhood, the school was transferred to
another. But a much more important organization was the offshoot of
the S. P. C. K., that arose chiefly to carry on charity schools in the
American colonies. This association, the ‘Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel in Foreign Parts,’ (commonly known as S. P. G.), was
founded by Dr. Bray three years after the parent society, but no
schools were established for several years.

[Sidenote: S. P. G. school in New York City,--]

[Sidenote: now ‘Trinity Church School.’]

=The Charity Schools of the S. P. G.=--The first school of the S. P. G.
was opened in New York City in 1709 under William Huddleston, who had
been conducting a school of his own there. It was intended that the new
school should follow the plan of the charity schools in England, but,
while free tuition and free books were granted from the beginning, it
was not until many years later that the means of clothing the children
gratuitously was provided. Under different masters and with varying
fortunes, the school was supported by the society until 1783, when the
United States had finally cut loose from the Mother Country and started
on a career of its own. Meanwhile Trinity Church had come more and more
to take the initiative in the endowment and support of the school, and
since the withdrawal of the society from America the institution has
been known as ‘Trinity Church School.’

[Sidenote: Other colonies]

[Sidenote: Attendance,]

[Sidenote: course, and books.]

Schools of the same type were active throughout the colonies in the
eighteenth century. We possess more or less complete accounts of these
institutions in New York and all the other colonies, except Virginia,
where they were not believed to be needed. Except for size and local
peculiarities, all of them closely resembled the school in New York
City. The attendance ranged from eighteen or twenty pupils to nearly
four times that number. Girls were generally admitted, and occasionally
equalled or exceeded the boys in number. As a rule, children of other
denominations were received on the same terms as those of Church of
England members, and at times nearly one-half the attendance was
composed of dissenters, but often those outside the Church were given
secondary consideration, or the catechism was so stressed by the school
that the dissenting children were withdrawn and rival schools set
up. The character of the course of study in these charity schools is
further indicated by the books furnished by the society. In packets of
various sizes it sent over horn-books, primers, spellers, writing-paper
and ink-horns, catechisms, psalters, prayer books, testaments, and
bibles. There is also some evidence that secondary instruction was
carried on intermittently in the various centers by the missionaries or
by the schoolmasters in conjunction with their elementary work.

[Sidenote: Opposition to the S. P. G.]

[Sidenote: Its devotion and generosity,]

[Sidenote: and influence upon universal education.]

Throughout its work in the American colonies the S. P. G. met with
various forms of opposition. The dissenters, Quakers, and others were
often openly hostile through fear of the foundation of an established
national church similar to that of England, and both sides displayed
considerable sectarianism and bigotry. After 1750 the opposition to the
society increased in bitterness and became more general, owing to the
feeling that its agents were supporting the king against the colonists.
Yet its patronage of schools was most philanthropic and important for
American education in the eighteenth century. While it insisted upon
the interpretation of Christianity adopted by the Church of England, it
stood first and foremost for the extension of religion and education
to the virgin soil of America. It carried on its labors with devoted
interest and showed great generosity in the maintenance of schools,
and the support of schools in the colonies by the S. P. G. must have
exerted some influence toward universal education.

[Sidenote: Organization,]

[Sidenote: course, and]

[Sidenote: disappearance of S. P. K. G. schools.]

=Charity Schools among the Pennsylvania Germans.=--During the
eighteenth century the efforts of the S. P. G. were supplemented by the
formation of minor associations and the establishment of other charity
schools in various colonies. Perhaps the most noteworthy instance was
the organization in 1753 of ‘A Society for Propagating the Knowledge of
God among the Germans,’ and the maintenance of schools among the sects
of Pennsylvania. These schools were managed by a general colonial board
of six trustees, who visited the schools annually and awarded prizes
for English orations and attainments in civic and religious duties. The
course of study included instruction in “both the English and German
languages; likewise in writing, keeping of common accounts, singing
of psalms, and the true principles of the holy Protestant religion.”
Twenty-five schools were planned, but probably there were never more
than half that number. The schools lasted only about a decade, as the
Germans soon came to feel that this English schooling threatened their
language, nationality, and institutions.

[Sidenote: Foundation,]

[Sidenote: opposition,]

[Sidenote: advocacy, and spread.]

=The ‘Sunday School’ Movement in Great Britain.=--A variety of charity
school, quite different from those already mentioned, sprang up
toward the close of the century under the name of ‘Sunday Schools.’
To overcome the prevailing ignorance, vice, and squalor in the
manufacturing center of Gloucester, England, Robert Raikes in 1780 set
up a school in Sooty Alley for the instruction of children and adults
in religion and the rudiments. Six months later he started a new school
in Southgate street, and soon had other schools established. He paid
his teachers a shilling each Sunday to train the children to read in
the Bible, spell, and write. This charity education, meager as it was,
was attacked by many of the upper classes, and was often viewed with
suspicion by the recipients themselves. Yet the new movement had warm
supporters among the nobility and such reformers as Wesley, and the
schools soon spread to London, and then throughout England, Wales,
Ireland, Scotland, and the Channel Islands. A Sunday School Society was
founded in 1785, and within a decade distributed nearly one hundred
thousand spellers, twenty-five thousand testaments, and over five
thousand bibles, and trained approximately sixty-five thousand pupils
in one thousand schools.

[Sidenote: Individual centers]

[Sidenote: and permanent associations.]

=The ‘Sunday School’ Movement in the United States.=--The Raikes system
of Sunday instruction was also soon introduced in America. The first
school was organized in 1786 by Bishop Asbury at the house of Thomas
Crenshaw in Hanover County, Virginia, and within a quarter of a century
a number of schools arose in various cities. Before long, permanent
associations were also started to promote Sunday instruction. ‘The
First Day or Sunday School Society’ was organized at Philadelphia in
1791, and during the first two decades of the nineteenth century a
number of similar societies for secular instruction on Sunday were
founded in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. In 1823 these
associations were all absorbed into a new and broader organization,
known ever since as the ‘American Sunday School Union.’ At the start
it published suitable reading-books, and furnished primers, spellers,
testaments, and hymn-books to needy Sunday schools at a reasonable rate.

[Sidenote: Makeshift, but prepared the way for universal education.]

=Value of the Instruction in ‘Sunday Schools.’=--Both in Great Britain
and the United States, however, the Sunday schools gradually tended to
abandon their secular instruction and become purely religious. At the
same time the teachers came to serve without pay and to instruct less
efficiently. And the value of the secular teaching was not large at the
best, as the work was necessarily limited to a few hours once a week.
Raikes and all others interested in these institutions recognized their
inadequacy as a means of securing universal education, and regarded
them merely as auxiliary to a more complete system of instruction.
But while a makeshift and by no means a final solution for national
education, they performed a notable service for the times, and helped
point the way to universal education.

[Sidenote: Lancaster]

[Sidenote: and the British and Foreign Society;]

=The Schools of the Two Monitorial Societies.=--While philanthropic
education started largely in the eighteenth century, some of the
schools continued well into the nineteenth. This was especially the
case with the ‘monitorial’ system, started at Southwark in 1798. This
district of London was thronged with barefoot and unkempt children; and
Lancaster, the founder of the school, undertook to educate as many as
he could. His schoolroom was soon filled with a hundred or more pupils.
In order to teach them all, he used the older pupils as assistants.
He taught the lesson first to these ‘monitors,’ and they in turn
imparted it to the others, who were divided into equal groups. Each
monitor cared for a single group. The work was very successful from
the first, but Lancaster, attempting to introduce schools of this kind
throughout England, fell so recklessly into debt that an association
had to be founded in 1808 to continue the work on a practical basis.
Within half a dozen years Lancaster withdrew from the organization, but
the association, under the name of the ‘British and Foreign Society,’
continued to flourish and found new schools.

[Sidenote: Bell and the National Society.]

So successful was the Lancasterian work that the Church of England,
fearing its nonsectarian influence upon education, in 1811 organized
‘The National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the
Principles of the Established Church.’ This long-named association was
to conduct monitorial schools under the management of Doctor Andrew
Bell, who had experimented with the system in India before Lancaster
opened his school. Although they had formed no part of Bell’s original
methods, the Anglican catechism and prayer book were now taught
dogmatically in the schools founded by the National Society. Bell
proved an admirable director, and a healthy rivalry sprang up between
the societies.

[Sidenote: Differences in the two systems.]

[Sidenote: Both were unoriginal]

[Sidenote: and mechanical.]

=Value of the Monitorial System in England.=--The plans of the two
organizations were similar, but differed somewhat in details. Both used
monitors and taught writing by means of a desk covered with sand, but
the system of Lancaster was animated by broader motives and had many
more devices for teaching. It also instituted company organization,
drill, and precision, and developed a system of badges, offices,
rewards, and punishments. Monitorial instruction, however, was not
original with either Lancaster or Bell. It had long been used by the
Hindus and others, although the work of the two societies brought it
into prominence. It overemphasized repetition and recitation mechanics,
and consisted of a formal drill rather than a method of instruction.

[Sidenote: Afforded substitute for national education.]

[Sidenote: Training colleges.]

[Sidenote: British and Foreign schools absorbed, but National a system
by themselves.]

Yet the monitorial schools were productive of some achievements.
Most of them afforded a fair education in the elementary school
subjects and added some industrial and vocational training. They
also did much to awaken the conscience of the English nation to the
need of general education for the poor. The British and Foreign and
the National Societies afforded a substitute, though a poor one, for
national education in the days before England was willing to pay
for general education, and they became the avenues through which
such appropriations as the government did make were distributed. In
1833 the grant of £20,000, constituting the first government aid to
elementary education, was equally divided between the two societies
(see p. 388), and this method of administration was continued as the
annual grant was gradually increased, until the system of public
education was established. Likewise, in 1839, £10,000 for normal
instruction was voted to the societies, and was used by the British
and Foreign for its Borough Road Training College, and by the National
for St. Mark’s Training College. These were followed by several other
training institutions, established by each society through government
aid. In 1870, when the ‘board,’ or public elementary, schools were at
length founded, the schools of the British and Foreign Society, with
their nonsectarian instruction, fused naturally with them; but the
institutions of the National Society, though transferred to school
boards in a few cases, have generally come to constitute by themselves
a national system on a voluntary basis.

[Sidenote: Adoption by New York and other cities.]

[Sidenote: Introduced into high schools and academies.]

=Results of the Monitorial System in the United States.=--In the
United States the monitorial system was introduced into New York City
in 1806. The ‘Society for the Establishment of a Free School,’ after
investigating the best methods in other cities and countries, decided
to try the system of Lancaster (see p. 260). The method was likewise
introduced into the charity schools of Philadelphia (see p. 261). The
monitorial system then spread rapidly through New York, Pennsylvania,
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and other States. It is almost impossible
to trace the exact extent of this organization in the United States,
but before long it seems to have affected nearly all cities of any
size as far south as Augusta (Georgia), and west as far as Cincinnati.
There are still traces of its influence throughout this region,--in
Hartford, New Haven, Albany, Washington, and Baltimore, as well as in
the places already mentioned (Figs. 27, 28, and 29). In 1818 Lancaster
himself was invited to America, and assisted in the monitorial schools
of New York, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia. A dozen years later the system
began to be introduced generally into the high schools and academies.
Through the efforts of Dr. John Griscom, who had been greatly pleased
with the monitorial high school of Dr. Pillans in Edinburgh, a similar
institution was established in New York City in 1825, and the plan was
soon adopted by a number of high schools in New York and neighboring
states. Likewise, the state systems of academies in Maryland and in
Indiana, which became high schools after the Civil War, were organized
on this basis. For two decades the monitorial remained the prevailing
method in secondary education. Training schools for teachers on the
Lancasterian basis also became common.

[Sidenote: Increased school facilities]

[Sidenote: and improved organization and methods.]

In fact, the monitorial system was destined to perform a great service
for American education. At the time of its introduction, public and
free schools were generally lacking, outside of New England, and the
facilities that existed were meager and available during but a small
portion of the year. In all parts of the country illiteracy was almost
universal among children of the poor. This want of school opportunities
was rendered more serious by the rapid growth of American cities.
‘Free school societies,’ like that in New York City, formed to relieve
the situation, came to regard the system of Lancaster, because of its
comparative inexpensiveness, as a godsend for their purpose. And when
the people generally awoke to the crying need of public education,
legislators also found monitorial schools the cheapest way out of the
difficulty, and the provision made for these schools gradually
opened the road to the ever increasing expenditures and taxation
that had to come before satisfactory schools could be established.
Moreover, the Lancasterian schools were not only economical, but most
effective, when the educational conditions of the times are taken into
consideration. Even in the cities, the one-room and one-teacher school
was the prevailing type, and grading was practically unknown. The whole
organization and administration were shiftless and uneconomical, and
a great improvement was brought about by the carefully planned and
detailed methods of Lancaster. The schools were made over through his
definite mechanics of instruction, centralized management, well-trained
teachers, improved apparatus, discipline, hygiene, and other features.

[Illustration: Fig. 27.--A monitorial school, with three hundred pupils
and but one teacher.]

[Illustration: Fig. 28.--Pupils reciting to monitors.]

[Illustration: Fig. 29.--Monitor inspecting slates.]

[Sidenote: Disappeared when educational sentiment improved.]

But while the monitorial methods met a great educational emergency in
the United States, they were clearly mechanical, inelastic, and without
psychological foundation. Naturally their sway could not last long,
and as enlarged material resources enabled the people to make greater
appropriations for education, the obvious defects of the monitorial
system became more fully appreciated and brought about its abandonment.
Before the middle of the century its work in America was ended, and it
gave way to the more psychological conceptions of Pestalozzi and to
those afterward formulated by Froebel and Herbart.

[Sidenote: Beginning with Oberlin;]

[Sidenote: development in Paris;]

[Sidenote: part of national system.]

=The ‘Infant Schools’ in France.=--Another form of philanthropic
education that came to be very influential during the nineteenth
century and has eventually been merged in several national systems is
that of the so-called ‘infant schools.’ The first recorded instance of
these institutions occurred late in the eighteenth century through the
attempt of a young Lutheran pastor named Oberlin to give an informal
training to the small children in all the villages of his rural charge
in northeastern France. This type of training was copied in Paris as
early as 1801, but did not amount to much until its revival through the
influence of a similar development in England a quarter of a century
later. It then rapidly expanded, and in 1833 was adopted as part of
the French national system of education. In 1847 a normal school was
founded to prepare directresses and inspectors for these institutions,
and in 1881 they became known as ‘maternal schools,’ and the present
type of curriculum was adopted. Besides reading and writing, these
schools have always included informal exercises in the mother tongue,
drawing, knowledge of common things, the elements of geography and
natural history, manual and physical exercises, and singing.

[Sidenote: Owen at New Lanark;]

[Sidenote: Buchanan’s school in London,]

[Sidenote: became model for Wilderspin,--formal and mechanical.]

=The ‘Infant Schools’ in England.=--Quite independently, though over a
generation later than Oberlin, Robert Owen opened his ‘infant school’
in 1816 at New Lanark, Scotland. He was a philanthropic cotton-spinner,
and wished to give the young children of his operatives a careful
moral, physical, and intellectual training. From the age of three they
were taught in this school for two or three years whatever was useful
and within their understanding, and this instruction was combined with
much singing, dancing, amusement, and out-of-door exercise. They were
not “annoyed with books,” but were taught about nature and common
objects through maps, models, paintings, and familiar conversation, and
their “curiosity was excited so as to ask questions concerning them.”
To afford this informal training, Owen secured a “poor simple-hearted
weaver, named James Buchanan, who at first could scarcely read, write,
or spell,” but who, by following the instructions of Owen literally,
made a great success of the system. But when Buchanan, with the consent
of Owen, had been transferred to London, to start a similar school for
a group of peers and other distinguished philanthropists, his lack
of intelligence reduced the training to a mere mechanical imitation
of the procedure he had learned at New Lanark. Unfortunately, this
London school became the model for Samuel Wilderspin, who was destined
to become the leading exponent of infant schools. The schools of
Wilderspin, while retaining some of the principles and devices of Owen,
were much more formal and mechanical. He thought too highly of ‘books,
lessons, and apparatus,’ and confounded instruction with education.
He overloaded the child with verbal information, depending upon the
memory rather than the understanding. Before the child was six, it was
expected that he had been taught reading, the fundamental operations
in arithmetic, the tables of money, weights, and measures, a knowledge
of the qualities of common objects, the habits of different animals,
the elements of astronomy, botany, and zoölogy, and the chief facts of
the New Testament. Even the games were stereotyped, and the religious
teaching most formal.

[Sidenote: Spread of schools;]

[Sidenote: Infant School Society;]

[Sidenote: Home and Colonial Society;]

[Sidenote: Part of public system.]

Wilderspin’s first school was opened at Spitalfields, London, and soon
attracted a horde of visitors. He then began lecturing upon the subject
throughout the United Kingdom, often demonstrating his methods with
classes of children he had taken along, and organized infant schools
everywhere. In 1824 an ‘Infant School Society’ was founded and through
it several hundred schools were established. A dozen years later
an organization for training infant school teachers, known as ‘The
Home and Colonial School Society,’ was founded at London by Reverend
Charles Mayo, D. D., and others. This society undertook to graft
Pestalozzianism upon the infant school stock. While the combination
resulted in some improvement of the infant schools, and real object
teaching and sense training were more emphasized than they had been,
the spirit of Pestalozzi was largely lost, and there was too much
imitation of the formal instruction of older children, and there was an
evident attempt to cultivate infant prodigies. Through these agencies
infant schools spread rapidly in Great Britain, and were adopted as a
regular part of the public system, when it was established in 1870 (p.
388). And four years later a marked advance was made through merging in
them some of the methods and games of the kindergarten.

[Sidenote: Boston ‘primary schools.’]

=‘Infant Schools’ in the United States.=--Schools open to all younger
children also sprang up in the United States during the first quarter
of the nineteenth century. For many years they were nowhere regarded
as an essential part of the public school system, and were managed
separately, but about the middle of the century they were generally
united. In 1818 Boston made its first appropriation for “primary
schools, to provide instruction for children between four and seven
years of age.” These schools were divided into four grades, beginning
with the study of the alphabet and closing with reading in the New
Testament. Besides reading, writing, and spelling, sewing and knitting
were taught the girls. A formal course and the monitorial method were
employed until about 1840, when the primary schools became largely
inoculated with the informal procedure of Pestalozzi. The primary
schools were for a long time under a separate committee, but in 1854
the management was fused in a general city board.

[Sidenote: ‘Primary departments’ in New York.]

New York started an ‘Infant School Society’ in 1827. This organization
opened two ‘infant schools’ for poor children between three and six
years of age. One of these schools was located in the basement of a
Presbyterian Church and the other in that of a monitorial institution
belonging to the Public School Society (see p. 261). The Pestalozzian
methods used in these infant schools greatly commended themselves, and
in 1830 the Public School Society added them as ‘primary departments’
in all their buildings, but under separate management. A committee
was appointed in 1832 to examine the Society’s schools and suggest
improvements. Upon the recommendation of two of this committee, who
had inspected education in Boston, primary schools were established
in rented rooms in sufficient numbers to be within easy reach for the
young children. The subject-matter and methods were likewise made less
formal.

[Sidenote: ‘Infant schools’ in Philadelphia]

[Sidenote: and other centers.]

[Sidenote: Improvements through infant schools.]

In 1827 three ‘infant schools’ were also founded in Philadelphia
and other centers of Pennsylvania through Roberts Vaux. By 1830 the
number of infant schools in the state had risen to ten, with two to
three thousand pupils. As the numbers would indicate, the schools
were largely organized upon the Lancasterian plan. Two years later
a model infant school was started in Philadelphia, and in 1834 six
others were organized. By 1837 there were thirty primary schools in
Philadelphia alone. Several other cities started infant schools early.
Hartford began them in 1827, and Baltimore in 1829. These institutions
were in most cases fostered by the leading men of the community, and
the ultimate service performed for American education by this form of
philanthropy was considerable. Among other improvements, the infant
schools developed a better type of schoolroom, secured separate rooms
for different classes, introduced better methods and equipment,
encouraged a movement toward playgrounds, and brought women into the
city schools of the United States.

[Sidenote: Purpose,]

[Sidenote: location,]

[Sidenote: course,]

[Sidenote: and methods.]

=The Importance of Philanthropic Education.=--Many other types of
charity school arose during the eighteenth century both in Great
Britain and America, but the chief movements have been described, and
sufficient has been said to indicate the important part in education
played by philanthropy. The moral, religious, and economic condition of
the lower classes had been sadly neglected, and by means of endowment,
subscription, or organized societies, a series of attempts was made to
relieve and elevate the masses through education. As a result, charity
schools of many varieties and more or less permanent in character
arose in all parts of the British Isles, the United States, and even
France. In many instances the pupils were furnished with lodging,
board, and clothes. The curriculum in these institutions was, of
course, mostly elementary. It generally included reading, spelling,
writing, and arithmetic, while a moral and religious training was
given through the Bible, catechism, prayer book, and psalms, and
sometimes through attendance at church under supervision of the master.
Frequently industrial or vocational subjects were taught, or the pupils
apprenticed to a trade or to domestic service. The course was usually
most formal both in matter and method, but occasionally in the later
types drawing, geography, nature study, physical exercises, and games
were added, and the more informal methods of Pestalozzi or Froebel were
partially employed. Sometimes the training was especially intended for
and adapted to children under the usual school age.

[Sidenote: Various sorts of opposition.]

These efforts to improve social conditions by means of philanthropic
education encountered various sorts of opposition. Often the upper
classes held that the masses should be kept in their place, and feared
that any education at all would make them discontented and cause an
uprising. The poor themselves, in turn, were often suspicious of any
schooling that tended to elevate them, and were unwilling to stamp
themselves as paupers. Moreover, the sectarian color that sometimes
appeared in the religious training not infrequently repelled people of
other creeds or kept the schools from receiving their children.

[Sidenote: Paved the way for national and public education.]

However, this philanthropic education may, in general, be considered
a fortunate movement, although its greatest service consisted in
paving the way for better things. In contrast to the negative phase
of ‘naturalism,’ it represented a positive factor in the educational
activities of the century. Instead of attempting to destroy existing
society utterly, it sought rather to reform it, and when the work of
destruction gave opportunity for new ideals, it suggested and even
furnished a reconstruction along higher lines. Hence philanthropy
in education exercised an important influence in the direction of
universal, national, and public training for citizenship. It was in
many of its forms merged in such a system in several countries, and in
succeeding chapters references to the S. P. C. K., S. P. G., Sunday,
monitorial, and infant schools will naturally appear.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _In Modern Times_ (Macmillan, 1913), chap. III; and _Great
Educators_ (Macmillan, 1912), chap. XII; Parker, _Modern Elementary
Education_ (Ginn, 1912), pp. 101-107. Allen, W. O. B. and McClure, E.,
have presented _The History of the S. P. C. K._ (Christian Knowledge
Society, London, 1901), and Pascoe, C. F., _Two Hundred Years of the
S. P. G._ (Christian Knowledge Society, London, 1898), while Kemp, W.
W., gives a detailed history of _The Support of Schools in Colonial
New York by the S. P. G._ (Columbia University, Teachers College
Contributions, no. 56, 1913), and Weber, S. E., of _The Charity
School Movement in Pennsylvania_ (Doctoral dissertation, University
of Pennsylvania). Harris, J., furnishes a good description of _Robert
Raikes; the Man and His Work_ (Dutton, New York, 1899); Salmon, D., of
_Joseph Lancaster_ (Longmans, Green, 1904); Meiklejohn, J. M. D., of
_An Old Educational Reformer, Dr. Andrew Bell_ (Bardeen, Syracuse); and
Salmon, D., and Hindshaw, W., of _Infant Schools, Their History and
Theory_ (Longmans, Green, 1904).




CHAPTER XXI

THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION IN AMERICAN EDUCATION


OUTLINE

    Between the ‘transplantation’ period and that of the purely
    American conception of education was a distinctive stage in
    American education,--the ‘period of transition.’

    During this period Virginia and the other Southern states began to
    develop sentiment for universal education, and started permanent
    school funds and ‘permissive’ laws for common schools.

    In the state of New York, appropriations were made for elementary
    education, but the public system was not really extended to the
    secondary field; while in New York City the way for universal
    education was prepared by quasi-public societies. In Pennsylvania,
    school districts were established at Philadelphia and elsewhere,
    but not until 1834 was the state system of common schools started.
    New Jersey and Delaware were even slower in getting their systems
    started.

    The generous support of colonial education in Massachusetts was
    followed by a decline, and the control of schools was transferred
    from the towns to the districts. Academies were subsidized by the
    state and took the place of the grammar schools. A similar decline
    took place in the schools of the other New England states, except
    Rhode Island, which for the first time began to develop schools at
    public expense.

    In the new states erected out of the Northwest Territory during
    this period there was a prolonged struggle to introduce common
    schools among those who had come from states not yet committed to
    this ideal, and state systems of education began to appear toward
    the close of the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

    Thus before the educational awakening spread through the land, a
    radical modification had taken place in the European institutions
    with which America began its education.

[Sidenote: Transition to American conception began about the middle of
the eighteenth century.]

=Evolution of Public Education in the United States.=--We may now
return to our discussion of education in America. It has already been
seen (chap. XVII) that the organization of schools in the various
colonies was largely the result of educational ideals and conditions in
the Mother Country. At first the schools of America closely resembled
those of the European countries from which the colonists came, and
the seventeenth century in American education is largely a period of
‘transplantation.’ But toward the middle of the eighteenth century, as
new social and political conditions were evolving and the days of the
Revolution were approaching, there were evident a gradual modification
of European ideals and the differentiation of American schools toward
a type of their own. America has long stood, in theory at least, for
equality of opportunity, and this conception of society is apparent
in its views of education. The distinguishing characteristic of the
American schools has throughout been the attempt of a free people to
educate themselves, and, through their elected representatives, the
people of the various states have come, in harmony with the genius of
American civilization, to initiate, regulate, and control their own
systems of education. While the purely American conception of education
cannot be fully discerned until almost the middle of the nineteenth
century, there can for three-quarters of a century before be clearly
distinguished ‘a period of transition’ from the inherited ideals to
those of America to-day. This intervening stage of evolution covers
roughly the last quarter century of colonial life and the first half
century of statehood. To it we must now direct our attention.

[Sidenote: The ‘field school.’]

[Sidenote: Jefferson’s plan for universal education.]

=Rise of the Common School in Virginia.=--By the opening of the period,
as we noted (p. 193), Virginia had voluntarily made a fair provision
for secondary and higher education in various localities, but as
yet no real interest in common elementary schools had been shown by
the responsible classes. The nearest approach to such institutions
was found in the plantation ‘field school.’ Organized by a group of
neighbors, these schools were supported by tuition fees and were not
dependent upon any authority other than the good sense of the parents
and pupils. But by the close of the Revolution a desire for genuine
public education began to appear. The leader in the movement was
the great statesman, Thomas Jefferson. As early as 1779, he first
introduced into the legislature a scheme of universal education. His
bill proposed to lay off all the counties into small districts five
or six miles square, to be called ‘hundreds.’ Each hundred was to
establish at its own expense an elementary school, to which every
citizen should be entitled to send his children free for three years,
and for as much longer as he would pay. The leading pupil in each
school was to be selected annually by a school visitor and sent to one
of the twenty ‘grammar’ (i. e. secondary) schools, which were to be
erected in various parts of the state. After a trial of two years had
been made of these boys, the leader in each grammar school was to be
selected and given a complete secondary course of six years, and the
rest dismissed. At the end of this six-year course, the lower half of
the geniuses thus determined were to be retained as teachers in the
grammar schools, while the upper half were to be supported from the
public treasury for three years at the College of William and Mary,
which was to be greatly expanded in control and scope.

[Sidenote: Permissive law and ‘literary fund.’]

[Sidenote: University of Virginia.]

This comprehensive plan for a system of common schools was, in the face
of most discouraging opposition, constantly adhered to by Jefferson,
although he did not live to see universal education an accomplished
fact. He did, however, stimulate some movements toward this end. In
1796 the legislature passed an ineffective law whereby the justices of
each county were permitted to initiate a school system by taxation,
and in 1810 a ‘literary fund’ was established for public education.
When, in 1816, this fund had been increased to a million dollars, those
in charge of it recommended to the legislature the establishment of
“a system of public education, including a university, to be called
the University of Virginia, and such additional colleges, academies,
and schools as should diffuse the benefits of education through
the Commonwealth.” This revision of Jefferson’s suggestion did not
immediately result in any legal steps toward universal education,
except the appropriation in 1818 of $45,000 from the income of the
literary fund to have the poor children of each county sent to a
proper school, but it did bring about in 1820 the foundation of the
University of Virginia and a generous grant for the erection of a set
of buildings. In the same year the effectiveness of the ‘permissive’
law for common schools of 1796 and of the appropriation act of 1818
was somewhat strengthened by the division of the counties into
districts, among which the appropriation for education of the poor was
distributed and managed by special commissioners.

[Sidenote: Hindrances to universal education,]

[Sidenote: but gradual improvement.]

While this law marked one more step in advance, it was hampered by
several of the features that in various states continually delayed
the establishment of common schools at public expense. In the first
place, it was based on the conception of public education as poor
relief, rather than universal training for citizenship. It was often
viewed with hostility or indifference by the wealthy, who felt that
they were paying for that from which they received no benefit, and with
pride and scorn by the poor, who refused to be considered objects of
charity. Moreover, the sum distributed ($45,000) was totally inadequate
for over one hundred thousand children, and every variety of school,
private as well as public, was subsidized without distinction. The
system lacked a strong central organization, and the commissioners,
often appointed by the county judges from the classes most opposed to
the arrangement, were notoriously inefficient. The teachers also were
generally incompetent, as it was practically impossible to persuade
college or academy graduates to undertake the instruction of the poor.
Nevertheless, under this apology for a people’s common school, the
state went on for a score of years, and there was a steady growth in
the literary fund, the appropriations, the length of the school term,
and the number of pupils who were willing to take advantage of such
opportunities as it afforded. State officials of wide vision, moreover,
sought in every way to improve the teaching corps and the defective
administration. While the great majority of the school children still
attended the denominational, private, and ‘field’ schools (see p. 253),
this system of subsidies was educating public opinion for something
better. By the close of the first half century of statehood, while
Virginia was not yet ready to establish a complete system of public
education, we shall later (see pp. 327f.) find that the ground had
been prepared for the development of common schools that was spreading
throughout the country.

[Sidenote: Maryland,]

[Sidenote: South Carolina,]

[Sidenote: Georgia,]

[Sidenote: North Carolina,]

=Similar Developments in the Other Southern States.=--This advance
toward the common school in Virginia is typical of the South. The
development in Maryland was very similar to that of Virginia. The
state began to move slowly toward universal education by subsidizing
the education of the poor (1816), and by the passage of a ‘permissive’
law for common schools in the counties (1825). In South Carolina an
annual appropriation for ‘free schools’ was started in 1811. A law
was passed establishing a number of schools in each election district
equal to that of its members in the legislature and providing $300
for each school. But these schools were largely regarded as pauper
institutions, and, because legislative representation was based upon
property, the distribution of the appropriation was very inequitable,
for the inland parts of the state, which most needed assistance,
received least. Yet the amount of appropriation gradually increased,
and sentiment for universal education steadily developed. Within the
first half dozen years of statehood, Georgia began the provision of
land endowment for schools, and the organization of a state system
under the title of the ‘University of Georgia.’ While the value of the
land was too small to establish a genuine system of public education
so soon, before the close of the transition period, a permanent school
fund had been started, and sentiment for public education had begun to
grow. North Carolina made even earlier progress toward common schools.
The constitution of 1776 provided for the establishment of schools,
and, by 1817, at the request of the legislature, Judge Archibald D.
Murphy, a statesman with broad educational traditions, even formulated
an elaborate plan for a complete system of public schools. This scheme
failed, because it proposed to ‘maintain,’ as well as educate, the
children of the poor. But the suggestions of the Murphy committee
shortly brought about the establishment of a ‘literary,’ or common
school fund (1825), the income of which was to be used for the support
of public schools.

[Sidenote: and afterward other commonwealths, had the beginnings of a
state system;]

[Sidenote: and the larger cities had organized their schools.]

In the case of the other Southern commonwealths, which were admitted
after the union had been formed, there was similarly a very gradual
growth of sentiment for universal education. In every state there
appeared an alliance between far-sighted statesmen and educators and
the great middle class of citizens for the purpose of establishing
common schools for all white children, and the old ecclesiastical and
exclusive idea of education was beginning to fade. By the close of
the first half century of national existence, a public system had not
actually materialized in any of the states, but most of them had begun
to create ‘literary funds,’ subsidize schooling for the poor, and enact
‘permissive’ laws for establishing public schools. Except in Virginia
and South Carolina, provisions had been made for general administration
in state, county, and district; and in North Carolina the organization
of a complete common school system awaited only a first hint of the
great educational awakening (1835-1860). Moreover, most of the larger
cities--Baltimore, Charleston, Louisville, Nashville, Memphis, Mobile,
New Orleans--had already organized a regular system of public schools,
and all of the older commonwealths had made some attempt at supporting
a state institution of higher learning, which was virtually the head
of a public school system. The various denominations had begun to
found colleges in some numbers, but even these institutions were not
so strictly ecclesiastical as William and Mary started out to be, and
assumed a wider function than merely training for the ministry, while
the aristocratic and classical ‘grammar’ schools had largely given way
to the ‘academies’ (Fig. 32), which were nonsectarian, democratic, and
more comprehensive in their curriculum.

[Sidenote: System under Board of Regents, but did not include
elementary schools.]

[Sidenote: Endowment of common schools.]

=Evolution of Public Education in New York.=--After the English took
possession of New York, we have seen (p. 195) how that territory lapsed
into the _laissez faire_ support of education. The upper classes of
society largely sought their education abroad or through tutors and
the clergy, although in 1754 King’s College (now Columbia University)
was founded, and during the century a number of secondary schools were
organized and granted gratuities by the legislature. The few elementary
schools that existed were either private or maintained by some church
or philanthropic society. As already shown (pp. 234 ff.), this was
the period distinguished for the schools founded by the Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel. At the close of the Revolution,
however, the various elements of the population had been welded
together in the common struggle, and a sentiment for public education
began to prevail over vested interests and sectarian jealousies. A
series of broad-minded governors--the Clintons, Lewis, Tompkins, and
Marcy--constantly reminded the legislature of its duty to establish
common schools. In 1787 a system of public education was theoretically
organized under the management of a Board of Regents, with the title
of ‘The University of the State of New York,’ but it did not include
elementary schools. Two years later lands in each township were set
apart for the endowment of common schools, and in 1795 it was enacted
that the sum of $50,000 for five years should be distributed for the
encouragement of elementary education in counties where the towns
would raise by taxation half as much as the amount of their share.
This arrangement was not carried on beyond the five years, but in
1805 the proceeds from 500,000 acres of land were appropriated for a
common school fund, which was not to be used until the interest reached
$50,000 per annum.

[Sidenote: State superintendency and further progress.]

[Sidenote: Combination with secretaryship of state.]

[Sidenote: Public secondary and normal schools delayed by academy
appropriations.]

In 1812 further organization was enacted whereby a state superintendent
of common schools was to be appointed, and the county unit replaced by
a more democratic town and district basis. But it had been supposed
that the state fund would provide for the entire support of the
schools, and there still remained an obstinate opposition to local
taxes. The towns, however, were gradually persuaded to raise the amount
required to secure their share of the state donation. Much progress
was brought about through the first superintendent, Gideon Hawley,
and while, after eight years of service, he was removed by political
manipulation and the office combined with the secretaryship of state,
each of his successors undertook to distinguish the educational side
of his administration by some marked advance or improvement in the
common schools. But for a generation the academies and colleges
remained under supervision of the regents, and, except for state
appropriations to academies, no one undertook to extend the public
system into secondary and higher education. Moreover, the professional
training of teachers in the academies was encouraged by the state, and
thereby the organization of normal schools was delayed. Hence, while
New York started the first system of public education adjusted to the
political and social conditions of the new nation, and probably had
the most effective schools of the times, not until the great period of
common school development (1835-1860) were its people fully willing
to contribute for a general school system, make it entirely free, or
develop it consistently in all directions.

[Sidenote: ‘Free School Society.’]

[Sidenote: Change of name.]

[Sidenote: Bethel Baptist Church controversy.]

[Sidenote: City board of education.]

=New York City.=--Meanwhile, an interesting development of educational
facilities was taking place in New York City. In 1805 the opportunities
offered in the private, church, and charity schools were seen by
certain of the most prominent citizens to be totally inadequate for a
city of seventy-five thousand inhabitants, and a ‘Free School Society’
was founded to provide for the boys who were not eligible for these
schools. The president was De Witt Clinton, afterward governor, and
in 1806 the first school was opened, from motives of economy, upon
the monitorial basis (see p. 241). The state fund did not reach a
sufficient amount to be available until 1815, but special gifts were
made to the school society from time to time by the legislature, the
city, and private individuals, and there was a rapid increase in the
number of the society’s schools during the first quarter of a century.
In 1826 the legislature authorized the organization to charge a small
tuition fee and change its name to the ‘Public School Society.’ While
the fee system was soon found to injure the efficiency of the work and
was abolished within six years, the new title persisted, as it did not
suggest pauperism in the way the old name had. In 1828 the society was
allowed the benefit of a small local tax. For quite a time the work of
the association was unhindered, but in 1820-1825 a vigorous effort was
made to obtain a share of the state appropriation for the sectarian
schools of the Bethel Baptist Church. This move was finally defeated,
but the Roman Catholics made a more successful protest fifteen years
later by indicating that the society, while nominally nonsectarian,
was really Protestant. To settle this dispute, the legislature in
1842 established a city board of education, and after eleven years
the institutions of the Public School Society were merged in this
city system. Thus was the way prepared for a public school system in
New York City, and this development was typical of the training of
educational sentiment through quasi-public societies that took place in
Buffalo, Utica, Oswego, and several other cities.

[Sidenote: Constitutional provision in Pennsylvania produced only ‘poor
schools.’]

[Sidenote: Public system in Philadelphia and elsewhere.]

=Development of Systems of Education in Pennsylvania and the Other
Middle States.=--The rise of public systems in the other Middle states
was also gradual. In Pennsylvania, the state system slowly arose
through a prolonged stage of ‘poor schools.’ The new constitution
(1790) of the state declared: “The legislature shall, as soon
as conveniently may be, provide by law for the establishment of
schools throughout the State, in such manner that the poor may be
taught gratis.” Men of broad vision, like Franklin, Benjamin Rush,
and Timothy Pickering, had striven hard to have popular education
introduced, but the general sentiment of the times could not reach
beyond providing free education for the poor. Moreover, although this
moderate constitutional provision was a compromise, it was not until
some years later (1802, 1804, and 1809) that the legislature passed
acts to make it effective. Even then public institutions to fulfill
the legislation were not established, but it was arranged that the
tuition of poor children should be paid for at public expense in
private, church, and neighborhood schools, and the proceeds of the
sixty thousand acres of land appropriated for ‘aiding public schools’
went to subsidize private institutions. But the idea of common schools
continued to develop, and governors and other prominent men constantly
called attention to the need of universal education. Philadelphia
was the first municipality to be converted, and in 1818, under a
special act of the legislature, it became ‘the first school district
of Pennsylvania,’ with the power to provide a system of education on
the Lancasterian plan at public expense. After three or four years
this special legislation was extended to five more ‘districts’, and in
1824 a general law permitting the establishment of free schools in any
community was enacted, though soon repealed.

[Sidenote: Establishment of a state school fund and a state school
system.]

[Sidenote: Effort to repeal unsuccessful.]

Finally, in 1828, ‘the Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of
Common Schools,’ after demonstrating the ineffectiveness of the
‘pauper school’ law in a series of memorials, succeeded in having a
state school fund established, and in 1834, “an act to establish a
general system of education by common schools” was passed. This law
established a state system of schools under the general superintendency
of the secretary of state. For this system it appropriated $75,000
per annum from the income of the state school fund, and permitted the
wards, townships, and boroughs, which it constituted school districts,
to share in this, provided they levied local taxes for schools. The
Northern counties, settled mostly by New England colonists, and the
Western portion of the state, with its large element of Scotch-Irish
Presbyterians, ardently favored this encouragement of universal
education, but the law was only ‘permissive’ and was bitterly opposed
by the Quaker and German inhabitants of ‘old’ Pennsylvania, who feared
that their own parochial schools would be replaced. The wealthy classes
were also hostile to the new law, on the ground that they ought not to
be taxed to educate other people’s children. In a vigorous campaign
to repeal the act, however, the opponents of the law, largely through
the eloquent speech of Thaddeus Stevens, were defeated the following
year (1835), and the desire to establish public schools was greatly
increased in 1836 by the passage of a new law, which enlarged the
annual appropriation to $200,000, in which the school districts might
participate only on condition of local taxation. Even then not more
than one-half the districts took advantage of the opportunity, and it
was several years before most of them claimed their share. Hence, while
the battle was won by 1835, the consummation of public education in
Pennsylvania did not take place until the great awakening of common
schools had swept over the country.

[Sidenote: Similar hindrances in New Jersey and Delaware.]

After the formation of the Union, New Jersey and Delaware met with
the same kinds of hindrance to the development of common schools
as did Pennsylvania, and they were even slower in getting a system
established. In both commonwealths a state school fund was started
early in the nineteenth century, but it was not distributed for about
a dozen years, and then it was used mostly for the education of
paupers in subsidized private schools. Some ‘permissive’ legislation
for the organization of school districts and commissioners and the
establishment of public schools was also passed, but it accomplished
little before the middle of the century.

[Sidenote: Disintegration of the domination of Calvinism.]

=Decline of Education in Massachusetts.=--In Massachusetts, on the
other hand, efforts for the provision of universal training degenerated
during the eighteenth century. The generous support of public education
that had been started in 1647 was followed by a period of decline for
about a century and a half. The causes of this decadence of local
interest in education were rather complicated. In the first place,
the complete domination of Calvinism gradually disintegrated and was
replaced by a toleration of several creeds. The non-Puritans, who were
constantly increasing in numbers, were obliged by the law of 1638
to preserve an outward conformity to the Calvinistic régime under
penalty of banishment, but by 1662 a compromise was granted, whereby
persons not conforming in every respect might be admitted to all church
privileges, except communion, and the persecution of Quakers, Baptists,
and other sects was largely abandoned. In 1670 came the successful
secession of the Old South Church from the original church of Boston,
as the result of a quarrel concerning this very compromise, and within
a decade the Baptists were permitted to build a meeting-house in
Boston. By 1692 recognition had been largely granted to all Protestant
beliefs, and to be a ‘freeman,’ or voter on all colonial questions,
it was no longer necessary to be a member of a Puritan church. While
every town was still required to support by tax an orthodox pastor, by
1728 the Episcopalians, Quakers, and Baptists were permitted to pay
their assessments to their own ministers, and the alliance of the State
with a despotic Church, which had made possible the system of public
education, was largely broken.

[Sidenote: Lowering of intellectual standards.]

[Sidenote: Dispersion of population.]

[Sidenote: Consequent attempts to evade the school law.]

Moreover, there was a decided lowering of intellectual standards upon
the part of the colonists. The hard struggle to wring a living from an
unpropitious soil, and the disturbances due to wars, Indian skirmishes,
and the difficulties of pioneer life greatly lessened their feeling
of need for a literary training. Another reason for the educational
decline was the dispersion of the population in the towns. At first,
because of possible attacks by the Indians, a law forbade any dwelling
to be built more than half a mile from the church and school, and not
infrequently the school was equipped with a watch-tower (Fig. 22).
But, as the best land near the center was more and more taken up, the
towns spread out in various directions, and the intervening hills,
streams, swamps, and poor roads, together with the fear of Indians and
wild animals, greatly hindered those on the outskirts in reaching the
church and school of the town. As a result of all these conditions, the
towns, most of which had been eager to establish schools even before
being compelled to do so, began to seek various methods of evading
the school law without incurring the fine. The minister was at times
made the nominal schoolmaster, or a teacher was even employed during
the session of the ‘General Court’ (i. e., legislature) and discharged
upon adjournment. Laws were enacted against these subterfuges, greater
vigilance was exercised, and the fine was increased first to £10 (1671)
and then to £20 (1683), with a progressive increase where the number of
families ran over one hundred (1712). Thus the fine came to be almost
sufficient to support a schoolmaster, and it was made more and more
unprofitable for a town to disobey the law.

[Sidenote: Influence of ‘dame’ and private elementary schools and of
parishes.]

[Sidenote: The ‘moving,’]

[Sidenote: ‘divided,’]

[Sidenote: and ‘district’ schools.]

Under these circumstances it became advantageous to many citizens,
especially those at the center of a town, to have the entire support
of the school come through general taxation rather than partially by
means of tuition fees. But the people in the more distant portions of
the town refused to vote a rate from which they themselves obtained
no profit. They demanded that, in return for their taxes, the public
school should be brought nearer to them. Probably they were influenced
in this stand by the fact that private ‘dame’ schools, and possibly
elementary schools, had for some time been opened in various parts of
the town conveniently near their homes. Another factor that may have
aided in suggesting this solution was the legal recognition of various
remote settlements within the town, known as ‘parishes’ or ‘districts,’
through the grant of self-government, separate church organizations,
and other privileges similar to those of the town as a whole, though
on a smaller scale. At any rate, we find that in the early part of
the eighteenth century, wherever a rate was adopted as the sole means
of school support, it was agreed that, instead of holding the town
school for twelve months in the center alone, opportunities should
be offered for a fraction of that period in various portions of the
town. Usually the compromise at first took the form of having one town
master teach in different districts through the year, and the result
was known as a ‘moving’ school. This necessitated holding the school
in a number of isolated communities, and the temple of learning often
came at first to be located in a private house, usually in the kitchen.
And although, in time, another room was added to the farm house for
the accommodation of the school, the institution has since then been
known as a ‘kitchen school’ (Fig. 30). But, by a later development,
when separate schools under different masters or mistresses came to
be taught at the same time, the town school was said to be ‘divided.’
Then in the winter, when the big boys were out of the fields and came
to school, the session was held in the center of the town, and usually
required the brawn of a man. But in summer, when only the younger
children could attend, schools were held in various parts of the town
and were taught chiefly by women (Fig. 31). The divisions of the town
that thus came to be recognized were allowed more and more control of
their schools until they practically became autonomous. Before the
time of the Revolution ‘divided schools’ were recognized as a regular
institution, and, together with other customs that had grown up during
the eighteenth century, they were given legal sanction and denominated
‘district schools’ in the law of 1789. By 1800 the districts were
not only allowed to manage their own share of the town taxes, but
were authorized to make the levy themselves; in 1817 they were made
corporations and empowered to hold property for educational purposes;
and in 1827 they were granted the right to choose a committeeman, who
should appoint the teacher and have control of the school property.

[Sidenote: Degeneracy of the district system.]

[Sidenote: Endowment of academies with public lands.]

[Sidenote: High schools not yet influential.]

Thus the year 1827 “marks the culmination of a process which had been
going on for more than a century,--the high-water mark of modern
democracy, and the low-water mark of the Massachusetts school system.”
The district system did in its earlier stages bind the families of a
neighborhood into a corporation whose intent was the most vital of
human needs,--education, and the people came to feel the necessity of
supporting it by their own generous contributions. But in the course
of time the districts became involved in private and petty political
interests, and had but little consideration for the public good. The
choice of the committeeman, the site, and the teacher caused much
unseemly wrangling, and as each received only what it paid in, the poor
district obtained only a weak school and that for but a short term. The
increasing expense of the district system had also made it impossible
for any except the larger towns to support the old-time ‘grammar’
school, and this part of the old school requirements had fallen into
disuse before the close of the eighteenth century. To meet the needs
of secondary education, the policy of endowing ‘academies’ (Fig. 32)
with wild lands in Maine had gradually grown up, and this custom was
legalized in 1797. Seven academies,--four in Massachusetts proper and
three in the province of Maine, had originally been endowed with a
township apiece, and some fourteen more had been chartered by towns at
an early date, and empowered by the state to hold educational funds.
By the time of the educational awakening there were some fifty of
these private secondary institutions subsidized by the state, although
managed by a close corporation. The first public high school
(Fig. 41) had been established in Boston (1821), but this type of
secondary school had not begun to have any influence as yet. Into such
a decadence had the liberally supported system of public education
fallen, before the rapid development in common schools began and the
influence of Horace Mann and other reformers was felt.

[Illustration: Fig. 30.--A ‘kitchen school.’]

[Illustration: Fig. 31.--A colonial ‘summer school.’]

[Illustration:

Fig. 32.--The first ‘academy,’ founded by Benjamin Franklin at
Philadelphia in 1750, and later developed into the University of
Pennsylvania.]

[Sidenote: Connecticut,]

[Sidenote: Vermont,]

[Sidenote: New Hampshire, and Rhode Island.]

=Developments in the Other New England States.=--The development
of common schools in Massachusetts may be considered typical of
New England in general, except Rhode Island. Connecticut similarly
degenerated into a district system, which was recognized by law in
1794, and was destined later to constitute one of the greatest problems
during the period of educational development (see pp. 313 and 320).
Vermont likewise made provision for town and district schools, and
eventually established a state school fund and school commissioners,
but this legislation was soon repealed, and the schools of the state
were in a parlous condition when the awakening found them. New
Hampshire and Maine also present very similar features. In Rhode Island
the voluntary organization of education continued throughout the
eighteenth century. In 1800 a law permitting each town to maintain ‘one
or more free schools’ was passed, but no municipality availed itself
of this permission, except Providence, and the act was repealed in
1803. The basal state law for common schools was not passed until 1828,
when at length $10,000 was appropriated, and each town was required to
supplement its share by such an amount as should annually be fixed in
town meeting.

[Sidenote: Conditions at close of transition period in the Southern]

[Sidenote: and Middle states,]

[Sidenote: as opposed to those in New England.]

=The Extension of Educational Organization to the Northwest.=--It
is thus evident that by the close of the first half century of the
republic, there was everywhere slowly growing up a sentiment for
public education. The development of common schools had, however, been
greatly hindered in the Southern states by the separation of classes
in an aristocratic organization of society. Yet the superior class
had shown no lack of educational interest in their own behalf and had
through the facilities offered reared a group of intellectual leaders,
some of whom, like the far-sighted Jefferson, had caught the vision of
universal education. The great diversity of nationality and creed in
the Middle states, on the other hand, had fostered sectarian jealousies
and the traditional practice of the maintenance of its own school by
each congregation. This had proved almost as disastrous to the rise
of a system of public schools, although Pennsylvania, and even more
New York, had well begun the establishment of a public system. In both
sections of the country public education was at first viewed as a
species of poor relief, and the wealthy were unable to see any justice
in being required to educate the children of others. As a result, the
young ‘paupers’ at times had their tuition paid in private schools, and
these institutions were not infrequently allowed to share in public
funds. The New England states, however, as a result of the homogeneity
of their citizens, had early adhered to a system of public schools
for all, organized, supported, and supervised by the people. While
the efficiency of their common schools was eventually crippled by the
grant of autonomy to local districts and the arising of petty private
and political interests, they had initiated this unique American
product,--a public system for all, dependent upon local support and
responsive to local wishes.

[Sidenote: Effect of these conditions upon the Northwest Territory.]

[Sidenote: The Ordinance of 1787, and its provisions for education.]

This growth of a ‘common schools consciousness’ was destined, as the
result of a great educational awakening, to increase rapidly during the
second quarter of the nineteenth century in the Middle and Southern, as
well as the New England, states. But before describing this development
further, it is important to see the effect of the ideals of these
three sections of the country when introduced into a new part of the
United States by emigrants from the older commonwealths. The new domain
referred to was those large tracts of unsettled territory, belonging,
according to claims more or less overlapping, to six or seven of the
original states, and finally (1781), in settlement of these disputes,
ceded to the federal government, with the understanding that the
territory should be ‘formed into distinct republican States.’ After
much discussion and various acts of Congress for half a dozen years,
the famous ‘Ordinance of 1787’ was passed for the government of this
‘Northwest Territory.’ An earlier act (1785) had divided the entire
territory into townships, six miles square, after the New England
system, and of the thirty-six sections into which each township was
subdivided, section sixteen was reserved for the support of public
schools. A special contract also started the practice of providing two
townships for the establishment of a university in each state. These
provisions were later extended to the vast territory purchased from
France in 1803 and known as ‘Louisiana,’ and to all the other territory
afterward annexed to the United States.

[Sidenote: Hindrances to educational development.]

This federal land endowment gave an additional stimulus to the
establishment of public education in the four commonwealths--Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan--that were admitted from the Northwest
Territory before 1840. But the final system of public education in
these new states took form slowly for various reasons. The settlers
were poor; incessant Indian wars, the wilderness, wretched roads, and
lack of transportation facilities tended to repel immigrants and leave
the country sparsely settled; the large tracts of school land were slow
in acquiring value, and, to attract settlers, were often leased at
nominal rates or sacrificed at a small price; and social distinctions
and sectarian jealousies persisted among the immigrants. As a whole,
immigration from the earlier commonwealths had followed parallels
of latitude, and the northern parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois
were occupied mostly by people from New England and New York, and
the southern by former inhabitants of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee,
Louisiana, and other states where the public school system was not
yet as well developed. In Michigan, however, because of its northerly
location, the great influx throughout the state had come from New York,
New England, and Northern Ohio.

[Sidenote: Struggle to secure public school system,--]

[Sidenote: Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois;]

[Sidenote: Michigan.]

Consequently, the history of public education in the first three of the
new states seems to be in each case largely a record of a prolonged
struggle to introduce common schools among those of the people who
had come from states not yet committed to this ideal, but Michigan,
whose inhabitants had migrated from states where public education was
in vogue, showed the germs of a public system even before statehood
was conferred. The history of the common schools in Ohio, Indiana,
and Illinois is very similar in general outline. Each one started off
by claiming two townships of land for a university and the sixteenth
section for schools, and the state constitution committed it to equal
school opportunities for all. But not until the close of the first
quarter of the nineteenth century was a system of common schools, with
the organization of districts, appointment of school officers, and
local taxation provided by the legislature. Even then the acts were
largely ‘permissive,’ the tax was not exacted from anyone who objected,
and for some time various laws allowed public funds to be paid to
existing private schools for the tuition of the poor. The complete
system with a state superintendent was first organized in Ohio by
1836, but a similar stage of development was not reached by the other
two states until after the great wave of common school development
(1835-1860) had passed over the country. Michigan, on the other hand,
as early as 1817 established a ‘catholepistemiad,’ which was to include
a university and a system of schools of all grades, and a dozen years
later in its revision of the school laws provided for a department
of Education at the university and a territorial superintendency of
schools. While under this law of 1829 tuition fees were to be required,
except from the poor, by the first state constitution in 1837 the
school lands were taken over from the wasteful management of the towns,
and a public school was required to be open for three months in every
district. The state superintendency was also established, and before
1840 Michigan was well started with a complete system of common schools.

[Sidenote: Progress in all sections of the country.]

=Condition of the Common Schools Prior to the Awakening.=--Thus, while
some of the New England states, New York, and Ohio possessed the only
definitely organized systems of public education, the movement for
common schools had made some progress in all sections of the country
even before the educational awakening spread through the land. A
radical modification had taken place in the European institutions
with which education in the United States began. To meet the demands
of the new environment, education had become more democratic and
less religious and sectarian. Wealth had become much greater and
material interests had met with a marked growth. The old aristocratic
institutions had begun to disappear. Town and district schools had
been taking the place of the old church, private, and ‘field’ schools,
and in some of the cities the foundation for public education was
being laid by quasi-public societies or even through local taxation.
The academies (Fig. 32) had replaced the ‘grammar’ schools, and the
colleges had lost their distinctly ecclesiastical character. State
universities were starting in the South and Northwest. All these
evidences of the growth of democracy, nonsectarianism, and popular
training in education were destined to be greatly multiplied and spread
before long. Such an awakening will be found to be characteristic of
the great development of common schools that took place in the decades
around the middle of the nineteenth century. But, before pursuing the
subject further, we must direct our attention to some new reforms
in method and content that were being introduced by Pestalozzi into
education in Europe and were destined to produce a great stimulus in
the public systems of the United States.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _In Modern Times_ (Macmillan, 1913), chap. IV; Parker, _Modern
Elementary Education_ (Ginn, 1912), chap. XII. A general, but not
always accurate account of the period has been contributed by Mayo, A.
D., to the Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1893-94, XVI;
1894-95, XXVIII; 1895-96, VI and VII; 1897-98, XI; and 1898-99, VIII.
For the special states, see Adams, H. B., _Thomas Jefferson and the
University of Virginia_ (United States Bureau of Education, Circular
of Information, 1888, no. 1); Boone, R. G., _History of Education
in Indiana_ (Appleton, 1892), chaps. I-III, and V-VII; Johnston, R.
M., _Early Educational Life in Middle Georgia_ (Report of the U. S.
Commissioner of Education, 1894-95, XVI, and 1895-96, VII); Martin, G.
H., _Evolution of the Massachusetts Public School System_ (Appleton,
1894), lect. III; Palmer, A. E., _The New York Public School_
(Macmillan, 1905); Randall, S. S., _History of the Common School System
of the State of New York_ (Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor, New York, 1871)
Second Period; Smith, C. L., _History of Education in North Carolina_
(U. S. Bureau of Education, Circular of Information, no. 2, 1888);
Smith, W. L., _Historical Sketch of Education in Michigan_ (Lansing,
1881), pp. 1-7, 39-49, and 57-78; Steiner, B. C., _History of Education
in Connecticut_ (U. S. Bureau, Circular of Information, no. 2, 1893),
and _History of Education in Maryland_ (U. S. Bureau, Circular of
Information, no. 2, 1894), chaps. II-IV; Stockwell, T. B., _History of
Public Education in Rhode Island_ (Providence Press Co., Providence,
1876), chaps. II-V; Updegraff, H., _The Origin of the Moving School in
Massachusetts_ (Columbia University, Teachers College Contributions,
no. 17, 1907), chaps. V-X; Wickersham, J. P., _History of Education in
Pennsylvania_ (Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1886), chaps. XIII-XVII.




CHAPTER XXII

OBSERVATION AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING IN EDUCATION


OUTLINE

    Pestalozzi was the first prominent educator to develop the negative
    naturalism of Rousseau into positive reforms.

    He desired to elevate the peasantry about him, and, failing
    in other expedients, undertook to accomplish this through a
    combination of industrial and intellectual training at Neuhof.
    This training he continued at Stanz, and began the development of
    his observational methods. In his work at Burgdorf, he was forced
    to suspend his industrial training, but he further developed his
    ‘A B C of observation,’ and at Yverdon the method reached its
    culmination.

    Like Rousseau, Pestalozzi conceived of education as a natural
    development of innate powers, and he extended its application to
    all children. In his method he held that clear ideas could be
    formed only by means of sense perceptions, and he undertook to
    analyze each subject into its simplest elements and develop it by
    graded exercises.

    While not original, practical, or scientific, Pestalozzi made
    education the remedy for corruption in society, and started the
    modern methods in the elementary studies. Pestalozzian schools and
    methods spread rapidly through Europe and the United States.

    The attempt to combine industrial training with intellectual, which
    Pestalozzi had to give up, was continued by his friend, Fellenberg,
    in his institutions at Hofwyl. Similar training was developed
    throughout Europe. In the United States it stimulated the ‘manual
    labor’ movement, and was later utilized as a solution for racial
    and other peculiar problems in education.

[Sidenote: Development of naturalism of Rousseau by Pestalozzi.]

=Pestalozzi as the Successor of Rousseau.=--Having outlined the various
phases of philanthropic education and surveyed the development of the
common school in America, we may now turn again to the more immediate
development of the movements that found their roots in Rousseau. It has
been noted how Rousseau’s ‘naturalistic’ doctrines logically pointed
to a complete demolition of the artificial society and education
of the times. A pause at this point would have led to anarchy. If
civilization is not to disappear, social destruction must be followed
by reconstruction. Of course the negative attitude of the _Emile_ was
itself accompanied by considerable positive advance in its suggestions
for a natural training, but this advice was often unpractical and
extreme and its main emphasis was upon the destruction of existing
education. Hence the happiest educational results of Rousseau’s work
came through Pestalozzi, who especially supplemented that reformer’s
work upon the constructive side. Pestalozzi became the first prominent
educator to develop the negative and somewhat inconsistent ‘naturalism’
of Rousseau into a more positive attempt to reform corrupt society by
proper education and a new method of teaching.

[Sidenote: Example of mother and grandfather,]

[Sidenote: and early attempts to elevate the peasantry.]

=Pestalozzi’s Philanthropic and Industrial Ideals.=--Johann Heinrich
Pestalozzi was born at Zurich in 1746. After the death of his father,
he was brought up almost altogether by his mother. Through her
unselfishness and piety, and the example of his grandfather, pastor in
a neighboring village, Pestalozzi was inspired to relieve and elevate
the degraded peasantry about him. He first turned to the ministry as
being the best way to accomplish this philanthropic purpose, and later
took up the study of law, with the idea of defending the rights of his
people, but he was not able to succeed in either profession. Then, in
1769, he undertook to demonstrate to the peasants the value of improved
methods of agriculture. He took up a strip of waste land at Birr, which
he called _Neuhof_ (‘new farm’), but within five years this experiment
also proved a lamentable failure. Meantime a son had been born to him,
whom he had undertaken to rear upon the basis of the _Emile_, and the
results, recorded in a _Father’s Journal_, suggested new ideas and
educational principles for the regeneration of the masses. He began to
hold that education did not consist merely in books and knowledge, and
that the children of the poor could, by proper training, be taught to
earn their living and at the same time develop their intelligence and
moral nature.

[Sidenote: Scholastic instruction given while the children were
working.]

=His Industrial School at Neuhof and the _Leonard and
Gertrude_.=--Hence the failure of his agricultural venture afforded
Pestalozzi the opportunity he craved to experiment with philanthropic
and industrial education. Toward the end of 1774 he took into his home
some twenty of the most needy children he could find. These he fed,
clothed, and treated as his own. He gave the boys practical instruction
in farming and gardening on small tracts, and had the girls trained in
domestic duties and needlework. In bad weather both sexes gave their
time to spinning and weaving cotton. They were also trained in the
rudiments, but were practiced in conversing and in memorizing the Bible
before learning to read and write. The scholastic instruction was given
very largely while they were working, and, although Pestalozzi had not
as yet learned to make any direct connection between the occupational
and the formal elements, this first attempt at an industrial education
made it evident that the two could be combined. Within a few months
there was a striking improvement in the physique, minds, and morals
of the children, as well as in the use of their hands. But Pestalozzi
was so enthusiastic over the success of his experiment that he greatly
increased the number of children, and by 1780 was reduced to bankruptcy.

[Sidenote: After the school was closed, he published his views.]

Nevertheless, his wider purpose of social reform by means of education
was not allowed to languish altogether, for a friend shortly persuaded
him to publish his views. His first production, _The Evening Hour of a
Hermit_, embodied most of the educational principles he afterward made
famous, but he was advised to put his thought into more popular form,
and soon wrote his highly successful story of _Leonard and Gertrude_
(1781). This work, with subsequent additions, gives an account of the
degraded social conditions in the Swiss village of ‘Bonnal’ and the
changes wrought in them by one simple peasant woman. ‘Gertrude’ reforms
her drunkard husband, educates her children, and causes the whole
community to feel her influence and adopt her methods. When finally a
wise schoolmaster comes to the village, he learns from Gertrude the
proper conduct of the school and begs for her continued coöperation.
Then the government becomes interested, studies the improvements that
have taken place, and concludes that the whole country can be reformed
in no better way than by imitating Bonnal.

[Sidenote: Having no other facilities, he instructed through
‘observation’ in]

[Sidenote: morals,]

[Sidenote: number, language, and other subjects,]

=His School at Stanz and Beginning of His Observational Methods.=--In
1798 he was given an opportunity to carry on his philanthropic and
industrial ideals in education through the orphan home and school at
Stanz, of which he was put in charge. Here he found it impossible to
obtain any assistants, books, and materials, but he felt that none of
these conventional aids could be of service in the work he desired to
do. Hence he sought to instruct the children rather by experience and
observation than by abstract statements and words (Fig. 33). This was
the real beginning of his teaching through ‘observation,’ and, while
at Stanz he further developed his correlation of intellectual with
manual training, his observational methods were thereafter destined to
be more stressed. Religion and morals, for example, were never taught
by precepts, but through instances that arose in the lives of the
children he showed them the value of self-control, charity, sympathy,
and gratitude. In a similarly concrete way the pupils were instructed
in number and language work by means of objects, and in geography
and history by conversation rather than by books. While they did not
learn their natural history primarily from nature, they were taught
to corroborate what they had learned by their own observation. About
this method he said: “According to my experience, success depends
upon whether what is taught to children commends itself to them as
true through being closely connected with their own observation. As a
general rule, I attached little importance to the study of words, even
when explanations of the ideas they represented were given.”

[Sidenote: reducing perception to its lowest terms.]

In connection with his observational method, Pestalozzi at this time
began his attempt to reduce all perception to its lowest terms, ‘the A
B C of observation,’ as he afterward called it. It was while at Stanz,
for example, that he first adopted his well-known plan of teaching
children to read by means of exercises known as ‘syllabaries.’ These
joined the five vowels in succession to the different consonants,--‘ab,
eb, ib, ob, ub,’ and so on through all the consonants. From the
phonetic nature of German spelling, he was able to make the exercises
very simple, and thus to furnish a necessary practice in basal
syllables. In a similar way he hoped to simplify all education to such
an extent that schools would eventually become unnecessary, and that
each mother would be able to teach her children and continue her own
education at the same time.

[Sidenote: Suspension of combination of industrial with intellectual
elements.]

[Sidenote: ‘Syllabaries’ and other language exercises,]

[Sidenote: arithmetic,]

[Sidenote: geometry, and other studies.]

=Continuation of His Methods at Burgdorf, and _How Gertrude Teaches
Her Children_.=--From these experiments and concrete methods that
Pestalozzi started at Stanz gradually developed all his educational
contributions. But before the close of a year he was forced by
circumstances to remove to Burgdorf. Here, on account of the social
position of many of his pupils, he had to suspend his experiment of
combining industrial with intellectual training, although, as will
later be seen, his special efforts in this direction were greatly
enlarged and perpetuated by Fellenberg. He now devoted himself to
his ‘A B C of observation,’ and further worked out and graduated his
‘syllabaries.’ Language exercises were also given his pupils by means
of examining the number, form, position, and color of the designs,
holes, and rents in the wall paper of the school, and expressing their
observations in longer and longer sentences, which they repeated after
him. For arithmetic he devised charts upon which were placed dots or
lines concretely representing each unit up to one hundred. By means of
this ‘table of units’ (Fig. 34), the pupil obtained a clear idea of
the meaning of the digits and the fundamental processes in arithmetic.
The children were also taught the elements of geometry by drawing
angles, lines, and curves, and the development of teaching history,
geography, and natural history by this method of observation was
likewise continued.

[Sidenote: Success of the school.]

[Sidenote: Principles in his _How Gertrude_.]

Despite a want of system and errors in carrying out his method,
Pestalozzi seems to have produced remarkable results from the start.
Pupils poured in; a number of progressive teachers came to assist him;
many persons of prominence visited the school and made most favorable
reports upon its methods; and during the following three years and a
half the Pestalozzian views on education were systematically developed
and applied. While at Burgdorf also, he undertook a detailed statement
of his method by the publication of his _How Gertrude Teaches Her
Children_ (1801). This work does not mention Gertrude, but consists of
fifteen letters to his friend, Gessner. Like all of Pestalozzi’s works,
it is quite lacking in both plan and proportion, and is filled with
repetitions and digressions, but the following portion of the summary
of its principles, made by a biographer of Pestalozzi, may serve to
give an idea of his educational creed:

    “1. Observation is the foundation of instruction.

    “2. Language must be connected with observation.

    “3. The time for learning is not the time for judgment and
    criticism.

    “4. In each branch, instruction must begin with the simplest
    elements, and proceed gradually by following the child’s
    development; that is, by a series of steps which are
    psychologically connected.

    “5. A pause must be made at each stage of the instruction
    sufficiently long for the child to get the new matter thoroughly
    into his grasp and under his control.

    “6. Teaching must follow the path of development, and not that of
    dogmatic exposition.”

[Illustration: Fig. 33.--‘Father’ Pestalozzi at Stanz. (The orphan
school in the Ursuline convent).]

[Illustration: Fig. 34.--The ‘table of units’ of Pestalozzi, copied by
Warren Colburn in the first edition (1821) of his _Mental Arithmetic_.]

[Sidenote: Great prosperity.]

[Sidenote: Syllabaries, and tables of units, fractions, and fractions
of fractions;]

=The ‘Institute’ at Yverdon and the Culmination of the Pestalozzian
Methods.=--As a result of political changes, Pestalozzi was obliged
in 1805 to transfer his school to Yverdon. The ‘institute’ here
sprang into fame almost immediately, and increased in numbers and
prosperity for several years. Children were sent from great distances,
and teachers and visitors thronged there to learn and apply the new
principles at home. The work of the institute formed a continuation and
culmination of the observational methods started at Stanz and Burgdorf.
The simplification introduced through the ‘syllabaries’ and ‘table of
units’ was further elaborated. A ‘table of fractions’ was also devised
for teaching that subject concretely. It consisted of a series of
squares, which could be divided indefinitely and in different ways.
Some of the squares were whole, while others were divided horizontally
into two, three, or even ten equal parts. There was further developed a
‘table of fractions of fractions,’ or compound fractions, in which the
squares were divided, not only horizontally, but vertically, so that
the method of reducing two fractions to the same denominator might be
self-evident.

[Sidenote: drawing,]

[Sidenote: writing,]

[Sidenote: and constructive geometry;]

Further, in order to draw and write, the pupil was first taught the
simple elements of form. Objects, such as sticks or pencils, were
placed in different directions, and lines representing them were drawn
on the board or slate until all elementary forms, straight or curved,
were mastered. The pupils combined these elements, instead of copying
models, and were encouraged to design symmetrical and graceful figures.
This also paved the way for writing. The children wrote on their
slates, beginning with the easiest letters and gradually forming words
from them, but soon learned to write on paper with a pen. Writing was,
however, taught in connection with reading, although begun somewhat
later than that study. Constructive geometry was also learned through
drawing. The pupils were taught to distinguish, first vertical,
horizontal, oblique, and parallel lines; then they learned right,
acute, and obtuse angles, different kinds of triangles, quadrilaterals,
and other figures; and finally discovered at how many points a certain
number of straight lines may be made to cut one another, and how many
angles, triangles, and quadrilaterals can be formed. To make the matter
concrete, the figures were often cut out of cardboard or made into
models.

[Sidenote: nature study and geography;]

[Sidenote: and music.]

In nature study, geography, and history the concrete observational work
was likewise continued. Trees, flowers, and birds were viewed, drawn,
and discussed. The pupils began in geography by acquiring the points of
the compass and relative positions, and from this knowledge observed
and described some familiar place. The valley of the Buron near at hand
was observed in detail and modeled upon long tables in clay brought
from its sides. Then the pupils were shown the map for the first time
and easily grasped the meaning of its symbols. His ideas on geography,
however, were more fully worked out by the scientist, Karl Ritter,
who had already been trained in principles similar to Pestalozzi’s
in Salzmann’s school at Schnepfenthal (see p. 228). Instead of the
“arbitrary and unmethodical collection of all facts ascertained to
exist throughout the earth,” which constituted the old ‘encyclopædic’
type of geography, Ritter presented a work based on principles
indicated by the title,--_The Science of the Earth in Relation to
Nature and the History of Man_. Similarly, Pestalozzi’s method was
applied to music by his friend, Nägeli, a noted Swiss composer, who
began with the simplest tone elements and then combined and developed
these progressively into more complex and connected wholes.

[Sidenote: Analogy with the development of the tree.]

[Sidenote: Universal education.]

=Pestalozzi’s Educational Aim and Organization.=--From the beginning
of his work, Pestalozzi held that “all the beneficent powers of man
are due to neither art nor chance, but to nature,” and that education
should follow “the course laid down by nature.” So in all his works
he constantly returns to the analogy of the child’s development
with that of the natural growth of the plant or tree. He even holds
that “the whole tree is an uninterrupted chain of organic parts,
the plan of which existed in its seed and root,” and that “man is
similar to the tree.” Consequently, he defines education as “the
natural, progressive, and harmonious development of all the powers
and capacities of the human being.” This belief in the observance of
development from within is in keeping with the naturalism of Rousseau,
but that reformer viewed it chiefly from the negative side, and failed
to make his educational doctrine concrete and explicit and to apply it
to the school. Pestalozzi further modified and extended the Rousselian
doctrine by recommending its application to all children, whatever
their circumstances and abilities. Where Rousseau evidently had only
the young aristocrat in mind in the education of Emile, Pestalozzi
held that poverty could be relieved and society reformed only through
ridding each and every one of his degradation by means of mental and
moral development. Accordingly, he was the stanch advocate of universal
education.

[Sidenote: Clear ideas only through sense perceptions,]

[Sidenote: reduced to simplest terms, and expressed in words.]

=His General Method.=--Pestalozzi’s general method of giving free play
to this natural development of the powers of all and so for reforming
social conditions was to train his pupils through ‘observation.’ He
felt that clear ideas could be formed only by means of careful sense
perceptions, and he was thoroughly opposed to the mechanical memorizing
with little understanding that was current in the schools of the day.
His method in general consisted in analyzing each subject into its
simplest elements, or ‘A B C,’ and developing it by graded exercises
based as far as possible upon the study of objects rather than words.
Yet Pestalozzi felt that “experiences must be clearly expressed in
words, or otherwise there arises the same danger that characterizes
the dominant word teaching,--that of attributing entirely erroneous
ideas to words.” Accordingly, as shown in the summary of _How Gertrude
Teaches Her Children_ (see p. 282), in all instruction he would connect
language with ‘observation.’ The special applications of this general
method that were worked out by him and his followers in the most
common subjects of the curriculum have been described in detail in the
account of his work at Stanz, Burgdorf, and Yverdon, and do not require
repetition here.

[Sidenote: Unoriginal, unpractical, inconsistent, wanting in science
and organization;]

=The Permanent Influence of Pestalozzi.=--It is easy to exaggerate
the achievements of this almost sainted reformer of Switzerland.
Pestalozzi’s methods were neither very original nor well carried out.
His chief merit lay in developing and making positive the suggestions
offered by Rousseau, and in utilizing them in the work of the schools.
Even in this he failed somewhat in practicality and consistency.
Moreover, Pestalozzi was groping and never possessed full vision. He
did not grasp definite educational principles in a scientific way, but,
like Rousseau, obtained his ideas of teaching from sympathetic insight
into the minds of children. His writings for the most part record
his empirical efforts at an effective training, and are revelations
of methods of teaching in the concrete rather than the abstract. His
works are also poorly arranged and inaccurate, and there was little
organization or order in his schools.

[Sidenote: but sought to elevate society by education,]

But all these deficiencies are of small import when compared with
Pestalozzi’s influence upon society and education. In the eighteenth
century caste ruled through wealth and education, while the masses,
who supported the owners of the land in idleness and luxury, were sunk
in ignorance, poverty, and vice. The schools for the common people
were exceedingly few, the content of education was largely limited
by ecclesiastical authority, and the methods were traditional and
verbal. The teachers generally had received little training, and were
selected at random. Ordinarily the pay was wretched, no lodgings were
provided for the teacher, and he had often to add domestic service
to his duties, in order to secure food and clothing. In the midst of
such conditions appeared this most famous of modern educators, who
never ceased to work for the reformation of society. As Voltaire,
Rousseau, and others had held that the panacea for the corrupt times
was rationalism, atheism, deism, socialism, anarchy, or individualism,
Pestalozzi found his remedy in education. Like Rousseau, he keenly felt
the injustice, unnaturalness, and degradation of the existing society,
but he was not content to stop with mere destruction and negations. He
saw what education might do to purify social conditions and to elevate
the people by intellectual, moral, and industrial training, and he
longed to apply it universally and to develop methods in keeping with
nature.

[Sidenote: and was the progenitor of all modern pedagogy.]

Pestalozzi’s achievements contained the germ of modern pedagogy, as
well as of educational reform. It was he that stimulated educational
theorists, instead of accepting formal principles and traditional
processes, to work out carefully and patiently the development of the
child mind and to embody the results in practice. From him have come
the prevailing reforms in the present teaching of language lessons,
arithmetic, drawing, writing, reading, geography, elementary science,
and music. In harmony with his improved methods, Pestalozzi also
started a different type of discipline. His work made clear the new
spirit in the school by which it has approached the atmosphere of the
home. He found the proper relation of pupil and teacher to exist in
sympathy and friendship, or, as he states it, in ‘love.’ This attitude,
which appears so fully in his kindly treatment of the poor children at
Neuhof and Stanz (Fig. 33), constituted the greatest contrast to that
of the brutal schools of the times, and introduced a new conception
into education.

[Sidenote: Switzerland,]

=The Spread of Pestalozzian Schools and Methods through Europe.=--The
‘observational’ methods of Pestalozzi and institutions similar to his
were soon spread by his assistants and others throughout Europe.
Strange to say, as a result of their familiarity with his weaknesses
and the conservatism resulting from isolation, the Swiss were, as a
whole, rather slow to incorporate the Pestalozzian improvements. In
Zurich, however, Zeller of Würtemberg, who had visited Burgdorf and
had helped conduct a Pestalozzian training school, was early invited
to give three courses of lectures in aid of the establishment of a
teachers’ seminary based upon the principles of Pestalozzi. Krüsi,
after leaving the institute at Yverdon, also founded a number of
schools and carried Pestalozzianism into various parts of Switzerland.
And other disciples eventually started or reorganized schools in
various parts of Switzerland.

[Sidenote: Prussia]

But the Pestalozzian reforms in method secured their best hold
upon Germany. The innovations were most remarkable in Prussia, and
the elementary education there has come to be referred to as the
‘Prussian-Pestalozzian school system.’ By the opening of the nineteenth
century Pestalozzianism began to find its way into that state. In
1801 the appeal of Pestalozzi for a public subscription in behalf
of his project at Burgdorf was warmly supported. In 1802 Herbart’s
account of _Pestalozzi’s Idea of an A B C of Observation_ (see p.
337) attracted much attention. A representative was sent from Prussia
to Burgdorf to report upon the new system in 1803. Meanwhile the
Pestalozzian missionaries were fast converting the land. Plamann,
who had visited Burgdorf, in 1805 established a Pestalozzian school
in Berlin, and published several books applying the new methods to
language, geography, and natural history. Zeller lectured to large
audiences at Königsberg, and organized a Pestalozzian orphanage
there. A similar institution for educating orphans was opened at
Potsdam by Türck. In 1808, two of Pestalozzi’s pupils, Nicolovius and
Süvern, were made directors of public instruction in Prussia, and sent
seventeen brilliant young men to Yverdon to study for three years.
Upon their return these vigorous youthful educators zealously advanced
the cause. The greatest impulse, however, was given the movement by
the philosopher, Fichte, who was ardently supported by King Frederick
William III, and even more by the noble queen, Louise. They held that
only through these advanced educational principles could a restoration
of the territory and prestige lost to Napoleon at Jena be effected.

[Sidenote: and the rest of Germany,]

A similar spirit animated the other states of Germany, and Bavaria,
Detmold, and other states early undertook to introduce the new
principles. Everywhere in Germany the greatest enthusiasm prevailed
among teachers, state officials, and princes. Thus in place of the
reading, singing, and memorizing of texts, songs, and catechism, under
the direction of incompetent choristers and sextons, with unsanitary
buildings and brutal punishment, all Germany has come to have in each
village an institution for training real men and women. Each school
is under the guidance of a devoted, humane, and trained teacher, and
the methods in religion, reading, arithmetic, history, geography, and
elementary science are vitalized and interesting.

[Sidenote: France,]

In France the spread of Pestalozzianism was at first prevented by
the military spirit of the time and by the apathy in education,
and later, when the reaction occurred, the schools came under
ecclesiastical control and had little influence upon the people.
Nevertheless, there were evidences of interest in the new doctrines.
General Jullien came to Yverdon to study the methods, and issued two
commendatory reports, which induced some thirty French pupils to go to
Pestalozzi’s institute. Chavannes also published a treatise upon the
Pestalozzian methods in 1805. These efforts, however, had little effect
upon education, and the Pestalozzian principles did not make much
headway in France up to the revolution of 1830. After that time they
rapidly became popular, especially through Victor Cousin. This famous
professor, who was later minister of public instruction, issued in 1835
a _Report on the State of Public Instruction in Prussia_, which showed
the great merit of Pestalozzianism in the elementary schools of that
country.

[Sidenote: and England.]

In England the influence of Pestalozzi was large, but the use made of
his methods was not altogether happy. The private school opened by
Mayo after his return from Yverdon employed object teaching in several
subjects, and a popular text-book, entitled _Lessons on Objects_,
was written by his sister. This book of Elizabeth Mayo consisted of
encyclopædic lessons on the arts and sciences arranged in a definite
series, and much beyond the comprehension of children from six to eight
years old, for whom it was intended. Together with several texts of a
similar sort, it had a wide influence in formalizing object teaching
and spreading it rapidly. The Mayos were also interested in infant
schools, and when they helped organize ‘The Home and Colonial School
Society’ in 1836, they combined the Pestalozzian methods with those of
the infant school (see p. 246). Through the model and training schools
of this society, formalized Pestalozzianism was extended through
England and America.

[Sidenote: McClure and Neef.]

=Pestalozzianism in the United States.=--Pestalozzianism began to
appear in the United States as early as the first decade of the
nineteenth century. It was introduced not only from the original
centers in Switzerland, but indirectly in the form it had assumed in
Germany, France, England, and other countries. The instances of its
appearance were sporadic and seem to have been but little connected at
any time. The earliest presentation was that made from the treatise
of Chavannes in 1805 by William McClure. By this and other articles,
McClure did much to make the new principles known in the United States,
and in 1806 he induced Joseph Neef, a former assistant of Pestalozzi,
to come to America and become his “master’s apostle in the New World.”
Neef maintained an institution at Philadelphia for three years and
afterward founded and taught schools in other parts of the country. But
his imperfect acquaintance with English and with American character
and his frequent migrations prevented his personal influence from
being greatly felt, and the two excellent works that he published upon
applications of the Pestalozzian methods were given scant attention.

[Sidenote: Griscom,]

[Sidenote: Brooks,]

[Sidenote: the Alcotts,]

[Sidenote: Colburn,]

[Sidenote: Guyot,]

[Sidenote: Parker,]

[Sidenote: and Lowell Mason.]

A large variety of literature, describing the new education, and
translating the accounts of Chavannes, Jullien, Cousin, and a number of
the German educationalists, was also published in educational journals,
which were just beginning to appear in the United States (see p. 304).
Returned travelers, like Professor John Griscom (see p. 305) published
accounts of their visits and experiences at Yverdon and Burgdorf,
such lecturers as the Reverend Charles Brooks began to suggest the
new principles as a remedy for our educational deficiencies, and
educational reformers, like the Alcotts, began to show the Pestalozzian
spirit in their schools. Pestalozzi’s objective methods and the oral
instruction resulting from them were used in various subjects by a
number of educators. For example, the methods advocated in arithmetic
were introduced into America by Warren Colburn. He spread ‘mental
arithmetic’ throughout the country, and in his famous _First Lessons in
Arithmetic on the Plan of Pestalozzi_, published first in 1821, he even
printed the ‘table of units’ (Fig. 34). The Pestalozzi-Ritter method
in geography was early presented in the United States through the
institute lectures and text-books of Arnold Guyot, who had been a pupil
of Ritter and came to America from Switzerland in 1848. The promotion
of geographic method along the same lines was later more successfully
performed by Francis Wayland Parker, who had studied with Guyot, in his
training of teachers and his work on _How to Teach Geography_. Colonel
Parker has also had several successful pupils, who are to-day largely
continuing the Pestalozzian tradition. The Pestalozzian method in music
was brought into the Boston schools and elsewhere about 1836 by Lowell
Mason, who was influenced by the works of Nägeli.

[Sidenote: Mann and his _Seventh Annual Report_;]

[Sidenote: Sheldon and the Oswego ‘object lessons.’]

The most influential propaganda of the Pestalozzian doctrines in
general, however, came through the account of the German school methods
in the _Seventh Annual Report_ (1843) of Horace Mann (see p. 308),
and through the inauguration of the ‘Oswego methods’ by Dr. Edward
A. Sheldon. Mann spoke most enthusiastically of the success of the
Prussian-Pestalozzian system of education and hinted at the need of
a radical reform along the same lines in America. The report caused a
great sensation, and was bitterly combated by conservative sentiment
throughout the country, but the suggested reforms were largely
effected. Dr. Sheldon, on the other hand, caught his Pestalozzian
inspiration from Toronto, Canada, where he became acquainted with the
formalized methods of the Mayos through publications of the Home and
Colonial School Society (see p. 291). He resolved to introduce the
principles of Pestalozzi into the Oswego schools, of which he was at
that time superintendent, and in 1861 secured from the society in
London an instructor to train his teachers in these methods. There was
some criticism of the Oswego methods on the ground of formalism, but as
a whole they were pronounced a success, and in 1865 the Oswego training
school was made a state institution. This was the first normal school
in the United States where ‘object lessons’ were the chief feature, but
a large number of other normal schools upon the same basis sprang up
rapidly in many states, and the Oswego methods crept into the training
schools and the public systems of numerous cities. As a consequence,
during the third quarter of the nineteenth century, Pestalozzianism,
though somewhat formalized, had a prevailing influence upon the
teachers and courses of the elementary schools in the United States.

[Sidenote: Estate at Hofwyl to train Pestalozzian teachers.]

=Pestalozzi’s Industrial Training Continued by Fellenberg.=--Such was
the wide influence of Pestalozzi upon education. But while throughout
his work he continued to make new applications of his observational
methods, his principle of combining industrial training with
intellectual education, which he had begun so successfully at Neuhof
and Stanz, could not be continued at Burgdorf. His pupils there came
chiefly from aristocratic families and were not obliged to support
themselves by manual labor. However, Pestalozzi still hoped to save
enough of the income from the school payments of the rich to found a
small agricultural school for the poor on this plan and connect it with
the ‘institute,’ and while this institution was never started, the
opportunity for carrying out his aim came through his friend, Emanuel
von Fellenberg (1771-1844). Fellenberg belonged to a noble family
of Berne, but, like Pestalozzi, he believed that an amelioration of
the wretched moral and economic conditions in Switzerland should be
accomplished by education. To secure the means for an experiment in
this direction, he persuaded his father to purchase for him an estate
of six hundred acres at Hofwyl, just nine miles from Burgdorf. Here
Pestalozzi urged him to undertake his favorite idea of industrial
education, and in 1806, with the aid of Zeller (see p. 289), who had
been sent him by Pestalozzi, he opened a school to train teachers in
the Pestalozzian method.

[Sidenote: Combination of observational work and industrial training in
the ‘agricultural institute;’]

=The Agricultural School and Other Institutions at Hofwyl.=--Fellenberg
especially desired, however, to combine Pestalozzi’s observational work
and his older principle of industrial training in an ‘agricultural
institute’ for poor boys. This plan was not fully realized until 1808,
when he secured the enthusiastic Jacob Wehrli as an assistant. The
work was so arranged that each old pupil, as fast as he was trained,
took charge of a newer one as an apprentice, and the school from the
first became a sort of family. The chief feature of the institute
was agricultural occupations, including drainage and irrigation,
but, from the requirements of farm life, it was natural to train also
cartmakers, blacksmiths, carpenters, locksmiths, shoemakers, tailors,
mechanics, and workers in wood, iron, and leather. Workshops for these
industries were established upon the estate, and the pupils in the
agricultural institute were enabled to select a training in a wide
range of employments, without neglecting book instruction (Fig. 35).
By this means, too, they could support themselves by their labor while
being educated. Through the institute also, a considerable number
of the pupils were trained to be directors of similar institutions,
or to become rural school-teachers. Fellenberg thought it important
that all who were to teach in the common schools should have a
thorough acquaintance with the practical labor of a farm, the means of
self-support, and the life and habits of the majority of their pupils.

[Sidenote: the ‘literary institute’ for the wealthy;]

[Sidenote: school for poor girls, and ‘real school’ for the middle
classes.]

But the work of Fellenberg did not stop there. From the beginning he
had felt that the wealthy should understand and be more in sympathy
with the laboring classes, and learn how to direct their work more
intelligently. Hence he began very early an agricultural course for
landowners, and many young men of the wealthy classes came to show a
striking interest in his deep-soil ploughing, draining, irrigation, and
other means of educating the poor. But these wealthier youths remained
at the institute so short a time that he could not extend his ideals
very widely. To retain them longer at Hofwyl, in 1809 he opened a
‘literary institute,’ which, besides the usual academic studies, used
Pestalozzi’s object lessons and strove to develop physical activities.
Moreover, the pupils in the literary institute had to cultivate
gardens, work on the farm, engage in carpentering, turning, and other
mechanical occupations, and in many ways come into touch and mutual
understanding with the poorer boys in the agricultural institute. The
wealthy learned to dignify labor, and the poor, instead of envying
those in the higher stations of life, became friendly and desirous of
coöperating with them. Eventually there arose an independent community
of youth, managing its own affairs outside of school, arranging its
own occupations, games, and tours, choosing its own officers, and
making its own laws. Within this little world was provided a training
for society at large, with its various classes, associations, and
corporations, which Fellenberg seems to have regarded as divinely
ordained. Likewise, in 1823, a school for poor girls was opened by
his wife, and four years later he started a ‘real,’ or practical,
school for the middle classes, which was intermediate between the two
‘institutes.’

[Sidenote: Switzerland,]

[Sidenote: Germany,]

[Sidenote: France, and England.]

=Industrial Training in the Schools of Europe.=--The educational
institutions of Fellenberg (Fig. 36) were well managed and proved
very successful, and the idea of education through industrial
training spread rapidly. While, after the death of Fellenberg in
1844, the schools at Hofwyl gradually declined, various types of
industrial education everywhere came to supplement academic courses,
and extend the work of the school to a larger number of pupils.
Thus the tendency of modern civilization to care for the education
of the poor, the defective, and the delinquent through industrial
training has sprung from the philanthropic spirit of Pestalozzi and
his practical collaborator, Fellenberg, and has become apparent in
all advanced countries. Industrial institutions rapidly increased
in Switzerland, beginning in 1816 with the school in the neighboring
district of Meykirch. In 1832 a cantonal teachers’ association was
formed at Berne, with Fellenberg as president and Wehrli as vice
president, and every canton soon had its ‘farm school.’ Industrial
training was also introduced into most of the Swiss normal schools.
In Germany the industrial work suggested by Pestalozzi and Fellenberg
came into successful operation in many of the orphanages and most
of the reform schools. Later, industrial education was taken up by
the _Fortbildungsschulen_ (‘continuation schools’) of the regular
system (see p. 420). At the reform and continuation schools of France
industrial training has long formed the distinctive element in the
course. Educators and statesmen of England likewise early commended the
work of Fellenberg, and industrial training shortly found a foot-hold
in various technical and reform schools of that country.

[Sidenote: ‘Manual labor’ institutions.]

=Industrial Institutions in the United States.=--The industrial work
of the Pestalozzi-Fellenberg system also began to appear in the United
States about the close of the first quarter of the nineteenth century.
After that, for twenty years or so, there sprang up a large number
of institutions of secondary or higher grade with ‘manual labor’
features in addition to the literary work. The primary object of
the industrial work in these institutions was to enable students to
earn their way through school or college and at the same time secure
physical exercise. It was the first serious academic recognition of
the need of a ‘sound mind in a sound body,’ and did much to overcome
the prevailing tendency of students toward tuberculosis and to furnish
a sane substitute for the escapades and pranks in which college
life abounded. The first of these manual labor institutions were
established in the New England and Middle states between 1820 and
1830, but within a dozen years the manual labor system was adopted in
theological schools, colleges, and academies from Maine to Tennessee.
The success of this feature at Andover Theological Seminary, where it
was begun in 1826 for ‘invigorating and preserving health, without
any reference to pecuniary profit,’ was especially influential in
causing it to be extended. The ‘Society for Promoting Manual Labor
in Literary Institutions,’ founded in 1831, appointed a general
agent to visit the chief colleges in the Middle West and South, call
attention to the value of manual labor, and issue a report upon the
subject. Little attention, however, was given to the pedagogical
principles underlying this work. As material conditions improved and
formal social life developed, the impracticability of the scheme was
realized, and the industrial side of these institutions was given up.
The physical exercise phase was then replaced by college athletics. By
1840-1850 most of the schools and colleges that began as ‘manual labor
institutes’ had become purely literary.


FELLENBERG’S INSTITUTIONS AT HOFWYL

[Illustration: Fig. 35.--Court of the Agricultural Institute.]

[Illustration: Fig. 36.--General view of all the schools and workshops.

(Reproduced by permission from Monroe’s _Cyclopedia of Education_.)]

[Sidenote: Industrial education for racial problems, prison reform,]

[Sidenote: defectives and delinquents,]

[Sidenote: and efficiency of the public system.]

A further movement in industrial education has been found in the
establishment of such schools as Carlisle, Hampton, and Tuskegee, which
adopted this training as a solution for peculiar racial problems. But
the original idea of Pestalozzi, to secure redemption through manual
labor, has been embodied in American institutions since 1873, when Miss
Mary Carpenter, the English prison reformer, visited the United States.
Contract labor and factory work in the reformatories then began to be
replaced by farming, gardening, and kindred domestic industries. At the
present time, moreover, the schools for delinquents and defectives in
the New England, Middle Atlantic, Middle West, and most of the Southern
states, have the Fellenberg training, though without much grasp of the
educational principles involved. Finally, there has also been a growing
tendency in the twentieth century to employ industrial training or
trade education for the sake of holding pupils longer in school and
increasing the efficiency of the public system. In so far as it has
tended to replace the more general values of manual training, once so
popular, with skill in some particular industrial process, this modern
movement represents a return from the occupational work started by
Froebel to the philanthropic practice of Fellenberg and Pestalozzi.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _In Modern Times_ (Macmillan, 1913), chap. V; and _Great
Educators_ (Macmillan, 1912), chap. IX; Monroe, _Textbook_ (Macmillan,
1905), pp. 597-622; Parker, _Modern Elementary Education_ (Ginn, 1912),
chaps. XIII-XVI. The _Leonard and Gertrude_ has been well arranged
for English readers in the edition of Eva Channing (Heath, 1896) and
_How Gertrude Teaches Her Children_ has been translated by Lucy E.
Holland and Frances C. Turner (Bardeen, 1898). The standard English
treatises on Pestalozzi are Guimps, R. de, _Pestalozzi, His Aim and
Work_ (Appleton, 1890); Holman, H., _Pestalozzi_ (Longmans, 1908);
Krüsi, H., _Pestalozzi, His Life, Work, and Influence_ (American Book
Co., 1875); Pinloche, A., _Pestalozzi and the Foundation of the Modern
Elementary School_ (Scribner, 1901), and, more recently, Green, J. A.,
_Life and Work of Pestalozzi_ (Clive, London, 1913) and _Pestalozzi’s
Educational Writings_ (Longmans, Green, 1912). Monroe, W. S., has
furnished an interesting _History of the Pestalozzian Movement in the
United States_ (Bardeen, 1907). _The Institutions of De Fellenberg_
were fully described by King, W. (London, 1842); and by Barnard, H.,
in his _American Journal of Education_, vol. III, pp. 591-596; XIII,
323-331; and XXVI, 359-368.




CHAPTER XXIII

DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES


OUTLINE

    During the second quarter of the nineteenth century a third
    period in the educational history of America, marked by further
    democratization and a great expansion of public education, appeared.

    It began with an awakening generally known as ‘the revival of
    common schools,’ which was most noticeable in New England. Here,
    owing to the attacks made upon him by reactionaries, Horace Mann
    was the most conspicuous reformer; while Henry Barnard, through his
    _American Journal of Education_, enabled educators to look beyond
    the educational experience of America. But the influence of this
    awakening was also felt in every other section of the United States.

    It was followed by a steady growth in universal education, state
    support and control, local supervision, and the organization of
    normal schools in New England and the Middle states.

    In the Northwest, common school advocates overcame the opposition
    of settlers from states not committed to public education, and
    in the further expansion of the United States progress in common
    school sentiment has kept pace with the settlement of the country.

    The South made considerable progress during the early years of
    the awakening, and while the Civil War crushed its educational
    facilities, the struggle for public education has since been won.

[Sidenote: Development of democratic ideals and extension of state
systems of schools.]

=The Third Period in American Education.=--Interest in the improved
methods of Pestalozzi and other reformers that was manifesting itself
everywhere in the United States during the second quarter of the
nineteenth century seems to have been but one phase of a much larger
movement. It was about this time that a third period in American
education, which was marked by the development of democratic ideals and
the extension of state systems of public schools, may be said to have
begun. During the period of ‘transition,’ we found (chap. XXI), half
a dozen of the states had started an organization of common schools,
and in a dozen others permanent school funds had been established, an
influential minority of leading citizens were constantly advocating
universal education, and public interest in the matter was evidently
increasing. But the consummation of a regular system was still much
hindered by sectarian jealousies, by the conception of public schools
as institutions for paupers and the consequent custom of allowing
private schools to share in public funds, by the unwillingness of the
wealthy to be taxed locally for the benefit of other people’s children,
and, in New England, by the division of the system into autonomous
districts and the interference of petty politics. Hence, while much
progress had been made since the early days of ‘transplantation’
of European ideals and institutions, there was still much need of
the expansion and further democratization that now began to appear.
Of the rapid development that took place during this final period
of Americanization, much was accomplished before the middle of the
nineteenth century, but educational progress continued through the
final decade.

[Sidenote: Storm center of ‘revival’ in Massachusetts and Connecticut.]

[Sidenote: Efforts to establish a training institution.]

=Early Leaders in the Common School Revival.=--The educational
awakening with which the beginning of this third period seems to be
marked, has been generally known as ‘the common school revival.’ It
first became evident during the latter part of the decade between 1830
and 1840, and had its storm center in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
While it greatly furthered the cause of public education everywhere,
because of the decadence into which New England had fallen, the demand
for an educational awakening was strongest there. In this revival
the most conspicuous figure was probably Horace Mann, but there were
several leaders in the field before him, many were contemporaneous, and
the work was expanded and deepened by others of distinction long after
he withdrew from the scene. For a score of years before Mann appeared,
definite preparation for the movement had been in progress, and the
labors of the individuals and associations engaged in these endeavors
should be briefly noted. Many of the reformers seem to have recommended
an improvement in methods through the creation of an institution for
training teachers, thus anticipating one of the greatest achievements
of Mann. Actual attempts at a private normal school were even made
by the Reverend Samuel R. Hall at Concord, Vermont (1823), Andover,
Massachusetts (1830), and Plymouth, New Hampshire (1837).

[Sidenote: Articles in educational journals.]

[Sidenote: Reports on European education.]

A number of educational journals, moreover, published articles
on schoolbooks, the methods of Lancaster, Pestalozzi, Neef, and
Fellenberg, the infant and Sunday schools, physical education,
European school systems, and a variety of other timely topics and
reforms. Among these progressive publications were the _American
Journal of Education_, edited by William Russell from 1826-1830,
and then continued from 1831 to 1839, as the _American Annals of
Education_ under the editorship of William C. Woodbridge, and the
_Quarterly Register_, published 1828-1843 by the ‘American Educational
Society.’ The latest European ideas were also reported from first-hand
observation by a number who had gone abroad to investigate. The most
influential of these reports was _A Year in Europe_, written in 1819 by
Professor John Griscom (see p. 292), who was a lecturer before several
New York associations, including the Public School Society. Almost as
widely read were the reports of William C. Woodbridge in 1824, and of
Professor Calvin E. Stowe of Lane Theological Seminary, Cincinnati, in
1836.

[Sidenote: Advocated normal schools,]

[Sidenote: and secured town school committees,]

[Sidenote: support of high schools,]

[Sidenote: and the State Board of Education.]

=Work of James G. Carter.=--All these movements indicate the
educational ferment that was going on. But the predecessor of Mann,
who accomplished most for the common schools, and influenced that
reformer most directly, was James G. Carter (1795-1849). Carter (Fig.
37) was a practical teacher and wrote continually on the need of a
training institution to improve instruction in the public schools.
These appeals proved very successful, and earned him the title of
‘father of the normal schools.’ After being elected to the legislature,
he accomplished much by his zeal and skill in parliamentary tactics.
In 1826 he secured an act by which each town as a whole was required
to choose a regular committee, instead of the ministers and selectmen,
to supervise the schools, choose text-books, and examine, certify,
and employ the teachers. But the effect of this enactment was largely
lost the following year by allowing the districts, as a compromise,
to choose a committeeman, who should appoint the teachers. In 1826 he
placed secondary education, then largely conducted by academies, more
under public control through a law requiring each town of five hundred
families to support a free English high school (Fig. 41), and every one
of four thousand inhabitants to maintain a classical high school. Next,
in 1834, Carter succeeded in getting a state school fund established
from the proceeds of the sale of lands in the province of Maine and the
state’s claims against the federal government for military services.
But his most fruitful victory was won in 1837, when he procured the
passage of the bill for a State Board of Education, after it had been
once defeated, by inducing the house to discuss it in ‘committee of the
whole.’

[Sidenote: Peculiarly fitted by heredity and training.]

=Horace Mann as Secretary of the Massachusetts Board.=--By reason
of his merits as an educator, his persistent efforts in behalf of
educational reform, and his advocacy of the bill, it was assumed by
most people that Carter would be chosen secretary of the new board. To
their surprise, a lawyer named Horace Mann (1796-1859), at that time
president of the senate, was selected for the post, but the choice is
now known to have been most fortunate. By both heredity and training
Mann (Fig. 38) was suffused with an interest in humanity and all
phases of philanthropy and education. He possessed a happy combination
of lofty ideals, intelligence, courage, enthusiasm, and legislative
experience, which equipped him admirably for leadership in educational
reform. The law proposed for the new Board of Education numerous
duties in the way of collecting and spreading information concerning
the common schools and of making suggestions for the improvement and
extension of public education, but it provided no real powers, and the
permanence and influence of the board depended almost wholly upon the
intelligence and character of the new Secretary.

[Sidenote: Effected his reforms by educational campaigns,]

[Sidenote: _Annual Reports_,]

[Sidenote: _School Journal_,]

[Sidenote: school libraries,]

[Sidenote: and state normal schools.]

During his twelve years in the office, Mann subserved the interests of
the state most faithfully. To awaken the people, he made an educational
campaign through every portion of the state each year, but an even more
effective means of disseminating his reforms was found in his series
of _Annual Reports_. These documents were by law to give information
concerning existing conditions and the progress made in the efficiency
of public education each year, and they deal with practically every
educational topic of importance at the time. Sometimes they seem
commonplace, but it must be remembered that they were not so then, and
that the work of Mann did much to render them familiar. They vitally
affected school conditions everywhere in New England, and were read
with great interest in all parts of the United States, and even in
Europe. He also published semi-monthly the _Massachusetts Common School
Journal_, to spread information concerning school improvement, school
law, and the proceedings of the State Board. But it consisted of only
sixteen pages, and was not as valuable as some of the educational
journals that had preceded it (see pp. 304 f.). Another medium in the
improvement of educational facilities was Mann’s general establishment
of school libraries by state subsidy throughout Massachusetts. But
probably the most permanent means of propagating his reforms came
through securing the foundation of the first public normal schools in
this country. Massachusetts was in 1838 induced to establish three
schools, so located that all parts of the state might be equally
served. The course in each school consisted in a review of the common
branches from the teaching point of view, work in educational theory,
and training in a practice school under supervision, and, while not
largely attended, these institutions were a great success from the
start.

[Sidenote: Opposed by Boston schoolmasters,]

[Sidenote: the ultra-orthodox, and other reactionaries.]

The arduous and unremitting labors of Mann in instituting and promoting
the various means of school reform made the greatest inroad upon his
strength and financial resources. Moreover, he was for years violently
assailed by reactionaries of all types. His controversy with the Boston
schoolmasters was especially sharp. Mann’s _Seventh Annual Report_
(1843) gave an account of his visit to foreign schools, especially
those of Germany, and praised with great warmth the ‘Pestalozzian’ (see
p. 289) instruction without text-books, the enthusiastic teachers,
the absence of artificial rivalry, and the mild discipline in the
Prussian system. The report did not stigmatize the conservatism of the
Boston schools or bring them into comparison with those of Berlin,
but the cap fitted. The pedagogues were disquieted, and proceeded to
answer savagely. But when the smoke of battle had cleared away, it was
seen that the leaders of the old order had been completely routed.
A more insidious attack was that led by the ultra-orthodox. The old
schools of the Puritans, with their dogmatic religious teaching, had
been steadily fading for more than a century before the new board had
been inaugurated, but many narrow people were inclined to charge this
disappearance to the reformer, whose liberal attitude in religion was
well known. The assaults, however, were vigorously and successfully
repelled by the Secretary. And while these controversies wore Mann out
and probably led ultimately to his resignation, they had much to do
with making his reputation as a great educator. They have even caused
us at times to forget that he was but a striking figure in a general
movement. Men like Carter were in the field long before him, and his
co-worker, Barnard, served the cause of education for nearly half a
century after Mann withdrew.

[Sidenote: Universal and free education,]

[Sidenote: with character as chief aim;]

[Sidenote: material equipment,]

[Sidenote: scientific methods,]

[Sidenote: trained teachers,]

[Sidenote: and practical studies.]

=The Educational Suggestions and Achievements of Mann.=--In surveying
his educational positions, we find Mann’s foremost proposition was
that education should be universal and free. Girls should be trained
as well as boys, and the poor should have the same opportunities as
the rich. Public schools should furnish education of such a quality
that the wealthy would not regard private institutions as superior.
This universal education, however, should have as its chief aim moral
character and social efficiency, and not mere erudition, culture, and
accomplishments. And morality, he felt, would not be accomplished
by inculcating sectarian doctrines. Mann was, however, mainly a
practical, rather than a theoretical reformer, and to the material
side of education he gave serious attention. He declared that school
buildings should be well constructed and sanitary. This matter seemed
to him so important that he wrote a special report upon the subject
during his first year in office. He carefully discussed the proper
plans for rooms, ventilation, lighting, seating, and other schoolhouse
features, and insisted that the inadequate and squalid conditions
which existed should be improved. As to methods, he maintained that
instruction should be based upon scientific principles, and not upon
authority and tradition. He advocated the word method of reading, in
the place of the uneconomical, artificial, and ineffective method of
the alphabet, and the Pestalozzian object methods and oral instruction
were introduced by him. He held that the work should be guided by
able teachers, who had been trained in a normal school, and should be
imparted in a spirit of mildness and kindness through an understanding
of child nature. In the matter of the studies to be pursued, Mann was
inclined to be exceedingly practical. In discussing educational values,
he failed to see any reason “why algebra, a branch which not one man
in a thousand ever has occasion to use in the business of life, should
be studied by more than twenty-three hundred pupils, and bookkeeping,
which every man, even the day laborer, should understand, should be
attended to by only a little more than half that number.” Similarly,
he holds that of all subjects, save the rudiments, physiology should
receive the most attention.

[Sidenote: Doubled appropriations for public education; increased
salaries, length of the school year, and the number of high schools;]

[Sidenote: and effected other reforms.]

In order that these various reforms might be realized, Mann insisted
frequently that the state should spare no labor or expense. But in a
republic he felt that “education can never be attained without the
consent of the whole people.” It was a general elevation of ideals,
effort, and expenditure that he sought, and for which he began his
crusade. And the general progress that resulted in this period covers
a wide range. During his secretaryship the appropriations made for
public education in Massachusetts were more than doubled, and the
proportion of expenditure for private schools in the state was, in
consequence, reduced from seventy-five to thirty-six per cent of the
total cost of education. The salaries of masters in the public schools
were raised sixty-two per cent, and, although the number of women
teachers had grown fifty-four per cent, the average of their salaries
also increased fifty-one per cent. The school attendance enormously
expanded, and a full month was added to the average school year. When
Mann’s administration began, but fourteen out of forty-three towns had
complied with the high school law of 1826, but, by the middle of the
century, fifty new high schools had been established. The efficiency
of supervision was largely increased by making the compensation of the
town visiting committees, established through Carter, compulsory by
law. The first state normal schools at last appeared, and teachers’
institutes, county associations, and public school libraries were given
general popularity. Quite as marked was the improvement effected in the
range and serviceability of the school studies, in text-books, methods
of teaching, and discipline. Thus under the leadership of Horace Mann a
practically unorganized set of schools, with diverse aims and methods,
was welded into a well-ordered system with high ideals, and the people
of Massachusetts renewed their faith in the common schools.

[Sidenote: A systematic exposition of European education needed,]

[Sidenote: and Barnard specially qualified to make it.]

=Henry Barnard’s Part in the Educational Awakening.=--But there
was another important contribution to the awakening made by a New
Englander, which was of a rather different nature from that connected
with the influence of Horace Mann. Before that reconstruction of the
common schools, which was responsible for the best elements in our
national civilization, could be at all complete, it was necessary
that America should have a better comprehension of what was being
done in education elsewhere. The United States had for two centuries
been undergoing a gradual transition from the institutional types
transplanted from England and the Continent in colonial days, and was
coming more and more to blossom out into democracy and the people’s
schools, but for a long time there was little knowledge of what was
being done by the other countries that had by this time adopted
similar ideals. Conceptions of universal and democratic education
and of improved organization and methods had been slowly developing
in Prussia and other German states, and had extended to France and
elsewhere. A literature connected with the advanced theories of such
reformers as Rousseau, the philanthropists, Pestalozzi, and Fellenberg
had likewise grown up in Europe. It was very important that America,
now keenly alive to the need of educational reorganization, should
become acquainted with all this, that the New World might secure the
advantages of comparison, corroboration, and expansion of view from
the work of older civilized peoples. Some reports on foreign education
and translations of European treatises had already appeared (pp. 304
f.), but the time was now ripe for a more extensive and systematic
exposition of European education and its application to popular
education in America, and for a really capable scholar to bring these
world views within the grasp of all classes of teachers and educational
authorities. This literary representative of the awakening appeared at
length in Henry Barnard (1811-1900), who is fully worthy of a place in
the educational pantheon of America. Barnard (Fig. 39) made a brilliant
record at Yale for general scholarship, and a position as assistant
librarian during his last two years in college did much to afford him a
wide grasp of bibliography. After graduation, he obtained a valuable
experience in teaching, and, by travelling extensively in America and
Europe, formed a broad acquaintance with educational institutions,
libraries, galleries, and social conditions in all the leading states
and nations.

[Illustration: Fig. 37--James G. Carter (1795-1849).]

[Illustration: Fig. 38.--Horace Mann (1796-1859).]

[Illustration: Fig. 39.--Henry Barnard (1811-1900).]

[Illustration: Fig. 40.--Francis W Parker (1831-1902).]

GREAT AMERICAN EDUCATORS

[Sidenote: Untoward educational conditions in Connecticut,]

[Sidenote: and Barnard’s attempt to reform;]

[Sidenote: _School Journal_]

[Sidenote: and publication of educational material.]

=Barnard as Secretary of the Connecticut State Board.=--Two years after
Barnard’s return to Connecticut, he began his part in the educational
awakening as Secretary of the new State Board of Commissioners of
Common Schools, and undertook to do a work similar to that of Mann
in Massachusetts. Throughout the eighteenth century Connecticut
schools had been among the most efficient in the country, but since
the income from the Western Reserve lands had begun in 1798, and
especially since this had been increased by the United States deposit
fund in 1836, public education had steadily declined. A state tax was
still maintained, but all local effort was paralyzed through lack
of exercise. Another factor in producing this decline was connected
with the transferal of the management of the common schools from the
town to the ‘school society,’ which was a species of district, almost
identical with the parish of each Congregational church. The results
of this ruinous policy had been revealed in an investigation made by
the legislature, which showed that not one-half of the children of
school age were attending the common schools, and that the teachers
were poorly trained and supervision was neglected. Barnard at once
began to urge many reforms, and in his reports and the _Connecticut
Common School Journal_ made suggestions for a complete plan of public
education. He also began the publication of his rich collection of
material bearing upon popular training at home and abroad. But he was
more a scholar and literary man than an educational statesman like
Mann. He succeeded in getting the legislature to pass several reforms
and a general revision and codification of the school laws, and in
arousing several towns to amend their educational plans, although the
crucial difficulty of the ‘school societies’ could not be touched, and
within four years the conservatives succeeded in legislating him out of
office and in undoing all his reforms.

[Sidenote: Radical reforms accomplished.]

=Commissioner of Common Schools in Rhode Island.=--This gave Barnard
an opportunity to pursue his favorite investigations, and for about a
year and a half he was engaged in collecting material for a history of
education in the United States. Then he was persuaded by the governor
of Rhode Island to become the first Commissioner of Common Schools
for that state. While he found in Rhode Island a better educational
sentiment and less opposition than in Connecticut, the actual condition
of the decentralized and individualistic schools was far worse (see
p. 269). But, through his assemblies of teachers and parents and his
educational treatises, he soon began to convince the people of the
unwisdom of district organization, untrained teachers, short terms,
irregular attendance, poor buildings and ventilation, and meager
equipment. He also continued to publish his collection of educational
material through the foundation of the _Rhode Island School Journal_.
As a result of his efforts, when failing health compelled him to resign
in 1849, the state no longer regarded wilfulness and personal opinion
as praiseworthy independence, and he could honestly claim that Rhode
Island had at the time one of the best school systems in the United
States.

[Sidenote: When recalled, carried out and extended his reforms.]

=State Superintendent of Schools in Connecticut.=--But the _clientèle_
that Barnard had built up in Connecticut continued his reforms and
constructive work after his departure, and improved upon them. In
1851, they even succeeded in having him recalled virtually to his old
duties. He was designated as State Superintendent of Common Schools,
as well as Principal of the State Normal School, which had been
established through the efforts of his adherents. The state had now
learned its error in mingling politics with education, and Barnard was
able to carry out his reforms unmolested. Through the normal school
he sent out a great body of trained teachers. He revised the school
code, checked the power of the ‘school societies,’ consolidated and
simplified the organization and administration of public education,
made a more equitable distribution of the school fund, and encouraged
local taxation. But his most distinctive work, as might be expected,
was on the literary side. He prepared a valuable series of documents
upon foreign education, normal schools, methods of teaching, school
architecture, and other topics, and a long report upon _The History of
Legislation in Connecticut Respecting Common Schools up to 1838_.

[Sidenote: Published at his own expense,]

[Sidenote: in thirty-one large volumes and fifty-two special treatises,]

[Sidenote: accounts of educational history and systems, and other
themes.]

=_Barnard’s American Journal of Education._=--It was, too, during
the last days of his Connecticut superintendency that Henry Barnard
suggested the establishment of a national journal of education.
He first broached the matter to the ‘American Association for the
Advancement of Education’ at its meeting in Washington, December,
1854. But the association soon found itself unable to pursue this
enterprise for lack of financial support, and in May of the next year
Barnard began the publication of the _American Journal of Education_
at his own expense. It was at first planned to run the journal for
five years only, but, although the work was somewhat interrupted upon
occasions by other duties, it continued for more than a generation,
until at length thirty-one large octavo volumes, averaging about eight
hundred pages each, had been issued. In addition, fifty-two special
treatises reprinted from articles in the journal brought the material
together in a connected way. Besides giving nearly all his time to
editing this _magnum opus_, Barnard sank his entire fortune of $50,000
in its publication. This great treasury of material includes every
phase of the history of education from the earliest times down into
the latter half of the nineteenth century. It furnishes accounts of
all contemporaneous systems in Europe and America, descriptions of
institutions for the professional training of teachers, and essays upon
courses of study for colleges and technical schools, the education of
defectives and delinquents, physical education, school architecture,
great educators, and a large variety of other themes. While it is
always most reliable in its treatises upon foreign education, of even
greater value is its practical grasp of educational life in America
from the beginning. It contains the greatest collection of interesting
monographs upon the development of ideals and organization in the
various states, and gives the most complete description in literature
of the educational life of a nation.

[Sidenote: While in office, suspended his _Journal_ and embodied
investigations in his reports.]

=First United States Commissioner of Education.=--In 1867 Barnard was
appointed the first United States Commissioner of Education. This
office he had been constantly trying to have established ever since
he had found, as Secretary of the Connecticut Board, how absolutely
lacking the federal government was in school statistics and documents.
He hoped that, through the agency of the government, facilities might
be secured to collect and publish trustworthy educational statistics,
and to issue a library of independent treatises. The bureau was not
created for many years, and then through the immediate initiative
of another, but when Barnard was called to the commissionership, he
organized the office practically upon the lines he had previously
suggested. He suspended his _Journal_ and used the product of his
investigations in the annual reports of the office. He started that
searching inquiry into the administration, management, and instruction
of institutions of every grade, and into all educational societies,
school funds, legislation, architecture, documents, and benefactions
that has since been maintained by the Bureau of Education. However,
within three years a change in politics brought a new incumbent into
the commissionership, and Barnard gave his literary efforts once more
to his beloved _Journal_.

[Sidenote: This life work marked him as leading representative of the
awakening.]

=Value of Barnard’s Educational Collections.=--Hence, Barnard’s real
life work may be considered the collection of a great educational
compendium. By temperament, native ability, and habit, he proved
himself well fitted to be the leading representative of the literary
side of the awakening. Through his work American education was, in its
period of greatest development, granted the opportunity of looking
beyond the partial and local results of the first half century of
national life. It was enabled to modify and adapt to its own uses the
educational theories, practices, and organizations of the leading
civilized peoples, and to bring together for a comparative view
sections and states that were widely separated. _Barnard’s American
Journal of Education_ was not intended to be a universal encyclopædia
of education, but often includes a condensation of important works or
a presentation of highly scientific methods and profound philosophic
systems in popular form. It was not possible, either, to classify
and work out a connected and complete historical account, when there
were no reliable records or collections of materials in existence. It
was necessary that some one should first gather the information from
newspapers, pamphlets, memorials, monographs, and plans, and publish it
as it was found. In this way he accomplished a more valuable work than
if he had published a systematic history of education in the United
States.

[Sidenote: The ‘revival’ was general, but its results were most
striking in New England.]

=Educational Development in New England since the Revival.=--This great
storehouse of information published by Barnard and the virile efforts
of Mann and other practical leaders were but prominent evidences of
the progress that was at the time sweeping over the entire country.
The educational awakening of 1835-1860 was general and proved one of
the most fruitful in history. Its influence was felt in every state,
and it led to the third period of American education, which has been
characterized by the expansion of public schools and state educational
systems. During this period new ideals of democracy have come to be
felt in American education, and a rapid advance has taken place in
the evolution of that unique product, the American public school. In
describing this development, we may turn first to New England.

[Sidenote: Development since then in Massachusetts in universal
education and improved schooling.]

[Sidenote: Death of district system.]

In Massachusetts Horace Mann has been followed in the central
administration by a succession of seven scholarly and experienced
educators, who believed as firmly as he that all stages of education
below the college should be open at public expense without let or
hindrance to the richest and poorest child alike. Since the revival the
state has seen a steady growth of sentiment for universal education
and improved schooling, and never again has such an upheaval of the
educational strata been necessary. The income of the state school fund
and additional appropriations have been steadily increased, their
apportionment among the towns has been rendered more equitable from
time to time, and an effort has constantly been made to distribute them
in such a way as to encourage local effort and coöperation. The school
term has been lengthened to ten months and the average attendance
of pupils to seven years. The improvements in school buildings,
sanitation, and equipment have steadily advanced. The district system
died hard, and not until 1882 was it altogether forced out of existence.

[Sidenote: Growth of high schools, superintendents,]

[Sidenote: and teacher training.]

Most of the academies, too, which proved such a hindrance to the
development of public secondary education, gradually died or were
merged in the public system as high schools. By means of state aid, it
has been possible since 1903 for the smallest towns to afford a high
school training for their children at public expense. Supervision has
also become universal during the past quarter century. Springfield
first introduced a superintendent of schools in 1841, Gloucester in
1850, Boston in 1851, and the other cities much later, but since 1888,
through increasing state aid and the combination of smaller towns into
a district superintendency, expert supervision has become possible
everywhere, and during the last decade it has been compulsory. The
normal schools, which have now increased to ten, have brought about
a striking improvement in teaching. It is practically impossible at
present for an untrained teacher to secure a position in the elementary
schools of Massachusetts, and, through a system of examinations and
investigations, teachers of exceptional ability have, since 1896, been
granted an extra weekly allowance by the state. Since the middle of
the century, the state board has been permitted to appoint a number of
agents, to assist in inspecting and improving the schools, especially
in the smaller towns and rural districts.

[Sidenote: Similar development in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and other
New England states.]

The course of development since the awakening has been very similar
in the other New England states. The successors of Barnard in the
central administration both in Rhode Island and Connecticut have been
skilled and earnest educators, and, while their reports lacked his
literary touch, they were of rather more practical character. Until
1856, Connecticut made no attempt to return from the parish to the town
organization. Even then, as well as later, legislation on the subject
was ‘permissive,’ and not until the twentieth century was the ‘school
society,’ or district system, given up in half of the towns. In Rhode
Island, even after Barnard’s reforms, almost one-third of the districts
did not own their school buildings, owing to the survival of the method
in use when the schools were private, but this condition has gradually
been remedied. Likewise, the number of towns levying sufficient local
taxes to secure a share in the state apportionment rapidly grew,
and the state appropriation itself doubled and quadrupled within a
generation. In Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, owing to insufficient
wealth, infertility of soil, and sparseness of population, effective
public education has been reached only by slow and cautious steps.
But even these states have gradually centralized their educational
administration through the abolition of the district system and
the creation at various times of a state superintendent, a state
commissioner, or a state board and secretary. This reorganization has
been followed by increased state school funds and appropriations, more
systematic statistics and reports from the schools, and great advances
in universalizing and improving all stages of public education.

[Sidenote: Increased enthusiasm for public education in Middle states.]

=Influence of the Awakening upon the Middle States.=--Although this
awakened sentiment for education and progress in the common school
has been most patent and spectacular in New England, it has not
been peculiar to that part of the country. Nearly all of the other
states seem to have felt the influence of the awakening. In close
conjunction with the ‘revival’ in New England, the movement appeared
in New York, especially the western part, and was more or less
evident in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. But because of its
cosmopolitanism and the need of fusing so many different political,
religious, and industrial traditions, the older parts of New York,
where the school system had until the awakening been rather in advance
of other states, did not progress as rapidly in the development of
public education as Massachusetts and Connecticut. It had, however, by
the time of the Civil War, succeeded in working over its heterogeneous
people into a unified civilization and in causing their children to be
educated together for a common citizenship.

[Sidenote: New York’s advances in normal training, supervision, and
school funds.]

[Sidenote: Board of education in New York City.]

The most distinct advances during this period of final organization
have been in the establishment of state normal schools, instead of
subsidizing academies to train teachers, in the administration and
supervision of the system, and in the methods of state support of
education. The first state normal school was opened at Albany in 1844,
and this pioneer institution has eventually been followed by ten
others. In 1854 the state superintendency had once more been separated
from the secretaryship of state, with which it had been combined for
thirty-five years (p. 259). In 1856 local supervision was established
through the appointment of school commissioners for the cities and
villages. In the same year, a three-quarters of a mill tax was placed
upon the property valuation of the state, and during the next dozen
years many improvements were made in the disbursing and accounting of
public funds. At length, in 1867, the long fight that had been made
for entirely free education was successful. Until then nearly fifty
thousand children had been deprived of all education, because their
parents were too proud to secure payment of their tuition fees by
confessing themselves paupers. It was during this era of progress,
too, that New York City was, in 1842, allowed to place the direction
of its schools in the hands of a board of education, elected by the
people, instead of giving over the city’s share of the state funds to
a quasi-public society, controlled by a close corporation. For eleven
years, however, the Public School Society refused to give up its work,
but by 1853 it decided to disband and merge its buildings and funds
with those of the city school system (see p. 261).

[Sidenote: Pennsylvania abolished permissive feature of its school law,]

[Sidenote: made state educational system complete, and provided system
of normal schools.]

Pennsylvania was slower than New York in showing the effects of the
educational awakening, but the leaven was at work. While a number of
progressive governors and other statesmen continually recommended the
development of public education, and the ‘Pennsylvania Society for the
Promotion of Common Schools’ had been organized, the towering leader
in this movement was Thomas H. Burrowes. As secretary of state and _ex
officio_ superintendent of schools (1836-1838), as a public speaker
and educational journalist (1838-1860), and as state superintendent
(1860-1862), he constantly urged a complete system of public education,
the establishment of normal schools, a separate state department of
education, and the organization of state and county supervision. In
1849 the ‘permissive’ feature of the law of 1834 was abolished, and the
two hundred districts that had thus far refused to establish public
schools were forced to do so under the new provisions. In 1854 a
revised school law was passed, which, after twenty years, now made the
state system of education complete. It established in the secretary of
state’s office a deputy superintendent of schools, who had virtually
a separate department, and provided for county superintendents.
Three years later the state educational department became absolutely
independent under the care of a superintendent, and provision was
made for a system of normal schools. These institutions were to be
established at first by private enterprise and without state subsidy.
By 1877 there were ten in operation, largely maintained by the state.
Three others have since been added, and the state has begun to take
over into its own hands the entire support and control of them all.

[Sidenote: Advances in New Jersey rapid, when once started.]

[Sidenote: Delaware slower, but now making progress.]

Educational progress in New Jersey also took some time to get under
way, but when the reforms once started, they continued until an
excellent system of common schools had been inaugurated. In 1838 the
limitation of state funds to the education of the poor was removed,
and the apportionment of the income from them was thereafter applied
only to public schools. Since 1848, when a state superintendency was
established, the development has been more rapid. County supervision
has been introduced, state normal schools have been established at
Trenton and Upper Montclair, and appropriations have been greatly
increased. In 1911 a state commissioner of education with an efficient
corps of deputies was provided. Delaware, on the other hand, failed to
live up to the possibilities under her early ‘permissive’ laws. Even
the organization of ‘the friends of common school education’ showed
itself very conservative, and would not advocate the creation of a
state superintendency or the establishment of state normal schools. In
fact, Delaware did not organize a complete state system until after
the war. Even then, while a state board and state superintendency were
established in 1875, there were no county superintendents, and when
county supervision was introduced in 1888, the state superintendency
was abolished. It was not reëstablished until 1912, but since then the
state system has made evident progress.

[Sidenote: In Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, opponents of public
education overcome, and state system established.]

=Public Education in the West.=--The budding of a common school
system, which had just begun to appear in the new commonwealths of
the Northwest before 1840, rapidly unfolded into full blossom during
this educational springtime. Through this awakening the common school
advocates in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were greatly aided in their
struggle to overcome the opposition of settlers from the states not
committed to public education (see p. 272), and they were favored to
some extent by accessions of emigrants from the home of the public
school movement. During the decade just preceding the middle of the
century, there was a decided elevation of public sentiment going on.
Under the leadership of Samuel Lewis and Samuel Galloway in Ohio,
Caleb Mills in Indiana, and Ninian W. Edwards in Illinois, the friends
of public education had marshalled themselves for battle. Reports
and memorials were constantly presented to the legislatures of these
states, and public addresses in behalf of common schools were frequent
in most large communities. A group of devoted schoolmen appeared,
who were as successful in lobbying for good legislation as they were
with institutes and public lectures. While reactions occasionally
happened, like that in Ohio between 1840 and 1845, when the state
superintendency was temporarily abolished, public education gradually
came to be regarded as something more than merely free education for
the poor, and public school funds were no longer granted as a subsidy
to private institutions. After a quarter century of ‘permissive’ laws,
local taxation and free common schools were fully realized in all three
states early in the fifties. The contest, of course, was not ended, as
reactionary elements, with selfish, local, and sectarian interests,
still remained, but their contentions have never again been more than
partially successful. New features of the common schools, such as
efficient teachers for the rural districts, county supervision, state
normal training, and free higher education in state universities, have
gradually rendered the state systems more consistent and complete.

[Sidenote: Michigan early provided for schools, and soon developed high
and normal schools.]

In Michigan, on the other hand, where there was not such a mixture
of population, and a complete sympathy with the common school idea
appeared, there was almost unhampered progress from the beginning of
statehood. Under the first constitution (1837), there was provision
made for a permanent school fund and for a local tax in every district,
although the schools were partly maintained until 1869 by ‘rate
bills’ collected from the pupils. In accordance with the grant of two
townships of land by Congress in 1826 for a university, the first
legislature of the new state established the University of Michigan
(Fig. 42), and its doors were open to students in 1841. It soon became
the most prominent of the state universities. There was also provided
a system of ‘branches’ of the university, whereby a liberal grant was
made for an academy in any county that would furnish suitable buildings
and a sum equal to the appropriation from the state. As this proved
a dissipation of the university funds, it was gradually stopped, and
between 1852 and 1860 ‘union’ and high schools were rapidly developed
to supply the means of fitting for the university. In 1850 a state
normal school was founded, and four others have since been added.

[Sidenote: Rapidity of development and triumph of common school idea in
the West.]

In all the other territory acquired or purchased by the United States
in its westward expansion, the educational history has been very
similar to that in the first states of the Northwest. Progress in
common school sentiment has been made _pari passu_ with the settlement
of the country. Each state, upon admission, has received its sixteenth
section of school land and two townships for a university, and in
the states admitted since 1848 the endowment of schools has been
increased to two sections, while Texas, which had been an independent
republic (1836-1845), stipulated before becoming a state that it should
retain sole possession of its public lands, and has set aside for
education nearly two and one-half millions of acres. Hence in the first
constitution of each state, permanent school and university funds,
together with a regular organization of the schools of the state, have
generally been provided. In few cases have sectarian interests been
able to delay or injure the growth of common schools in any of the
later commonwealths, and the interpretation of public education as
schools for the children of paupers has never seriously influenced the
West.

[Sidenote: Awakening felt, but with approach of Civil War,]

[Sidenote: progress stopped, and facilities wrecked at close of the
war.]

=Organization of State Systems in the South.=--Thus through the
awakening of common schools that occurred throughout the union from
1835 to 1860 was the old-time country and city district school of
the North gradually lifted up to the present system of graded free
elementary, secondary, and normal schools, together with city and state
universities. But these results were not at first as fully realized in
the South, because of the approach and precipitation of the dreadful
internecine conflict that weighed down and finally prostrated the
resources of that section. However, except for this impending calamity,
the conditions in the South were not essentially different from those
in any other section. During the earlier years of the awakening, and in
some states up to the very verge of the Civil War, great progress in
public education was noticeable. The attendance in the common schools,
established in several states by ‘permissive’ legislation, had been
rapidly growing for a score of years, and there was an increasing body
of prominent men desirous of enlarging popular education. During the
early forties there were many efforts and suggestions for a system
of public schools, and several conventions were held in the interest
of such institutions. North Carolina actually established a state
system in 1839. Tennessee (1838-1843) and Kentucky (1838) made less
enduring efforts toward a similar organization, and as late as 1858
Georgia took a distinct step forward in this direction. Moreover, even
in their secession conventions some states, like Georgia, adopted
resolutions or constitutional amendments looking to the education of
the people, and North Carolina in 1863, with the union army actually
at its doors, undertook to grade the schools and provide for the
training of teachers. But, in general, as the impending conflict drew
near, attention to educational progress was forced to give way to the
preservation of state and home, and after the war, which crushed and
ravaged nearly every portion of the South, educational facilities had
for the most part been totally wrecked.

[Sidenote: Need of universal education realized and struggles to attain
it.]

Nevertheless, in the end the war served as a stimulus to common
schools. It brought about a complete overturn of the old social and
industrial order, and the South realized more fully than ever that
it could arise from its desperate material and educational plight
only through the institution of universal education. As early as
1865, school systems were organized in the border states,--Maryland,
Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia, and even during the harsh and
unhappy days of ‘reconstruction’ (1867-1876), efforts were made
in other states to build up systems of free public education. The
organization of education became more thorough and mandatory than
before the war. All children, white and colored, were to attend school
between six and twenty-one, and the term was to last from four to six
months each year. Property and poll taxation were established for
the support of the schools. A state superintendent and state board
of education, county commissioners and a county board, and trustees
in each district, were provided for. Text-book commissions were
often established, and free books were granted to poor children. The
foundation for a real system was thus laid.

[Sidenote: Obstacles that had to be overcome.]

[Sidenote: Peabody Educational Fund and other encouragement.]

This was a tremendous undertaking, and shows the greatest courage
and executive ability upon the part of the South. Property had been
diminished in valuation to the extent of nearly two billion dollars,
and there were two million children to be educated. Moreover, under the
reconstruction régime, the tax on property was often not collected, and
the appropriations for education remained on paper. Indifference and
inexperience were aggravated by the fear that ‘mixed’ schools would be
forced upon the white population by a reconstruction legislature or a
Congress with millennial zeal in behalf of universal brotherhood. These
obstacles, together with misdirected effort upon the part of Northern
missionaries, and other serious interferences, for fully a decade
constituted an enormous stumbling-block. Several factors, however,
aided and encouraged the South in its efforts. Of these the most
important was the foundation in 1867 of the Peabody Educational Fund
of $2,000,000, well characterized as “a gift to the suffering South
for the good of the Union.” This fund was placed in the management of
the wisest and most sympathetic agents, who appealed to the higher
sentiment of the communities and the states, and granted the assistance
necessary to stimulate local effort in education. When the fund proved
insufficient for the great task, the trustees pleaded with Congress for
an additional subsidy, and made the whole country aware of the crying
needs of education in the South. Through these appeals, more than ten
million dollars from various sources have since been granted to the
different grades of public education.

[Sidenote: Struggle won by 1890 and constant progress since.]

Despite the tremendous rally during the seventies, however, the
struggle for public education in the South was not won for twenty
years, but complete systems of common schools have now at length
been generally established. With the cessation of the reconstruction
influence and the subsidence of the dread of mixed schools, attendance
and appropriations have greatly increased, schools for the education
of colored children have been furnished, and provision has been made
for training and stimulating teachers of both races. Separate state
institutions for higher education, cultural and vocational, have been
established to furnish a broad education for both whites and negroes.
Since 1890 there has been an ever increasing interest in improving the
public school in all respects, and the expenditures and facilities for
education have been constantly increasing.

[Sidenote: Universal education, state support and control, high schools
replaced academies, colleges non-sectarian, and state universities
established.]

=Development of the American System of Education.=--With its final
development in the South during the last decade of the nineteenth
century, the distinctly American public school system may be said to
have been fully elaborated. The educational ideals and institutions
imported from Europe in the colonial period have gradually been
modified and adapted to the needs of America. Schools have become
public and free in the modern sense. The control of education has
passed from private parties and even quasi-public societies to the
state. The schools have likewise come to be supported by the state, and
are open to all children alike without the imposition of any financial
obligation. In secondary education, the academies, which supplanted the
‘grammar’ schools, first became ‘free academies’ and made no charge
for tuition from local patrons, though remaining close corporations,
and then were in time replaced by the true American secondary
institution,--the high school (Fig. 41). Colleges became largely
non-sectarian, even when not nominally so, and state universities were
organized in all except a few of the oldest commonwealths (Fig. 42).
Thus has the idea of common schools and the right to use the public
wealth to educate the entire body of children into sound American
citizenship been made complete. Although the system is still capable of
much improvement, it is expressive of American genius and development.
It is simply the American idea of government and society applied to
education. It is the educational will of the people expressed through
the majority, and the resultant of the highest thinking and aspirations
of a great nation made up of the most powerful and progressive elements
from all civilized peoples.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _In Modern Times_ (Macmillan, 1913), chaps. VI and VIII, and
_Great Educators_ (Macmillan, 1912), chap. XIII; Parker, _Modern
Elementary Education_ (Ginn, 1912), chap. XII. For the details of the
life and work of Mann in brief form, read Hinsdale, B. A., _Horace
Mann and the Common School Revival_ (Scribner, 1899), or the readable
little work on _Horace Mann the Educator_ (New England Publishing
Co., 1896) by Winship, A. E. Monroe, W. S., has briefly recounted
_The Educational Labors of Henry Barnard_ (Bardeen, Syracuse, 1893),
and a longer account of _Henry Barnard_ is that of Mayo, A. D., in
_Report of U. S. Commissioner of Education_, 1896-1897, vol. I, chap.
XVI. For the development of public education in the various parts of
the country during this third period, see Martin, G. H., _Evolution
of the Massachusetts Public School System_ (Appleton, 1894), lects.
IV-VI; Steiner, B. C., _History of Education in Connecticut_ (_U. S.
Bureau of Education, Circular of Information_, No. 2, 1893), chaps.
III-V; Stockwell, T. B., _History of Public Education in Rhode Island_
(Providence Press Co., Providence, 1876), chaps. VI-X; Randall, S.
S., _History of the Common School System of the State of New York_
(Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor, New York, 1871), third and fourth periods;
Wickersham, J. P., _History of Education in Pennsylvania_ (Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, 1886), chaps. XVII-XVIII; Mayo, A. D., _The Development
of the Common Schools in the Western States_ (_Report of the U. S.
Commissioner of Education_, 1898-99, vol. I, pp. 357-450); Boone, R.
G., _History of Education in Indiana_ (Appleton, 1892), chaps. IV
and VIII-XXXIII; Smith, W. L., _Historical Sketch of Education in
Michigan_ (Lansing, 1881), pp. 17-38, 49-57, and 78-109; Knight, E. W.,
_The Influence of Reconstruction on Education in the South_ (Columbia
University, _Teachers College Contributions_, No. 60, 1913) and _The
Peabody Fund and Its Early Operation in North Carolina_ (_South
Atlantic Quarterly_, vol. xiv, no. 2). Mayo, A. D., _Education in the
Several States_, _Education of the Colored Race_, and _The Slater Fund_
(_Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education_ 1894-95, XXX, XXXI,
and XXXII).

[Illustration:

Fig. 41.--The first high school. (This institution was established at
Boston in 1821 as the ‘English Classical School,’ and three years later
the name was changed to ‘English High School.’)]

[Illustration:

Fig. 42.--The University of Michigan in 1855. (The oldest picture of
the first prominent state university; established by the legislature in
1837, and opened in 1841.)]




CHAPTER XXIV

DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE


OUTLINE

    Of the two aspects to Pestalozzi’s educational positions, Froebel
    stressed development from within, and Herbart development from
    without.

    Through an early tutorial experience Herbart developed his
    pedagogy, but afterward invented an ingenious psychology upon
    which to base it. He undertook to show how the mind of the pupil
    is largely built up by the teacher, and he held to the moral
    aim of education. To accomplish this, he advocated ‘many-sided
    interest,’ and, while recognizing the value of both ‘historical’
    and ‘scientific’ subjects, emphasized the former. But he also held
    that all subjects should be unified through ‘correlation,’ and
    formulated the ‘formal steps of instruction.’ The value of his work
    has been obscured by the formal interpretations of disciples, but
    he contributed greatly to the science of education. Herbartianism,
    developed by Ziller and others, spread throughout Germany; through
    the Herbart Society, it has greatly influenced educational content
    and methods in the United States.

    Through his university environment, Froebel developed a mystic
    philosophy, but made it the basis of remarkable educational
    practices. He held to organic ‘unity’ in the universe, and to
    the general method of ‘self-activity.’ Besides this (1) ‘motor
    expression,’ he also stressed (2) ‘social participation,’ and
    attempted to realize both principles in (3) a school without books
    and set tasks,--the ‘kindergarten.’ The training here has consisted
    chiefly in ‘play-songs,’ ‘gifts,’ and ‘occupations.’ The chief
    weakness of Froebelianism is its mystic and symbolic theory, but
    it has comprehended the most essential laws of education at all
    stages. The kindergarten was spread through Europe largely by
    Baroness von Bülow, and through the United States by Elizabeth P.
    Peabody and others.

    Few tendencies in educational practices to-day cannot be traced
    back for their rudimentary form to Herbart and Froebel, or their
    master, Pestalozzi.

[Sidenote: Each saw in the master the principle that appealed to him.]

=Froebel and Herbart as Disciples of Pestalozzi.=--In the discussion
of observation and industrial training, we have noted the suggestions
for improvement in educational practice that arose through Pestalozzi.
While somewhat vague and based upon sympathetic insight rather than
scientific principles, the positions of Pestalozzi not only left
their direct influence upon the teaching of certain subjects in the
elementary curriculum, but became the basis of the elaborate systems of
Herbart and Froebel. These educators may be regarded as contemporary
disciples of the Swiss reformer, who was born a generation before, but
they continued his work along rather different lines. Each went to
visit Pestalozzi, and it would seem from their comments upon what they
saw that each found in the master the main principle which appealed
to him and which he afterward developed more or less consistently
throughout his work.

[Sidenote: Development from within and the child were emphasized by
Froebel;]

[Sidenote: development from without and methods, by Herbart.]

For there were two very definite aspects to Pestalozzi’s positions,
which may at first seem opposed to each other, but are not necessarily
contradictory. On the one hand, Pestalozzi seems to have held that
education should be a natural development from within; on the other,
that it must consist in the derivation of ideas from experience with
the outside world. The former point of view, which is apparent in
his educational aim and definition of education (see p. 285), would
logically argue that every characteristic is implicit in the child
at birth in the exact form to which it is afterward to be developed,
and that the teacher can at best only assist the child’s nature in the
efforts for its own unfolding. This attitude Pestalozzi apparently
borrowed from the psychology implied in Rousseau’s naturalism. The
other conception, that of education as sense perception, which is
evident in Pestalozzi’s observational methods (see p. 286), depends
upon the theory that immediate and direct impressions from the outside
are the absolute basis of all knowledge, and holds that the contents
of the mind must be entirely built up by the teacher. Some such naïve
interpretation has been common since speculation began, especially
among teachers, and had been formulated before Pestalozzi’s day by
Locke, Hume, and others. In the main, Froebel took the first of these
Pestalozzian viewpoints and rarely admitted the other, but the latter
phase was developed by Herbart to the almost total disregard of the
former. Hence we find that the one educator lays emphasis upon the
child’s development and activities, and the other concerns himself
with method and the work of the teacher. The original contributions of
both reformers to educational practice, however, were large, and are
deserving of extended description.

[Sidenote: Interest in philosophy, Greek, and mathematics.]

[Sidenote: Development of his pedagogy through tutorial experience.]

=The Early Career and Writings of Herbart.=--Johann Friedrich Herbart
(1776-1841) both by birth and by education possessed a remarkable mind,
and was well calculated to become a profound educational philosopher.
He came of intellectual and educated stock, and at the gymnasium
and university displayed a keen interest in philosophy, Greek, and
mathematics. Each of these subjects, too, was destined to play a part
in his educational theories. Just before graduation (1797), however,
Herbart left the university to become private tutor to the three sons
of the governor of Interlaken, Switzerland, and during the next three
years he obtained in this way a most valuable experience. The five
extant reports that he made on the methods he used and on his pupils’
progress reveal thus early the germs of his elaborate system. The
youthful pedagogue seems to have recognized the individual variations
in children, and to have shown a due regard for the respective
ages of his pupils. He also sought, by means of his favorite work,
the _Odyssey_, to develop in them the elements of morality and a
‘many-sided interest.’ This early experience, rather than his ingenious
system of psychology and metaphysics, which he afterward developed in
explanation, was the real foundation of his pedagogy, and furnished him
with the concrete examples of the characteristics and individualities
of children that appear in all his later works. He ever afterward
maintained that a careful study of the development of a few children
was the best preparation for a pedagogical career, and eventually made
an experience of this kind the main element in his training of teachers.

[Sidenote: Interpreted and supplemented Pestalozzi’s principles.]

[Sidenote: _The Science of Education._]

While still in Switzerland, Herbart met Pestalozzi and was greatly
attracted by the underlying principles of that reformer. He paid a
visit to the institute at Burgdorf in 1799, and during the next two
years, while at Bremen completing his interrupted university course,
he undertook to advocate and render more scientific the thought of the
Swiss educator. Here he wrote a sympathetic essay _On Pestalozzi’s
Latest Writing, ‘How Gertrude Teaches Her Children_,’ and made his
interpretation of _Pestalozzi’s Idea of an A B C of Observation_
(see p. 286). Next Herbart lectured on pedagogy at the University
of Göttingen. The treatises he wrote there seem to have become more
critical toward the Pestalozzian methods, and he no longer strives
to conceal their vagueness and want of system. Sense perception, he
holds with Pestalozzi, does supply the first elements of knowledge,
but the material of the school course should be definitely arranged
with reference to the general purpose of instruction, which is moral
self-realization. This position on the moral aim of education he
made especially explicit and complete in his work on _The Science of
Education_ (1806).

[Sidenote: Seminary and practice school.]

[Sidenote: _Outlines of Educational Doctrine._]

=His Work at Königsberg and Göttingen.=--In 1809 Herbart was called to
the chair of philosophy at Königsberg, and there established his now
historic pedagogical seminary and the small practice school connected
with it. The students, who taught in the practice school under the
supervision and criticism of the professor, were intending to become
school principals and inspectors, and, through the widespread work and
influence of these young Herbartians the educational system of Prussia
and of every other state in Germany was greatly advanced. In his
numerous publications at Königsberg, Herbart devoted himself chiefly
to works on a system of psychology as a basis for his pedagogy. After
serving nearly a quarter of a century here, he returned to Göttingen
as professor of philosophy, and the last eight years of his life were
spent in expanding his pedagogical positions. Here he issued the
first edition of his _Outlines of Educational Doctrine_ (1835), which
gives an exposition of his educational system when fully matured.
It contains brief references to his mechanical metaphysics and
psychology, but is a most practical and well-organized discussion of
the educational process.

[Sidenote: An after-thought.]

[Sidenote: Mind built up by outside world.]

[Sidenote: Genesis and combination of ideas.]

[Sidenote: ‘Apperception.’]

=Herbart’s Psychology.=--Herbart’s metaphysical psychology seems to
have been an after-thought developed to afford a basis for the method
of pedagogical procedure that he had worked out of his tutorial
experience and his acquaintance with the Pestalozzian practice. But
some explanation of this elaborate psychology may serve to make clearer
his educational principles. For the most part he holds that the mind
is built up by the outside world, and he is generally supposed to have
left no place for instincts or innate characteristics and tendencies.
With him the simplest elements of consciousness are ‘ideas,’ which
are atoms of mind stuff thrown off from the soul in endeavoring to
maintain itself against external stimuli. Once produced by this
contact of the soul with its environment, the ideas become existences
with their own dynamic force, and constantly strive to preserve
themselves. They struggle to attain as nearly as possible to the summit
of consciousness, and each idea tends to draw into consciousness or
heighten those allied to it, and to depress or force out those which
are unlike. Each new idea or group of ideas is heightened, modified,
or rejected, according to its degree of harmony or conflict with
the previously existing ideas. In other words, all new ideas are
interpreted through those already in consciousness. In accordance
with this principle, which Herbart called ‘apperception,’ the teacher
can secure interest and the attention of the pupil to any new idea or
set of ideas and have him retain it, only through making use of his
previous body of related knowledge. Hence the educational problem
becomes how to present new material in such a way that it can be
‘apperceived’ or incorporated with the old, and the mind of the pupil
is largely in the hands of the teacher, since he can make or modify his
‘apperception masses,’ or systems of ideas.

[Sidenote: Attainment of character as aim.]

[Sidenote: ‘Many-sided interest.’]

=The Aim, Content, and Method of Education.=--Accordingly, Herbart
holds that the purpose of education should be to establish moral and
religious character. He believes that this final aim can be attained
through instruction, and that, to determine how this shall furnish
a ‘moral revelation of the world,’ a careful study must be made of
each pupil’s thought masses, temperament, and mental capacity. There
is not much likelihood of the pupil’s receiving ideas of virtue that
will develop into glowing ideals of conduct when his studies do not
appeal to his thought systems and are consequently regarded with
indifference and aversion. They must coalesce with the ideas he already
has, and thus touch his life. But Herbart does not limit ‘interest’ to
a temporary stimulus for the performance of certain school tasks; he
advocates the building up by education of certain broad interests that
may become permanent sources of appeal in life. Instruction must be
so selected and arranged as not only to relate itself to the previous
experience of the pupil, but as also to reveal and establish all the
relations of life and conduct in their fullness.

[Sidenote: ‘Knowledge’ and ‘participation’ interests.]

[Sidenote: ‘Historical’ and ‘scientific’ subjects.]

In analyzing this ‘many-sided interest,’ Herbart holds that ideas and
interests spring from two main sources,--‘experience,’ which furnishes
us with a knowledge of nature, and ‘social intercourse,’ from which
come the sentiments toward our fellowmen. Interests may, therefore, be
classed as belonging to (1) ‘knowledge’ or to (2) ‘participation.’
These two sets of interests, in turn, Herbart divides into three
groups each. He classed the ‘knowledge’ interests as (a) ‘empirical,’
appealing directly to the senses; (b) ‘speculative,’ seeking to
perceive the relations of cause and effect; and (c) ‘æsthetic,’ resting
upon the enjoyment of contemplation. The ‘participation’ interests
are divided into (a) ‘sympathetic,’ dealing with relations to other
individuals; (b) ‘social,’ including the community as a whole; and (c)
‘religious,’ treating one’s relations to the Divine. Instruction must,
therefore, develop all these interests, and, to correspond with the two
main groups, Herbart divides all studies into two branches,--the (1)
‘historical,’ including history, literature, and languages; and the (2)
‘scientific,’ embracing mathematics, as well as the natural sciences.
Although recognizing the value of both groups, Herbart especially
stressed the ‘historical,’ on the ground that history and literature
are of greater importance as the sources of moral ideas and sentiments.

[Sidenote: ‘Correlation’ and ‘concentration.’]

[Sidenote: ‘Culture epochs.’]

But, while all the subjects, ‘historical’ and ‘scientific,’ are
needed for a ‘many-sided interest,’ and the various studies have for
convenience been separated and classified by themselves, Herbart holds
that they must be so arranged in the curriculum as to become unified
and an organic whole, if the unity of the pupil’s consciousness is to
be maintained. This position forecasts the emphasis upon ‘correlation,’
or the unification of studies, so common among his followers. The
principle was further developed by later Herbartians under the name
of ‘concentration,’ or the unifying of all subjects around one or
two common central studies, such as literature or history. But the
selection and articulation of the subject-matter in such a way as to
arouse many-sidedness and harmony is not more than hinted at by Herbart
himself. He specifically holds, however, that the _Odyssey_ should be
the first work read, since this represents the interests and activities
of the race while in its youth, and would appeal to the individual
during the same stage. He would follow this with other Greek classics
in the order of the growing complexity of racial interests depicted in
them. This tentative endeavor of Herbart, in the selection of material
for the course of study, to parallel the development of the individual
with that of the race, was continued and enlarged by his disciples. It
became especially definite and fixed in the ‘culture epochs’ theory
formulated by Ziller and others.

[Sidenote: Four steps in Herbart’s method of instruction.]

[Sidenote: ‘Five formal steps.’]

But to secure this broad range of material and to unify and systematize
it, Herbart realized that it was necessary to formulate a definite
method of instructing the child. This plan of instruction he wished to
conform to the development and working of the human mind, and on the
basis of what he conceived this activity to be, he mapped out a method
with four logical steps: (1) ‘clearness,’ the presentation of facts
or elements to be learned; (2) ‘association,’ the uniting of these
with related facts previously acquired; (3) ‘system,’ the coherent and
logical arrangement of what has been associated; and (4) ‘method,’
the practical application of the system by the pupil to new data. The
formulation of this method was made only in principle by Herbart, but
it has since been largely modified and developed by his followers.
It was soon felt that, on the principle of ‘apperception,’ the pupil
must first be made conscious of the existing stock of ideas so far as
they are similar to the material to be presented, and that this can
be accomplished by a review of preceding lessons or by an outline of
what is to be undertaken, or by both procedures. Hence Herbart’s noted
disciple, Ziller, divided the step of ‘clearness’ into ‘preparation’
and ‘presentation,’ and the more recent Herbartian, Rein, added ‘aim’
as a substep to ‘preparation.’ The names of the other three processes
have been changed for the sake of greater lucidity and significance by
still later Herbartians, and the ‘five formal steps of instruction’ are
now given as (1) ‘preparation,’ (2) ‘presentation,’ (3) ‘comparison and
abstraction,’ (4) ‘generalization,’ and (5) ‘application.’

[Sidenote: Clarified Pestalozzi’s vague principle of ‘observation’
through an ingenious psychology,]

[Sidenote: and made Pestalozzi’s emphasis on the physical world a
stepping-stone to history and literature.]

=The Value and Influence of Herbart’s Principles.=--On all sides,
then, as compared with Pestalozzi, Herbart was most logical and
comprehensive. Where Pestalozzi obtained his methods solely from a
sympathetic insight into the child mind, Herbart sought to found
his also upon scientific principles. The former was primarily
a philanthropist and reformer; the latter, a psychologist and
educationalist. Pestalozzi succeeded in arousing Europe to the need of
universal education and of vitalizing the prevailing formalism in the
schools, but he was unable with his vague and unsystematic utterances
to give guidance and efficiency to the reform forces he had initiated.
While he felt the need of beginning with sense perception for the sake
of clear ideas, he had neither the time nor the training to construct
a psychology beyond the traditional one of the times, nor to analyze
the way in which the material gained by observation is assimilated.
Herbart, on the other hand, did create a system of psychology that,
while fanciful and mechanical, worked well as a basis for educational
theory and practice. In keeping with this psychology, he undertook
to show how the ideas, which were the product of the Pestalozzian
‘observation,’ were assimilated through ‘apperception,’ and maintained
the possibility of making all material tend toward moral development.
This, he held, could be accomplished by use of proper courses and
methods. In determining the subjects to be selected and articulated,
he considered Pestalozzi’s emphasis upon the study of the physical
world to be merely a stepping-stone to his own ‘moral revelation of
the world.’ While the former educator made arithmetic, geography,
natural science, reading, form study, drawing, writing, and music the
object of his consideration, and is indirectly responsible for the
modern reforms in teaching these subjects, Herbart preferred to stress
history, languages, and literature, and, through his followers, brought
about improved methods in their presentation. He also first undertook a
careful analysis of the successive steps in all instruction, and by his
methodical principles did much to introduce order and system into the
work of the classroom, although it is now known that his conception of
the way in which the human mind works is hardly tenable.

[Sidenote: Formalization of followers,]

[Sidenote: but Herbart more sane and flexible.]

A great drawback to the Herbartian doctrines is found in their
formalization and exaggeration. For these tendencies his enthusiastic
and literal-minded followers, rather than Herbart himself, have
probably been to blame. He was himself too keen an observer to allow
his doctrines to go upon all fours. He is ordinarily credited by
Herbartians with a psychology that takes no account of the innate
characteristics of each mind, and holds that the mind is entirely
built up by impressions from the outside, but, while this is his main
position, he occasionally recognizes that there must be certain native
predispositions in the body which influence the soul in one direction
or another. This limitation of complete plasticity by the pupil’s
individuality, and of the consequent influence of the teacher, causes
him to perceive that “in order to gain an adequate knowledge of each
pupil’s capacity for education, observation is necessary--observation
both of his thought masses and of his physical nature.” Again, while
Herbart holds that every subject should, if possible, be presented
in an attractive, interesting, and ‘almost playlike’ way, he does
not justify that ‘sugar-coated interest’ which has so often put
Herbartianism in bad odor. “A view that regards the end as a necessary
evil to be rendered endurable by means of sweetmeats,” says he,
“implies an utter confusion of ideas; and if pupils are not given
serious tasks to perform, they will not find out what they are able
to do.” Often, he realizes, “even the best method cannot secure an
adequate degree of apperceiving attention from every pupil, and
recourse must accordingly be had to the voluntary attention, i. e.,
to the pupil’s resolution.” Moreover, ‘correlation’ between different
subjects, as well as between principles within the same subject,
was advocated by Herbart, but he felt that the attempt to make such
ramifications should not be unlimited. Further, while Herbart made
some effort in shaping the course of study to parallel the development
of the individual with that of the race, it was Ziller that erected
this procedure into a hard and fast theory of ‘culture epochs.’ But
most common of all has been the tendency of his disciples to pervert
his attempt to bring about due sequence and arrangement into an
inflexible _schema_ in the recitation, and to make the formal steps
an end rather than a means. Whereas, there is reason to believe that
Herbart never intended that all these steps should be carried out in
every recitation, but felt that they applied to the organization of
any subject as a whole, and that years might even elapse between the
various steps.

[Sidenote: Ziller greatly developed and popularized.]

=The Extension of His Doctrines in Germany.=--At first the doctrines of
Herbart were little known, but a quarter of a century after his death
there sprang up two flourishing contemporary schools of Herbartianism.
In its application of Herbart’s theory, the school of Stoy for the
most part held closely to the original form; but that headed by Ziller
departed further and gave it a more extreme interpretation. Tuiskon
Ziller (1817-1882), both as teacher in a gymnasium and as professor at
Leipzig, did much to popularize and develop Herbart’s system. Through
him was formed the Herbartian society known as the ‘Association for
the Scientific Study of Education,’ which has since spread throughout
Germany. He it was that elaborated the doctrines of ‘correlation’ and
‘concentration,’ and first definitely formulated the ‘culture epochs’
theory. “Every pupil should,” he writes, “pass successively through
each of the chief epochs of the general mental development of mankind
suitable to his stage of development. The material of instruction,
therefore, should be drawn from the thought material of that stage of
historical development in culture, which runs parallel with the present
mental stage of the pupil.” All these principles Ziller worked out in
a curriculum for the eight years of the elementary school, which he
centered around fairy tales, _Robinson Crusoe_, and selections from
the _Old_ and _New Testaments_. He, moreover, developed Herbart’s
‘formal stages of instruction’ by dividing the first step and changing
the name of the last.

[Sidenote: Stoy’s practice school at Jena,]

[Sidenote: continued by Rein.]

[Sidenote: Lange and Frick.]

Karl Volkmar Stoy (1815-1885), the founder of the other school, gave
himself simply to a forceful restatement of the master’s positions,
but also established a most influential pedagogical seminary and
practice school upon the original Herbartian basis at Jena. And eleven
years later, Wilhelm Rein (1847- ), who had been a pupil of both Stoy
and Ziller, succeeded the former in the direction of the practice
school, and introduced there the elaborate development that had taken
place since Herbart’s time. He adopted Ziller’s ‘concentration,’
‘culture epochs,’ and other features, but made them a little more
elastic by coördinating other material with the ‘historical’ center
in the curriculum. Through him Jena became known as the great seat of
Herbartianism. Other Germans to develop the principles of Herbart have
been Lange and Frick. The _Apperception_ of Karl Lange is an excellent
combination of scientific insight and popular presentation. Otto Frick,
director of the ‘Francke Institutions’ at Halle (see p. 176), inclining
more to the close interpretation of Stoy, devoted himself to applying
Herbartianism to the secondary schools, and outlined a course for the
gymnasium.

[Sidenote: In Germany content and methods of education were greatly
modified.]

[Sidenote: Prominence given to history and literature.]

A throng of other German schoolmasters and professors have further
adapted the doctrines of Herbart to school practice, and while their
theories differ very largely from one another, from their common basis
they are all properly designated ‘Herbartian.’ As a result of this
continuous propaganda, the content and methods of the school curricula
in Germany have been largely modified. Herbart’s emphasis upon the
importance to the secondary schools of literary and historical studies
as a moral training has been adapted to the elementary schools by the
later Herbartians in the form of story and biographical material.
History has consequently attained a more prominent place in the
curriculum, and is no longer auxiliary to reading and geography. It is
regarded as a means of moral development, and the cultural features in
the history of the German people are stressed more than the political.
Ziller’s plan for concentrating all studies about a core of history
and literature, on the ground of thus producing ‘a moral revelation
of the world’ for the pupil, is in evidence everywhere. A twofold
course,--Jewish history through Bible stories, and German history in
the form of legends and tales, appears in every grade of the elementary
school after the first two, and even in these lower classes there is
some attempt to utilize literature as a moral training through the
medium of fairy stories, fables, moral tales, _Robinson Crusoe_, and
the various stories of the philanthropinists (see p. 225).

[Sidenote: American teachers who studied at Jena introduced
Herbartianism into the United States.]

[Sidenote: Northern Illinois the center.]

[Sidenote: The Herbart Society and its _Year Book_.]

=Herbartianism in the United States.=--Next to the land of its birth,
the United States has been more influenced by Herbartianism than any
other country. Before 1880 there were but few notices of Herbartianism
in American educational literature, and not many appeared during
the following decade. The movement was fostered largely by American
teachers that were studying with Rein at Jena during the last two
decades of the century. Before 1890 nine Americans had taken their
degree there, and by the twentieth century more than fifty. These
young men came back filled with the enthusiastic belief that Herbartian
principles could supply a solution in systematic form for the many
complicated problems with which American education was then grappling,
and began at once to propagate their faith. The movement centered
chiefly in northern Illinois and was especially strong in the normal
schools. The staff of the State Normal University at this time included
Charles DeGarmo, afterward professor of Education at Cornell, Frank
M. McMurry, now of the Teachers College, Columbia University, and his
brother, Charles A. McMurry, now of the faculty of the George Peabody
College for Teachers; and the practice school at the Normal University
was the first to be established upon Herbartian principles. The
Schoolmasters’ Club of Illinois gave much of its time to a discussion
of Herbartian principles, and the first Herbartian literature in
the United States was rapidly produced. During the last decade of
the century there appeared large numbers of articles, textbooks,
treatises, and translations, including _The Method of the Recitation_
and a variety of other works upon general and special methods by the
McMurrys. In 1892 The Herbart Club was founded to promote a study of
Herbartian principles and adapt them to American conditions, and during
the first three years it spent its efforts in translating the words of
Herbart and in discussing Herbartian topics only. In 1895 the name of
the club was changed to the Herbart Society for the Scientific Study
of Education, many non-Herbartians were admitted, the scope of the
discussions was enlarged, and the publication of a _Year Book_ was
begun.

[Sidenote: Opposition,]

[Sidenote: but growth of the movement.]

[Sidenote: Herbartian features adopted by others.]

Then began the period of criticism and the formulation of American
Herbartianism. The movement was vigorously opposed by many on the
ground that it was a foreign importation, was based upon absurd
metaphysical presuppositions, or contained nothing new, but the
disciples of Herbart stood valiantly by their guns. Although not
always certain in their own minds, they endeavored to clear up
all misunderstanding and confusion in the doctrines and to keep
them practical through developing them in connection with actual
experiments in teaching. They showed that the fanciful psychology of
Herbart did not hold a determining place in his educational thought,
and that it might be rejected, without affecting the merit of his
pedagogy. One by one the doctrines were introduced in the order of
their concreteness,--five formal steps, apperception, concentration,
interest--and little attempt was made to weave them into a single
system. The critical season did not long endure, and the movement soon
spread widely. By the close of the first year the Herbart Society
had a membership of seven hundred, and the Herbartian principles
were everywhere studied by local clubs and taught in schools and
universities. In the report of the United States Commissioner of
Education for 1894-1895, Dr. Harris stated: “There are at present
more adherents of Herbart in the United States than in Germany.”
This, he believed, was due to the greater freedom of discussion that
was allowed. The movement not only became an educational awakening,
but it attained almost to the proportions of a cult. Moreover, many
who hardly considered themselves Herbartians undertook to modify
and adapt the Herbartian principles, especially ‘correlation’ and
‘concentration.’ Francis W. Parker of Chicago, for example, among the
phases of his educational practice (cf. pp. 293 and 364), approached
concentration so closely as to center the entire course of study around
a hierarchy of natural and social sciences. And the Committees of Ten
and Fifteen, appointed by the National Education Association to report
upon secondary and elementary education respectively, showed a strong
Herbartian influence in their recommendations of correlation.

[Sidenote: Amount of history increased in American schools,]

[Sidenote: and wide survey of literature encouraged.]

Largely in consequence of the development of Herbartianism, an
increased amount and larger utilization of historical material became
general also in American elementary schools. A wide appreciation of the
growth of morality, culture, and social life, rather than merely the
development of patriotism, became the object in studying this subject.
English and German history, as well as American, which alone was
formerly taught, and sometimes Greek, Roman, and Norse, appear in the
curricula of many elementary schools, and, instead of being confined
to the two upper classes, historical material is often presented from
the third grade up. Biographical and historical stories are largely
employed in the lower classes, while in the upper some attempt is
made to use European history as a setting for American. A similar
development in the amount and use of literature also has appeared
in the course of the elementary schools, partly as a result of the
Herbartian influence. Instead of brief selections from the English and
American writers, or the poorer material that formerly appeared in the
school readers, complete works of literature have begun to be studied
in the elementary curriculum, and a wide and rapid survey of the great
English classics has been encouraged in the place of merely reading
for the sake of oral expression. Even in the lowest grades some attempt
to introduce the classics of childhood has been made.

While in these ways all elementary, and to some extent secondary,
schools have been affected, Herbartianism pure and simple has largely
been abandoned for less dogmatic methods. Even the Herbart Society
has ceased to foster a propaganda, and has since 1901 dropped the
first part of its name and been known as ‘The National Society for the
Scientific Study of Education.’ The later works of DeGarmo and Frank M.
McMurry claim to be quite emancipated from Herbartianism. But, although
professed Herbartians are now almost unknown in the United States, no
other system of pedagogy, except that of Pestalozzi, has ever had so
wide an influence upon American education and upon the thought and
practice of teachers generally.

[Sidenote: Search for ‘unity’ developed through idealism, romanticism,
and ‘nature philosophy’ at Jena.]

=Froebel’s Early Life.=--Let us now turn to Froebel, the other great
successor of Pestalozzi, and to his development and extension of the
master’s principle of ‘natural development.’ Friedrich Wilhelm August
Froebel (1782-1852) was born in a village of the Thüringian forest.
He tells us that this environment started within him a search for the
mystic unity that he believed to exist amid the various phenomena of
nature, but it is more likely that this attitude was developed through
a brief residence (1799-1800) at the University of Jena. The atmosphere
about this institution was charged with the idealistic philosophy, the
romantic movement, and the evolutionary attitude in science. Froebel
could not have escaped the constant discussions upon the philosophy of
Fichte and Schelling. He must likewise have fallen under the spell
of the Jena romanticists,--the Schlegels, Tieck, and Novalis. The
advanced attitude in science at Jena may also have impressed the youth.
While much of the science instruction failed to make clear that inner
relation and mystic unity for which he sought, he must occasionally
have caught glimpses of it in the lectures of professors belonging to
the school of _Natur-philosophie_.

[Sidenote: Adoption of teaching.]

[Sidenote: Study with Pestalozzi.]

[Sidenote: Crystallization of law of ‘unity.’]

=His Experiences at Frankfort, Yverdon, and Berlin.=--After leaving the
university, Froebel was for four years groping for a niche in life. But
he eventually (1805) met Anton Grüner, head of a Pestalozzian model
school at Frankfort, who persuaded him of his fitness for teaching and
gave him a position in the institution. Here he undertook a systematic
study of Pestalozzianism, and, through the use of modeling in paper,
pasteboard, and wood with his pupils, he came to see the value of
motor expression as a means of education. He then withdrew to Yverdon
and worked with Pestalozzi himself for two years (1808-1810). There
he greatly increased his knowledge of the play and development of
children, music, and nature study, which were to play so important a
part in his methods. Next, he went to the University of Berlin to study
mineralogy with Professor Weiss, and through the work there he finally
crystallized his mystic law of ‘unity.’ He became fully “convinced of
the demonstrable connection in all cosmic development,” and declared
that “thereafter my rocks and crystals served me as a mirror wherein I
might discern mankind, and man’s development and history.”

[Sidenote: Self-expression through play and practical work.]

[Sidenote: _Education of Man._]

=The School at Keilhau.=--While at Berlin, he met his lifelong
assistants, Langethal and Middendorf, and took them with him when he
undertook the education of his five young nephews at Keilhau. Here
he founded (1816) ‘The Universal German Institute of Education,’ in
which self-expression, free development, and social participation were
ruling principles. Much of the training was obtained through play,
and, except that the pupils were older, the germ of the kindergarten
was already present. There was much practical work in the open air,
in the garden about the schoolhouse, and in the building itself. The
children built dams and mills, fortresses and castles, and searched
the woods for animals, birds, insects, and flowers. To popularize the
institute, Froebel published a complete account of the theory practiced
at Keilhau in his famous _Education of Man_ (1826). While this work is
compressed, repetitious, and vague, and its doctrines had afterward to
be corrected by experience, it contains the most systematic statement
of his educational philosophy that Froebel ever made.

[Sidenote: In Switzerland he began to devise playthings, games, and
songs.]

[Sidenote: First kindergarten at Blankenburg.]

[Sidenote: Later works.]

=Development of the Kindergarten.=--But the school at Keilhau was
too radical for the times, and soon found itself in serious straits.
Froebel then went to Switzerland, and for five years (1832-1837)
continued his educational experiments in various locations there.
While conducting a model school at Burgdorf, it became obvious to
him that “all school education was yet without a proper initial
foundation, and that, until the education of the nursery was reformed,
nothing solid and worthy could be attained.” The _School of Infancy_
of Comenius (see p. 171) had been called to his attention, and the
educational importance of play had come to appeal to him more strongly
than ever. He began to study and devise playthings, games, songs, and
bodily movements that would be of value in the development of small
children, although at first he did not organize his materials into a
system. Then, two years later, he returned to Germany, and established
a school for children between the ages of three and seven. This
institution was located at Blankenburg, two miles from Keilhau, one
of the most romantic spots in the Thüringian Forest, and was, before
long, appropriately christened ‘Kindergarten’ (i. e., garden in which
children are the unfolding plants). Here he put into use the material
he had invented in Switzerland, added new devices, and developed his
system. The main features of this were the ‘play songs’ for mother
and child and the series of ‘gifts’ and ‘occupations’ (see pp. 358
f.). During his seven years in Blankenburg, he constantly expanded
his material, and the accounts of these additions have been collected
in the works known generally as _Pedagogics of the Kindergarten_,
_Education by Development_, and _Mother Play and Nursery Songs_.

[Sidenote: Final work at Liebenstein, and the Baroness von Bülow.]

While the kindergarten attracted considerable attention, Froebel’s want
of financial ability eventually compelled him to close the institution.
After lecturing with much success for five years upon his system, he
settled for the rest of his life near the famous mineral springs at
Liebenstein in Saxe-Meiningen. During this period he obtained the
friendship and support of the Baroness von Marenholtz-Bülow, who
brought a large number of people of distinction in the political
and educational world to see his work in operation, and wrote most
interesting _Reminiscences_ of Froebel’s activities during the last
thirteen years of his life. But owing to a confusion of his principles
with the socialistic doctrines of his nephew, Karl, a decree was
promulgated in Prussia by the minister of education, closing all
kindergartens there. Froebel never recovered from this unjust
humiliation, and died within a year.

[Sidenote: Developed from Pestalozzi and even Rousseau,]

[Sidenote: but largely a resultant of his university environment.]

[Sidenote: Reiterations and subsidiary concepts.]

=Froebel’s Fundamental Concept of ‘Unity.’=--While Froebel’s underlying
principles go back to the developmental aspect of Pestalozzi’s
doctrines and even to Rousseau’s naturalism, his conception of them,
his imagery, and statement, seem to be a product of the idealistic
philosophy, romantic movement, and scientific attitude of the day.
These tendencies seem to have been assimilated by Froebel largely
through his residence in Jena and Berlin. His conclusions as to
educational theory and practice would have been possible as inferences
from a very different point of view, but as he developed them logically
and consistently with his metaphysical position, it may be of value
to consider briefly the groundwork of the Froebelian philosophy. He
regarded the ‘Absolute,’ or God, as the self-conscious spirit from
which originated both man and nature, and he consequently held to
the unity of nature with the soul of man. His fundamental view of
this organic unity appears in his general conception of the universe:
“In all things,” says he, “there lives and reigns an eternal law.
This all-controlling law is necessarily based on an all-pervading,
energetic, living, self-conscious, and hence eternal Unity. This Unity
is God. All things have come from the Divine Unity, from God, and
have their origin in the Divine Unity, in God alone. All things live
and have their being in and through the Divine Unity, in and through
God. The divine effluence that lives in each thing is the essence of
each thing.” This fundamental mystic principle Froebel constantly
reiterates in various forms, and from it derives a number of subsidiary
conceptions. These, however, play but a small part in his actual
practice, and scarcely require consideration here.

[Sidenote: Education should be ‘following.’]

[Sidenote: ‘Self-activity.’]

[Sidenote: ‘Creativeness.’]

=Motor Expression as His Method.=--But Froebel also holds that, “while
in every human being there lives humanity as a whole, in each one it
is realized and expressed in a wholly particular, peculiar, personal,
and unique manner.” Thus he maintains that there is in every person at
birth a coördinated, unified plan of his mature character, and that,
if it is not marred or interfered with, it will develop naturally of
itself. While he is not entirely consistent, and at times implies
that this natural development must be guided and even shaped, in
the main he reiterates Rousseau’s doctrine that ‘nature is right,’
and clearly stands for a full and free expression of the instincts
and impulses. Hence he insists that “education in instruction and
training should necessarily be _passive, following; not prescriptive,
categorical, interfering_.” But in his conclusion as to the proper
method for accomplishing this ‘development,’ Froebel naturally holds
that it “should be brought about not in the way of dead imitation or
mere copying, but in the way of living, spontaneous self-activity.” By
this principle of ‘self-activity’ as the method of education Froebel
seeks not simply activity in response to suggestion or instruction
from parents or teachers, but activity of the child in carrying out
his own impulses and decisions. Individuality must be developed by
such activity, and self-hood given its rightful place as the guide to
the child’s powers when exercised in learning. Hence with this idea
of development through ‘self-activity’ is connected his principle
of ‘creativeness,’ by which new forms and combinations are made
and expression is given to new images and ideas. “Plastic material
representation in life and through doing, united with thought and
speech,” he declares, “is by far more developing and cultivating than
the merely verbal representation of ideas.”

[Sidenote: Self-realization through social participation.]

[Sidenote: Coöperative in text]

activities in play.]

=The Social Aspect of Education.=--His emphasis upon this psychological
principle of motor expression under the head of ‘self-activity’ and
‘creativeness’ is the chief characteristic of Froebel’s method.
Rousseau had also recommended motor activity as a means of learning,
but he had insisted upon an isolated and unsocial education for
Emile, whereas Froebel stresses the social aspects of education quite
as clearly as he does the principle of self-expression. In fact, he
holds that increasing self-realization, or individualization through
‘self-activity,’ must come through a process of socialization. The
social instinct is primal, and the individual can be truly educated
only in the company of other human beings. The life of the individual
is necessarily bound up with participation in institutional life. Each
one of the various institutions of society in which the mentality of
the race has manifested itself--the home, the school, the church,
the vocation, the state--becomes a medium for the activity of the
individual, and at the same time a means of social control. As far
as the child enters into the surrounding life, he is to receive the
development needed for the present, and thereby also to be prepared for
the future. Through imitation of coöperative activities in play, he
obtains not only physical, but intellectual and moral training. Such
a moral and intellectual atmosphere Froebel sought to cultivate at
Keilhau by coöperation in domestic labor,--‘lifting, pulling, carrying,
digging, splitting,’ and through coöperative construction out of blocks
of a chapel, castle, and other features of a village. Similarly,
the kindergarten was intended to “represent a _miniature state_ for
children, in which the young citizen can learn to move freely, but with
consideration for his little fellows.”

[Sidenote: A school without books or set tasks as his third
contribution.]

=The Kindergarten.=--Beside his basal principles of motor expression
and social participation, Froebel made a third contribution to
educational practice in advocating as a means of realizing these
principles a school without books or set intellectual tasks,
and permeated with play, freedom, and joy. In the kindergarten,
‘self-activity’ and ‘creativeness,’ together with social coöperation,
found complete application and concrete expression. The training there
has always consisted of three coördinate forms of expression: (1) song,
(2) movement and gesture, and (3) construction; and mingled with these
and growing out of each is the use of language by the child. But these
means, while separate, often coöperate with and interpret one another,
and the process is connected as an organic whole. For example, when the
story is told or read, it is expressed in song, dramatized in movement
and gesture, and illustrated by a construction from blocks, paper,
clay, or other material.

[Sidenote: _Mother Play._]

The _Mother Play and Nursery Songs_ were intended to exercise the
infant’s senses, limbs, and muscles, and, through the loving union
between mother and child, draw both into intelligent and agreeable
relations with the common objects of life about them. The fifty
‘play songs’ are each connected with some simple nursery game, like
‘pat-a-cake,’ ‘hide-and-seek,’ or the imitation of some trade (Fig.
43), and are intended to correspond to a special physical, mental, or
moral need of the child. The selection and order of the songs were
determined with reference to the child’s development, which ranges from
almost reflex and instinctive movements up to an ability to represent
his perceptions with drawings, accompanied by considerable growth of
the moral sense. Each song contains three parts: (1) a motto for the
guidance of the mother; (2) a verse with the accompanying music, to
sing to the child; and (3) a picture illustrating the verse.

[Sidenote: ‘Gifts,’--]

[Sidenote: first,]

[Sidenote: second,]

[Sidenote: third,]

[Sidenote: and the other three,]

[Sidenote: and ‘occupations.’]

The ‘gifts’ and ‘occupations’ were both intended to stimulate
motor expression, but the ‘gifts’ combine and rearrange certain
definite material without changing the form, while the ‘occupations’
reshape, modify, and transform their material. The emphasis in
kindergarten practice has come to be transferred from the ‘gifts’ to
the ‘occupations,’ which have been largely increased in range and
number. Of the ‘gifts,’ the first consists of a box of six woolen
balls of different colors. They are to be rolled about in play, and
thus develop ideas of color, material, form, motion, direction, and
muscular sensibility. A sphere, cube, and cylinder of hard wood compose
the second ‘gift.’ Here, therefore, are found a known factor in the
sphere and an unknown one in the cube. A comparison is made of the
stability of the cube with the movability of the sphere, and the two
are harmonized in the cylinder, which possesses the characteristics
of each. The third ‘gift’ is a large wooden cube divided into eight
equal cubes, thus teaching the relations of the parts to the whole and
to one another, and making possible original constructions, such as
armchairs, benches, thrones, doorways, monuments, or steps. The three
following ‘gifts’ divide the cube in various ways so as to produce
solid bodies of different types and sizes, and excite an interest in
number, relation, and form. From them the children are encouraged
to construct geometrical figures and ‘forms of beauty’ or artistic
designs. Beside the six regular ‘gifts,’ he also added ‘tablets,’
‘sticks,’ and ‘rings,’ sometimes known as ‘gifts seven to nine.’ This
material introduces surfaces, lines, and points in contrast with the
preceding solids, and brings out the relations of area, outline,
and circumference to volume. The ‘occupations’ comprise a long list
of constructions with paper, sand, clay, wood, and other materials.
Corresponding with the ‘gifts’ that deal with solids, may be grouped
‘occupations’ in clay modeling, cardboard cutting, paper folding, and
wood carving; and with those of surfaces may be associated mat and
paper weaving, stick shaping, sewing, bead threading, paper pricking,
and drawing.

[Sidenote: Superficial faults,]

[Sidenote: bondage to local ideals,]

[Sidenote: and formal discipline.]

=The Value and Influence of Froebel’s Principles.=--For one pursuing
destructive criticism only, it would not be difficult to find flaws
in both the theory and practice of Froebel. In the _Mother Play_ the
pictures are rough and poorly drawn, the music is crude, and the verses
are lacking in rhythm, poetic spirit, and diction (Fig. 43). But the
illustrations and songs served well the interests and needs of those
for whom they were produced, and Froebel himself was not insistent
that they should be used after more satisfactory compositions were
found. Other criticism of his material has been made on the ground
that it was especially adapted to German ideals, German children,
and the relatively simple village life of Froebel’s experience, and
that it needs considerable modification to suit other countries and
the industrial organization of society to-day. Also the argument of
‘formal discipline’ for care and accuracy in the use of the gifts,
and the insistence upon the employment of every part of each gift
upon all occasions in the exact order mentioned by Froebel, have been
shown to violate the principles of modern psychology. His more liberal
disciples, however, realize that it is the spirit of his underlying
principles, and not the letter of his practice, that should be
followed, and have constantly struggled to keep the kindergarten matter
and methods in harmony with the times and the environment.


Der Zimmermann.

    Seht mir nur den Zimmermann,
    Welch’ seltne Kunst er üben kann:
    Was steht, bringt er zum Sturz;
    Was lang ist, macht er kurz;
    Das Runde macht er grad;
    Das Rauhe macht er glatt;
    Was krumm ist, macht er gleich;
    So ist an Kunst er reich.
      Das Einzle nicht ihm g’nügt,
    Zum Ganzen schnell er ’s fügt;
    Doch, was kommt da heraus?--
    Aus Balken wird ein Haus!
    Ein Haus für ‘s gute Kind,
    Daß es d’rin Eltern find’,
    Die sorgsam es bewahren
    Vor Seel’- und Leib’sgefahren.
      Den Zimmermann das Kind d’rum liebt,
      Der ihm den Schutz des Hauses giebt.

[Illustration: Fig. 43.--_Der Zimmermann_ (The Carpenter).

(Reproduced by permission of D. Appleton and Company from the Eliot and
Blow edition of Froebel’s _Mother Play_.)]

[Sidenote: Greatest weakness in symbolism and mysticism.]

[Sidenote: Fantastic and vague doctrines.]

[Sidenote: Notion that nature may illumine mental and social laws.]

A more serious hindrance to the acceptance of Froebelianism has arisen
from his peculiar mysticism and symbolism. Since all things live and
have their being in and through God and the divine principle in each
is the essence of its life, everything is liable to be considered
by Froebel as symbolic in its very nature, and he often resorts to
fantastic and strained interpretations. Thus with Froebel the cube
becomes the symbol of diversity in unity, the faces and edges of
crystals all have mystic meanings, and the numbers three and five
reveal an inner significance. At times this symbolism descends into
a literal and verbal pun, where it seems to a modern that Froebel
can hardly be in earnest. Further, he holds that general conceptions
are implicit in the child, and each of these can be awakened by
‘adumbration,’ that is, by presenting something that will symbolically
represent that particular ‘innate idea.’ Thus, in treating the gifts
and games, he maintains that from a ball the pupils gather an abstract
notion of ‘unity.’ Moreover, because God is the self-conscious spirit
that originated both man and nature, and everything is interconnected,
he believes that each part of the universe may throw light on every
other part, and constantly holds that a knowledge of external
nature,--such as the formation of crystals, will enable one to
comprehend the laws of the mind and of society.

[Sidenote: Most essential to conservatives.]

[Sidenote: Effect upon pupils.]

Unfortunately, this mystic symbolism, vague and extreme as it is,
is regarded by the strict constructionists among the kindergartners
as the most essential feature in Froebelianism, and they expect the
innocents in their charge to reveal the symbolic effect of the material
upon their minds. There is no real evidence for supposing that such
associations between common objects and abstract conceptions exist for
children. But such an imaginary symbolic meaning may be forced upon an
object by the teacher, and pupils in conservative kindergartens soon
learn to adopt certain phrases and attitudes that imply such mystic
meaning. This often tends to foster insincerity and sentimentalism
rather than to inculcate abstract truth through symbols. Had Froebel
possessed the enlarged knowledge of biology, physiology, and psychology
that is available for one living in the twentieth century, it is
unlikely that he would have insisted upon the symbolic foundations for
his pedagogy. His excellent practice is heavily handicapped by these
interpretations, and might as easily have been inferred from very
different positions in modern psychology.

[Sidenote: Borrowed from others,]

[Sidenote: but unique in motor expression, social participation and
informal school.]

But Froebel has had a most happy effect upon education as a whole.
In some respects he utilized features from other reformers. We can
see that he adopted many of Pestalozzi’s objective methods in
geography, natural history, arithmetic, language, drawing, writing
and reading, and constructive geometry; reiterated Rousseau’s views
upon the infallibility of nature; and advocated the physical training
and excursions as a means of study that are stressed by both these
reformers. In his use of stories, legends, fables, and fairy-tales,
he paralleled his contemporary, Herbart, in his influence upon the
curriculum. But in his emphasis upon motor expression and social
participation, together with his advocacy of a school without books or
set tasks, Froebel was unique, and made a most distinctive contribution
to educational practice. And whenever the real significance of his
principles has been comprehended, they have been recognized as the most
essential laws in the educational process, and are valued as the means
of all effective teaching.

[Sidenote: Contribution to all stages of education.]

[Sidenote: Manual training through Cygnæus]

[Sidenote: and Salomon.]

[Sidenote: Parker and Dewey.]

Froebel himself never fully worked out his theories in connection
with schooling beyond the kindergarten, but all stages of education
have now come to realize the value of discovering and developing
individuality by means of initiative, execution, and coöperation; and
spontaneous activities, like play, construction, and occupational
work, have become more and more the means to this end. For example,
the ‘busy work,’ ‘whittling,’ ‘clay-modeling,’ ‘sloyd,’ and other
types of ‘manual training’ have to a large degree sprung from the
influence of Froebel. Uno Cygnæus (1810-1888), who started the manual
training movement, owed his inspiration to Froebel and his own desire
to extend the kindergarten occupations through the grades. As a result
of his efforts, Finland in 1866 became the first country in the world
to adopt manual training as an integral part of the course in the
elementary and teacher training schools. In 1874, through the visit
of Otto Salomon (1849-1907) to Cygnæus, Sweden transformed its sloyd
from a system of teaching the elements of trades to the more educative
method of manual training. This use of constructive and occupational
work for educational purposes rather than for industrial efficiency
soon spread throughout Europe, and was first suggested to the United
States by the Centennial Exposition of 1876 at Philadelphia. Various
types of modern educational theory and practice, especially those
associated with experiments made in the United States, also reveal
large elements of Froebelian influence. Among these might be included
the work of Colonel Parker (Fig. 40) and of Professor John Dewey.
The Froebelian emphasis upon motor expression, the social aspect of
education, and informal schooling are evident throughout Parker’s
work in his elementary school, and are even extended so as to include
speech and the language-arts. Similarly, Dewey’s occupational work and
industrial activities, which were used through the entire course of his
‘experimental school’ in Chicago, although not copied directly from
Froebel, closely approached the modified practice of the kindergarten
(see pp. 430 f.).

[Sidenote: Baroness von Bülow visited all countries.]

[Sidenote: Foundation of Froebel Union.]

[Sidenote: Results in Western Europe.]

=The Spread of Froebelianism through Europe.=--Directly after the
death of Froebel, the kindergarten began to be spread through his
devoted followers, especially Baroness von Bülow. By means of her
social position and knowledge of modern languages, she was enabled to
become his great apostle throughout Europe. Having failed to obtain
a revocation of the edict against the kindergarten (see p. 355) in
Prussia, the baroness turned to foreign lands. She visited France,
Belgium, Holland, Italy, Russia, and nearly every other section of
Europe, and in 1867 was invited to speak before the ‘Congress of
Philosophers’ at Frankfort. This distinguished gathering had been
called to inquire into contemporary educational movements, and after
her elucidation of Froebelianism, a standing committee of the Congress,
known as the ‘Froebel Union,’ was formed to study the system. The
propaganda was soon everywhere eagerly embraced. Kindergartens,
training schools, and journals devoted to the movement rapidly
sprang up. While the kindergarten was not generally adopted by the
governments, it was widely established by voluntary means throughout
Western Europe, and has since met with a noteworthy growth. Instruction
in Froebelian principles is now generally required in most normal
and teacher training institutions there. Sometimes, as in France and
England, it has been combined with the infant school movement, and
has lost some of its most vital characteristics, but even in these
cases the cross-fertilization has afforded abundant educational
fruitage. Only in Germany, the native land of the kindergarten, has
serious hostility to the idea remained. Kindergartens have, with few
exceptions, never been recognized there as genuine schools or part
of the regular state system. Even to-day the German kindergarten is
regarded as little more than a day nursery or convenient place to
deposit small children and have them amused.

[Sidenote: Voluntary basis through Elizabeth P. Peabody,]

[Sidenote: Maria Bölte,]

[Sidenote: Susan E. Blow,]

[Sidenote: Emma Marwedel, and others.]

=The Kindergarten in the United States.=--The development and influence
of the kindergarten have been more marked in the United States than
in any other country. First attempts at a kindergarten in America
were made shortly after the middle of the nineteenth century by
educated Germans, who had emigrated to America because of the unsettled
conditions at home. A more fruitful attempt was that of Elizabeth P.
Peabody at Boston in the early sixties. Notwithstanding the immediate
success of this institution and the evident enjoyment of the children,
Miss Peabody felt that she had not succeeded in getting the real spirit
of Froebel, and in 1867 she went to study with his widow, who had been
settled in Hamburg for several years. Upon her return the following
year Miss Peabody corrected the errors in her work and established a
periodical to explain and spread Froebelianism. The remainder of her
life was spent in interesting parents, philanthropists, and school
boards in the movement, and a service was done for the kindergarten
in America almost equal to that of Baroness von Bülow in Europe. In
1868 through Miss Peabody the first training school for kindergartners
in the United States was established at Boston. A similar institution
was opened in New York by 1872 in charge of Maria Bölte, who had
also studied with Frau Froebel. The same year saw the beginning of
Susan E. Blow’s work in St. Louis, where her free training school
for kindergartners was opened. Another missionary effort began in
1876 through Emma Marwedel, who was employed to organize voluntary
kindergartens and training classes throughout the chief centers of
California. The kindergarten movement grew rapidly. Between 1870
and 1890 in all the leading cities of the country subscriptions for
kindergartens were raised by various philanthropic agencies, and by
the close of the century there were about five hundred such voluntary
associations.

[Sidenote: Part of the public school system in all progressive cities.]

But private foundations are restrictive, and it was not until the
kindergarten began to be adopted by school systems that the movement
became truly national in the United States. Boston in the early
seventies added a few kindergartens to her public schools, but after
several years of trial gave them up on account of the expense. The
first permanent establishment under a city board was made in 1873 at
St. Louis through the efforts of Miss Blow. Twelve kindergartens were
organized at first, but others were opened as rapidly as competent
directors could be prepared at Miss Blow’s training school. Within a
decade there were more than fifty public kindergartens and nearly eight
thousand pupils in St. Louis. San Francisco authorized the addition
of kindergartens to the public schools in 1880; and between that date
and the end of the century New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Buffalo,
Pittsburgh, Rochester, Providence, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and nearly
two hundred other progressive cities made the work an integral part of
their system. About twenty of the cities employed a special supervisor
to inspect the work. Excellent training schools for kindergartners
are now maintained by half a hundred public and quasi-public normal
institutions.

[Sidenote: Studies improved by Pestalozzi]

[Sidenote: and Herbart,]

[Sidenote: and training contributed by Froebel.]

[Sidenote: Period of reforms of Pestalozzi,]

[Sidenote: Froebel,]

[Sidenote: and Herbart.]

=The Relative Influence of Pestalozzi, Herbart, and Froebel.=--It is
now obvious how large a part in the development of modern educational
practice has been played by Herbart and Froebel. There are few
tendencies in the curricula and methods of the schools to-day that
cannot in their beginnings be traced back to them, or to Pestalozzi,
their master. But the reforms of all three find their roots in
Rousseau (Fig. 44). His ‘naturalism’ was continued by Pestalozzi (Fig.
45) in his ‘development’ and ‘observation,’ which were, in turn,
further elaborated by Froebel and Herbart respectively (Figs. 47 and
46). Through his ‘observation’ methods, Pestalozzi greatly improved
the teaching of arithmetic, language work, geography, elementary
science, drawing, writing, reading, and music, and, by means of
Fellenberg’s work, developed industrial and philanthropic training.
As a result of Herbart’s moral and religious aim, marked advances in
the teaching of history and literature have taken place, and, largely
through his carefully wrought educational doctrines, order and system
have everywhere been introduced into instruction. From Froebel’s
mystic interpretation of ‘natural development’ we have obtained the
kindergarten training for a period of life hitherto largely neglected,
the informal occupations, manual training, and other studies of motor
expression, together with psychological and social principles that
underlie every stage of education. Pestalozzi’s reforms were felt
in Europe throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, but
did not have any wide effect upon the United States until after the
‘Oswego movement’ in the sixties. The influence of Froebel appeared in
Europe shortly after the middle of the century, and began to rise to
its height in America about 1880. The Herbartian theory and practice
became popular in Germany between 1865 and 1885, while the growth of
Herbartianism in the United States began about five years after the
latter date. Hence the development of modern educational practice, due
to these three great reformers, falls distinctly within the period
of the nineteenth century.

[Illustration: Fig. 44.--Jean Jacques Rousseau

(1712-1778).]

[Illustration: Fig. 45.--Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi

(1746-1827).]

[Illustration: Fig. 46.--Johann Friedrich Herbart

(1776-1841).]

[Illustration: Fig. 47.--Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel

(1782-1852).]

GREAT EDUCATIONAL REFORMERS


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _In Modern Times_ (Macmillan, 1913), chap. VII; _Great
Educators_ (Macmillan, 1912), chaps. X and XI; Monroe, _Textbook_
(Macmillan, 1905), pp. 622-673; Parker, _Modern Elementary Education_
(Ginn, 1912), chaps. XVII and XVIII. Herbart’s _Science of Education_
(translated by Felkin), and _Outlines of Educational Doctrine_
(translated by Lange and De Garmo, Macmillan, 1909); and Froebel’s
_Education of Man_ (translated by Hailmann; Appleton, 1894),
_Pedagogics of the Kindergarten_ and _Education by Development_
(translated by Jarvis; Appleton, 1897 and 1899), and _Mother Play_
(translated by Eliot and Blow, Appleton, 1896), should be read at least
cursorily. The best brief treatise on _Herbart and Herbartianism_
(Scribner, 1896) is that by De Garmo, C., a graphic description of _The
Herbartian Psychology_ (Heath, 1898) is given by Adams, J., in chap.
III, and a history of _The Doctrines of Herbart in the United States_
as a doctoral dissertation (University of Pennsylvania) by Randels,
G. B. A good account of _Froebel and Education by Self-Activity_
(Scribner, 1897) has been furnished by Bowen, H. C.; a conservative
treatment of _Kindergarten Education_ (_Education in the United
States_, edited by N. M. Butler, Monograph No. 1), by Blow, Susan
E.; an interesting treatise on _Kindergarten in American Education_
(Macmillan, 1908), by Vandewalker, Nina C.; and a critical account of
_The Psychology of the Kindergarten_ (_Teachers College Record_, vol.
IV, pp. 377-408), by Thorndike, E. L.




CHAPTER XXV

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SYSTEMS OF EDUCATION


OUTLINE

    The leading states of Western Europe and of Canada have, during the
    past century and a half, organized systems of education, which may
    prove suggestive.

    In Prussia, owing to a strong line of monarchs, state control has
    taken the place of ecclesiastical through a series of decrees
    and enactments. The people’s schools are quite separate from
    the secondary schools. Three types of secondary institutions
    have developed,--the ‘gymnasium,’ with the classics as staples;
    the ‘real-school,’ with modern languages and sciences; and the
    ‘real-gymnasium,’ with its compromise between the other two. The
    universities have likewise been emancipated from ecclesiastical
    control.

    In France, a highly centralized system has been developed. Napoleon
    united secondary and higher education in a single corporation;
    under Louis Philippe, an organization of elementary schools was
    made; and, during the third republic, elementary education has
    been made free, compulsory, and secular. The present secondary
    system--_lycées_ and communal colleges--began with Napoleon, and
    has now been differentiated into several courses. One-half of the
    universities established by Napoleon were suppressed during the
    Restoration, but since 1896 there has been a university in each of
    the sixteen ‘academies,’ save one.

    In England national education has grown out of the conflict of a
    number of social elements. The sentiment for universal training
    appeared toward the close of the eighteenth century, but not until
    1870 were ‘board schools’ established. In 1899 a central Board
    of Education was created; and the Act of 1902, while permitting
    voluntary schools to share in the local rates, unified the system
    and established secondary education at public expense. During the
    nineteenth century also the classical and ecclesiastical monopoly
    in secondary and higher education was largely broken.

    In Canada there have developed two types of educational
    control,--(1) the closely centralized system of public schools in
    Ontario, and (2) the public supervision of ecclesiastical schools
    in Quebec.

[Sidenote: Elementary education free, but few cases of gratuitous
secondary schools, and France alone secularized.]

[Sidenote: Suggestive, when understood historically.]

=National Systems of Education in Europe and Canada.=--In previous
chapters (XVII, XXI, XXIII) we have witnessed the gradual evolution in
America of state systems of universal education out of the unorganized
and rather aristocratic arrangement of schools that had first been
transplanted from Europe in the seventeenth century. But development
of a centralized organization of public schools has not been confined
to the United States. During the past century and a half, the leading
powers of Western Europe and Canada have likewise organized state
systems of education, similar in some respects to those of the American
union. All of these states have now established universal elementary
education free to all, although as yet in few instances are secondary
schools also gratuitous, and only Canada has welded her elementary and
secondary systems. France alone has completely secularized its system,
but the public schools of the other nations, while still including
religious instruction, have been emancipated from ecclesiastical
control, and are responsible to the civil authorities. In all of them
school attendance is compulsory. Yet the educational system in none of
these countries is identical with that in the United States, but has
been adapted in each case to the genius and social organization of the
people concerned. Its characteristics must, therefore, be considerably
modified, in order to be utilized or to prove suggestive to the United
States or other nations, and can be understood only in the light of
the educational history of the particular country to which it belongs.
For an intelligent appreciation of these modern school systems, we
must, therefore, trace the gradual development to their present form in
response to the changing ideals of successive periods.

[Sidenote: Rise of Prussian education due to enlightened despots:]

[Sidenote: (1) Decree for compulsory attendance by Frederick William I
in 1717;]

=The Beginning of State Control in Prussia.=--We may look first at
Germany. Up to the later years of the eighteenth century all stages
of education in the various German states remained almost entirely
under ecclesiastical control, but during this period the schools and
universities were taken over by the state from the church, although the
clergy still exercised a few prerogatives, and centralized national
systems were gradually organized. Among these states of Germany
the first and most influential in the organization of universal
education was Prussia. While each of the others is characterized by an
educational history and peculiarities of its own, this state may be
taken as an illustration of the evolution of German school systems.
The rise of Prussia, educationally as well as politically, seems to
have been due to the strong Hohenzollern monarchs,--despotic, but
thoroughly awake to the interests of their people. Although for nearly
two centuries state control of education was carried on more or less
through the medium of the church, its development was well under
way by the seventeenth century. While the ‘consistory,’ or board of
supervision, was still composed largely of the clergy, the schools
were soon (1687) declared not to be simply church organizations, but
to belong to the state, and some attempt was made to extend schools to
the villages as well as cities. But the first noteworthy attempt to
establish compulsory attendance occurred during the reign of Frederick
William I. In 1717 that monarch decreed that, wherever schools existed,
children should be required to attend during the winter, and in the
summer whenever they could be spared by their parents, which must be
at least once a week. He also founded the first teachers’ seminary at
Stettin from his own private means (1735), and the next year had a
definite law passed, making education compulsory for children from six
to twelve years of age.

[Sidenote: (2) _General School Regulations_ decreed by Frederick in
1763,]

[Sidenote: supplemented by _Regulations for Catholic Schools_;]

=Educational Achievements of Frederick the Great.=--His most
important contribution, however, consisted in preparing the way for
an educational movement that was to be greatly developed through his
more able son, Frederick the Great. Frederick began by improving the
administration of secondary education, and requiring that all vacancies
on crown lands be filled by graduates from Hecker’s normal school
at Berlin. But the great step toward a national system was taken in
1763, when Frederick issued his _General School Regulations for the
Country_. This decree required children to attend school from five
until thirteen or fourteen, and until they “know not only what is
necessary of Christianity, fluent reading, and writing, but can give
answer in everything which they learn from the school books prescribed
and approved by our consistory.” If any pupils should arrive at this
state of proficiency before thirteen or fourteen, they could even then
leave school only through the official certification of the teacher,
minister, and inspector. Provision was also made for the attendance
of children who had to herd cattle or were too poor to pay the school
fees. Sunday continuation schools were to be established for young
people beyond the school age. Teachers must have attended Hecker’s
seminary and had to be examined and licensed by the inspector. This
decree was two years later supplemented with similar _Regulations for
the Catholic Schools in Silesia_, drawn up by Abbot Felbiger. The
carrying out of the decree was, however, stubbornly opposed by many
teachers, who could not meet the new requirements; by farmers, who
objected to the loss of their children’s time; and by the nobles, who
feared the discontent and uprising of the peasants, in case they were
educated. The execution of the regulation was still in the power of
the clergy, and for some time it proved but little more than a pious
wish. But Frederick strove hard to have it enforced, and it became the
foundation for the more effective laws that have since become embodied
in the Prussian school system.

[Sidenote: (3) Establishment of Central Board of Administration under
Frederick William II in 1787;]

=Educational Influence of Zedlitz.=--After 1771 the educational
work of Frederick was substantially aided by the appointment of
Baron von Zedlitz as head of the Department of the Lutheran Church
and School Affairs. This great minister had been much impressed by
Basedow’s principles and experiments and by Rochow’s application of
the ‘naturalistic’ training, and through him village schools were
greatly strengthened and enriched, a regular normal school was opened
at Halberstadt, and the humanistic ideal of secondary education
revived. A year after Frederick’s death Zedlitz succeeded, even under
the reactionary monarch, Frederick William II, in further developing
the nationalization of education. In 1787 an _Oberschulcollegium_,
or central board of school administration, was appointed instead of
the former church consistories. However, while the organization was
supposed to be made up of educational experts, and Zedlitz was actually
made chairman, the membership was mostly filled from the clergy, and
the king refused to extend its jurisdiction to the higher schools.

[Sidenote: (4) Publication of _General Code_ in 1794;]

Despite the reactionary policy of the sovereign, the culmination of
the attempts to establish a national nonsectarian system of education
occurred during this reign. In 1794 there was published the _General
Code_, in which the chapter upon education declared unequivocally
that “all schools and universities are under the supervision of the
state, and are at all times subject to its examination and inspection.”
Teachers were, therefore, not to be chosen without the consent of
the state, and where their appointment was not vested in particular
persons, it was to belong to the state. Teachers of all secondary
schools were to be regarded as state officials. No child was to be
excluded from the schools because of his religion, nor compelled to
stay for religious instruction when it differed from the belief in
which he had been brought up.

[Sidenote: (5) Creation of a Bureau of Education in 1807, which later
became a separate Ministry and then was further organized.]

=Foundation of the Ministry of Education and Further Progress.=--While
this comprehensive code met with much opposition from the clergy and
the ignorant masses, and the next king, Frederick William III, weakly
yielded at first, the humiliation of Prussia by Napoleon (1803) brought
the country to a realization of the need of a centralized organization
of the school system. The _Oberschulcollegium_ was abolished, to get
rid of the clerical domination that had crept in, and a Bureau of
Education was created as a section of the Department of the Interior
in 1807. The Bureau was within a decade erected into a separate
Department or Ministry of Education. Eight years later (1825) the
state was divided into educational provinces; and a _Schulcollegium_,
or administrative board, with considerable independence, but subject
to the minister, was established over each province. Since then there
have been many further developments, and provinces themselves are now
divided into ‘governments,’ each of which has a ‘school commission’
over it, and every government is divided into ‘districts,’ whose chief
officer is a ‘school inspector.’ Under the district inspector are local
inspectors, and each separate school also has a local board, to take
charge of repairs, supplies, and other external matters.

Thus the supreme management of the schools has been gradually coming
into the hands of the state for nearly two centuries. The decrees of
1717 and 1763, the establishment of the _Oberschulcollegium_ in 1787,
the General Code promulgated in 1794, the foundation of a distinct
civic administration of education in 1807, are the mile-stones that
mark the way to state control. But, while the influence of the
church has been constantly diminishing, many of the board members
are ministers or priests and the inspectors come mostly from the
clergy. Moreover, religious instruction forms part of the course in
every school, although it is given at such an hour that any pupil may
withdraw if the teaching is contrary to the faith in which he has been
reared. The secondary schools are largely interdenominational, but in
elementary education there are separate schools for Catholics and
Protestants, alike supported by the state.

[Sidenote: _Volksschulen_,]

[Sidenote: ‘Continuation schools,’]

[Sidenote: and _Mittelschulen_.]

=The Elementary System.=--Prussia, like most of the principal states of
Europe, as a result of their educational history, has its elementary
and secondary systems quite separate and distinct from each other
(Fig. 48). The universities continue the work of the gymnasiums and
real-schools, but these two latter institutions parallel the work of
the _Volksschulen_ (people’s schools), rather than supplement it. The
course of the secondary school ordinarily occupies the pupil from
nine to eighteen years of age, while that of the elementary school
carries him from six to fourteen, and after the first three years
it is practically impossible to transfer from the elementary to the
secondary system. A pupil cannot enter a gymnasium or real-school
after completing the people’s school, and the only further training
he can obtain is that of the _Fortbildungschulen_, or ‘continuation
schools,’ which supplement the system (see p. 420). The people’s
schools are gratuitous and are attended mostly by the children of
the lower classes, while the gymnasiums charge a tuition fee and are
patronized by the professional classes and aristocracy. Hence the line
between elementary and secondary education in Prussia is longitudinal
and not latitudinal, as it is in the United States; the distinction is
one of wealth and social status rather than of educational grade and
advancement. There are also some _Mittelschulen_ (middle schools) for
the middle classes of people, who cannot send their children to the
secondary schools, and yet can afford some exclusiveness. They have
one more class than the people’s schools, include a foreign language
during the last three years, and require teachers with a better
training.

[Sidenote: _Gymnasien_ and _Realschulen_;]

[Sidenote: _Realgymnasien_ and _Oberrealschulen_;]

[Sidenote: six-year courses;]

=The Secondary System.=--The main types of secondary schools in Prussia
are the _Gymnasien_ (see p. 114), with the classic languages as the
main feature of their course, and the _Realschulen_, or real-schools
(see p. 176), characterized by larger amounts of the modern languages,
mathematics, and the natural sciences. For more than a century after
the first real-school was opened in Berlin by Hecker (1747), this type
of institution had only six years in its course, and was considered
inferior to the gymnasium. By the ministerial decree of 1859, however,
two classes of real-schools were recognized, and those of the first
class had a course of nine years, and included Latin, but not Greek.
They were given full standing as secondary schools, and graduates
were granted admission to the universities, except for the study of
theology, medicine, or law. The course of the second class of these
institutions contained no Latin, and was but six years in length. In
1882 the compromise character of the course of the first class of
institutions led to their being designated as _Realgymnasien_, while
the second class in some instances had their work extended to nine
years and became known as _Oberrealschulen_. The graduates were then
allowed the privilege of studying at the universities in mathematics
and the natural sciences. Since 1901 the university courses have
been thrown open to graduates of any of the three types of secondary
schools, except that, to be eligible for theology, one must have
completed the course of a gymnasium, and for medicine, the course
of a real-gymnasium at least. Besides these schools that have been
mentioned, in rural districts where a complete course cannot be
maintained, there are often secondary institutions that do not carry
the student more than six years. These are known, according to the
curriculum, as _Progymnasien_, _Realprogymnasien_, and _Realschulen_.
The first two classes are far less common than institutions with the
longer course of the same character, but the _Realschulen_ are nearly
twice as numerous as the _Oberrealschulen_.

[Sidenote: _Reformschulen_;]

[Sidenote: the _Vorschule_.]

Since these three types of secondary institutions are so distinct
from each other (Fig. 48), it is evident that a parent is forced to
decide the future career of his boy at nine years, long before his
special ability can be known. If he once enters a real-school, he can
never transfer to a gymnasium, because the Latin begins in the lowest
class of the latter course, nor can he enter the gymnasium from the
real-gymnasium, after twelve, since he has had no Greek. To overcome
this objection, during the past quarter of a century efforts have been
made to delay the irrevocable decision by grouping all three courses
as one institution and making them identical as long as possible. In
secondary schools of this new sort, French is usually the only foreign
language taught for the first three years. Then the course divides, and
one section takes up Latin and the other English. After two years more
a further bifurcation takes place in the Latin section, and one group
begins with Greek, while the other studies English. These institutions
are known as _Reformschulen_ (Fig. 48), and the plan was first
introduced at Frankfort in 1892. The ‘reform schools’ are now growing
rapidly, and there is evident an increasing tendency to postpone the
choice of courses as long as possible. The three years of training
preliminary to admission to a secondary school of any type may be
obtained through the people’s or the middle schools. But there has also
grown up, as an attachment of the secondary schools, a _Vorschule_
(preparatory school), to perform this function for pupils of the more
exclusive classes.

[Sidenote: Universities, state institutions, but controlled by charters
and decrees.]

=Higher Education.=--Like the other stages of education, the
universities are now emancipated from ecclesiastical control, and may
be regarded as part of the national system of education. The university
is now coördinate and under the same authority with the church, for
both are legally state institutions. Universities can, therefore, be
established only by the state or with the approval of the state. In
general, however, they are not controlled by legislation, but through
charters and special decrees of the minister of education. As their
income from endowments and fees is very small, they are for the most
part supported by the state. They are managed internally by the rector
and senate. The rector is annually chosen from their number by the
full professors, with the approval of the minister, and the senate is
a committee from the various faculties. The professors are regarded as
civil servants with definite privileges, and they are appointed by the
minister, although the suggestions of the faculty concerned are usually
respected.

[Sidenote: _Technische Hochschulen._]

During the nineteenth century new institutions for the cultivation of
science in application to practical and technological purposes have
developed from technical schools of a more elementary character. While
known as ‘technical high schools’ (_Technische Hochschulen_), they
are institutions of higher learning, and exist side by side with the
universities. They include schools of engineering, mining, forestry,
agriculture, veterinary medicine, and commerce.

[Illustration: DIAGRAM OF GERMAN EDUCATION

Fig. 48.]

[Sidenote: First agitation for elementary education during the
Revolution.]

=Educational Development in France.=--The development of a centralized
system of education in France began almost a century later than in
Germany. During the eighteenth and the early nineteenth century the
different monarchic powers were not at all favorable to training
the masses, and popular education was badly neglected. It required
several revolutions in government and the establishment of a permanent
republic, to break the old traditions completely, and to make it
evident that universal suffrage should be accompanied by universal
education. Just after the middle of the eighteenth century the
revolutionary spirit began to manifest itself with the appearance of
Rousseau’s _Emile_ (see p. 222), and, except for the training started
by the Christian Brothers (see p. 140), the first serious attention
was given to elementary education. Rolland, to whom a general plan for
reorganization had been committed, recommended universal education
and an adequate number of training schools for teachers. While his
proposals were not adopted, they were the basis of much of the
short-lived legislation that arose during the Revolution, and of the
great principles of educational administration that have since been
established.

[Sidenote: Napoleon and the University of France.]

Napoleon, from the beginning, endeavored to reorganize education upon a
better basis, and when he had become emperor, ordered all the lycées,
secondary colleges, and faculties of higher education to be united
in a single corporation, dependent upon the state and known as the
‘University of France’ (1808). This decree of centralization divided
the country into twenty-seven administrative ‘academies,’ each of
which was to establish university faculties of letters and science near
the principal lycées.

[Sidenote: Through Guizot primary schools began.]

This organization, however, did not include elementary education, and
little attempt was made to provide for schools of this grade before
the reign of Louis Philippe. Upon the advice of his great minister of
education, Guizot, that monarch organized primary education, requiring
a school for each commune, or at least for a group of two or three
communes, and starting higher primary schools in the department
capitals and in communes of over six thousand inhabitants (1833).
He also instituted inspectors of primary schools, and established
department normal schools under the more effective control of the
state authorities. The plan for higher primary schools was never fully
realized, and the institutions of this sort that had been established
disappeared during the second empire. The reactionary law of Falloux
(1850) did not even mention these schools, but encouraged the
development of denominational schools.

[Sidenote: Under third republic primary system was completed.]

[Sidenote: Normal schools.]

[Sidenote: Higher primary and continuation schools.]

[Sidenote: Maternal schools.]

=The Primary School System.=--Guizot, however, had given a permanent
impulse to popular education, and during the third republic foundations
for a national system of education have rapidly been laid. Schools
have been brought into the smallest villages, and elementary education
has been made free to all (1881) and compulsory between the ages of
six and thirteen (1882). To provide trained teachers, every department
has been required to provide a normal school for teachers of each sex;
and two higher normal schools, one for men and one for women, to train
teachers for the departmental normal schools, have been opened by the
state (1882). The higher primary schools have been reëstablished
and extended (1898), and ‘supplementary courses’ offered for pupils
remaining at the lower primary schools after graduation. The studies
in the supplementary courses are technical, as well as general, and
some of the higher primary schools have been established for vocational
training rather than literary. In addition, there are continuation
‘schools of manual apprenticeship’ in the various communes, subsidized
by the state for industrial and agricultural education, and five large
schools for training in special crafts have been organized in Paris.
Institutions for children between two and six years of age became part
of the primary system in the days of Guizot (1833), and half a century
later the present name, _écoles maternelles_ (see p. 244), was adopted
(1881), although there have since been marked reforms made in the
curriculum.

[Sidenote: Secularization.]

Secularization of the school system has also gradually taken place.
First, the courses of study were secularized by the substitution
of civic and moral instruction for religious (1881); next, the
instructional force was secularized by providing that members of the
clergy should no longer be employed in the public schools (1886),
and by recognizing public school teachers as state officers (1889);
and finally, the schools themselves were completely secularized by
compelling the teaching orders to report to the state authorities
(1902), and afterwards by closing the free schools directed by them
(1904). Thus within a generation universal elementary education has
been established in France and brought completely under state control.

[Sidenote: Development of lycées and communal collèges.]

=The Secondary System.=--As in Prussia, the secondary school system
of France does not connect with the primary, but is quite separate
and distinct (Fig. 49). The training has, since the time of Napoleon,
been furnished chiefly by the lycées and communal collèges. During the
Restoration (1814-1830) and the reign of Louis Philippe (1830-1848) the
lycées came to be called ‘royal colleges,’ but, with the advent of the
second republic (1848-1851), the Napoleonic name was restored and the
curricula were completely reorganized. By this revision some elasticity
was introduced into the last three years of the lycée by a bifurcation
into a literary and a scientific course, and during the third republic
further elections were introduced, until finally (1902) four distinct
courses were established. In the leading lycées and collèges special
preparation is also afforded for schools like the military institution
of St. Cyr or the Polytechnic of Paris; and in some there is a short
course of three or four years in modern languages and sciences that in
function closely approaches that of the German real-school.

[Sidenote: Organization of lycées]

[Sidenote: and collèges.]

[Sidenote: Secondary institutions for girls.]

The boys ordinarily begin the first ‘cycle’ of the lycée or collège
at ten years of age, and while they may transfer from the primary
system at this stage, in most lycées and collèges there are preparatory
classes to train the pupil from six to ten. The second ‘cycle,’
during which the differentiation in courses largely occurs, takes the
pupil from fourteen to seventeen, and leads upon completion to the
bachelor’s degree. Education in a lycée or collège is not gratuitous,
but the income from tuition fees is so small as to cover but a small
fraction of the cost, and the rest is contributed by the state. The
communal collèges differ from the lycées in being local, and they are
maintained by the communes, as well as by the state. They have not
the same standing, and the same attainments are not required of their
professors. Until 1880 there were no lycées and communal collèges for
girls, and convents and private schools furnished the only means of
female education. Even now the usual course in the public secondary
institutions for girls is two years shorter than in those for boys.

[Sidenote: Suppression and restoration of the universities.]

[Sidenote: Degrees.]

[Sidenote: Other higher institutions.]

=The Institutions of Higher Education.=--More than one-half of the
universities established in the various ‘academies’ by Napoleon were
suppressed as soon as the monarchy was restored. But about half a
dozen were reopened in the reign of Louis Philippe, and were gradually
improved by the addition of new chairs. Beginning in 1885, a number
of decrees established a general council of faculties in each academy
to coördinate the different courses and studies, and in 1896 a law
was passed, which established a university in each of the sixteen
‘academies,’ except one. These universities differ greatly in size, but
all grant the _license_, or master’s degree, and the doctorate. The
university degrees are ordinarily conferred in the name of the state
and carry certain definite rights with them, but of late years a new
type of degree, ‘doctorate of the university,’ is granted upon easier
terms to foreigners more desirous of the degree than of its state
privileges. In Paris, besides the university, there is the College of
France, which still endeavors to foster freedom of thought (see p.
110), and a dozen other institutions of university grade, connected
with some special line, have been established.

[Sidenote: Duties of minister,]

[Sidenote: rectors,]

[Sidenote: prefects,]

[Sidenote: and inspectors.]

=Centralized Administration of the French Education.=--The
centralization of education is even more complete in France than in
Germany. The supreme head of the system is the minister of education.
He is immediately assisted by three directors, one each for primary,
secondary, and higher education. A rector is in charge of each of the
‘academies,’ except Paris, where the minister nominally holds the
office and a vice rector performs the duties. The rector has authority
over all three fields of education in his academy, but does not appoint
the teachers. That office is performed by the prefect, or head of each
civil department, upon the recommendation of the academy inspector.
There is also a departmental council, presided over by the prefect,
that appoints delegates in each canton, to take charge of the school
premises and equipment. Further organization is effected through the
maintenance of a complete corps of general, academy, and primary
inspectors.

[Sidenote: Slow evolution.]

[Sidenote: Church monopoly.]

[Sidenote: Philanthropic institutions.]

=Early Development of English Education.=--In England the
nationalization of education was delayed even longer than in France.
This country was never controlled by enlightened despots, who could,
as in Germany, force the growth of public educational sentiment, nor
was it overwhelmed by the sweep of a great revolution, destroying, as
in France, all opposition to popular progress. National education in
England has gradually grown out of the conflict of a number of elements
represented in its society. It has been the product of a series of
compromises among many different factors,--the church, state, economic
conditions, private enterprise, and philanthropy. For several centuries
education was regarded as a function of the church and family, and the
sentiment for universal training was retarded by the attitude of the
upper classes, who strove to keep the poor in ignorance and to maintain
the educational control of the church. This domination was first
seriously challenged in the eighteenth century, and while the training
then furnished through the Society for the Promotion of Christian
Knowledge, the Sunday schools, and other philanthropic institutions
(see pp. 232 ff.), was rather meager, these organizations, together
with the ‘monitorial’ instruction of the British and Foreign, and the
National Societies (see pp. 240 f.), greatly advanced the cause of
universal education. And toward the close of the century there began
to appear a new point of view, especially with men like Bentham,
Blackstone, Robert Owen, and Adam Smith, who advocated universal
education, compulsory attendance, and a national system of schools.

[Sidenote: First signs of progress.]

[Sidenote: First parliamentary grant in 1833.]

[Sidenote: Committee of Privy Council in 1839.]

[Sidenote: ‘Payment by results’ in 1861.]

=Educational Movements in the Nineteenth Century.=--The theory of these
great thinkers was somewhat in advance of the times, but, early in the
nineteenth century, social changes began to favor better educational
opportunities. The Factory Act (1802) provided for the obligatory
training of apprentices; Mr. Whitbread introduced (1807) a bill to
permit the civic officials of any township or parish to establish
schools for the poor wherever none existed; and Brougham, while
losing his bill for popular education (1820), previously secured two
commissions of inquiry on school facilities. In 1832, the passage of a
reform bill, which largely increased the suffrage, aroused Parliament
to the need of educating the masses, and the next year the first grant,
£20,000, was made for elementary education. This sum was to be used
solely to aid in building schoolhouses for which subscriptions had
been privately obtained, and so could be passed as a vote of ‘supply,’
without referring it to the House of Lords. For lack of a government
organization of education, it was apportioned through the National and
the British and Foreign Societies (see p. 240). Governmental activities
constantly increased. In 1839 the annual grant was increased to £30,000
and allowed to be used for elementary education without restriction. In
the same year, a separate committee of the Privy Council was designated
to administer the educational grants; and in 1856 a Vice President was
appointed to act as chairman of this educational committee. Then, in
1861, through another commission on popular education, it was arranged
to base the grant to any school upon the results shown by the pupils in
the governmental examinations. This ‘payment by results’ was intended
to increase efficiency, but, used as a sole means of testing, it soon
proved narrowing and unfair, and had to be supplemented by the general
opinion formed of each school by the inspectors. Yet it somewhat
increased the efficiency of the work.

[Sidenote: In 1870 establishment of ‘board schools’, supported by local
‘rates,’ as well as grants.]

Agitation in behalf of universal education continued, and organizations
like the ‘Lancashire Public School Association’ of Manchester (1847)
and ‘The League’ of Birmingham (1869) spread rapidly through the
manufacturing centers. And when the franchise was further extended in
1868, the necessity for preparing millions of the common people for
new responsibilities in public affairs led in 1870 to the passage of
the epoch-making bill of William E. Forster. Under this act ‘board
schools,’ or institutions in charge of a board chosen by the people
of the community, were to be established wherever a deficiency in the
existing accommodations required it. The ‘voluntary,’ or denominational
schools, most of which belonged to the Church of England, were to
continue to share in the government grants upon equal terms with the
new institutions, but the latter had also the benefit of local ‘rates.’
Elementary instruction in all schools had to be open to government
inspection, and the amount of the grant was partly determined by the
report of the inspectors. The board schools were forbidden to allow
“any religious catechism or religious formulary, which is distinctive
of any particular denomination;” and religious instruction in either
type of school had to be placed at the beginning or end of the school
session, so that, under the ‘conscience clause’ of the act, any scholar
might conveniently withdraw at that time.

[Sidenote: Compulsory attendance,]

[Sidenote: minimum age,]

[Sidenote: free tuition,]

[Sidenote: and Board of Education.]

This act of 1870 was, of course, the _magna charta_ of national
education, and has become the basis of much school legislation. The
compromise in the bill that allowed the voluntary schools, with their
sectarian instruction, to continue receiving government support,
however, prevented a logical and consistent system from being
established. The dual system of elementary schools continued to be
developed in a variety of enactments. Compulsory attendance laws were
passed (1876, 1880), the minimum age of exemption was set first at
eleven years of age, and then raised to twelve (1893, 1899), and an
extra grant, to take the place of tuition fees (1891), made it possible
for most schools to become absolutely free. Finally (1899), there was
created a central Board of Education, which assumed the functions of
the Committee of Privy Council on Education and similar agencies for
managing educational interests.

[Sidenote: In 1902 ‘voluntary’ schools also allowed local rates,]

[Sidenote: but dual system swept away,]

[Sidenote: and secondary instruction supported at public expense.]

=Subsequent Educational Movements.=--Within a generation of existence
the board schools met with a phenomenal growth, and came to include
about seventy per cent of the pupils. They were spending about half
as much again upon each pupil as were the voluntary schools, and were
able to engage a much better staff of teachers. This extension of civil
influence in education was bitterly opposed by the Established Church,
and when the conservatives came into power through the assistance of
the clergy, they passed the act of 1902, whereby the denominational
schools were permitted to share also in the local rates. While under
this act the administration of both board and voluntary schools was now
centralized in the county and city councils, the immediate supervision
of instruction in the individual schools was placed in the hands of
a board of managers; and, despite their receipt of local taxes, the
voluntary schools were required to have but two of their managers
appointed by the council, and the other four were still selected by
the denomination. Serious opposition to the enforcement of the new law
arose among nonconformists and others, and coercive measures were taken
by the government. The new act, however, while unfair to those outside
the Church of England, tended to sweep away the dual system of public
and church schools, since both were coming to rest upon a basis of
public control and support. Since 1902 all elementary schools have been
considered as part of one comprehensive system, and the board schools
have been distinguished as ‘provided schools’ and the voluntary as
‘nonprovided.’ Moreover, under the legislation of 1902 steps were also
taken to coördinate secondary with elementary education, and bring it
somewhat within the public system. The board schools had early in their
existence begun to develop upward into secondary education and before
long had come to compete with the older grammar and public schools,
but in 1900 the ‘Cockerton judgment’ forbade the use of local rates
for other instruction than elementary, and it remained for the new act
to impose upon councils the duty to support instruction in subjects
beyond the elementary work. The Board of Education was also empowered
to inspect the work of the great public schools and other endowed
secondary institutions, and to allow grants to all schools meeting the
conditions of the Board.

[Sidenote: Bill of 1906 defeated,]

[Sidenote: but new plan, placing all schools under public control.]

After the liberals returned to power, they continued the conservatives’
policy of granting local rates to all elementary schools, and of
bringing secondary education under public support and control. While
the education bill of 1906, which was kept from passage by the House
of Lords, did not recognize church schools as such, and insisted upon
bringing them under the complete control of the public authorities,
it made no attempt to return to the former dual system of schools
and the isolation of secondary from elementary education. It still
held also to religious, and, under safeguards, even to sectarian
instruction in the elementary schools, and may yet be passed in a
revised form. A voluntary committee for a ‘resettlement in English
elementary education,’ through the mediation of the President of the
Board of Education and the Archbishop of Canterbury, has formulated
a plan, which concedes the principle of public control and support
for all elementary schools and religious freedom for teachers and
pupils, but provides local option for the continuance of denominational
schools. Thus, while England is not prepared to adopt a secular
system, like that of France and the United States, and has not yet
fully articulated its secondary education with elementary, (Fig.
50), it is upon the high road to a complete centralization of school
administration in the national government.

[Sidenote: Classical and ecclesiastical monopoly broken in secondary
and higher education.]

During the nineteenth century also the classical and ecclesiastical
monopoly in secondary and higher education was largely broken. All the
older public and grammar schools (see pp. 412 f.) developed ‘modern
sides,’ and during the Victorian era a number of new schools were
founded, which gave considerable attention to the modern languages and
the sciences from the start. A recognition of the scientific ideals
began also to appear in the curriculum of Cambridge (1851) and Oxford
(1853), and the theological requirements for a degree were dropped
(1856). By the last quarter of the century actual laboratories had
been introduced, and students were freed from all doctrinal tests at
both universities. Moreover, new universities, better adjusted to
modern demands and more closely related to the school systems and the
civil government, began to arise in manufacturing centers. Since 1889
such municipal or ‘provincial’ institutions as the Universities of
Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, and Bristol have sprung up,
and the University of London, started as an examining body in 1836, has
become a teaching institution.

[Sidenote: Two types,]

[Sidenote: (1) Ontario and (2) Quebec.]

=Development of Education in the Dominion of Canada.=--Canada developed
schools in very early days. In the beginning education was cared for
in the four provinces separately, and when the Dominion of Canada was
finally formed (1867), the federal government left to each province
the administration of public education within its borders. The same
autonomy was extended to the provinces that have since been
admitted to the federation. Two types of educational control,--state
and ecclesiastical, have been developing from the first. The former
method is best illustrated by the system of Ontario; and the latter by
that of Quebec. Ontario was settled mostly by emigrants from England,
Scotland, and the United States, and practically all brought with
them the concept of public control of education. The French Catholics
of Quebec, on the other hand, naturally followed their traditions of
parish schools.

[Illustration: DIAGRAM OF FRENCH EDUCATION.

Fig. 49.]

[Illustration: DIAGRAM OF ENGLISH EDUCATION.

Fig. 50.]

[Sidenote: Universal education, and since 1870 great centralization
through minister]

[Sidenote: and subordinate authorities.]

=The Public School System of Ontario.=--The system of schools in
Ontario began with the passage of its Common Schools Act in 1846. This
was formulated after a careful study of the systems of Massachusetts,
New York, and the European states, and included excellent elements
from various systems and many original features of value. By 1871
this fundamental law had come to include free tuition, compulsory
attendance, county inspection, and uniform examinations. In 1876 an
even greater centralization of the provincial system was effected
through substituting for the chief superintendent a ‘minister of
education’ with much larger powers, and bringing all stages of public
education,--elementary, secondary, and higher schools, into much closer
relationship. The minister now has many assistants, including an
Advisory Council of Education; and he initiates and directs all school
legislation, decides complaints and disputes, sets examinations for the
high, elementary, model, and normal schools, prescribes the courses
of study, chooses the text-books, and appoints the inspectors. The
system is further administered by subordinate authorities elected in
the localities, whose duties are clearly defined by law. The province
is for educational purposes divided into counties, which are in turn
divided into townships, and subdivided into sections and incorporated
cities, towns, and villages. The central and local administrations are
wisely balanced, and while the one determines scholastic standards
through its professional requirements, the other establishes schools
and appoints teachers.

[Sidenote: Unification of the several stages of education.]

[Sidenote: Inspectors.]

[Sidenote: ‘Separate schools.’]

The system of elementary schools, high schools, and universities, is
fully unified, and the work of each stage fits into the others even
more exactly than in the ‘ladder’ system of the United States. The
training of teachers is cared for through the departments of Education
in the universities, the eight provincial normal schools, and a
model school in each county. The teachers for secondary institutions
are prepared at the universities, the normal schools grant a life
certificate to teach in the elementary schools, while the model schools
afford fourteen weeks of training for country teachers. The buildings,
equipment, courses, and instruction of the high, elementary, and model
schools are each reported upon by inspectors of assured scholarship
and experience. Since 1863 permission has been granted to establish
‘separate schools’ for any peculiar creed or race, wherever there are
five families requesting it. This opportunity to have schools of their
own faith has not been embraced by any save the Roman Catholics. Any
one paying toward the support of a ‘separate school’ is exempt from
taxation for the regular public schools. Special provincial inspectors
report upon these schools, but in the same way as for the public
schools.

[Sidenote: Other provinces similar to Ontario.]

[Sidenote: In Quebec parish as unit,]

[Sidenote: but since 1859 Council of Public Instruction]

[Sidenote: and superintendent of schools.]

[Sidenote: School support.]

=The System of Ecclesiastical Schools in Quebec.=--The Ontario system
may be considered typical of the educational administration in the
various provinces of Canada, except Quebec. Every other province has
sought uniformity of school provision and educational standards through
government control, although none of them grant their central official
quite as much power as Ontario. Alberta and Saskatchewan likewise
permit ‘separate schools,’ and they existed in Manitoba until 1890.
But the type of control in Quebec is very different from that of the
other provinces. There in 1845 the parish was by law made the unit of
school administration. But seven years later government inspectors
were established, and in 1859 a central organization was completed
with a Council of Public Instruction. This authority is composed of
two divisions, a Roman Catholic and a Protestant, which sit separately
and administer the schools of their respective creeds. The provincial
superintendent of schools, appointed by the lieutenant governor, is
_ex officio_ chairman of both divisions, but he can vote only with
the division to which he belongs by religion. Each division makes
regulations for the instruction and tests of its own schools, and
appoints inspectors of its own faith. The proceeds from the general
public school fund or from any educational legacies are divided in
proportion to the Catholic and Protestant inhabitants, but the regular
school rate may be assigned to whichever of the two school systems the
taxpayer wishes.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _In Modern Times_ (Macmillan, 1913), chap. IX; Parker, _Modern
Elementary Education_ (Ginn, 1912), chaps. X and XI. The following
works throw light upon various phases of the respective countries:
Nohle, E., _History of the German School System_ (_Report of the
U. S. Commissioner of Education_, 1897-1898; vol. I, pp. 26-44);
Paulsen, F., _German Education_ (Scribner, 1908); Russell, J. E.,
_German Higher Schools_ (Longmans, Green, 1896); Paulsen, F., _The
German Universities_ (Macmillan, 1895; Scribner, 1906); Kandel, I.
L., _The Training of Elementary School Teachers in Germany_ (Columbia
University, _Teachers College Contributions_, No. 31, 1910); Brown,
J. F., _The Training of Teachers for Secondary Schools in Germany_
(Macmillan, 1911); Beard, Mary S., _Écoles maternelles of Paris_
(_Great Britain_, _Board of Education_, _Special Reports on Educational
Subjects_, vol. VIII, no. 8); Farrington, F. E., _French Secondary
Schools_ (Longmans, Green, 1910) and _The Public Primary System of
France_ (Columbia University, _Teachers College Contributions to
Education_, no. 7, 1906); Smith, Anna T., _Education in France_
(_Reports of the United States Commissioner of Education_, 1890 to
1914, see tables of contents); Greenough, J. C., _The Evolution of the
Elementary Schools of Great Britain_ (Appleton, 1903); Montmorency, J.
E. G. de, _State Intervention in English Education_ (Macmillan, 1903);
Sharpless, I., _English Education in Elementary and Secondary Schools_
(Appleton, 1892); Smith, Anna T., _Education in England_ (_Monroe
Cyclopædia of Education_, vol. II); Sandiford, P., _The Training of
Teachers in England and Wales_ (Columbia University, _Teachers College
Contributions_, no. 32, 1910); Coleman, H. T. J., _Public Education in
Upper Canada_ (Columbia University, _Teachers College Contributions_,
no. 15, 1909); Ross, G. W., _The School System of Ontario_ (Appleton,
1896); Smith, Anna T., _Education in Canada_ (_Monroe Cyclopædia of
Education_, vol. I).




CHAPTER XXVI

THE SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT AND THE CURRICULUM


OUTLINE

    During the past two centuries a great growth has taken place in
    the natural sciences. For a long time this development affected
    practical life very little, but during the nineteenth century the
    application of science to industrial problems has resulted in a
    host of inventions.

    Because of the importance of the sciences to life, Spencer and
    others have urged the inclusion of them in the curricula of schools
    and colleges. While the content of the sciences has furnished the
    chief argument for this, many scientists have urged their value as
    formal discipline.

    Instruction in the sciences has gradually been included in the
    higher, secondary, and elementary institutions of Germany, France,
    England, and the United States.

    This marked scientific movement is allied with the psychological
    tendency in its improvement of method, and with the sociological in
    its emphasis upon human welfare.

[Sidenote: Remarkable achievements during past two centuries.]

[Sidenote: Hutton, Agassiz, Darwin, and others.]

=The Development of the Natural Sciences in Modern Times.=--We have
already (chapter XV) witnessed the growth of the natural sciences
and the beginning of their introduction into the curriculum toward
the close of the seventeenth century. This tendency was also greatly
stimulated by Rousseau, who, we have seen (pp. 218-222), may be held to
advocate the scientific, as well as the sociological and psychological
movements. And during the past two centuries this development
has become most rapid and extensive. The desire for scientific
investigation steadily grew throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries until its ideals, methods, and results became patent in
every department of human knowledge. The strongholds of ignorance,
superstition, and prejudice were rapidly stormed and taken through
new discoveries or new marshallings of facts already discovered. But
evident as this movement has been, it is scarcely possible here even
to mention the more important scientific achievements, or to outline
the broad sweep of progress in astronomy, geology, biology, physiology,
chemistry, physics, and other sciences within a century. The Newtonian
theory has been confirmed by the investigations of Lagrange and Laplace
and by the discovery of Neptune by mathematical reasoning from the
effects of its gravitation. Hutton’s ‘Plutonic’ theory of continents
and Agassiz’s hypothesis of a universal ice-age have been formulated;
the doctrine of evolution of Darwin (Fig. 51) and Mendel’s law of
inheritance have been established; Liebig and others have thrown light
upon the process of digestion and the functioning of the lungs and
liver; atoms, molecules, and ions have been defined; Joule and Mayer
have demonstrated the conservation of energy; and the periodic law of
chemical elements has been discovered by Newlands.

[Sidenote: During nineteenth century science applied]

[Sidenote: to problems of labor, transportation, communication,
comfort, and hygiene.]

=The Growth of Inventions and Discoveries in the Nineteenth
Century.=--It should be noted, however, that the majority of
these investigations were for a long time carried on outside the
universities, and, owing to the almost proverbial conservatism of
educational institutions, the natural sciences scarcely entered the
course of study anywhere. In fact, these great discoveries at first
seem not to have affected practical life in any direction. Huxley tells
us that in the eighteenth century “weaving and spinning were carried
on with the old appliances; nobody could travel faster by sea or by
land than at any previous time in the world’s history, and King George
could send a message from London to York no faster than King John might
have done.” But a little later, as he adds, “that growth of knowledge
beyond imaginable utilitarian ends, which is the condition precedent
of its practical utility, began to produce some effect upon practical
life.” The nineteenth century will, on this account, always be known
for its development of inventions and the arts, as well as of pure
science. During this period science rapidly grew and took the form of
applications to the problems of labor, production, transportation,
communication, hygiene, and sanitation. The reaper, the sewing machine,
the printing press, and the typewriter greatly reduced the cost of
labor; the steamboat, locomotive, electric railway, telegraph, and
telephone linked all parts of the world together; anthracite, friction
matches, petroleum, and electric lighting and heating greatly enlarged
the comforts of life; and stethoscopes, anæsthetics, antiseptics, and
antitoxines added wonderfully to the span of human life.

[Sidenote: Contest between advocates of classics and sciences.]

=Herbert Spencer and _What Knowledge is of Most Worth_.=--Because
of these practical results, the vital importance of a knowledge of
natural phenomena to human welfare and social progress was more and
more felt throughout the century. It gradually became evident that the
natural sciences were demanded by modern life and constituted elements
of the greatest value in modern culture and education. Many English
and American writers began to maintain that an exclusive study of the
classics did not provide a suitable preparation for life, and that the
sciences should be included in the curriculum. This step was bitterly
opposed by conservative institutions and educators. During a greater
part of the century a contest was waged between the advocates of the
classical monopoly and the progressives, who urged that the sciences
should be introduced.

[Sidenote: Preparation for complete living as the purpose of education.]

[Sidenote: Leading kinds of activity;]

A representative argument for sciences in the course of study is that
made by Herbert Spencer (Fig. 52) in his essay on _What Knowledge Is
of Most Worth_. He ventured to raise the whole question of the purpose
of education. He held that “to prepare us for complete living is the
function which education has to discharge; and the only rational mode
of judging of any educational course is, to judge in what degree it
discharges such function. Our first step must obviously be to classify,
in the order of their importance, the leading kinds of activity which
constitute human life. They may be arranged into: 1. Those activities
which directly minister to self-preservation; 2. Those activities
which, by securing the necessaries of life, indirectly minister to
self-preservation; 3. Those activities which have for their end the
rearing and discipline of offspring; 4. Those activities which are
involved in the maintenance of proper social and political relations;
5. Those miscellaneous activities which make up the leisure part of
life, devoted to the gratification of the tastes and feelings. The
ideal of education is complete preparation in all these divisions. But
failing this ideal, the aim should be to maintain a due proportion
between the degrees of preparation in each, greatest where the value
is greatest, less where the value is less, least where the value is
least.”

[Sidenote: for all of these, sciences are most useful;]

[Sidenote: and a change of educational content is advocated.]

Applying this test, Spencer finds that a knowledge of the sciences is
always most useful in life, and therefore of most worth. He considers
each one of the five groups of activities and demonstrates the need
of the knowledge of some science or sciences to guide it rightly.
An acquaintance with physiology is necessary to the maintenance of
health, and so for self-preservation. Any form of industry or other
means of indirect self-preservation will require some understanding
of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and sociology. To care
for the physical, intellectual, and moral training of their children,
parents should know the general principles of physiology, psychology,
and ethics. A man is best fitted for citizenship through a knowledge of
the science of history in its political, economic, and social aspects.
And even the æsthetic or leisure side of life depends upon physiology,
mechanics, and psychology as a basis for art, music, and poetry. Hence
Spencer advocates a complete change from the type of training that had
dominated education since the Renaissance and calls for a release from
the traditional bondage to the classics. Instead of Greek and Latin
for ‘culture’ and ‘discipline,’ and an order of society where the few
are educated for a life of elegant leisure, he recommends the sciences
and a new scheme of life where every one shall enjoy all advantages in
the order of their relative value. But Spencer uses the term ‘science’
rather loosely, and seeks to denote the social, political, and moral
sciences, as well as the physical and biological, as being ‘of most
worth.’ Hence he does not deserve to be severely arraigned for his
‘utilitarianism,’ as he has been so frequently. His ‘preparation for
complete living’ includes more than ‘how to live in the material sense
only,’ and with him education should contain such material as will
elevate conduct and make life pleasanter, nobler, and more effective.

[Sidenote: Huxley’s ridicule of the education in vogue.]

=Advocacy of the Sciences by Huxley and Others.=--Another great
popularizer of the scientific elements in education, who also stressed
the value of the sciences for ‘complete living’ and social progress,
was Thomas H. Huxley (Fig. 53). His use of English was vigorous and
epigrammatic, and he showed great skill in bringing his conclusions
into such simple language that the most unscientific persons could
understand them. Especially in an address on _A Liberal Education_
before a ‘workingmen’s college,’ he has most forcefully depicted
the value of the sciences and other modern subjects in training for
concrete living, and ridiculed the ineffectiveness of the current
classical education. He maintains that “the life, the fortune, and the
happiness of every one of us depend upon our knowing something of the
phenomena of the universe and the laws of Nature. And yet this is what
people tell to their sons: ‘At the cost of from one to two thousand
pounds of our hard-earned money, we devote twelve of the most precious
years of your life to school. There you shall not learn one single
thing of all those you will most want to know directly you leave school
and enter upon the practical business of life.’” Instead of this, “the
middle class school substitutes what is usually comprised under the
compendious title of the ‘classics’--that is to say, the languages,
the literature, and the history of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and
the geography of so much of the world as was known to these two great
nations of antiquity.” Thus “the British father denies his children all
the knowledge they might turn to account in life, not merely for the
achievement of vulgar success, but for guidance in the great crises of
human existence.”

[Sidenote: Combe.]

[Sidenote: Youmans.]

[Sidenote: Eliot.]

Many other vigorous lecturers and writers entered into this reform
of the curriculum. Opposition to the over-emphasis of languages,
especially the classics, in the content of education was undertaken
even earlier in the century by the distinguished phrenologist, George
Combe. In his ‘secular’ schools and in his work on _Education_, he
emphasized instruction in the sciences relating to moral, religious,
social, and political life, as well as those bearing upon man’s
physical and mental constitution. After the middle of the century a
number of men undertook to popularize the sciences in America by tongue
and pen. One of the most effective of these was Edward L. Youmans, who
collected and edited a set of lectures urging the claims of the various
sciences under the title of _Culture Demanded by Modern Life_ (1867).
He also founded the _International Science Series_ (1871) and the
_Popular Science Monthly_ (1872). A service for the sciences, bearing
more directly upon the educational world, was that performed by Charles
W. Eliot (Fig. 54), President of Harvard. This he accomplished largely
by an extension of the elective system and an emphasis upon science in
the curriculum of school and college. In his description of ‘a liberal
education,’ he argues that “the arts built upon chemistry, physics,
botany, zoölogy, and geology are chief factors in the civilization
of our time, and are growing in material and moral influence at a
marvelous rate. They are not simply mechanical or material forces; they
are also moral forces of great intensity.”

[Sidenote: Huxley parodies the argument of formal discipline.]

=The Disciplinary Argument for the Sciences.=--Thus, in general, the
writers and lecturers interested in the scientific movement held
that a knowledge of nature was indispensable for human welfare and
that the content of studies rather than the method was of importance
in education. Many of them also expressed their dissent from the
disciplinary conception of education urged by the classicists. Huxley,
for example, parodies the usual linguistic drill by stating: “I could
get up an osteological primer so arid, so pedantic in its terminology,
so altogether distasteful to the youthful mind, as to beat the recent
famous production of the head-master out of the field in all these
excellences. Next, I could exercise my boys upon easy fossils, and
bring out all their powers of memory and all their ingenuity in the
application of my osteogrammatical rules to the interpretation, or
construing, of those fragments.”

[Sidenote: But Spencer and others borrow the disciplinary argument of
the classicists.]

Yet the tradition of ‘formal discipline’ and the belief in faculties
or general powers of the mind that might be trained by certain favored
studies and afterward applied in any direction (see pp. 182f.) were
too firmly rooted to be entirely upset. Even the greatest of the
scientists seem to have been influenced by this notion and to have
attempted occasionally a defense of their subjects on the basis of
superiority in this direction. After Spencer has made his effective
argument for the sciences on the ground that their ‘content’ is so much
more valuable for the activities of life, he shifts his whole point
of view, and attempts to anticipate the classicists by occupying
their own ground. He admits that “besides its use for guidance in
conduct, the acquisition of each order of facts has also its use as
mental exercise.” As evidence of this, he undertakes to show that
science, like language, trains the memory, and, in addition, exercises
the understanding; that it is superior to language in cultivating
judgment; that, by fostering independence, perseverance, and sincerity,
it furnishes a moral discipline. A similar argument is made by Combe,
when he maintains that “it is not so much the mere knowledge of the
details of Chemistry, of Natural Philosophy, or of any other science
that I value, as the strengthening of the intellect, which follows from
these studies.” So Youmans declares that “by far the most priceless
of all things is mental power. Science made the basis of culture will
accomplish this result.” In fact, nearly every apologist for the
natural sciences at some time or other has advocated these subjects
from the standpoint of formal discipline, although the implied attitude
toward the transfer of a generalized ideal is often in harmony with
modern psychology (see p. 184).

[Illustration: Fig. 51.--Charles Darwin

(1809-1882).]

[Illustration: Fig. 52.--Herbert Spencer

(1820-1903).]

[Illustration: Fig. 53.--Thomas H. Huxley

(1825-1895).]

[Illustration: Fig. 54.--Charles W. Eliot

(1835- ).]

A GROUP OF EDUCATIONAL LEADERS IN THE SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT

[Sidenote: German universities]

[Sidenote: and _Hochschulen_.]

=Introduction of the Sciences into Educational Institutions;
Germany.=--Contemporaneously with the growth of inventions and the
cogent arguments and vigorous campaigns of advanced thinkers during
the nineteenth century, training in the sciences was gradually
creeping into educational practice. While the sciences began to work
their way into institutions of all grades early in the eighteenth
century, it was not until about the middle of the nineteenth that the
movement was seriously felt in education. Even in Germany the first
attempts at studying nature were made outside the universities in
the ‘academies of science.’ We have seen (pp. 177 f.) that during the
eighteenth century most of the Protestant universities had started
professorships in the sciences. But it was not until the beginning
of the second quarter of the nineteenth century that, in Liebig’s
laboratory at the University of Giessen, students first began to be
taught through experiments, and it was after the middle of the century
before this investigation work had generally replaced the formal
science instruction in German universities. Since then the development
of science in the higher education of Germany has been phenomenal.
The _Technische Hochschulen_ (see p. 380) have also come to furnish
instruction in all fields of applied science.

[Sidenote: Real schools, gymnasiums,]

[Sidenote: and technical schools.]

In German secondary instruction the realistic instruction of the
pietists was brought by Hecker (see p. 176) to Berlin, where he started
his famous _Realschule_ in 1747, and before the beginning of the
nineteenth century similar institutions had spread throughout Prussia.
Early in the nineteenth century the course of study in the gymnasiums
of Prussia was considerably modified, and, as part of the compromise,
some science was introduced. The movement later spread into the
secondary education of states in South Germany, and, while the total
amount of science was not large, it managed to hold its place in the
gymnasial curriculum even during the reaction to absolutism between
1815 and 1848. But, as we have seen (p. 378), two types of real-schools
were eventually recognized,--_Realgymnasium_ and _Oberrealschule_, and
they at present devote approximately twice as much time to the physical
and biological sciences as do the gymnasia. Technical and trade
schools, with scientific and mathematical subjects as a foundation
for the vocational work, have also appeared as a species of secondary
education in Germany (see p. 420). The first of these were opened in
Nuremberg in 1823, but their rapid increase in numbers, variety, and
importance has taken place since the middle of the century, and their
development in organization and method has occurred within the past
twenty-five years.

[Sidenote: _Volksschulen._]

The scientific movement was also felt in the elementary schools of
Germany during the early part of the nineteenth century. Science was
considerably popularized by the schools of the philanthropinists
(pp. 227 f.), and was widely introduced into elementary education by
the spread of Pestalozzianism in Prussia and the other German states
(see p. 289 f.). Before the close of the first quarter of the century
the study of elementary science,--natural history, physiology, and
physics, appeared in various grades; geography and drawing were taught
throughout the course; and geometry was included in the upper classes
of the _Volksschulen_.

[Sidenote: French collèges and universities.]

[Sidenote: Lycées.]

=France.=--Before the Revolution in France the higher and secondary
institutions found little place for instruction in science. There
was a chair of experimental physics at the College of Navarre of the
University of Paris and at the Universities of Toulouse and Montpelier,
and natural history was also taught at the more independent College of
France, but, as a whole, education was dominated largely by humanism.
However, with the establishment of the republic a new régime began in
education, as in other matters, and science entered more largely into
higher and secondary instruction. Most of the revolutionary proposals
subordinated letters to science, and in 1794 the republic founded a
great central normal school, where the famous Laplace and Lagrange
for a short time gave instruction in science. In 1802 Napoleon had
included in the scientific course for the lycées natural history,
physics, astronomy, chemistry, and mineralogy, and a definite advance
in quantity and method of the scientific instruction in the secondary
schools was made in 1814. On the ground that they were injuring
classical studies, Cousin in 1840 had the sciences curtailed, but he
was shortly forced to restore them upon an optional basis. A contest
between the two types of studies was carried on in the lycées until
1852, when a bifurcation in the course put the two theoretically
upon the same basis. The scientific course, however, has never been
considered equal in prestige to the classical, although it has
constantly increased in length and difficulty.

[Sidenote: Lower and higher primary,]

[Sidenote: and normal schools.]

Some instruction in science has come to be given during the past
forty years even in the elementary schools of France. In the lower
primary schools the work is informal, and consists mostly of object
lessons and first scientific notions. These are developed in
connection with drawing, manual training, agriculture, and geography
of the neighborhood and of France in general. Instruction becomes
more formal in the ‘higher primary’ schools, and includes regular
courses in the natural and physical sciences and hygiene, as well
as geography, drawing, and manual training. In the normal schools
for primary teachers instruction in all the physical and biological
sciences is even more thorough, and includes not only the facts and
theories of general scientific importance, but it also emphasizes their
applications to everyday life. For example, the flora and fauna of the
neighborhood are studied in their special relation to agriculture.

[Sidenote: Cambridge and Oxford,]

[Sidenote: municipal universities,]

[Sidenote: and Imperial College of Science.]

[Sidenote: Science and Art Department.]

=England.=--In England, several chairs in the natural sciences were
established at Cambridge during the eighteenth century. But it was
almost the middle of the nineteenth century before the biological
sciences and the laboratory method of instruction were introduced,
and not until toward the close of the century did science become
prominent at Cambridge and Oxford. And the most marked promotion of
the scientific movement in England has occurred within the past fifty
years through the foundation of efficient municipal universities in
such centers as Birmingham, Manchester, London, and Liverpool (see
p. 392). For many years the laboratory instruction was given only in
institutions outside the universities. Higher courses in science by the
new methods were afforded through the foundation of the Royal School
of Mines (1851), the Royal School of Naval Architecture and Marine
Engineering (1864), and the Normal School of Science (1868), which
were all combined in 1890 into a single institution known as the Royal
College of Science, and in 1907, when the Technical College (founded
1881) of the City and Guilds of London Institute was also merged, the
entire corporation became known as the Imperial College of Science and
Technology. An agency that was instrumental in encouraging the advanced
study of science, although it accomplished even more for elementary and
secondary schools, was the national Science and Art Department. This
organization was founded in 1858 to bring under a single management
the science, trade, and navigation schools already existing, and to
facilitate higher instruction in science, and a few years later began
to offer examinations and to grant certificates to teach science in
the elementary schools. It was taken over by the national Board of
Education, when that body was organized in 1899 (see p. 389).

[Sidenote: Academies,]

[Sidenote: ‘secular’ schools,]

[Sidenote: ‘modern side’ in public schools,]

[Sidenote: and Department of Science and Art.]

In English secondary instruction the ‘academies,’ in which science
first appeared (pp. 157 f.), had before the close of the eighteenth
century greatly declined, and the humanistic ‘public’ schools and
secondary institutions of a private character had as yet paid almost
no attention to the sciences. In the first half of the nineteenth
century an anti-classical campaign began, and, continuing with ever
increasing force until the middle of the century, it brought about
the foundation of numerous schools to embody the new ideals. Toward
the close of 1848 the first ‘secular’ school was opened by Combe
(see p. 403) at Edinburgh, and included in its curriculum a study of
geography, drawing, mathematics, natural history, chemistry, natural
philosophy, physiology, phrenology, and materials used in the arts and
manufactures. Similar institutions were organized at Glasgow, Leith,
London, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Belfast, and many other
cities of the United Kingdom. While short-lived, these schools did
much to promote the introduction of sciences into secondary education
that soon followed. Shortly after the middle of the century Rugby,
and then Winchester, introduced science into the regular curriculum,
and by 1868, as a result of the governmental investigation of the
endowed schools, which showed an almost complete absence of science in
the curricula, all the leading secondary schools began to establish
a ‘modern side.’ This course generally included physics and natural
history, as well as modern languages and history, but it was most
reluctantly organized by the institutions, and, while it has attained
to great efficiency, it has never, except in a few schools, been
accorded the same standing as the classical course. The Department
of Science and Art also afforded much encouragement to secondary
instruction in the sciences by subsidizing schools and classes in
physics, chemistry, zoölogy, botany, geology, mineralogy, and subjects
involving the applications of science. Before its absorption into
the Board of Education some ten thousand classes and seventy-five
independent schools of secondary grade received assistance from this
source.

[Sidenote: Grants for science work in elementary schools.]

The Department also gave aid to the study of science in elementary
education. As early as the fifties, grants were made to establish work
in elementary science, art, and design, but the educational value was
for more than forty years subordinated to practical applications. And
while, after the report by a Committee of the British Association in
1889, much aid was furnished for the equipment of laboratories, lecture
rooms, and workshops, and an increase in the staff of instructors,
for a decade no subjects except the rudiments were required in the
elementary course, and such ‘supplementary’ subjects as elementary
science and geography, if taught, were given a special subsidy. But
since 1900 this scientific work has been made compulsory in the
elementary curriculum.

[Sidenote: Beginning in the colleges during the eighteenth century.]

=The United States.=--In the colleges of the United States the courses
show considerable evidence of science teaching by the eighteenth
century. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, King’s (afterward Columbia),
Dartmouth, Union, and Pennsylvania had all come to offer work in
‘natural philosophy’ or ‘natural history,’ which terms might then be
used to cover physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, botany, and
zoölogy. However, before the Revolution physics seems to have been a
subordinate branch of mathematical instruction, even less importance
was attached to biology, and chemistry was only occasionally taught
as an obscure and unimportant phase of physics. Laboratories and
instruments of precision did not yet exist.

[Sidenote: Development of sciences,--]

[Sidenote: chemistry,]

[Sidenote: physics,]

[Sidenote: geology,]

[Sidenote: astronomy,]

[Sidenote: and biology.]

Since then whole fields of science have been discovered and defined,
and others, like geology and astronomy, have been reclaimed from
dogmatism, and science studies have slowly come into favor. Instruction
in chemistry has grown up through a study of materia medica at the
medical schools of Pennsylvania (1768), Harvard (1782), and Dartmouth
(1798). A separate chair of chemistry was soon established at Princeton
(1795), Columbia (1800), Yale (1802), Bowdoin (1805), South Carolina
(1811), Dickinson (1811), and Williams (1812), and the movement
continued until practically all the colleges had recognized it as an
important branch of study. But while experiments were from the first
performed as demonstrations by the instructors, it was generally not
until almost the middle of the century that students were admitted at
all to the laboratories. About the same time laboratories in physics
began to be equipped with apparatus. Geology was included in the early
professorship of chemistry at Yale, and was given a distinct chair upon
the advent of James D. Dana about the middle of the century, while Amos
Eaton taught it as a separate subject at Williams as early as 1825.
Some attention was given to astronomy early in the century, although
the instruments remained very ordinary and the methods authoritative
and prescriptive until the opening of the observatories at Cincinnati
(1844), Cambridge (1846), and Ann Arbor (1854). The biological
sciences were even longer studied through mere observation rather than
investigation and experiment. Until Louis Agassiz opened his laboratory
at Harvard to students just after the middle of the century, the
courses were meager, mostly theoretical and classificatory, and were
given entirely by lecture, without field or laboratory work. Since then
the development has been rapid.

[Sidenote: Impulse through evolutionary doctrine.]

[Sidenote: Rise of new institutions.]

But the greatest impulse was given to instruction in science through
the publication of Darwin’s _Origin of Species_ (1859), and the
dissemination of evolutionary doctrine through Asa Gray, professor of
natural history at Harvard, and William B. Rogers, president of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The intellectual development
ensuing also brought about the foundation of such new institutions as
Cornell and Johns Hopkins, which emphasized the teaching of science
as an unconscious protest against the exclusively classical training.
Special scientific and technological schools likewise began to
arise. The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1825) and the Lawrence
Scientific School at Harvard (1847) had already been opened, but now
similar schools of science, like Sheffield at Yale (1860), and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1862), sprang up in all parts
of the country. In 1862 the Morrill Act of Congress appropriated lands
in every state to promote education in agriculture, mechanic arts, and
the natural sciences. These grants, which amounted at first to thirteen
million acres, were subsequently extended to new states as they were
admitted, and the endowment was increased by the annual grants of
money that were made under later acts. From these funds and private
benefactions, further schools of science were started or old schools
were strengthened in every state.

[Sidenote: Academies]

[Sidenote: and high schools.]

Through the academy movement (pp. 158 ff.) sciences were introduced
into American secondary education. Sometimes these subjects were
extended downward from the colleges, but often they had as yet been
barely touched by the colleges. As the early high schools grew up,
they continued the attention paid to the sciences by the academies.
The first high school to appear, that at Boston in 1821 (pp. 268 f.),
scheduled geography in the first year; navigation and surveying in the
second; and natural philosophy and astronomy in the third. A similar
emphasis upon science appeared during the first half of the century
in all the secondary institutions, whether known as academies, high
schools, union schools, or city colleges. In all cases, however,
instruction was given mainly through text-books, and, while experiments
were frequently used for demonstration by the teacher, there was no
laboratory work for the students. Moreover, a tendency to overload
the curriculum with sciences was much increased during the seventies
by the demand of the legislatures in several states that candidates
for teachers’ certificates pass an examination in several sciences.
The high schools and academies endeavored to furnish the necessary
training to prepare for these examinations, and until toward the end
of the century the courses in the sciences were numerous and of rather
superficial character. Within the last twenty years, however, the
schools have come to limit each student to a relatively few courses
taught by thorough laboratory methods.

[Sidenote: Influence of Mann]

[Sidenote: and Pestalozzi.]

Except for geography, which appeared in the curriculum early in the
century, the rudiments practically constituted the entire course of the
elementary school until the time of Horace Mann. Largely through his
efforts, physiology was widely introduced by the middle of the century.
About a dozen years later the Pestalozzian object teaching began to
come in through the Oswego methods, although it tended to become
formalized. Thus materials in several of the sciences came to be used,
and the pupils were required to describe them in scientific terms.
Toward the close of the century the sciences came to be presented
more informally by the method generally known as ‘nature study.’ This
movement quickly spread through the country, and has most recently
appeared in the guise of agricultural instruction (see p. 424).
Many states now require agriculture as a requisite for a teacher’s
certificate, and most normal schools have come to furnish a training in
the subject.

[Sidenote: Attitude upon formal discipline and method.]

=Interrelation of the Scientific with the Psychological and
Sociological Movements.=--It is evident that there has been a marked
scientific movement in the educational systems of all countries during
the past two hundred years. The sciences began to appear in the
curricula of educational institutions in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, but their rapid increase, and the use of laboratories and
the scientific method in instruction, dated from the middle of the
nineteenth. In some respects this scientific movement has been closely
related to the other modern tendencies in education,--the psychological
and the sociological. The coincidence of the scientific movement with
the psychological on the question of formal discipline has been evident
(pp. 183 f.). The influence of the development of the sciences upon
educational method also constitutes part of the psychological movement.
The sciences demanded entirely different methods of teaching from
the traditional procedure. These innovations were worked out slowly
by experimentation, and when they proved to be more in keeping with
psychology, they reacted upon the teaching of the older subjects and
came to be utilized in history, politics, philology, and other studies.
A corresponding improvement in the presentation of the form, content,
and arrangement of various subjects has taken place in text-books,
and a radically different set of books and authors has been rendered
necessary.

[Sidenote: Means of human welfare.]

The scientific movement has even more points in common with the
sociological. In its opposition to the disciplinarians and its stress
upon content rather than form, the scientific tendency coincides with
the sociological, although the former looks rather to the natural
sciences as a means of individual welfare, and the latter to the
social and political sciences to equip the individual for life in
social institutions and to secure the progress of society. But while
the scientist usually states his argument in individual terms, because
of his connection in time and sympathy with the individualism of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the same writer usually, as in the
case of Rousseau, Combe, Spencer, and Huxley, advocates the social,
moral, and political sciences as a means of complete living. Similarly,
the sociological movement has especial kinship with the economic and
utilitarian aspects of the study of the sciences, for professional,
technical, and commercial institutions have been evolved because of
sociological as well as scientific demands. Again, the use of the
sciences in education as a means of preparing for life and the needs
of society overlaps the modern sociological principle of furthering
democracy. Both tendencies lead to the best development of all classes
and to the abandonment of artificial strata in society.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _In Modern Times_ (Macmillan, 1913), chap. X; and _Great
Educators_ (Macmillan, 1912), chap. XIV; Monroe, _Textbook_ (Macmillan,
1905), chap. XII; Parker, _Modern Elementary Education_ (Ginn, 1912),
pp. 331-340. Popular accounts of the growth of science can be found in
Buckley, Arabella B., _A Short History of Natural Science_ (Appleton),
and Williams, H. S., _Story of Nineteenth Century Science_ (Harper).
Spencer’s _Education_ and Huxley’s _Science and Education_ should
be read. Further arguments for the study of science can be found in
Coulter, J. M., _The Mission of Science in Education_ (_Science_,
II, 12, pp. 281-293); Dryer, C. R., _Science in Secondary Schools_
(Prize Essay in _The Academy_, May, 1888, pp. 197-221); Galloway, R.,
_Education, Scientific and Technical_ (Trübner, London, 1881); Norton,
W. H., _The Social Service of Science_ (_Science_, II, 13, pp. 644ff.);
Pearson, K., _Grammar of Science_ (Macmillan, 1911), chap. I; Roberts,
R. D., _Science in the Nineteenth Century_ (Cambridge University Press,
1901), chap. VII; Sedgwick, W. T., _Educational Value of the Method of
Science_ (_Educational Review_, vol. V, pp. 243ff.), and especially
Youmans, E. L., _Culture Demanded by Modern Life_ (Appleton, 1867).




CHAPTER XXVII

PRESENT DAY TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION


OUTLINE

    At the present time there is great progress in industrial,
    commercial, and agricultural training in the schools of Europe and
    America.

    For a quarter of a century the educational systems of Europe have
    been giving attention to moral training, and of late there has been
    some discussion of the subject in the United States.

    All the great nations now provide for the training of mental
    defectives, and for some time training has been afforded those
    defective in some sense organ.

    The attempts at improved methods of teaching are witnessed by the
    study of industries in the experimental school of Dewey, by the
    formulation of a curriculum in terms of normal activities of other
    elementary schools, and by the ‘didactic apparatus’ and the devices
    for learning the ‘three r’s’ of Montessori.

    Methods of mental measurement are being devised for the elementary
    school subjects by Thorndike and others, and systems of measurement
    are being utilized in administration.

    Darwin’s theory of evolution has revolutionized our attitude,
    imagery, and vocabulary in education.

    There is also a great variety of other educational movements in all
    grades of education.

[Sidenote: Constant efforts at a reconstruction of education.]

=Recent Educational Progress.=--Because of the notable development
of science and invention, which has been noted in the last chapter,
the nineteenth century has often been referred to as the ‘wonderful’
century. Such a term affords no better description of material
achievement than of the remarkable progress that has taken place
in education. Previous chapters have indicated the extent to which,
through various movements, education has advanced and broadened in
conception, but the near future of education will probably witness
a much greater development. At the present time there are constant
efforts at a modification and a reconstruction of education in the
interest of a better adjustment of the individual to his social
environment and of greatly improved conditions in society itself. It
would, of course, be impossible to describe all of these movements even
in the briefest manner, but some of the present day tendencies that
appear most significant should now engage our attention.

[Sidenote: Social reasons for industrial education.]

=The Growth of Industrial Training.=--The movement that is perhaps most
widely discussed to-day is the introduction of vocational training
into the systems of education. There is now an especial need for this
type of training. Since the industrial revolution and the development
of the factory system, the master no longer works by the side of his
apprentice and instructs him, and the ambition of the youth can no
longer be spurred by the hope that he may himself some day become a
master. His experience is generally confined to some single process,
and only a few of the operatives require anything more than low-grade
skill. Nor, as a rule, will the employer undertake any systematic
education of his workmen, when the mobility of labor permits of no
guarantee that he will reap the benefit of such efforts, and the
modern industrial plant is poorly adapted to supplying the necessary
theoretical training for experts. Hence an outside agency--the
school--has been called upon to assist in the solution of these
new problems. To meet the demand for industrial education, all the
principal states of Europe have maintained training of this sort for
at least half a century, and the United States has in the twentieth
century been making rapid strides in the same direction.

[Sidenote: Industrial training of the continuation schools in Germany.]

[Sidenote: Work of Kerschensteiner.]

=Industrial Schools in Europe.=--In Germany, where this training is
most effective, the work has for fifty years been rapidly developing
through the _Fortbildungsschulen_ (see Fig. 55). The course in these
schools at first consisted largely of review work, but the rapid
spread of elementary schools soon enabled them to devote all the
time to technical education. Training is now afforded not only for
the rank and file of workmen in the different trades, but for higher
grades of workers, such as foremen and superintendents. Girls are
likewise trained in a wide variety of vocations. During the last
twenty-five years there have also been developed continuation schools
to furnish theoretical courses in physical sciences, mathematics,
bookkeeping, drawing, history, and law. In North Germany there is a
tendency to confine the courses to theoretical training, and leave
the practical side to the care of the employers, but the South German
states generally combine theoretical and practical work, and develop
schools adapted to the industries of the various localities. Through
the work of Kerschensteiner, Munich has even included an extra class
in the elementary schools, to bridge the gap between school life and
employment.

[Sidenote: No apprenticeship in France, but all training in
continuation schools.]

[Sidenote: Early facilities in England.]

France goes still further, and, because of unsatisfactory conditions in
apprenticeship, attempts to eliminate it altogether, and to furnish the
entire industrial training through continuation schools articulating
with the elementary system. The pupils are admitted at thirteen to the
continuation schools (see p. 383) and obtain practice in the school
workshops for three years. Woodwork is generally taught to the boys,
but the other courses vary with local needs. Girls learn to make
dresses, corsets, millinery, artificial flowers, and other industrial
products. In England, grants were first made to evening industrial
schools and classes in 1851, but twenty years later regular schools of
science were organized, which had both day and evening sessions. In
addition to these continuation schools, there have now been established
higher elementary schools, which afford a four-year course in practical
and theoretical science arranged according to local needs.

[Sidenote: Evening continuation schools in United States.]

[Sidenote: Day schools, private]

[Sidenote: and public.]

[Sidenote: Secondary schools.]

[Sidenote: ‘Part-time’ schools.]

=Industrial Training in the United States.=--Industrial training first
began to be offered in the United States during the latter half of
the nineteenth century by means of a number of evening continuation
schools. These were established through philanthropy in the larger
cities, and included the Cooper Union and the Mechanics’ Institute
in New York; the Franklin Union and the Spring Garden Institute in
Philadelphia; the Ohio Mechanics’ Institute in Cincinnati; and the
Virginia Mechanics’ Institute in Richmond. The public schools at
length followed this example, and of late years have organized evening
classes in drawing, mathematics, science, and technical subjects. Day
instruction was long delayed. It began in 1881 with the foundation of
the New York Trade School, but at the end of twenty years there were
only two others,--the Williamson Free School of Mechanical Trades near
Philadelphia and the Baron de Hirsch Trade School in New York. Later
the development was more rapid, and since 1906 several hundred day
trade schools have been organized, mostly through public support, in
the larger cities of the country. These schools are mostly for youths
between sixteen and twenty-five, but ‘preparatory trade schools’ for
younger boys have also been started in New York, Massachusetts, and
other states. Higher training to equip leaders for the industries
has also come to be furnished through endowed secondary schools and
technical high schools in a number of cities. A recent variety of
vocational training is the ‘part-time’ plan, by which students are
given some theoretical and formal training in a regular high school
or college, while they are obtaining their practical experience. This
alternation of practical and theoretical training is sometimes carried
on in a single institution, or even within a commercial establishment
itself.

[Sidenote: Conditions requiring commercial education.]

=Commercial Education in Europe and America.=--But the modern
development of vocational training throughout the leading countries
has not been confined to industrial lines. With the extension of the
sphere of commerce and the development of its organization that have
taken place in the nineteenth century, it has come to be recognized
that preparation is essential for a business career. Only recently,
however, has this training been felt to be a proper function of the
schools, since for many years it was opposed by educators as sordid and
commercializing, and by business men as unpractical and ineffective.
Both classes have now been brought to realize the need of mutual
support, and the rapid growth of commercial education indicates an
appreciation of its usefulness.

[Sidenote: In Germany many private continuation schools,]

[Sidenote: and secondary and university courses,]

[Sidenote: but England and France indifferent.]

[Sidenote: In the United States ‘business colleges,’]

[Sidenote: and secondary and higher courses.]

Germany is generally admitted to lead in commercial education. The
growth of this training has taken place since 1887, but there is now
offered under state control a unified and thorough preparation for
any line of business. Besides private continuation schools, in which
a course of three years in modern languages and elementary commercial
studies can be obtained, there have grown up both public secondary
schools and university courses in which a thorough general education
and theoretical work in commerce, as well as a practical and technical
training, are provided (Fig. 55). England and France have been rather
indifferent to commercial education. In both countries until very
recently schools have been few, and the number of pupils in each has
been small. But now continuation schools, free evening courses, and
private classes have sprung up, and in a few large cities commercial
schools of secondary and even higher grade have been established.
In the United States commercial training began by the middle of
the nineteenth century through private enterprise with classes in
bookkeeping, and later with ‘business colleges.’ Despite the name of
the latter, the course is narrow and is generally shaped by pecuniary
aims. During the last two decades of the nineteenth century high and
normal schools began to offer commercial instruction, but until the
twentieth century the courses were only tolerated as a necessary evil,
and largely imitated those of the business colleges. Since then many
cities have opened high schools of commerce, and university schools and
colleges of commerce have arisen, and even a score of years before this
development the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce was started at
the University of Pennsylvania.

[Sidenote: Agricultural instruction in the schools of France and
Germany.]

[Sidenote: United States offers courses in all grades of education.]

=Recent Emphasis upon Agricultural Training.=--A similar development
has of late been taking place in agricultural education. France and
Germany offer elementary instruction in agriculture, while the former
has also introduced the subject into the normal schools, and the
latter has established a secondary agricultural institution open to
students at the close of their sixth year in the _Realschule_. Through
the feeling that the United States must become the great agricultural
nation, and that the traditional methods of agriculture have been
exceedingly wasteful, this country especially has been emphasizing that
type of vocational education. The land grant colleges, first endowed
by act of Congress in 1862, have greatly stimulated interest in the
subject, and later Congress added other sources of revenue, and has
recently furnished appropriations for instruction in the teaching of
agriculture and for extension work in agriculture. Thus the way has
been prepared for the introduction of the subject into the high school
and grades. There are now at least one hundred agricultural high
schools in the United States, and agriculture is taught as a branch of
study in several thousand high and elementary school systems.

[Sidenote: Social conditions demanding moral training.]

=Moral Training in the Schools To-day.=--But present day tendencies in
education have to do with more than the material side of civilization.
There is a growing sentiment in favor of moral instruction in the
schools. There are many reasons why this need should be especially felt
in the complex business life of to-day. When men work for impersonal
corporations, sell products to people they never see, or intrust their
welfare to officials whose names are scarcely known, one strong factor
making for honesty and virtue, that of personal relations, is lost.
Moreover, as a result of the weakening of old religious sanctions, the
new conditions in large cities, and other causes, moral traditions are
in need of being buttressed.

[Illustration:

Fig. 55.--Vocational education for boys in Germany (Commercial,
Industrial, and Professional) in Relation to Public School Organization.

(Reproduced by permission from Farrington’s _Commercial Education in
Germany_.)]

[Sidenote: In France secular training, but in England and Germany
religious.]

[Sidenote: Sadler’s commission.]

[Sidenote: Work of the N. E. A. in the United States.]

[Sidenote: Summary of the R. E. A.]

The educational systems of Europe have for a quarter of a century given
more or less attention to moral training. In France this training
has been purely secular and excluded all religious elements. But the
education of England and Germany has always associated the teaching of
morality with religion. In England, the ‘board’ schools have furnished
religious instruction of a nonsectarian character, but the religious
training of the ‘voluntary’ schools has occupied more time and has
stressed the creed and denominational teaching of some church, usually
the Church of England (see pp. 380 f.). The contest over religious
teaching since the Act of 1902 (see p. 390) caused a self-constituted
commission, with Michael E. Sadler as chairman, to investigate the
subject of moral instruction, and in 1908-1909 it presented a large and
illuminating report. In Germany the moral and religious instruction
in all elementary schools is sectarian, and Catholic and Protestant
schools are alike supported, wherever needed, at public expense.
During the past decade there has been considerable discussion in the
United States concerning moral education. In response to the demand
for an investigation of the subject, a committee of the National
Education Association in 1908-1909 made a report upon various phases
of moral training, and recommended special instruction in ethics,
not in the form of precepts, but through consideration of existing
moral questions. In 1911 the Religious Education Association, whose
convention in that year was devoted to moral training, gave in its
_Journal_ a broad summary of the progress of moral education in the
United States. The report reveals a wide difference of opinion and
practice, but an evident tendency to trust other agencies than direct
moral instruction. As a rule, state legislation seems as yet to have
failed to provide a general system of training, but has confined itself
to specific subjects, such as instruction in citizenship, the effects
of alcohol and narcotics, and the humane treatment of animals.

[Sidenote: Impulse given by Seguin’s ‘physiological’ methods.]

[Sidenote: Attempts to introduce intellectual elements.]

=The Development of Training for Mental Defectives.=--One of the most
patent evidences of the growth of the humane spirit in modern times
is found in the universal attention now given to the education of
mental defectives. This movement was given its greatest impulse through
Édouard Seguin, who came to the United States in 1850 and developed
his methods here. His general plan was to appeal to the mind through
the senses by means of a training of the hand, taste and smell, and
eye and ear. He used pictures, photographs, cards, patterns, figures,
wax, clay, scissors, compasses, and pencils as his chief instruments of
education. The stimulus he gave to the training of defectives has been
epoch-making, and his ‘physiological’ methods have remained the chief
means of education. Although there has grown up a tendency to introduce
intellectual elements into the training of the feeble-minded, the
advantages of such a procedure are doubtful.

[Sidenote: Schools in Germany,]

[Sidenote: France, and England.]

All the great nations now provide schools for the training of
defectives. Germany has over one hundred institutions, with some
twenty thousand pupils in them, although nine-tenths of them are not
supported by the state, but are under church or private auspices. These
schools generally stress manual education, but give some attention to
intellectual lines, especially to speech training. There are but few
schools for defectives in France, aside from the two near Paris and
the juvenile department of the insane hospital at Bicêtre, but these
institutions largely follow the physical work formulated by Seguin. In
London there is one excellent institution with two thousand pupils,
where manual training constitutes almost the entire course. But there
are five other schools so located as to serve the various parts of
England, in which the training is rather bookish and emphasis is
especially laid upon number work.

[Sidenote: Training in the United States.]

Thanks to the start given by Seguin, America has taken up the education
of defectives more fully than any other country. Schools for the
feeble-minded now exist in almost all the states, and there are some
thirty-five or forty private institutions of considerable merit. Not
far from twenty thousand defectives are being trained, although this
is probably only about one-tenth of the total number of such cases in
the country. The type of education differs greatly according to the
institution, ranging from almost purely manual training to a large
proportion of the intellectual rudiments, but in all the work is
adapted to the various grades in such a way as to raise them a little
in the scale of efficiency and to keep them as far as possible from
being a burden to themselves and to society. Likewise, special clinics
and investigations, like those of Lightner Witmer of the University of
Pennsylvania and of H. H. Goddard of the Training School at Vineland
(New Jersey), are greatly adding to our knowledge of the best methods
for training defectives.

[Sidenote: Manual]

[Sidenote: and oral methods for the deaf.]

=Education of the Deaf and Blind.=--Persons defective in some sense
organ, but otherwise up to the standard, have likewise for some time
been receiving an education that will minimize the difficulty. There
have been two chief methods for teaching the deaf. The manual or
‘silent’ method of communication was invented by the Abbé de l’Épée in
Paris during the latter part of the eighteenth century, and his school
was adopted by the nation in 1791. The other method, the ‘oral,’ by
which the pupil learns to communicate through reading the movements
of the lips, was started in Germany early in the eighteenth century,
but was not employed to any great extent until the middle of the next
century. Most countries now use the oral method exclusively, or in
connection with the manual system. In the United States practically
every commonwealth now has one or more schools for the deaf, and since
1864 even higher education has been furnished by Gallaudet College at
Washington.

[Sidenote: Schools for the blind in Europe and the United States.]

The first instruction of the blind through raised letters was given
toward the end of the eighteenth century by Abbé Haüy at Paris. While
his schools, owing to his lack of judgment, were failures, the idea
spread rapidly. Early in the nineteenth century there were one or more
schools in each of the leading countries of Europe, and a generation
later institutions of this sort were started in the United States.
In schools for the blind or deaf, industrial training has in most
instances been added to the intellectual (see p. 300), in order to
fit every individual to be an independent workman in some line. Even
pupils, both deaf and blind, like Laura Bridgeman and Helen Keller,
have had their minds awakened through the sense of touch.

[Sidenote: Colonel Parker’s contributions.]

=Recent Development of Educational Method; Dewey’s Experimental
School.=--Nor has the past century witnessed any cessation of the
attempts at improved methods of teaching. Various suggestions and
systems have been put forward and many have had an important effect
upon school procedure. It is impossible, however, to discuss any
except a few of the more influential and prominent, and these can be
considered but briefly. The occupational work of Professor Dewey and
Colonel Parker’s scheme of concentration have marked the growth of a
body of educational theory and practice that places the methods of
to-day far in advance of anything previously known. The combination and
modification of Ritter, Herbart, and Froebel worked out by Parker have
perhaps received sufficient attention (see pp. 293, 350, and 364), but
we may at this point outline a little more fully the contributions made
by John Dewey, who has probably been the leader in the reconstruction
that has taken place in education almost since the twentieth century
began.

[Sidenote: Purpose]

[Sidenote: and course of Dewey’s school.]

The methods of Dewey were developed in an experimental elementary
school connected with the University of Chicago and under his
supervision from 1896 to 1903. The school did not start with ready-made
principles, but sought to solve three fundamental educational problems.
It undertook to find out (1) how to bring the school into closer
relation with the home and neighborhood life; (2) how to introduce
subject-matter in history, science, and art that has a positive
value and real significance in the child’s own life; and (3) how to
carry on instruction in reading, writing, and figuring with everyday
experience and occupation as their background “in such a way that the
child shall feel their necessity through their connection with subjects
which appeal to him on their own account.” The plan for meeting these
needs was found largely in the study of industries. Since industries
are most fundamental in the thought, ideals, and social organization
of a people, these activities must have the most prominent place
in the course of a school. “The school cannot be a preparation for
social life except as it reproduces the typical conditions of life.”
The means used in furnishing this industrial activity were evolved
mainly along the lines of shopwork, cooking, sewing, and weaving,
although many subsidiary industries were also used. These occupations
were, of course, intended for a liberalizing, rather than a technical
purpose, and considerable time was given to an historical study of
them (Fig. 56). Dewey declares: “The industrial history of man is
not a materialistic or merely utilitarian affair. It is a matter of
intelligence. Its record is the record of how man learned to think, to
think to some effect, to transform the conditions of life so that life
itself became a different thing. It is an ethical record as well; the
account of the conditions which men have patiently wrought out to serve
their ends.”

[Sidenote: In harmony with Froebel,]

[Sidenote: but not as stereotyped,]

[Sidenote: and work--not amusement--the spirit of the school.]

It can be seen how fully this plan is in accord with the real
principles of social coöperation and expression of individual
activities underlying the work of Froebel; and “so far as these
statements correctly represented Froebel’s educational philosophy,”
Dewey generously grants that “the school should be regarded as its
exponent.” But these industrial activities of the Chicago experimental
school were not in the least suggested by Froebel’s work, and were far
more expressive of real life. They never became as stereotyped and
external as the gifts or even as the occupations of the kindergarten
have generally been. Dewey is insistent that this training shall be
carried on not for the purpose of furnishing facts or principles to
be learned, but for enabling the child to engage in the industrial
occupations in miniature. “The school is not preparation for life:
it is life.” Hence this training is superior to the occupations of
Froebel in that “it maintains a balance between the intellectual and
the practical phases of experience.” Where Froebel has held to the
construction of beautiful things in mechanical ways, Dewey emphasizes
the ordinary activities and experiences of life, even though the
expression of these be crude. The child should be “given, wherever
possible, intellectual responsibility for selecting the materials and
instruments that are most fit, and given an opportunity to think out
his own model and plan of work, led to perceive his own errors, and
find how to correct them.” Thus the work was never “reduced to a mere
routine or custom and its educational value lost.” As a result, too, it
was the consensus of opinion that “while the children like, or love, to
come to school, yet work, and not amusement, has been the spirit and
teaching of the school; and that this freedom has been granted under
such conditions of intelligent and sympathetic oversight as to be a
means of upbuilding and strengthening character.”

[Sidenote: Schools on a similar basis.]

=Other Experiments in Method.=--Hence, while the Chicago school is
now at an end, the experiment in education developed there is still
yielding abundant fruitage. It has stimulated similar undertakings
elsewhere, and has been the largest factor in determining the theory
and practice of the present day. Either as a result of Dewey’s work or
through independent thought, there has sprung up an important group of
schools in which there is clearly an effort to bring boys and girls of
elementary school age into more intimate relation to community life
about them. Such are the Gary (Indiana) Public Schools, the Francis
W. Parker School of Chicago, the Elementary School at the University
of Missouri, the Pestalozzi-Froebel School of Berlin, the Abbotsholme
School in Derbyshire (England), and a number of others.

[Sidenote: University of Missouri Elementary School:]

[Sidenote: its purpose and curriculum.]

A good illustration is afforded in the school developed by Junius L.
Meriam at Columbia, Missouri, although it has not been given much
publicity. Its function is to help children do better in all those
wholesome activities in which they normally engage. The school does
not attend to the ‘three r’s’ as such, but specifically to particular
activities of children, including (1) play, (2) observation, (3)
handwork, and (4) stories, music, and art. These four ‘studies,’
representing real life, irrespective of the school, constitute the
curriculum, and the ‘three r’s’ are studied only as they are needed.
Their content, therefore, being used, as in life, in meeting real
needs, is studied most effectively.

[Sidenote: Gary school system:]

[Sidenote: its plant and methods.]

An experiment that has attracted widespread interest is that worked out
in the Gary school system by William A. Wirt. While the achievement is
mostly in the way of a remarkable organization and administration that
have undertaken to make available “all of the educational opportunities
of the city all of the time for all of the people,” the teaching has to
some extent been carried on so as to reveal to the pupils “that what
they are doing is worth while.” The school plant includes a playground,
garden, workshop, social center, library, and traditional school, and
it has been shown that these agencies, when properly organized, “secure
the same attitude of mind toward the reading, writing, and arithmetic
that the child normally has for play.” All the other schools that have
been mentioned above make similar attempts to enable the children
to get into closer touch with their environment. While each of them
approaches the problems of elementary training from a different angle,
they are all in harmony with the spirit of Dewey and present day theory.

[Sidenote: ‘Liberty of the pupil;’]

[Sidenote: Seguin’s apparatus.]

=The Montessori Method.=--But probably the most spectacular development
in educational procedure is that originating with Maria Montessori
at Rome. Yet the Montessori method, except for some elements adapted
from Seguin (see p. 426), is largely a combination of several of the
concepts found in Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Froebel, and fails to grasp
the larger vision of education that appears in present-day theory, such
as Dewey’s. Like Rousseau and Froebel, Montessori holds fundamentally
to the rightness of child nature and consequently to the liberty of
the pupil, but she does not, like Dewey, realize that education is
itself life and that the activities of real life should be utilized
in training. Moreover, the sense training, which Montessori herself
considers the most distinctive feature of her system, is neither
original nor psychologically sound. Montessori began as a teacher
of defectives, and her ‘didactic apparatus’ and methods are largely
borrowed from Seguin. Exercises of this sort are of great value in
training defectives, but the assumption of their usefulness in the
education of normal children is more doubtful. They are intended to
train the senses to general powers and discriminations, and seem to be
defended simply upon the basis of faculty psychology and the outworn
theory of ‘formal discipline’ (see p. 182 f.).

[Sidenote: Writing,]

[Sidenote: reading, and arithmetic.]

The feature of the Montessori method, however, that has attracted most
attention is its apparent success with the formal elementary studies,
especially the facility, enthusiasm, and speed with which it has
enabled the pupils to learn to write. Montessori has carefully analyzed
the process of writing and devised three exercises by which this art is
unconsciously learned by three or four year old children in Italy. If
this training can be applied to unphonetic languages, like the English,
it may possibly be regarded as a contribution. It is evident, however,
that Montessori lays too much stress upon the acquisition of the
formal studies and starts them at too early an age. In this she fails
to appreciate Froebel’s great contribution of a school without books,
and certainly does not realize, with Dewey, that the main purpose of
education is to give a child some control of his social environment and
that for this there are activities of more importance to child life
than the school arts. Within a few years it will probably be difficult
to understand the _furore_ that has been created by the Montessori
methods.

[Sidenote: Technique of the physical sciences applied to education.]

=The Statistical Method and Mental Measurements in Education.=--One of
the most significant of the present day movements is the application,
especially in the United States, of scientific, statistical methods to
problems of education. Statistics have long been used, though often
without clearness or accuracy, in reports of school administration,
but it remained for this century to apply to the various phases of
education the same general technique and approximately the same
precision as that long demanded by the physical and biological
sciences. Quantitative, unambiguous statements are now sought and
secured not only for the phenomena of attendance, retardation,
expenditures, and the like, but also for the relative and absolute
amounts of knowledge. As a consequence, emphasis has been placed upon
the results of education rather than upon the declaration of intentions.

[Sidenote: Thorndike’s advocacy of a quantitative description and of
scales, and the application to achievement in school subjects.]

Probably the first scholar to apply the scientific principles of
statistics to education was Edward L. Thorndike of Columbia University.
In his _Educational Psychology_ he illustrates how a quantitative
description of individual differences and of the factors that condition
them is necessary to throw real light upon educational theory and
practice, and in his _Mental and Social Measurements_ he presents the
details of the method. Subsequently he maintained, in the face of much
opposition, that scales, as objective and as impersonal as possible,
should and could be devised for measuring variations in ability and
changes that take place as a result of natural growth and instruction.
Such scales, beginning at an ascertained zero and progressing by
regular steps to a point near perfection, are, because of the
complexity of their elements, difficult to construct, but they have
been set forth more or less tentatively by various investigators for
the measurement of achievement in handwriting (Fig. 57), arithmetic,
English composition, spelling, drawing, freehand lettering, and
reading respectively. Other scales to measure ability in the several
high school subjects may be expected soon.

[Sidenote: Measurement of the quantitative significance of factors in
method.]

Studies are also being made in several universities to determine the
relative importance of the numerous factors in methods of teaching.
This is done by conducting experiments with hundreds or thousands of
children to find out by the most accurate measurement yet devised the
amount of progress in learning that is wholly due to the presence of
some one factor of method in the technique of class-room exercises.
Educational psychology has revealed the qualitative significance of
many of the single elements in the very complex procedure that we have
called a ‘method of teaching,’ and this new type of research aims
to determine the quantitative significance of each of these several
elements of method as factors in the production of abilities. A. Duncan
Yocum of the University of Pennsylvania has formulated a considerable
number of tests, and, by preliminary experimentation, has determined
the conditions under which they may with a high degree of accuracy
be given to groups of students engaged in actual school work under
ordinary class-room conditions. His students have made a number of
tentative, but suggestive studies, which have not yet been published.
Milo B. Hillegas of Columbia University and others are engaged on
certain aspects of this general type of research. There is reason,
therefore, to believe that we may sometime be able to measure with as
much accuracy the efficiency of well-defined educational processes
as we are now able to measure educational products. If this can be
attained, the technique of class-room teaching and of educational
supervision will begin to rest on a really scientific basis.

[Illustration:

Fig. 56.--Indian house constructed in Dewey’s experimental school by
children between seven and eight years of age, while studying the
development of primitive life.

(Reproduced from the _Elementary School Record_ by permission of the
University of Chicago Press.)]

[Illustration:

Fig. 57.--Specimen No. 13 taken from the ‘Thorndike Writing Scale.’
This specimen constitutes the approximate quality of handwriting that
may reasonably be expected of pupils in the seventh or eighth grade. In
the complete scale the specimens are numbered from 4 to 18.]

[Sidenote: Other mental and social measurements,]

[Sidenote: and ‘educational surveys.’]

Moreover, by the use of the improved statistical method and of
scales, studies of greatly increased value have been made of fatigue,
retardation, elimination, and of other social and mental phenomena of
individual children. And in 1911, with the reports of Paul H. Hanus
of Harvard University and Ernest C. Moore of Yale University upon the
school systems of Montclair and East Orange, New Jersey, there began
to be instituted those measurements and consequent criticisms of whole
school systems, known as ‘educational surveys.’ These scientific
reports have been extended to the educational work of a large number
of cities and states throughout the Union. They are intended to enable
school officers and patrons to comprehend with more definiteness the
absolute, as well as the relative, achievements of their children.

[Sidenote: New attitude toward intelligence.]

[Sidenote: Studies of mental development in the race and individual.]

[Sidenote: Change in imagery and vocabulary.]

=Education and the Theory of Evolution.=--A most characteristic
influence in education to-day has come through the theory of evolution
of Darwin (Fig. 51). This fruitful hypothesis came to be generally
accepted during the last quarter of the nineteenth century as the
guiding principle of education, and has constantly increased the
illumination it has shed upon the educational process. It has given
an entirely new meaning to education, and has greatly modified
the course of study and revolutionized the method of approaching
educational problems. It has wrought very much the same changes in
the treatment of intelligence that it did in the biological sciences.
Consciousness is no longer regarded as a fixed set of entities, but
as a developmental process. Instead of classifying and cataloging
mental processes in fixed groups, efforts are made to study their
growth from the standpoint both of the race and of the individual.
Studies of mental development in the race, begun by Darwin’s _Descent
of Man_, which recognized ‘sexual’ and ‘social selection,’ as well as
‘natural selection,’ have been continued by numerous investigators,
and equally extensive researches have also been latterly made in
genetic psychology, child study, mental development, and adolescence.
Both observation and experimentation have been introduced into the
study of mental processes. Even more revolutionary than this actual
increase in knowledge, however, is the change that has taken place in
the conception, imagery, and terminology of education. Writers upon
education constantly employ the language of evolution. Educational
discussions are now filled with such terms as ‘variation,’ ‘selection,’
‘adjustment,’ and ‘adaptation,’ and such concepts dominate all
educational thinking. If educational leaders of half a century ago
could be present to-day at a gathering of educational thinkers, they
would find themselves listening to what would seem to them almost a
foreign language.

[Sidenote: Centralization;]

[Sidenote: school hygiene;]

[Sidenote: school architecture;]

[Sidenote: professionalization of teaching.]

[Sidenote: Reorganization of secondary and higher education.]

=Enlarging Conceptions of the Function of Education.=--Such are a
few of the chief tendencies and advances that are being made in
education to-day. There is also a great variety of other educational
movements, almost too numerous to be mentioned. In the organization
and administration of the public schools there is a decided tendency
toward centralization in educational activities, corresponding to the
centralization in industrial and political affairs. The United States
Bureau of Education and the various State Departments of Public
Instruction have had their functions much enlarged and their activities
greatly increased. There are also such matters as the new procedure
in school hygiene, arising from the modern attitude toward the
prevention of disease; new health regulations, as a result of having
so many children housed in the same buildings; medical inspection,
open-air schools, and better nourishment; and new tendencies in school
architecture. Likewise we find progressive legislation on compulsory
school attendance; more extensive training of teachers; a rapid
recognition of education as a profession; the organization of various
types of teachers’ associations; and the development of educational
journalism. Secondary education is also being greatly extended and
largely reorganized. ‘Junior high schools,’ combining the upper grades
of the elementary school with the lower grades of the secondary
school, and thus bridging the gap, are being widely introduced into
American cities, and a variety of propositions for a six-year course
are being seriously entertained. In connection with higher education
there are such new tendencies as university extension, correspondence
courses, summer sessions, university interest in the practical problems
of the people, the correlation of the first two years of college
with the secondary school, more flexible entrance requirements, an
increasing number of fields of professional work, and, above all, the
professional training of teachers through Departments of Education,
Teachers Colleges, and Schools of Education. With this is connected the
scientific study of Education, both in graduate courses and independent
investigations.

[Sidenote: Other progressive tendencies.]

Similar efforts to secure economy, guard health, improve method, and
cause education to serve democratic ideals are everywhere apparent.
Educational theory and practice are in a constant flux, and have
entered upon a most distinctive epoch of experimentation, change, and
improvement. While such a situation is not without its perils, and each
proposal should be carefully scrutinized before acceptance, the present
tendencies are in the main a sign of progress and life.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, _In Modern Times_ (Macmillan, 1913), chap. XI; Monroe,
_Textbook_ (Macmillan, 1905), chaps. XIII-XIV. For the special
tendencies mentioned, the following works may be consulted: Cooley, E.
G., _Vocational Education in Europe_ (Chicago Commercial Club, 1912);
Hanus, P. H., _Beginnings in Industrial Education_ (Houghton, Mifflin,
1908); Haskins, C. W., _Business Education and Accounting_ (Harper,
1904); Adler, F., _Moral Instruction of Children_ (Appleton, 1895);
Palmer, G. H., _Ethical and Moral Instruction in Schools_ (Houghton,
Mifflin, 1909); Goddard, H. H., _Education of Defectives_ (_Monroe’s
Cyclopædia of Education_); Bell, A. G., _Deaf Mute Instruction in
Relation to the Work of the Public Schools_; Armitage, T., _Education
and Employment of the Blind_ (Harrison & Sons, London, 1886); Dewey,
J., _The School and Society_ (University of Chicago Press, 1899),
and _Elementary School Record_ (University of Chicago Press, 1900);
Montessori, Maria, _The Montessori Method_ (Translated by Anne E.
George, Stokes Co., New York, 1912); Kilpatrick, W. H., _The Montessori
Method Examined_ (Houghton, Mifflin, 1914); Ayres, L. P., _Measuring
Educational Processes through Educational Results_ (_School Review_,
May, 1912); Strayer, G. D., _Standards and Tests for Measuring the
Efficiency of Schools_ (Report of the Committee of the National Council
of Education in the _United States Bureau of Education Bulletin_, 1913,
No. 13); Thorndike, E. L., _The Measurement of Educational Products_
(_School Review_, May, 1912).




CHAPTER XXVIII

RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT


OUTLINE

    Evolution in education may be interpreted from the standpoint of
    the development of individualism. Individualism was first fully
    recognized in the teachings of Christ, but was repressed during
    the Middle Ages. While it reappeared during the Renaissance,
    Reformation, and other movements, it soon lapsed, but a complete
    break from tradition occurred with Rousseau in the eighteenth
    century.

    For a time individualism dominated, but education since then has
    endeavored to afford latitude to the individual without losing
    sight of the welfare of society.

[Sidenote: Progress of individualistic tendencies during the days of
primitive man,]

[Sidenote: Oriental nations,]

[Sidenote: Jewish, Athenian, and Roman civilizations,]

[Sidenote: Christian development,]

[Sidenote: and the Middle Ages;]

=The Development of Individualism.=--The discussion of present day
tendencies that has just been given, together with the account of
educational evolution in the preceding chapters, serves to show how far
modern times have progressed in the ideals and practice of education.
This may perhaps be best appreciated from the standpoint of the
development of individualism. To follow such an interpretation back to
the beginning of the history of education, it may be stated that during
the day of primitive man no real distinction was made between society
and the individual, and practically all advancement was impossible,
for no one looked much beyond the present. With the appearance of the
transitional period in the Oriental countries, the individual had
begun to emerge, but was kept in constant subjection to the social
whole, for man was quite enslaved to the past. As the Jewish, Athenian,
and Roman civilizations developed, the beginnings of individualism
were for the first time clearly revealed, and some regard was had
for the future. Then, through the teachings of Christ, there came to
be a larger recognition of the principle of individualism and the
brotherhood of man. Owing to a necessity for spreading these enlarged
ideals among a barbarous horde of peoples, individualism was repressed,
and throughout the Middle Ages the keynote was submission to authority
and preparation for the life to come. The cultural products of Greece
and Rome largely disappeared, and all civilization became restricted,
fixed, and formal.

[Sidenote: the Renaissance,]

[Sidenote: the Reformation,]

[Sidenote: and realism;]

[Sidenote: Puritanism and Pietism;]

But the human spirit could not be forever held in bondage, and, after
almost a millennium of repression and uniformity, various factors
that had accumulated within the Middle Ages produced an intellectual
awakening that we know as the ‘Renaissance.’ Its vitality lasted during
the fifteenth century in Italy and to the close of the sixteenth in the
Northern countries, but by the dawn of the seventeenth century it had
everywhere degenerated into a dry and mechanical study of the classics.
This constituted a formalism almost as dense as that it had superseded,
except that linguistic and literary studies had replaced dialectic and
theology. A little later than the spread of the Renaissance, though
overlapping it somewhat, came the allied movement of the ‘Reformation.’
This grew in part out of the disposition of the Northern Renaissance
to turn to social and moral account the revived intelligence and
learning. Yet here also the revival failed in its mission, and
the tendency to rely upon reason rather than dogma hardened into
formalism and a distrust of individualism. Again, in the seventeenth
century, apparently as an outgrowth of the same forces, intellectual
activity took the form of a search for ‘real things.’ The movement
that culminated in ‘sense realism’ appeared, but this small and crude
beginning of the modern scientific tendency was for some decades yet
held within limits. Associated with this realistic tendency, on the
religious and political sides also appeared a quickening in such forms
as ‘Puritanism’ and ‘Pietism,’ which likewise degenerated eventually
into a fanaticism and hypocrisy.

[Sidenote: and Rousseau and the destructive tendency.]

[Sidenote: The present tendencies in education seem to harmonize the
individual interest with those of society.]

=The Harmonization of the Individual and Society.=--Thus the way
was opened for the complete break with tradition and authority that
occurred in the eighteenth century. This tendency, while in France
at least most destructive and costly, was the inevitable result of
the unwillingness to reshape society and education in accordance with
changing ideals and conditions. Hence Rousseau undertook to shatter all
educational traditions. But his recommendation of isolated education,
so palpable in its fallacies, prepared the ground for the numerous
social, scientific, and psychological tendencies (see pp. 218-222) that
were destined to spring up in modern education and for the consequent
improvement in the aim, organization, content, and method of education.
Of course modern education has advanced infinitely beyond anything
implied by Rousseau or even the later reformers of the past century,
but it is out of his attempts at destruction that has grown this nobler
structure. For a time individualism triumphed and ground authority
under its heel, but when this extremity had been passed, the problem
became how to harmonize the individual with society, and to develop
personality progressively in keeping with its environment. Thus the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries have put forth conscious efforts
to justify the eighteenth and to bring out and develop the positions
barely hinted at in its negations. It is not alone the individual as
such that has been of interest in the modern period, but more and more
the individual in relation to the social whole to which he belongs, as
only in this way can the value of his activities be estimated.

[Sidenote: Recent definitions of education show this.]

[Sidenote: The educational problem of the future.]

This is revealed in the works of those who followed Rousseau, and
especially in the attempts of recent educational philosophers to
frame a definition of education that shall recognize the importance
of affording latitude to the individual without losing sight of the
welfare of the social environment in connection with which his efforts
are to function. Thus Butler, though recognizing the individual
factor, especially stresses the social by declaring education to be
“the gradual adjustment of the individual to the spiritual possessions
of the race.” Then he further declares: “When we hear it sometimes
said, ‘All education must start from the child,’ we must add, ‘Yes,
and lead into human civilization;’ and when it is said on the other
hand that ‘all education must start from a traditional past,’ we must
add, ‘Yes, and be adapted to the child.’” And the balance between the
two factors of the individual and society is even more explicitly
preserved in Dewey’s statement “that the psychological and social
sides are organically related, and that education cannot be regarded
as a compromise between the two, or a superimposition of one upon
the other.” In the same way Bagley has made ‘social efficiency’ the
main aim in educating the individual to-day, and both elements are
carefully considered by all modern writers in discussing educational
values. Thus the central problem in education of the twentieth and
succeeding centuries is to be a constant reorganization of the
curriculum and methods of teaching, and this reconstruction must be
such as to harmonize a due regard for the progressive variations of
the individual with the welfare of the conservative institutions of
society. It must include a continual effort to hand on the intellectual
possessions of the race, but also to stimulate all individuals to add
some modification or new element to the product. In this way there may
develop unending possibilities for both the individual and society.


SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, F. P., _History of Education before the Middle Ages_
(Macmillan, 1909), chap. XII; _History of Education during the
Transition_ (Macmillan, 1910), chap. XXIII; _History of Education in
Modern Times_ (Macmillan, 1913), chap. XII; Monroe, P., _Textbook in
the History of Education_ (Macmillan, 1905), chap. X.




INDEX


  Abelard, 70, 76.

  Academy, in Germany, 158;
    in England, 159, 177, 410;
    of Franklin, 196;
    Lancasterian, 242;
    in South, 258;
    in New York, 260;
    in Massachusetts, 268;
    in United States, 274, 331, 414.

  Adventure schools, 93.

  Agassiz, 398, 413.

  Agricola, 112.

  Agricultural training, 295 ff., 424.

  Alcotts, The, 293.

  Alcuin, 61 ff.

  Alexandria, 29, 30, 46.

  Alsted, 171.

  _American Annals of Education_, 305.

  _American Journal of Education_ (Russell) 304, (Barnard) 316 ff.

  American Sunday School Union, 238.

  Andover Theological Seminary, 299.

  Anselm, 70.

  Antioch, 46.

  Apologists, 45.

  _Apostles’ Creed_, 48.

  Apperception, 338, 341.

  Aquinas, 71 f.

  Archimedes, 30.

  Aristophanes, 19.

  Aristotle, 19, 24 ff., 27, 45, 58, 70 f., 165, 182.

  Ascham, 117.

  Assyria, 5.

  Athens, 14 ff.

  _Atrium_, 170.

  Averroës, 67.

  Avicenna, 66, 79.


  Babylonia, 5.

  Bacon, Francis, 23, 164 f., 166, 171, 174, 206.

  Bacon, Roger, 163.

  Bagley, W. C., 445.

  Barnard, 309, 312 ff.

  Basedow, 220, 223 ff., 231.

  Bateus, 169.

  Bell, Andrew, 239 f.

  Benedict, St., 55.

  Bentham, 387.

  Berkeley, 192.

  Blackstone, 387.

  Blankenburg, 354.

  Blow, Susan E., 366 f.

  Board schools, 241, 388 ff., 425.

  Boccaccio, 104.

  Bölte, 366.

  Boëthius, 57 f.

  Bonnal, 279.

  Boyle, 163.

  Brathwaite, 156.

  Bray, Thomas, 232.

  Brinsley, 119.

  British and Foreign Society, 239 f.

  Brooks, Charles, 293.

  Brothers of Sincerity, 66.

  Brothers of the Christian Schools, 140.

  Brougham, 387.

  Bruni, 105.

  Buchanan, James, 245.

  Budæus, 110.

  Bugenhagen, 128, 145.

  Bülow, Baroness von, 354.

  Burgdorf, 281 f.

  Burgher schools, 93 f.

  Burrowes, T. H., 323.

  Butler, N. M., 444.


  Cæsarea, 46.

  Calvin, 130, 193, 197.

  Cambridge, 117, 149, 177, 392.

  Campe, 225, 228.

  Capella, Martianus, 57.

  Carlisle, 299.

  Carpenter, Mary, 299.

  Carter, J. G., 305, 309.

  Cassiodorus, 57.

  Castes, 5 ff.

  Castiglione, 156.

  Catechetical schools, 46.

  Catechumenal schools, 43 f.

  Cathedral schools, 46 f., 54, 131.

  Catholepistemiad, 273.

  Chantry schools, 94 f., 132.

  Charity schools, 231 ff.

  Charlemagne, 61 ff.

  Charles VIII, 110.

  Chavannes, 291, 292.

  Cheke, 117.

  China, 5.

  Chivalry, 83 ff.

  Christianity, 29, 42 f.

  Chrysoloras, 104.

  Cicero, 58, 108, 116, 151.

  Circulating schools, 234.

  Clement of Alexandria, 46.

  Clinton, De Witt, 260.

  Cockerton Judgment, 391.

  Colburn, Warren, 293.

  Colet, 93, 117 f.

  College of Clermont, 137.

  College of France, 111, 385.

  College of Guyenne, 111.

  College of William and Mary, 192.

  Combe, 403, 405, 410, 416.

  Comenius, 167, 168 ff., 224, 353.

  Commercial education, 422 f.

  Communal collèges, 384.

  Concentration, 340, 345 f., 350, 429.

  Condillac, 205.

  _Conduct of the Understanding_, 180.

  _Connecticut Common School Journal_, 313.

  Continuation school, 298, 374, 377, 383, 420.

  Copernicus, 163.

  Corderius, 111, 130.

  Cordova, 66.

  _Corpus Juris Civilis_, 76, 79.

  Correlation, 341, 344, 350.

  Council of Whitby, 56.

  Court schools, 105 ff.

  Cousin, 291 f., 408.

  Creativeness, 356 ff.

  Culture epochs, 341, 344, 346.

  Cygnæus, 363.


  D’Alembert, 205.

  Dame schools, 266.

  Dana, James D., 412.

  Darwin, 398, 413, 437 f.

  _Decree of Gratian_, 76, 79.

  Defectives, 300, 426 ff.

  De Garmo, Charles, 348, 351.

  Delayed maturing, 221.

  Delinquents, 142, 300.

  Descartes, 138.

  Dewey, John, 364, 429 ff., 444.

  Dialectic, 20, 58, 71, 76, 127.

  Didascaleum, 14, 18, 21.

  Diderot, 205.

  Diophantus, 30.

  Discipline, Locke’s, 180 ff.

  Districts, 266 f.

  Divided schools, 267.

  Dock, Christopher, 195.

  Donatus, 58.

  Double translation, 117.

  Duns Scotus, 71.


  Eaton, Amos, 412.

  Écoles maternelles, 383.

  Edessa, 46.

  Edward VI, 132.

  Edwards, Ninian W., 325.

  Egypt, 5.

  Eisleben, 128, 145.

  _Elementarwerk_, 224.

  Elementary education, with Hindus, 7;
    with Jews, 9;
    in Sparta, 13;
    in Athens, 14;
    in Rome, 33, 36 f.;
    monastic, 56;
    with Charlemagne, 62;
    humanistic, 105 ff., 113 f.;
    Sturm, 115;
    Zwingli, 129;
    Jesuit, 134;
    Port Royal, 139 f.;
    Reformation, 144 ff.;
    Innovators, 156;
    Comenius, 171;
    German realists, 175;
    colonial Virginia, 191;
    colonial New York, 194;
    colonial Pennsylvania, 195;
    colonial Massachusetts, 197;
    England, 231, 244 ff., 387 ff., 409;
    S. P. G., 234;
    monitorial, 240;
    France, 243, 381, 408;
    United States, 246, 415;
    New York, 258 f.;
    Herbartian, 347;
    Prussia, 377;
    Canada, 392 ff.;
    Germany, 407.

  Eliot, Charles W., 403.

  Elyot, 156.

  _Emile_, 208 ff.

  Encyclopedists, 204 ff.

  Épée, Abbé de l’, 428.

  Epicureans, 28, 46.

  Episcopal schools, 46 f.

  Erasmus, 113, 117, 125.

  Eratosthenes, 30.

  Erigena, 64.

  _Essay concerning the Human Understanding_, 180.

  Euclid, 30, 58.

  _Evening Hour of a Hermit_, 279.


  Faculty psychology, 27, 182 ff., 222, 434.

  Falloux, 382.

  _Father’s Journal_, 278.

  Felbiger, 374.

  Fellenberg, 219, 295 ff.

  Feudalism, 83 f., 90.

  Fichte, 290, 351.

  Field school, 253.

  Formal discipline, 23, 182 ff., 404, 434.

  Forster, W. E., 388.

  Fortbildungsschulen, 298, 377, 420.

  Francis I, 110.

  Francke, 175 f.

  Francke Institutions, 346.

  Frankland, 158.

  Franklin, Benjamin, 159, 261.

  Frederick Barbarossa, 76.

  Frederick the Great, 373.

  Frederick William I, 373.

  Frederick William III, 290, 375.

  Frederick II, 67, 75.

  Free School Society, 260.

  French Revolution, 204.

  Frick, 346.

  Froebel, 168, 175, 219, 243, 334, 351 ff., 368, 430 f.

  Froebel Union, 365.

  Fulda, 63.


  Galen, 79, 164.

  Galileo, 163.

  Galloway, S., 325.

  Gild schools, 92 f., 132.

  Gifts, 354, 359 f.

  Gnosticism, 30, 45.

  Goddard, H. H., 427.

  Grammar schools, Rome, 36 f.;
    cathedral, 47;
    monastic, 57;
    Charlemagne, 61;
    chantry, 94;
    England, 118 f.;
    America, 120;
    New Amsterdam, 194;
    Massachusetts, 197;
    Virginia, 253;
    South, 258;
    United States, 274, 331.

  Granada, 66.

  Gratian, 76, 79.

  Gravel Lane School, 234.

  Gray, Asa, 413.

  _Great Didactic_, 169, 170 ff., 175.

  Griscom, 242, 292, 305.

  Grocyn, 117.

  Grüner, 352.

  Guericke, 163.

  Guizot, 382.

  Guyot, 293.

  Gymnasium, Athens, 15, 17, 21;
    Melanchthon, 114;
    Sturm, 115 f., 128, 157, 176;
    Prussian, 378, 406.


  Hall, Samuel R., 304.

  Hampton, 299.

  Hanus, P. H., 437.

  Harvard, 149, 177, 198.

  Harvey, 164 f., 206.

  Haüy, Abbé, 428.

  Hawley, Gideon, 259.

  Hecker, 176, 373, 378.

  Hellenistic philosophy, 29.

  Henry VIII, 131.

  Herbart, 168, 175, 219, 243, 334 ff., 363, 368.

  Herbart Society, 348, 351.

  Hieronymians, 112 ff.

  High school, 242, 269, 306, 311, 331, 414.

  Hillegas, M. B., 436.

  Hippocrates, 79.

  Hofwyl, 295 ff.

  Home and Colonial School Society, 246.

  Hopkins, Edward, 120.

  _How Gertrude Teaches Her Children_, 282, 286.

  Humanistic education, 102 ff., 164.

  Hume, 335.

  Hutton, 398.

  Huxley, 220, 399, 402, 404, 416.


  India, 5 ff.

  Induction, 165, 173 f.

  Industrial education, of gilds, 91 f.;
    La Salle, 141;
    Virginia, 191, 193;
    Massachusetts, 197;
    Philanthropinum, 229;
    monitorial, 240;
    charity, 249;
    Pestalozzi, 278 ff.;
    Fellenberg, 295 ff.;
    Europe, 298 ff.;
    present status, 419 ff.

  Infant School Society, 246 f.

  Infant schools, 243 ff.

  Initiatory ceremonies, 5.

  Innovators, 156.

  Irnerius, 76.

  Isocrates, 28.


  Jansenists, 138 ff.

  _Janua Linguarum_, 169, 174.

  Jarrow, 56.

  Jefferson, 253, 270.

  Jesuits, 133 ff.

  Jews, 9 f.

  Joule, 398.

  Judaism, 29.

  Jullien, General, 291 f.

  Justinian, 54, 76.


  Kant, 227.

  Keilhau, 353.

  Kepler, 163, 165.

  Kerschensteiner, 420.

  Kindergarten, 354, 358 ff., 364 ff.

  Kitchen school, 267.

  Krüsi, 289.


  Lancaster, Joseph, 239 ff.

  Lagrange, 398, 408.

  Lange, Karl, 346.

  Langethal, 352.

  Laplace, 398, 408.

  La Salle, 140.

  Latin schools. See Grammar schools.

  _Laws, The_, 23.

  _Leonard and Gertrude_, 278 f.

  Leopold of Dessau, 225.

  Lewis, S., 325.

  Liberal studies, 23, 56 f., 122.

  Libraries, 307.

  Liebig, 398, 406.

  Liebenstein, 354.

  Lily, 113, 118.

  Linacre, 117.

  Locke, 154 ff., 158, 179, 206, 213, 335.

  Louis XII, 110.

  Louis XIV, 140.

  Louis XV, 207.

  Louis Philippe, 382.

  Loyola, 132 f.

  Ludus, 36 f.

  Luther, 114, 125 ff.

  Lycées, 384, 408.


  McClure, William, 292.

  McMurry, C. A., 348.

  McMurry, F. M., 348, 351.

  Malpighi, 164.

  Mann, 293, 304, 306 ff., 415.

  Manual training, in United States, 298 f.;
    Cygnæus, 363;
    in France, 383.

  Many-sided interest, 336 ff.

  Marwedel, Emma, 366.

  Mason, 293.

  _Massachusetts Common School Journal_, 307.

  Maternal schools, 244.

  Maurus, Rabanus, 63 f.

  Mayer, 398.

  Mayo, Charles, 246, 291.

  Medici, 105.

  Melanchthon, 114, 128, 131, 145.

  Mendel, 398.

  Merchant Taylors’, 92, 120.

  Meriam, J. L., 432.

  _Methodenbuch_, 224.

  Middendorf, 352.

  Mills, Caleb, 325.

  Milton, 152, 155, 157.

  Mittelschule, 377.

  Mohammed, 65.

  Mohammedanism, 27, 65 ff.

  Monastic schools, 49, 54 ff., 132.

  Monitorial system, 239 ff.

  Montaigne, 153 f., 155.

  Montessori, 433.

  Moore, E. C., 437.

  Moors, 66.

  More, 23, 117.

  _Morrill Act_, 413.

  Morton, Charles, 158.

  _Mother Play and Nursery Songs_, 358 f., 360.

  Motor expression, 356.

  Moving school, 267.

  Mulcaster, 155 f.

  Murphy, Judge A. D., 257.


  Nägeli, 285, 293.

  Napoleon, 381, 408.

  National Education Association, 350.

  National Society, 233, 239 f.

  Naturalism, 180, 277.

  Nature study, 415.

  Neander, 129.

  Neef, 292.

  Neomazdeism, 29.

  Neoplatonism, 30.

  Neopythagoreanism, 29.

  Neshaminy, 196.

  Nestorius, 46.

  Neuhof, 278.

  _New Atlantis_, 23, 166.

  Newlands, 398.

  _New Testament_, 48.

  Newton, 164 f., 177, 206, 398.

  Niccoli, Niccolo de’, 105.

  _Nicene Creed_, 48.

  Nicolovius, 290.

  Nisibis, 46.

  Normal schools, Carter, 305;
    Mann, 307 f.;
    Massachusetts, 320;
    Middle states, 322, 324;
    Zedlitz, 374;
    France, 382, 408.

  Notre Dame, 76.

  Novalis, 321.

  _Novum Organum_, 165.


  Oberlin, 244.

  Oberrealschule, 378 f., 406.

  Observation, 276 ff., 280, 286 ff., 337, 343.

  Occam, William of, 71.

  Occupational work, Froebel, 363;
    Europe and United States, 364;
    Dewey, 429 f.

  Occupations, 354, 359 f.

  _Orbis Pictus_, 170, 174, 224.

  Ordinance of 1787, 271.

  Origen of Alexandria, 46.

  Oswego methods, 293 f., 415.

  Otherworldliness, 43 ff., 75, 101, 121.

  _Outlines of Educational Doctrine_, 337.

  Owen, 244 f., 387.

  Oxford, 117, 149, 177, 392, 409.


  Pädagogium, 176.

  Palace school, 61.

  Palæstra, 14, 17, 21.

  Pancratium, 13.

  Pansophia, 167, 169, 171 ff.

  Parishads, 7.

  Parker, Colonel F. W., 293, 350, 364, 429.

  Parochial schools, 193 f.

  Peabody, Elizabeth P., 366.

  Peabody Educational Fund, 329.

  Peacham, 156.

  Penn, 120.

  Penn Charter School, 195.

  Pentathlum, 13 f.

  Permissive laws, 256 f., 263 f., 269, 273, 320, 322, 324 f., 328.

  Persia, 5.

  Pestalozzi, 156, 168, 175, 219, 243, 277 ff., 363, 368, 415.

  Peter the Lombard, 71 f., 76, 79.

  Petrarch, 103 f.

  Philanthropic movement, 229 ff.

  Philanthropinum, 223 ff.

  Philip Augustus, 76.

  Philonism, 29.

  Philosophical schools, Athens, 27 f.

  Pickering, Timothy, 261 f.

  Pietists, 176 f.

  Plamann, 289.

  Plato, 19 ff., 45, 56 f.

  _Politics_, 24.

  Poor schools, 261.

  Port Royal, 138 ff.

  Prelection, 135.

  Primitive peoples, 4 f.

  Princes’ schools, 116.

  Priscian, 58.

  Progymnasien, 379.

  Protagoras, 18 f.

  Prussian-Pestalozzianism, 289, 293, 308.

  Psychological movement, 220 f., 415 f.

  Ptolemy, 58.

  Public schools, England, 120, 410.

  Public School Society, 247, 261, 322.

  Pythagoras, 18 f., 23, 45.


  Quadrivium, 23, 57, 62.

  _Quarterly Register_, 305.

  Quintilian, 58.


  Rabelais, 155.

  Raikes, 237.

  Ramus, 111.

  Ratich, 167, 175.

  Raymund of Toledo, 67.

  Realgymnasien, 378, 406.

  Realism, 151 ff., 162, 179.

  Realprogymnasien, 379.

  Realschulen, 176, 378 f., 406.

  Rechahn, 228.

  Reformation, 125 ff.

  Reformschulen, 379.

  Rein, W., 342, 346.

  Renaissance, 70, 95, 101 ff.

  _Republic, The_, 21 ff.

  Reuchlin, 112, 114.

  Reyher, Andreas, 175.

  Rhetorical schools, Athens, 28, 30;
    Rome, 36, 38 f.

  _Rhode Island School Journal_, 314.

  Ritter, 220, 285 f., 293.

  Ritterakademien, 157, 176.

  _Robinson Crusoe_, 216, 225, 345.

  Rochow, 228.

  Rogers, W. B., 413.

  Rolland, 381.

  Rollin, 140.

  Rome, 29 f., 32 ff.

  Rousseau, 156, 175, 179, 206 ff., 231, 277, 285 ff., 363, 368, 416, 443.

  Rush, B., 261.

  Russell, W., 304.


  St. Paul’s school, 93, 118, 132.

  St. Yon, 141.

  Salomon, 364.

  Salzmann, 220, 225, 228, 231, 284.

  Saxony, 145.

  Schelling, 352.

  Schlegels, The, 352.

  Scholasticism, 69 ff., 76.

  _Scholemaster, The_, 117.

  _Science of Education_, 337.

  Scientific movement, 152, 163, 166 f., 219 f., 397 ff.

  Secondary education, Athens, 15, 17;
    Plato, 21;
    Aristotle, 25;
    Rome, 36;
    gild schools, 92;
    humanistic, 105 ff.;
    French, 111;
    German, 114 ff.;
    England, 118 f., 132, 158, 390 f., 409;
    Jesuit, 134;
    Port Royal, 138 ff.;
    La Salle, 141;
    Reformation, 147 f.;
    America, 158 ff., 274, 414;
    Comenius, 171;
    realists, 176;
    colonial, 191 f., 193 f., 195 f., 196 f.;
    charity schools, 235;
    monitorial, 242;
    Virginia, 253 f.;
    other Southern states, 256 f.;
    New York, 258 f.;
    Massachusetts, 268;
    Carter, 306;
    Mann, 319, 331;
    Herbart, 347;
    Prussia, 373, 378 ff.;
    France, 384, 408;
    Canada, 394;
    Germany, 406.

  Seguin, 426 f., 433.

  Self-activity, 356 ff.

  Semler, 176.

  Sense realism, 152, 162 ff., 169, 173, 175 f., 179.

  _Seventh Annual Report_, Mann’s, 293, 308.

  Sheldon, E. A., 293.

  Simultaneous method, 143.

  Skeptics, 28.

  Smith, Adam, 387.

  Social realism, 153 ff.

  Sociological movement, 218, 357, 415 ff.

  Socrates, 19 f.

  Sophie, 217.

  Sophists, 17 ff.

  Sparta, 12 ff.

  Spencer, 220, 400 ff., 416.

  S. P. C. K., 232.

  S. P. G., 234 ff.

  S. P. K. G., 236.

  Stanz, 279 ff.

  Stevens, Thaddeus, 263.

  Stoics, 28, 45.

  Stowe, David, 305.

  Stoy, 345 f.

  Strassburg, 115, 128.

  Sturm, 115 f., 128, 131.

  Süvern, 290.

  Sunday schools, 237 f.

  _Swiss Family Robinson_, 225.

  Syllabaries, 281, 283.


  Table of fractions, 283.

  Table of units, 281, 283, 293.

  Technische Hochschulen, 380, 406.

  Theodore of Gaza, 113.

  Thorndike, E. L., 435.

  _Thoughts concerning Education_, 179 f.

  Tieck, 352.

  Toledo, 66.

  Torricelli, 163.

  Trinity Church School, 235.

  Trivium, 57.

  Trotzendorf, 129.

  Türck, 290.

  Tuskegee, 299.


  University, Athens, 29, 39;
    Alexandria, 28, 39;
    Rhodes, 29, 39;
    Rome, 29, 39;
    Pergamon, 29;
    mediæval, 74 ff.;
    Paris, 75 ff., 110;
    Bologna, 75 ff.;
    Salerno, 75;
    Erfurt, 111;
    Leipzig, 111;
    Heidelberg, 111;
    Tübingen, 111;
    Ingoldstadt, 111;
    Vienna, 111;
    Wittenberg, 111;
    Marburg, 111;
    Königsberg, 111;
    Jena, 111;
    after Reformation, 148 f.;
    Halle, 177;
    Göttingen, 177;
    Yale, 177;
    Princeton, 177, 196;
    Columbia, 177;
    Pennsylvania, 177;
    Virginia, 254;
    Georgia, 256;
    Michigan, 326;
    France, 381;
    Cornell, 413;
    Johns Hopkins, 413.

  University of the State of New York, 259.

  Vaux, Robert, 247.

  Vergerio, 105.

  Verona, 105.

  Vestibulum, 169 f.

  Visconti, 105.

  Vittorino da Feltre, 105 ff.

  Vives, 117.

  Vocational education, 219, 240, 249.

  Volksschulen, 145, 377, 407.

  Voltaire, 204 ff., 287.

  Voluntary schools, 388 ff., 425.

  Vorschulen, 380.


  Wandering students, 78.

  Wehrli, 295.

  Weiss, Professor, 352.

  Wessel, 112.

  _What Knowledge Is of Most Worth_, 400.

  Whitebread, 387.

  Wilderspin, 245.

  William of Champeaux, 76.

  Williams, Roger, 120.

  Wimpfeling, 112, 125.

  Wirt, W. A., 432.

  Witmer, L., 427.

  Woman’s education, Hindu, 7;
    Sparta, 14;
    Athens, 15;
    Aristotle, 25;
    Rome, 34;
    Convent, 56;
    Luther, 127;
    realists, 156;
    academies, 160;
    Comenius, 171;
    charity schools, 278;
    Pestalozzi, 278;
    Fellenberg, 297;
    Mann, 309;
    France, 385.

  Woodbridge, W. C., 305.

  Woodhouse, John, 158.

  Würtemberg, 145.

  Wyss, 255.


  Yocum, A. D., 436.

  York, 56, 61.

  Youmans, E. L., 403, 405.

  Yverdon, 283.


  Zedlitz, von, 374.

  Ziller, 289, 295, 341 f., 345 f., 347.

  Zoroastrianism, 29.

  Zwingli, 129.


  Printed in the United States of America


[Transcriber’s Note:

Page 218 line 8, Emile changed to read _Emile_ for consistency.

Obvious printer errors corrected silently.

Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]