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:]