early races have been credited by some authors with a special love of
abstract science, of science for its own sake; so that this, and not
stern necessity, was the motive of their inquiries. Thus we have been
told that the Chaldeans differed from the other early races in having
a predilection for astronomy, another determining factor being that
the vast plains in that country provided them with a perfect horizon.
The first historic glimpses of the study of astronomy we find among
the peoples occupying the Nile Valley and Chaldea, say 6000 B. C.
But this study had to do with the fixing of the length of the year,
and the determination of those times in it in which the various
agricultural operations had to be performed. These were related
strictly to the rise of the Nile in one country and of the Euphrates
in the other. All human activity was, in fact, tied up with the
movements of the sun, moon, and stars. These, then, became the gods of
those early peoples, and the astronomers, the seers, were the first
priests; revered by the people because as interpreters of the
celestial powers they were the custodians of the knowledge which was
the most necessary for the purposes of life.
Eudemus of Rhodes, one of the principal pupils of Aristotle, in his
History of Geometry, attributes the origin of geometry to the
Egyptians, "who were obliged to invent it in order to restore the
landmarks which had been destroyed by the inundation of the Nile," and
observes "that it is by no means strange that the invention of the
sciences should have originated in practical needs."[34] The new
geometry was brought from Egypt to Greece by Thales three hundred
years before Aristotle was born.
When to astronomy and geometry we add the elements of medicine and
surgery, which it is known were familiar to the ancient Egyptians, it
will be conceded that we are, in those early times, face to face with
the cultivation of the most useful branches of science.
Now, although the evidence is increasing day by day that Greek science
was Egyptian in its origin, there is no doubt that its cultivation in
Greece was more extended, and that it was largely developed there. One
of the most useful and prolific writers on philosophy and science who
has ever lived, Aristotle, was born in the fourth century B. C. From
him, it may be said, dates a general conception of science based on
_observation_ as differing from experiment. If you wish to get an idea
of the science of those times, read his writings on Physics and on the
Classification of Animals. All sought in Aristotle the basis of
knowledge, but they only read his philosophy; Dante calls him the
"master of those who know."[35]
Why was Aristotle so careful to treat science as well as philosophy,
with which his master, Plato, had dealt almost exclusively?
The answer to this question is of great interest to our present
subject. The late Lord Playfair[36] in a pregnant passage suggests the
reason, and the later history of Europe shows, I think, that he is
right.
"We find that just as early nations became rich and prosperous, so
did philosophy arise among them, and it declined with the decadence of
material prosperity. In those splendid days of Greece when Plato,
Aristotle, and Zeno were the representatives of great schools of
thought, which still exercise their influence on mankind, _Greece was
a great manufacturing and mercantile community_; Corinth was the seat
of the manufacture of hardware; Athens that of jewelry, shipbuilding,
and pottery. The rich men of Greece and all its free citizens were
actively engaged in trade and commerce. The learned class were the
sons of those citizens, and were in possession of their accumulated
experience derived through industry and foreign relations. Thales was
an oil merchant; Aristotle inherited wealth from his father, who was a
physician, but, spending it, is believed to have supported himself as
a druggist till Philip appointed him tutor to Alexander. Plato's
wealth was largely derived from commerce, and his master, Socrates, is
said to have been a sculptor. Zeno, too, was a traveling merchant.
Archimedes is perhaps an exception, for he is said to have been
closely related to a prince; but if so, he is the only princely
discoverer of science on record."
In ancient Greece we see the flood of the first great intellectual
tide. Alas! it never touched the shores of western Europe, but it
undoubtedly reached to Rome, and there must have been very much more
observational science taught in the Roman studia than we generally
imagine, otherwise how account for Pliny, the vast public works, their
civilizing influence carried over sea and land from beyond
Bab-el-Mandeb to Scotland? In some directions their applications of
science are as yet unsurpassed.
With the fall of the Roman Empire both science and philosophy
disappeared for a while. The first wave had come and gone; its last
feebler ripples seem to have been represented at this time by the
gradual change of the Roman secular studia wherever they existed into
clerical schools, the more important of which were in time attached to
the chief cathedrals and monasteries; and it is not difficult to
understand why the secular (or scientific) instruction was gradually
replaced by one more fitted for the training of priests.
It is not to be wondered at that the ceaseless strife in the center of
Europe had driven what little learning there was to the western and
southern extremities, where the turmoil was less--I refer to Britain
and South Italy--while the exiled Nestorians carried Hellenic science
and philosophy out of Europe altogether to Mesopotamia and Arabia.
The next wave--it was but a small one--had its origin in our own
country. In the eighth century England was at its greatest height,
relatively, in educational matters, chiefly owing to the labors of two
men. Beda, generally called the Venerable Bede, the most eminent
writer of his age, was born near Monkwearmouth in 673, and passed his
life in the monastery there. He not only wrote the history of our
island and nation, but treatises on the nature of things, astronomy,
chronology, arithmetic, medicine, philosophy, grammar, rhetoric,
poetry, music, basing his work on that of Pliny. He died in 735, in
which year his great follower was born in Yorkshire. I refer to
Alcuin. He was educated at the Cathedral School at York under
Archbishop Egbert, and, having imbibed everything he could learn from
the writings of Bede and others, was soon recognized as one of the
greatest scholars of the time. On returning from Rome, whither he had
been sent by Eaubald to receive the pallium, he met Karl the Great,
King of the Franks and Lombards, who eventually induced him to take up
his residence at his court, to become his instructor in the sciences.
Karl (or Charlemagne) then was the greatest figure in the world, and
although as King of the Franks and Lombards, and subsequently Emperor
of the Holy Roman Empire, his court was generally at Aachen, he was
constantly traveling throughout his dominions. He was induced, in
consequence of Alcuin's influence, not only to have a school always
about him on his journeys, but to establish, or foster, such schools
wherever he went. Hence it has been affirmed that "France is indebted
to Alcuin for all the polite learning it boasted of in that and the
following ages." The universities of Paris, Tours, Fulden, Soissons,
and others were not actually founded in his day, but the monastic and
cathedral schools out of which they eventually sprang were
strengthened, and indeed a considerable scheme of education for
priests was established--that is, an education free from all sciences,
and in which philosophy alone was considered.
Karl the Great died in 814, and after his death the eastward traveling
wave, thus started by Bede and Alcuin, slightly but very gradually
increased in height. Two centuries later, however, the conditions were
changed. We find ourselves in presence of interference phenomena, for
then there was a meeting with another wave traveling westward, and
this meeting was the origin of the European universities. The wave now
manifested traveling westerly, spread outward from Arab centers first
and finally from Constantinople, when its vast stores of Greek lore
were opened by the conquest of the city.
The first wavelet justified Eudemus's generalization that "the
invention of the sciences originated in practical needs," and that
knowledge for its own sake was not the determining factor. The year
had been determined, stone circles erected almost everywhere, and
fires signaled from them, giving notice of the longest and shortest
days, so that agriculture was provided for, even away from churches
and the festivals of the Church. The original user of geometry was not
required away from the valleys of the Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates, and
therefore it is now medicine and surgery that come to the front for
the alleviation of human ills. In the eleventh century we find
Salerno, soon to be famed throughout Europe as the great medical
school, forming itself into the first university. And medicine did not
exhaust all the science taught, for Adelard listened there to a
lecture on "the nature of things," the cause of magnetic attraction
being one of the "things" in question.
This teaching at Salerno preceded by many years the study of the law
at Bologna and of theology at Paris.
The full flood came from the disturbance of the Arab wave center by
the crusades, about the beginning of the twelfth century. After the
Pope had declared the "Holy War," William of Malmesbury tells us "the
most distant islands and savage countries were inspired with this
ardent passion. The Welshman left his hunting, the Scotchman his
fellowship with vermin, the Dane his drinking party, the Norwegian his
raw fish." Report has it that in 1096 no less than six millions were
in motion along many roads to Palestine. This, no doubt, is an
exaggeration, but it reflects the excitement of the time, and prepares
us for what happened when the crusaders returned. As Green puts
it:[37] "The western nations, including our own, 'were quickened with
a new life and throbbing with a new energy.' ... A new fervor of study
sprang up in the West from its contact with the more cultured East.
Travelers like Adelard, of Bath, brought back the first rudiments of
physical and mathematical science from the schools of Cordova or
Bagdad.... The long mental inactivity of feudal Europe broke up like
ice before a summer's sun. Wandering teachers, such as Lanfranc or
Anselm, crossed sea and land to spread the new power of knowledge. The
same spirit of restlessness, of inquiry, of impatience with the older
traditions of mankind, either local or intellectual, that drove half
Christendom to the tomb of its Lord, crowded the roads with thousands
of young scholars hurrying to the chosen seats where teachers were
gathered together."
_Studium generale_ was the term first applied to a large educational
center where there was a guild of masters, and whither students
flocked from all parts. At the beginning of the thirteenth century the
three principal studia were Paris, Bologna, and Salerno, where
theology and arts, law and medicine, and medicine almost by itself,
were taught respectively; these eventually developed into the first
universities.[38]
English scholars gathered in thousands at Paris round the chairs of
William of Champeaux or Abélard, where they took their place as one of
the "nations" of which the great middle-age university of Paris was
composed.
We have only to do with the arts faculty of this university. We find
that the subject-matter of the liberal education of the middle age
there dealt with varied very little from that taught in the schools of
ancient Rome.
The so-called "artiens," students of the arts faculty, which was the
glory of the university and the one most numerously attended, studied
the seven arts of the trivium and quadrivium--that is, grammar,
rhetoric, dialectic and arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy.[39]
This at first looks well for scientific study, but the mathematics
taught had much to do with magic; arithmetic dealt with epacts, golden
numbers, and the like. There was no algebra, and no mechanics.
Astronomy dealt with the system of the seven heavens.
Science, indeed, was the last thing to be considered in the
theological and legal studia, and it would appear that it was kept
alive more in the medical schools than in the arts faculties.
Aristotle's writings on physics, biology, and astronomy were not known
till about 1230, and then in the shape of Arab-Latin translations.
Still, it must not be forgotten that Dante learned some of his
astronomy, at all events, at Paris.
Oxford was an offshoot of Paris, and therefore a theological studium,
in all probability founded about 1167,[40] and Cambridge came later.
Not till the Reformation (sixteenth century) do we see any sign of a
new educational wave, and then we find the two which have had the
greatest influence upon the history of the world--one of them
depending upon the Reformation itself, the other depending upon the
birth of experimental inquiry.
Before the Reformation the universities were priestly institutions,
and derived their authority from the Popes.
The universities were for the few; the education of the people, except
in the various crafts, was unprovided for.
The idea of a general education in secular subjects at the expense of
the state or of communities is coeval with the Reformation. In
Germany, even before the time of Luther, it was undreamed of, or
rather, perhaps, one should say, the question was decided in the
negative. In his day, however, his zeal first made itself heard in
favor of education, as many are now making themselves heard in favor
of a better education, and in 1524 he addressed a letter to the
councils of all the towns in Germany, begging them to vote money not
merely for roads, dikes, guns, and the like, but for schoolmasters, so
that all children might be taught; and he states his opinion that if
it be the duty of a state to compel the able-bodied to carry arms, it
is _a fortiori_ its duty to compel its subjects to send their children
to school, and to provide schools for those who without such aid would
remain uninstructed.
Here we have the germ of Germany's position at the present day, not
only in scientific instruction but in everything which that
instruction brings with it.
With the Reformation this idea spread to France. In 1560 we find the
States-General of Orleans suggesting to Francis II a "levée d'une
contribution sur les bénéfices ecclésiastiques pour raisonablement
stipendier des pédagogues et gens lettrés, en toutes villes et
villages, pour l'instruction de la pauvre jeunesse du plat pays, et
soient tenus les pères et mères, à peine d'amende, à envoyer les dits
enfants à l'école, et à ce faire soient contraints par les segnieurs
et les juges ordinaires."
Two years after this suggestion, however, the religious wars broke
out; the material interests of the clerical party had predominated,
the new spirit was crushed under the iron heel of priestcraft, and the
French, in consequence, had to wait for three centuries and a
revolution before they could get comparatively free.
In the universities, or at all events alongside them, we find next the
introduction not so much yet of science as we now know it, with its
experimental side, as of the scientific spirit.
The history of the Collége de France, founded in 1531 by Francis I, is
of extreme interest. In the fifteenth century the studies were chiefly
literary, and except in the case of a few minds they were confined
merely to scholastic subtleties, taught (I have it on the authority of
the Statistique de l'Enseignement Supérieur) in barbarous Latin. This
was the result of the teaching of the faculties; but even then,
outside the faculties, which were immutable, a small number of
distinguished men still occupied themselves in a less rigid way in
investigation; but still these studies were chiefly literary. Among
those men may be mentioned Danès, Postel, Dole, Guillaume Budé,
Lefèvre d'Étaples, and others, who edited with notes and commentaries
Greek and Latin authors whom the university scarcely knew by name.
Hence the renaissance of the sixteenth century, which gave birth to
the Collége de France, the function of which, at the commencement, was
to teach those things which were not in the ordinary curriculum of the
faculties. It was called the Collége des Deux Langues, the languages
being Hebrew and Greek. It then became the Collége des Trois Langues,
when the king, notwithstanding the opposition of the university,
created in 1534 a chair of Latin. There was another objection made by
the university to the new creation: from the commencement the courses
were free; and this feeling was not decreased by the fact that around
the celebrated masters of the Trois Langues a crowd of students was
soon congregated.
The idea in the mind of Francis I in creating this Royal College may
be gathered from the following edict, dated in 1545: "François, etc.,
savoir faisons à tous présents et à venir que Nous, considérant que le
sçavoir des langues, qui est un des dons du Saint-Esprit, fait
ouverture et donne le moyen de plus entière connaissance et plus
parfaite intelligence de toutes bonnes, honnêtes, saintes et
salutaires sciences.... Avons fait faire pleinement entendre à ceux
qui, y voudraient vacquer, les trois langues principales, Hébraïque,
Grecque, et Latine, _et les Livres esquels les bonnes sciences_ sont
le mieux et le plus profondément traitées. A laquelle fin, et en
suivant le décret du concile de Vienne, nous avons piéça ordonné et
establi en nôtre bonne ville de Paris, un bonne nombre de personnages
de sçavoir excellent, qui lisent et enseignent publiquement et
ordinairement les dites langues et sciences, maintenant
florissantautant ou plus qu'elles ne firent de bien longtemps ...
auxquels nos lecteurs avons donné honnêtes gages et salaires, et iceux
fait pourvoir de plusieurs beaux bénéfices pour les entretenir et
donner occasion de mieux et plus continuellement entendre au fait de
leur charge, ... etc."
The Statistique, which I am following in this account, thus sums up
the founder's intention: "Le Collége Royal avait pour mission de
propager les nouvelles connaissances, les nouvelles découvertes. Il
n'enseignait pas la science faite, il la faisait."
It was on account of this more than on account of anything else that
it found its greatest enemy in the university. The founding of this
new college, and the great excitement its success occasioned in Paris,
were, there can be little doubt, among the factors which induced
Gresham to found his college in London in 1574.
These two institutions played a great part in their time. Gresham
College, it is true, was subsequently strangled, but not before its
influence had been such as to permit the Royal Society to rise
phoenixlike from its ashes; for it is on record that the first step in
the forming of this society was taken after a lecture on astronomy by
Sir Christopher Wren at the college. All connected with them felt in
time the stupendous change of thought in the century which saw the
birth of Bacon, Galileo, Gilbert, Hervey, Tycho Brahe, Descartes, and
many others that might be named; and of these, it is well to remark,
Gilbert,[41] Hervey, and Galileo were educated in medical schools
abroad.
Bacon was not only the first to lay down _regulæ philosophandi_, but
he insisted upon the far-reaching results of research, not forgetting
to point out that "_lucifera experimenta, non fructifera
quærenda_,"[42] as a caution to the investigator, though he had no
doubt as to the revolution to be brought about by the ultimate
application of the results of physical inquiry.
As early as 1560 the Academia Secretorum Naturæ was founded at Naples,
followed by the Lincei in 1609, the Royal Society in 1645, the Cimento
in 1657, and the Paris Academy in 1666.
From that time the world may be said to have belonged to science, now
no longer based merely on observation but on experiment. But, alas!
how slowly has it percolated into our universities.
The first organized endeavor to teach science in schools was naturally
made in Germany (Prussia), where, in 1747 (nearly a century and a half
ago), Realschulen were first started; they were taken over by the
Government in 1832, and completely reorganized in 1859, this step
being demanded by the growth of industry and the spread of the modern
spirit. Eleven hours a week were given to natural science in these
schools forty years ago.
TEACHING THE TEACHERS.--Until the year 1762 the Jesuits had the
education of France almost entirely in their hands, and when,
therefore, their expulsion was decreed in that year, it was only a
necessary step to create an institution to teach the future teachers
of France. Here, then, we had the École Normale in theory; but it was
a long time before this theory was carried into practice, and very
probably it would never have been had not Rolland d'Erceville made it
his duty for more than twenty years, by numerous publications, among
which is especially to be mentioned his Plan d'Education, printed in
1783, to point out not merely the utility but the absolute necessity
for some institution of the kind. As generally happens in such cases,
this exertion was not lost, for in 1794 it was decreed that an École
Normale should be opened at Paris, "ou seront appelés de toutes les
parties de la République, des citoyens déjà instruits dans les
sciences utiles, pour apprendre, sous les professeurs les plus habiles
dans tous les genres, l'art d'enseigner."
To follow these courses in the art of teaching, one potential
schoolmaster was to be sent to Paris by every district containing
twenty thousand inhabitants. Fourteen or fifteen hundred young men
therefore arrived in Paris, and in 1795 the courses of the school were
opened first of all in the amphitheater of the Museum of Natural
History. The professors were chosen from among the most celebrated men
of France, the sciences being represented by Lagrange, Laplace, Haüry,
Monge, Daubenton, and Berthollet.
While there was this enormous progress abroad, represented especially
by the teaching of science in Germany and the teaching of the teachers
in France, things slumbered and slept in Britain. We had our coal and
our iron, our material capital, and no one troubled about our mental
capital, least of all the universities, which had become, according to
Matthew Arnold (who was not likely to overstate matters), mere _hauts
lycées_, and "had lost the very idea of a real university";[43] and
since our political leaders generally came from the universities,
little more was to be expected from them.
Many who have attempted to deal with the history of education have
failed to give sufficient prominence to the tremendous difference
there must necessarily have been in scientific requirements before and
after the introduction of steam power.
It is to the discredit of our country that we, who gave the perfected
steam engine, the iron ship, and the locomotive to the world, should
have been the last to feel the next wave of intellectual progress.