to the requirements of their religion, and to develop the constitution of their church, that but little attention seems to have been devoted to the cause of education. They had no literary institutions of their own, and, consequently, their children were often sent to pagan schools for secular instruction. The first Christian schools were founded to instruct the catechumens in the doctrines of Christianity, and to enable them to vindicate their religion from the attacks of pagan philosophers. The most famous of these schools, that of Alexandria (see ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL), gradually developed into the first school of Christian theology. Its great teachers, especially Clement and Origen, not only freed Christianity from the charge, until then very common, of being the faith of the ignorant and illiterate, but, by conceiving the idea of demonstrating the agreement of Christian doctrines with Platonic philosophy, attempted to revive the educational ideas of the Greeks, the most advanced in anteChristian times, and to resume the work of educational development where the great masters of ancient Greece had left off. This attempt, however, failed in consequence of the passionate opposition made to it by another school of Christian theologians, who saw in the world outside of the Christian revelation nothing but darkness and sin, and did not believe that any good could be derived from the study of pagan literature. Tertullian rejected any connection between Christianity and philosophy with the harsh remark, "What have Athens and Jerusalem, the Academy and the Church, in common?" Similar views were expressed by Irenæus, Cyprian, and Arnobius, while other writers, especially at Rome, endeavored to compromise between the Alexandrians and their opponents. When, three hundred years after its rise, Christianity supplanted paganism as the official religion of Rome, the detestation of pagan learning was sufficiently predominant in the Christian Church to cause the decline, and, subsequently, in the fifth century, the extinction, of the Alexandrian school. With it the study of the literature of ancient Greece ceased, and the treasures which are contained in the educational works of Plato and Aristotle, were for a long time hidden. The only schools to be met with at that time in the Christian world, were several schools of theology, like those of Antioch, Edessa, and Nisibis; and even these declined, simultaneously with or soon after the closing of the school of Alexandria. The mass of the Christian people derived its entire education from the family and the church. Upon this field, however, Christianity had produced wonderful results of regeneration. While pagan society was irresistibly collapsing, from vice and corruption, the Christian congregations excited the admiration of the world by the strength of their faith and the depth of their religious feeling. The organization of Christian schools other than those of a theological character is chiefly due to the monastic orders. Both in the east and in the west provision was made for instructing not only the candidates for monastic life, but also children who were sent there by their parents. In the East, the attention of the monks was, however, so completely absorbed in subtle metaphysical questions and controversies, that little was accomplished deserving a mention in the history of education. In the west, Benedict and his followers gave to monastic education a more practical basis, and combined agricultural and mechanical occupations with the study of theology. The importance of these convent schools (q.v.) greatly increased when the barbaric tribes overpowered western Europe, and rudely destroyed the last remnants of Roman civilization. The convents then became almost the only refuge of learning, and were thus enabled to extend their educational labors. Their success and the growing demand for instruction called into life the cathedral and collegiate schools (q. v.), which, in the main, pursued the same course of instruction. By far the most celebrated among all the convents of Europe were those of Ireland and England, which not only sent the greatest number of missionaries for the conversion of the pagan portions of Europe, but also educated the best teachers. The most vigorous impulses given to the progress of education in that pericd did not, however, proceed from any monk or convent, but from the great monarchs in the ninth century, Charlemagne (q. v.) and Alfred (q. v.), who by wise laws, greatly increased the number of schools and improved the course of studies, which were divided into the trivium and quadricium. Charlemagne was the first who conceived the idea of organizing instruction for the whole people; but his efforts in this direction were not successful, as, after his death, only few men could be found who were both willing and able to carry on the work of the great emperor. The people of the towns and rural districts did not appreciate the value of education, and a large portion of the clergy looked with disfavor at the attempt to cultivate in schools the language of the people at the expense of the Latin, the universal language of the church. Of the emperors and kings of the middle ages, not one resumed the educational ideas of Charlemagne; their energies being chiefly used, and to a large extent wasted, in their conflicts with the church and with the nobility. Since the authority of the church as the infallible teacher of religious truth was recognized in all Christian countries, it was to be expected that science and education would be, to a large extent, influenced and controlled by the church. Theology, actuated by the supreme desire to defend the rule of the church. developed into scholasticism (q. v.), which reached its greatest prosperity in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The methods of instruction pursued in the ecclesiastical schools were mechanical, the pupils endeavoring to reproduce, in literal recitations, the explanations and lectures of their teachers. School discipline was not only severe, but often cruel, and corporal punishment was generally approved, and frequently applied. The first departures from the educational EDUCATION methods of the church schools are met with in the education of young nobles, and in the establishment of town schools. In neither case was there any formal denial of the authority of the church, but very great attention was given to certain features of education which not only found no place in the church schools, but were frequently censured by the representatives of those schools as dangerous innovations. Thus, the attention given to gymnastic exercises in the education of young nobles, and the worshipful attention shown to noble women, gave to the aristocracy of the middle ages a training quite different from what it would have received in the church schools. The establishment of town or burgher schools, which assumed large dimensions after the twelfth century, made the acquisition of such knowledge as was most needed by the business man and mechanic, especially reading, writing, and arithmetic, the leading object of instruction. They were sometimes called writingschools, as they aimed at fitting their pupils for writing letters and business compositions. These schools not only served to develop the idea of secular instruction in the place of merely ecclesiastical education, but, when town magistrates were the patrons of the schools, led to the appointment of lay teachers, and, gradually, caused teaching to be regarded as a special profession. The beginning of this profession was sufficiently humble. Even at the close of the middle ages, special school-houses could be found in only a few towns. Instruction was generally given in some building used for ecclesiastical or municipal purposes, or in hired rooms. When magistrates had the control of a school, they engaged a school-master, generally for the term of one year. The school-master chose his own assistants, and, if his contract was not renewed, master and assistant traveled from town to town, until they found a new engagement. They were sometimes accompanied by crowds of boys and youths (see BACCHANTS), whose vagrant habits were, however, by no means calculated to increase the reputation of school education. The greatest among the educational achievements of the Christian world, during the middle ages, was the establishment of the universities, in which every department of science was to be developed to its highest perfection. The plan of these institutions, which were to be the centers of the literary labors of the entire Christian world, and in which, therefore, the progress made in any one science was to benefit all, was in itself an immense progress. The development of the universities was greatly promoted by the revival of classical studies (q. v.), which began in Italy in the 14th century, and by the discovery of the art of printing in the 15th century, which greatly facilitated a general diffusion of every kind of knowledge. The foremost representatives of this new period of intellectual activity were Erasmus, Reuchlin, and Melanchthon. A striking feature in the educational history of Christian Europe, from the rise of Christianity to the end of the middle ages, is the | 247 controlling influence of a universal church, with one visible head, the Pope, and one literary language, the Latin. In ancient Egypt, China, India, Persia, Greece, Rome, and among the Jews, the aim of education had always a strictly national bearing, and the same word was generally used to denote the ideas of foreign and hostile. Christianity, which became the religion of the Roman state at a time when the great empire had begun to shake to its very foundation, soon witnessed its destruction and the rise of a number of independent states, and regarded it as a divine mission to unite these conflicting nations in a common submission to the supreme authority of the one true religion. Thus not only was secular education made subordinate to moral and religious education, but the submission of so many nations to one spiritual authority tended to develop ideas of universal rather than national education. The Eastern Empire had no part in the educational progress of western Europe, and was in a completely petrified and exhausted condition when it was destroyed, in the fifteenth century, by the Mohammedan Turks. Mohammedanism, at that time, had been in existence for about 800 years. It had become the predominant religion in a large portion of Asia and Africa, and, for several centuries, had ruled in Spain. Its influence upon the progress of education, at one time, appeared to be even more favorable than that of Christianity; and the Mohammedan high schools of Spain not only attracted a large number of students from Christian countries, but in many sciences, as mathematics, philosophy, and natural history, became the teachers of all Europe. In the twelfth century, these schools began to decline; and, from that time to the present, education in the entire Mohammedan world has been in a most depressed condition. At the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, a series of remarkable events indicated the entrance of mankind into a new period of its history. One of special importance in regard to the progress of education was the overthrow of the Catholic Church in a large portion of Europe. As Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and other leaders of the religious movement appealed from the judgment of the Church which condemned them, to the Bible, it was their natural desire that every Christian family should be sufficiently instructed to be able to read the Bible. The governments of several Protestant states issued laws which were intended, after the example of Charlemagne, to bring the entire population under educational influences. In this way, education became more widely diffused than it had ever been in the middle ages; and it remained, henceforth, to a higher degree than before, the subject of serious study for many legislators; but there was no substantial change in the methods of instruction, and the subserviency of secular to theological education remained as complete as before. The desire to preserve the Catholic Church from further defection, and to recover the ground already lost. led to the establishment of the order of the Jesuits, who tried, for this purpose, to obtain a control of the education of the higher classes. The schools of the Jesuits (q. v.) attained a great celebrity, a large attendance, and the admiration of many of the most eminent Protestants. In consequence of the close connection between schools of every description and the church, all the great religious movements were reflected in education. Thus, when the German Pietists charged the Protestant Church of their time with laying too great stress on a rigid orthodoxy, and with undervaluing the emotional element of religion, the schools influenced by them were so shaped as to aim more at the education of practical than orthodox Christians. Germany is indebted to these Pietists for one of its greatest philanthropists and most practical educators, A. H. Francke (q. v.), whose fame in the history of education rests more on the excellent institutions which were founded by him, than on any new theory or literary work on education. A radical reform in education had, in the meantime, been introduced by Comenius (q. v.). a bishop of the Bohemian Brethren and one of the greatest educators of all time. Influenced by the inductive method of Bacon (q. v.), and the works of Ratich (q. v.) on the necessity and importance of an independent art of teaching, Comenius conceived the idea of a harmonious development of all the faculties of man, and proposed a grand system of popular education which is still admired by all educators as a work of lasting value. The views of Comenius on⠀⠀ vernacular schools, on the return from dead books to the live book of nature, on intuitional teaching and the value of analytico - synthetic methods met with general approbation and led to immediate reforms. The movement begun by Comenius was greatly strengthened by the writings of John Locke (q. v.), who applied Bacon's inductive method to the study of the human mind and became the founder of empirical psychology. Locke specially exceeded former writers in recognizing the importance of physical education; his ideas in regard to this subject have exercised a marked influence on modern school legislation. The new principles thus developed were welcomed by the powerful opposition which, in the seventeenth century, arose in the literary world against the influence of both orthodox Protestantism and the Catholic Church upon society, and which had its chief representatives in the French Free-Thinkers, the English Deists, and the German Rationalists. It became the general tendency of the age to look upon education as one of the most important departments of state administration, and, in most of the states, ministries of education, school boards, and school commissions were appointed. In Germany and a number of other countries, compulsory education was introduced. The chief difference among the leading educators concerned the question whether instruction should chiefly aim at imparting positive and useful knowledge, or at exercising and training the mental faculties. The advocates of the latter principle, who were called the Humanists, attributed very great educational importance to the study of the classical languages; while those of the former, called Realists, from their utilitarian point of view, thought more of natural sciences, modern languages, geography, and history. Among the writers on education in the eighteenth century, none became so famous as Rousseau, an enthusiastic idealist who looked upon the entire civilization of his age as an aberration from nature, and proposed to erect upon its ruins an entirely new society. The means by which he desired to effect this change was a radical reform in the system of public education. Neither he nor any of his admirers was able to carry his radical theories into practice; but many of his ideas, especially on physical education and the cultivation of the intellect, are now accepted as correct by all educators. He is regarded as the father of the anthropological principle in education which insists that the educational functions of a teacher should begin with his study of the individual nature of his pupils. Basedow (q. v.) and other Philanthropists (see PHILANTHROPIN), attempted to establish model boarding-schools on the basis of the ideas of Comenius, Locke, and Rousseau. The great hopes which they raised were never realized but many of their pupils have risen to considerable eminence. The most famous and influential of modern educators was Pestalozzi. The eminent position which he occupies in the history of education is not so much due to a perfect method of instruction, to a superior talent of organization and management, or to the foundation of great educational institutions, for in all these respects Pestalozzi has been excelled by other educators; but he has secured the admiration of all time by his fervid enthusiasm in the cause of education. He gave a greater impulse to the improvement of popular education than any of his predecessors; and it was his special merit to have called attention to the ethical and psychological foundation of education. The followers of Pestalozzi called into existence a number of practical reforms, the most important of which is the kindergarten (q. v.), founded by Froebel (q. v.), a system for the education of young children before their admission to the primary school. Many of the eminent philosophers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have discussed the great problems of pedagogy; and conflicting as their views may be on many important questions, the principle that education should be a natural and harmonious development of independent individualities is generally recognized. Of special interest for educators are the systems of Herbart, Beneke, and Herbert Spencer. Herbart (q. v.) rejected the traditional view of a number of different powers constituting the human soul, which on the contrary is regarded by him as a simple entity and as not subject to any change in its quality. Beneke (q. v.) proposed a system of education wholly based on psychology, to which he attributed the character EDUCATION of a wholly empirical science. Herbert Spencer (q. v.) claimed for the development of the soul an organic growth subject to the ordinary laws of organic development, and made psychology strictly a natural science. The development of educational ideas, as it has here been briefly traced, undoubtedly shows, that in every department of the subject a wonderful progress has been made in the course of the last three centuries. This progress is universally recognized, and there is not at present a civilized state which does not reflect it in its school legislation. (See the articles on the several countries and states.) Official statistics prove that school attendance is becoming more and more general, that illiteracy is on the wane, and in some countries scarcely known, and that the diffusion of education tends to the diminution of crime. Still, on many great questions, there continues to exist a marked difference of opinion. Has the state government a right only to recommend and promote, or may it compel the education of children? (See COMPULSORY EDUCATION.) Should instruction in the state schools be gratuitous? (See PUBLIC SCHOOLS.) Are the two sexes to be educated in separate or in mixed schools? (See CO-EDUCATION OF THE SEXES.) Is religious instruction to be given in or out of the state schools? (See DENOMINATIONAL SCHOOLS.) All these questions are fully treated of, in this work, in special articles. The outlines of a history of education are contained in the works on education in general by Schwarz, Niemeyer, Gräfe, and Rosenkranz. (See literature at the end of this article.) Special works on the history of education have been written by Wohlfarth (Geschichte des gesammten Erziehungs- und Unterrichtswesens, 2 vols., 1853 & 1855); Körner (Geschichte der Pädagogik, 1857; Karl Schmidt (Geschichte der Pädagogik, 3d edit., by Lange, 4 vols., 1872-1876); Dittes (Geschichte der Erziehung und des Unterrichts, 4th ed., 1875); Fritz (Esquisse d'un système complet d'instruction et d'éducation et de leur histoire, 3 vols., Strasburg, 1841-1847); H. J. Schmidt (History of Education, New York, 1842); Hailmann (History of Pedagogy, Cincinnati, 1874). A history of education from the revival of classical studies to the present time has been written by Karl Raumer (4 vols., 1844-1852). Of this there is an English translation in Barnard's American Journal of Edu- | cation; the larger portion of the translation of the first two volumes has also been published separately under the title, Memoirs of Eminent Teachers and Educators in Germany; and the translation of the fourth volume, under the title, The German Universities. A history of education before Christ is given in Cramer, Geschichte der Erziehung und des Unterrichts (2 vols., 1832 and 1838). II. Theory of Education. — The word education is derived from the Latin verb educo which is properly used to designate the sustenance and care bestowed by a nurse on a child; and it is, no doubt, connected etymologically with the Latin 249 verb educo, to lead out; but it never has this literal sense, and it is extremely unlikely that the Romans connected the idea of drawing out with that of educatio. In order to get at a true idea of education, we must look at the circumstances of the case. We proceed by way of analogy. We know in regard to the seed of a plant that it contains a peculiar and special power within it. Place it in the proper soil, with the proper temperature, and it will burst forth into active life. It will gather from earth and air the means of support and increase. It will fashion the elements which it lays hold of into a definite shape, and it will pass through various stages of progress until it withers away, leaving, however, behind it the means of continuing the species. Within certain limits, the plant has a definite form of its own, and its mode of life is also uniform; and, within these limits, there lies a perfect form and a perfect life for the plant. It may not be easy to say what is that perfect form and perfect life, but it is plain to every observer, that it, as it were, strives after an ideal form and an ideal progress, to which it approximates more or less closely. Man is like the plant. The living power within him strives to attain a particular form. and to go through a particular progress, and it continually strives to attain an ideal of these, within certain limits. The difference between the plant and the man is, that the limits of his condition and progress are much wider, and that he can consciously form an ideal for himself, and strive after it. Now education, in its proper sense, is the deliberate effort on the part of one conscious being to clear the way so as to enable another to attain this perfect condition of life and this normal progress. It is assumed that the man naturally strives after perfection. It is assumed that he must move in some direction, whether forward, or zigzag, or backward; and the educator endeavors to keep the movement in the right direction. Other The word education is used in a variety of senses, connected but not always compatible with the true idea. Thus man is viewed as being, in his earliest stage, a kind of compressed mass of faculties, and education is the drawing out of these faculties. Again, every thing that acts on man's nature is sometimes said to be educative, whether the result is beneficial or not. instances could be adduced of the use of the word in the vaguest manner; but by stating the true idea we oppose ourselves to the vague uses of the word. It is enough, therefore, to state first that man must be viewed, not as passive but as active, not as being drawn out, but as striving to act, and that no act is truly educative which does not help him to strive after actions that are becoming to his nature, or, to express it objectively, to strive after what is good, beautiful, or true. But, in thus stating the work of education in a general proposition, we have done very little towards explaining its true nature. Education sets before it an ideal. How are we to form anything like an adequate conception of this ideal? Only by a minute and careful study of human nature; and. therefore, every educator must necessarily devote a great deal of his attention to the phenomena of body and mind, and to man, the combination of both. The ideal is a unity, but it is a composite unity, made up of the perfect accomplishment of endless detailed actions, and we must, therefore, examine all the details before we can attain to a clear notion of the whole. becomes stronger and stronger; for all pleasure is the accompaniment of the vigorous discharge of some function, and all pain is the accompaniment of the weak discharge or hindrance of some function. If the organ which discharges the function is exercised too powerfully, as may be the case with our bodily powers and lower mental energies, there is first intense pleasure; but the over-tension impairs the healthiness of the organ temporarily, or it may be permanentThe subject may be viewed in another light. ly, and then the impaired activity is followed by Every portion of man is made or preformed for pain. And the pleasure that may arise, may a special function or functions. Thus the eyes arise from the exercise of what we call lower are made for seeing, the hands for grasping, the functions, when higher are neglected. Thus the skin for touch. For what is the whole body lazy man desires true pleasure, as far as it goes, made? For what is man, body and soul, made? from the vigorous exercise of his vital or vegeIt is the work of the educator to help him whom tative powers. But, whatever pleasure does exist, he educates to discharge the functions for which, exists from the efficient discharge of function. as man, he has been made or preformed. Ac- or in other words from healthy activities of body cordingly, most of the definitions of education or of mind. This pleasure may not be conwhich have been given, have been based on the sciously before the mind, as in the highest intelanswer to the question, what is the chief end lectual operations when the student does not the summum bonum · the destiny of man? feel how intense has been his enjoyment, until This was a question which occupied the atten- the enjoyment is over. This accompaniment of tion of the ancients much, and Clemens Alexan- all our healthy actions is cumulative. It grows in drinus has gathered together a large number of degree, in proportion as the actions are repeated the answers which ancient philosophers gave to in a healthy or proper manner. And, hence, our the inquiry. These are interesting to the edu- | interest increases with the healthy repetition of cator, because they suggest different points of the activities on the objects. Herbart's definiview from which to look at the problem. In tion becomes, therefore, nearly synonymous with more modern times, the form which the answer the other, but directs the attention to the exhas most frequently taken is the statement that ternal side of man's activity, to the objects on it is the work of education to produce, as far as which the mind works. Both sides must be it can, an equable and harmonious development carefully considered by the educator; for, in the of all the powers of man. Herbart and his activity of man, they are invariably conjoined. school object to this way of expressing the aim The distinction between formal and material in of education. The term powers is apt to mis- education has to be made with great caution; lead. There are no separate and special faculties and it has always to be remembered that form is in man's mind. All the best psychologists admit impossible without matter, and matter impos that these faculties are fictions; and, therefore, sible without form, that while there can be no the aim of education must be defined apart from right activity, if the mind does not act in a right these. Herbart himself defined the aim of edu- manner, it is equally true that there can be no cation to be morality; but he used the word in a right activity, if that on which the action takes truly philosophical sense, in which it is not un-place is not a right object for the mind to act upon. derstood by the masses, and, therefore, he preferred to state the object of education to be, to produce a well-balanced many-sidedness of interest. The emphasis laid on interest has been productive of much rich fruit in educational investigation and experience; but, practically, Herbart's definition comes to the same as the other. Man is viewed as destined to a series of activities closely connected the one with the other. These activities may be in harmony with his nature, or his ideal nature, as we may call it, or they may be more or less aberrations from it. The business of the educator is to prevent the aberrations, and to help those activities which are in harmony. Those activities which are in harmony find their sphere in nature, in man. in God. It is important that all these activities come into play. Man does not pursue his ideal course, if they do not come into play. He must be fully developed. But if his activity comes into play on these subjects according to the right method, his interest in them is awakened and After having thus generally discussed the aim of education, we should now enter minutely into particulars, for the general is of slight use without the particular; but this would be to write a treatise on the laws of the activity of the human mind, and the modes to be adopted by men to direct these activities aright in the young. must, therefore, confine ourselves to hints which may suggest to the reader the subjects which deserve his careful and minute examination. We A child gazes at an apple on a tree. What are the operations of the child's mind? First, we have the exercise of the bodily organ. Then the apple produces an impression on the child's mind. This impression we call a sensation. The child feels something. Some change has taken place within him. But, if this is not the first impression which the apple has made on the child, we can observe that the sensation has attained in its complexity to three phases: First, the child has the feeling of pleasure in seeing the apple; second, he sees that there is an object |