Chapter XV: Front Matter (15)

Before the rediscovery of Aristotle exerted such a general influence on the form of education, there was a real revival of classical literary culture at Chartres and a few other schools, and John of Salisbury (d. 1182) in his _Metalogicus_ advocated literature as an instrument of education and lamented the barrenness of a training confined to the subtleties of formal logic. But the recrudescence of Aristotle accelerated the movement in favour of dialectic, though at the same time it furnished topics on which logic could be exercised which only a bare materialism can esteem unimportant. The weaknesses of the general educational system which grew up within scholasticism were that haste to begin dialectic led to an undue curtailment of previous liberal culture, and that exclusive attention to philosophical and theological questions caused a neglect of the study of the physical world and a disregard of the critical functions of the intellect. Doubtless there were exceptions, of which perhaps the most striking is the work in physical science done at Oxford by Roger Bacon (1214-1294). But Albertus Magnus (1193-1280), the master of St Thomas, was also a student of nature and an authority for his day on both the natural and the physical sciences. And the work of Grosseteste (d. 1253), as chancellor of the university of Oxford, shows that care for a liberal literary culture was by no means unknown. Always there were such examples. But too often boys hastened to enter upon dialectic and philosophy as soon as they had acquired sufficient smattering of colloquial Latin to engage in the disputes of the schools. A deterioration of Latin was the unavoidable consequence of such premature specialization. The seven liberal arts were often not pursued in their entirety, and students remained satisfied with desiccated compendia of accepted opinions. Thus the encyclopaedias of general information which were in general use during the middle ages show little or no advance in positive knowledge upon the treatment of similar subjects in Isidore of Seville.

The foundation of universities.

The services of scholasticism to the cause of education, however, cannot well be overestimated, and the content of scholastic studies was in fundamental harmony with the intellectual interests of the time. Above all other benefits owed by future ages to scholasticism is the foundation of the universities of western Europe. The intellectual activity of the 11th century led everywhere to a great increase in the number of scholars attending the monastic and cathedral schools. Round famous teachers, such as Abelard, gathered crowds of students from every country. In the 12th century the need for organizing such bodies of teachers and students was imperative, and thus the earlier universities arose in Italy, France and England, not by deliberate foundation of secular or ecclesiastical ruler, but as spontaneous manifestations of the characteristic medieval impulse to organize into institutions. Afterwards, charters conferring powers and privileges were sought from both Church and state, but these only confirmed the self-governing character the universities had borne from the first. Each of the early universities was a specialized school of higher study: Salerno was a school of medicine; Bologna was the centre of that revival of Roman law which wrought so profound an effect upon the legal systems of France and Germany towards the close of the medieval period. But the greatest of medieval universities was that of Paris, emphatically the home of philosophy and theology, which was the model upon which many other universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, were organized.

The German universities were of later origin, the earliest being Prague (1348) and Vienna (1365). They indicate the more recognized position the movement had attained; for nearly all were founded by the civic authority, and then obtained the recognition of the Church and charters from the emperor.

University work and life.

The concentration of higher instruction in universities was not antagonistic to the medieval conception of the Church as the teacher of mankind. University life was modelled on that of the cloister, though the monastic ideal could not be fully realized, and the scholars not infrequently exhibited considerable licence in life. This was inevitable with the very large numbers of the scholars and the great variations of age among them. Moreover students, and to a less extent teachers, passed from university to university, so that the universities of medieval Europe formed a free confederacy of learning in close relation to the Church but untrammelled by state control. Nevertheless, they were less definitely ecclesiastical than the cathedral seminaries which they largely supplanted, and the introduction of studies derived from the Greeks through the Arabians led to an increased freedom of thought, at first within authorized limits, but prepared, when occasion served, to transcend those limits.

The scheme of instruction was arranged on the assumption that special studies should be based on a wide general culture. Thus of the four faculties into which university teaching was organized, that of arts, with its degrees of _Baccalaureat_ and _Magister_, was regarded as propaedeutic to those of theology, law and medicine. It often included, indeed, quite young boys, for the distinction between grammar school and university was not clearly drawn. Attention was concentrated on those subjects which treat of man and his relations to his fellow-men and to God, and no attempt was made to extend the bounds of knowledge. The aim was to pass on a body of acquired knowledge regarded as embracing all that was possible of attainment, and the authority of Aristotle in physics as well as in philosophy, and of Galen and Hippocrates in medicine was absolute. The methods of instruction--by lecture, or commentary on received texts; and by disputation, in which the scholars acquired dexterity in the use of the knowledge they had absorbed--were in harmony with this conception, and were undoubtedly thoroughly well suited to the requirements of an age in which the ideal of human thought was not discovery but order, and in which knowledge was regarded as a set of established propositions, the work of reason being to harmonize these propositions in subordination to the authoritative doctrines of the Church.

Medieval schools.

Such an extension of the means of higher education as was given by the universities was naturally accompanied by a corresponding increase in schools of lower rank. Not only were there grammar schools at cathedral and collegiate churches, but many others were founded in connexion with chantries, and by some of the many gilds into which medieval middle-class life organized itself. The Dominican and Franciscan friars were enthusiastic promoters of learning both in universities and in schools, and in the Netherlands the Brethren of the Common Life, founded by Gerard Groote and approved by Eugenius IV. in 1431, regarded school teaching as one of their main functions, and the promotion of learning by the multiplication of manuscripts as another. The curriculum was represented broadly by the _Trivium_. The greatest attention was paid to grammar, which included very various amounts of reading of classical and Christian authors, the most commonly included being Virgil, parts of Ovid and Cicero, and Boethius. The text-books in grammar were the elementary catechism on the eight parts of speech by Donatus, a Roman of the 4th century, said to have been the tutor of St Jerome, and the more advanced treatise of Priscian, a schoolmaster of Constantinople about A.D. 500, which remained the standard text-book for over a thousand years. In rhetoric Cicero's _De oratore_ was read, and dialectic was practised, as in the universities, by means of disputations.

In addition to the grammar schools were writing and song schools of an elementary type, in which instruction was usually in the vernacular. Girls were taught in women's monasteries and in the home, and those of the upper classes at least very generally learned to read, write and keep accounts, as well as fine needlework, household duties and management, and such elementary surgery and medicine as served in cases of slight daily accidents and illnesses. Even those boys and girls who did not receive formal scholastic instruction were instructed orally by the parish priests in the doctrines and duties of the Faith; while the pictures and statues with which the churches were adorned aided the direct teaching of sermons and catechizing in giving a general knowledge of Bible history and of the legends of the saints.

No doubt, in times of spiritual and intellectual lethargy, the practice fell short of the theory; but on the whole it may be concluded that in medieval times the provision for higher instruction was adequate to the demand, and that, relatively to the culture of the time, the mass of the people were by no means sunk in brutish ignorance. Indeed, especially when the paucity of books before the invention of printing is borne in mind, the number of people who could read the vernacular, as evidenced by the demand for books in the vulgar tongue as soon as printing made them available, is clear proof that the latter part of the middle ages was by no means a time of general illiteracy.

Education of chivalry.

Feudalism, the other characteristic aspect of medieval society, had also its system of education, expressing its own view of life, and preparing for the adequate performance of its duties. This was the training in chivalry given to pages and squires in the halls and castles of the great. Hallam has well said: "There are, if I may so say, three powerful spirits which have from time to time moved over the face of the waters, and given a predominant impulse to the moral sentiments and energies of mankind. These are the spirits of liberty, of religion and of honour. It was the principal business of chivalry to animate and cherish the last of these." And this was not in opposition to the spirit of religion which animated the scholastic education which went on side by side with it. Throughout chivalry was sanctified by the offices of the Church. The education of chivalry aimed at fitting the noble youth to be a worthy knight, a just and wise master, and a prudent manager of an estate. Much was acquired by daily experience of a knightly household, but in addition the page received direct instruction in reading and writing; courtly amusements, such as chess and playing the lute, singing and making verses; the rules and usages of courtesy; and the knightly conception of duty. As a squire he practised more assiduously the knightly exercises of war and peace, and in the management of large or small bodies of men he attained the capacity of command.

Decadence of scholasticism.

With the unification of existing knowledge and the systematization of theology the constructive work of scholasticism was done. At the same time the growth of national feeling was slowly but surely undermining feudalism. Moreover, deep resentment was accumulating throughout western Europe against the practical abuses which had become prevalent in the Church, and especially in the court of Rome and in the prince-bishoprics of Germany. In short, Europe was out-growing medieval institutions, which appeared more and more as empty forms unable to satisfy the needs and longings of the human soul. In such conditions, the customary and traditional education of school and university tended to lose touch more and more completely with the new aspirations and views of life which were everywhere gathering adherents among the keenest and most active intellects. Had a new cultural movement not begun, the education of Europe threatened to become as arid as the rhetorical education of the last centuries of the Roman empire had been. From this it was saved by the renaissance of classical studies which began in the 14th century.

The Renaissance.

Italy, by its greater wealth and its more intimate commerce with the eastern empire, was the seed-plot of this new tree of knowledge. Ever since the 11th century the cities of northern Italy had been in advance of Europe beyond the Alps both in culture and in material progress. The old classical spirit and the feeling of Roman citizenship had never quite died out, and the _Divina Commedia_ of Dante (1265-1321) furnishes evidence that the poet of the scholastic philosophical theology was also a keen student and lover of the old Latin poets. But the greatest impulse to the revived study of the classics was given by Petrarch (1304-1374) and Boccaccio (1313-1375). Generally throughout western Europe the 14th century, though full of war and political unrest, was a time of considerable intellectual activity, shown in the increase of schools and universities, as well as in the literary and artistic revival in Italy, in the social and theological movement in England and Bohemia associated with the names of Wycliffe and Huss, and in the more or less perfect substitution of Roman law everywhere except in England for the law of custom which had hitherto prevailed.

But it was the literary movement which most affected education, and indeed the whole life of Europe. A decisive step was taken when Manuel Chrysoloras was invited to teach Greek in the university of Florence in 1397. The enthusiasm for classical culture, to which Petrarch had given so great an impetus, gathered force and extended over the whole of Italy, though, of course, felt only by a select few and leaving the mass of the people little, if at all, affected. From Italy it spread gradually to countries north of the Alps. In the old writers men found full expression of that new spirit of self-conscious freedom which was vaguely striving for expression throughout the whole of Christendom. In the free political atmosphere of the Italian communes, with their wealthy and leisured merchant class, that spirit could flourish much more readily than in the feudalized Europe across the Alps. Moreover, the antique spirit was in direct line of ancestry with that of medieval Italy. Thus, for a couple of centuries, Italy stood in the van of European culture.

The stages of the movement cannot be traced here: suffice it to say it showed itself especially in an enthusiastic search for manuscripts, followed by their multiplication and wider distribution; in an intense devotion to literary form; in a revival of classic taste in architecture; in a wonderful development of painting and sculpture from symbolism of spiritual qualities towards naturalism and romanticism; in a return to Platonism in philosophy; in a contempt, often unreasoning and wanting a foundation in knowledge, for the scholastic Aristotelian philosophy itself, and not simply for the trivialities into which its actual exercise had so commonly degenerated. The invention of printing necessarily gave the movement both a stronger and a wider influence than it could otherwise have attained. And in its search after knowledge it was in full harmony with the spirit of adventure which marked the age, and by the discovery of the New World wrought so profound a change in the relative importance and prosperity of the countries of western Europe.

Influence of the Renaissance on education.

It is the spirit of the movement which is of interest to the student of education. And that spirit was essentially one of opposition to authority and of assertion of individual liberty, which worked itself out in various forms among peoples of different temperaments. In Italy the form was literary and artistic, and the full development of the Renaissance spirit was seen in a practical Paganism which substituted the attractions of art for the claims of religion and morality, and eventuated in deep and widespread immorality and a contemptuous tolerance of the outward observances of religion without faith in the doctrines they symbolized. The movement became an attempt to reconstitute the past intellectual life of Italy, and, as such, was foredoomed to sterility as soon as the work of re-discovery was completed; for the revived forms were not inspired with the vital spirit which had once made them realities, and consequently men's minds once again were occupied with mere verbal subtleties. The really valuable service of the Italian humanists to Europe was the restoration to man of the heritage of knowledge which he had allowed to slip from his grasp, and the leading the way to a freer intellectual atmosphere. In Germany the spirit manifested itself in a rebellion against the doctrinal system of the Church as the only effectual means of attaining reform of ecclesiastical abuses. The Protestant reformation of Luther was the real German outcome of the Renaissance. In no other country of Europe did the movement take so distinctive a form.

It was, then, not merely the revival of interest in classical studies which so profoundly affected the life and education of western Europe. It was rather that in those literatures men found a response to intellectual and moral cravings which had been blindly gathering force for generations, and which found themselves formulated and objectified in the writings which set forth the Pagan view of life with its assumption of the essential worth and self-reliance of the individual and its frank delight in all the pleasures of existence. It was, in short, in proportion as men not only found delight in Pagan literature but returned in essence to the Pagan view of individual worth and the supremacy of the human intellect, that the Church realized the danger to herself which lurked in the new movement.

At first the revival of interest in the classical literatures did not show any antagonism to Catholic faith and practice, and its warmest supporters were faithful sons of the Church. The view of the relation of classical literature to Christianity adopted by the great humanist schoolmaster Vittorino da Feltre (1378-1446) was broadly that of the early Fathers, and in his school at Mantua he showed that culture was not inconsistent with loyalty to the Church or with purity of life. With him classical literature was not the end and sum of education, but was a means of implanting ideas, of developing taste, and of acquiring knowledge, all as helps and ornaments of a Christian life. Though Pagan literature was the means of education, the Pagan spirit had not supplanted that of Christianity. The school at Mantua may, indeed, be said to have exhibited in practice a Christianized application of the doctrines of Quintilian and Plutarch.

So was it in the other countries of Christendom. In the Netherlands the Brethren of the Common Life introduced humanistic studies into their schools side by side with definite religious teaching and observances and their work was always dominated by the Christian spirit. The earlier German humanists, such as Nicholas de Cusa, Hegius, Agricola and Wimpheling, adopted the same attitude, and Erasmus himself, bitterly as he attacked the practical abuses of the Church, remained in communion with it, and aimed at harmonizing classical culture with the Christian life. In England the same love of culture combined with devotion to the Church was seen in Selling, prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, the first real English humanist, in Grocyn, Linacre, More, Fisher, Colet and many others whose enthusiasm for culture was as undoubted as was their loyalty to Catholicism. It seemed, then, at first as if the greatest educational effect of the classical revival would be the deepening of literary culture, and the substitution of real inquiry for dialectic subtleties in the courses of schools and universities, without any break with established religious teaching. It is true that the majority of schools were but little affected, and many of the universities had given but a half-hearted welcome to humanistic studies when the religious revolt in Germany under the leadership of Luther threw the whole of Europe into two hostile camps. But even the conservative university of Paris--the headquarters of scholastic philosophical theology--had permitted the teaching of Greek as early as 1458, and both Oxford and Cambridge had welcomed the new studies. That the influence of the new movement for classical study was gradually permeating the schools is shown not only by the practice of the Brethren of the Common Life but by the curriculum laid down by the statutes of the schools refounded by Wolsey at Ipswich and by Colet at St Paul's.

Immediate influence of the Reformation on education.

The immediate effect of the religious controversies of the 16th century on education was emphatically, if unintentionally, disastrous. The secularization of ecclesiastical property too often absorbed the endowments of the schools, so that, both in Germany and in England, the majority of grammar schools either disappeared or continued a starved existence with diminished funds; the doctrine of salvation by faith alone and the futility of good works dried up the source from which such endowments had flowed; the violent fulminations of the German reformers against the universities as the homes of the hated scholastic theology and philosophy found an echo in minds fired with the renaissance enthusiasm for poetry and oratory, and correlative distaste for the more severe and abstract speculations of logic and philosophy, which expressed itself in abstention from those seats of learning; the preoccupation of men's minds with theological speculations and quarrels led those few who did resort to the universities to neglect their appointed studies and to devote their energies to interminable wrangling over the points in dispute. This decadence in culture was attended by an outbreak of licence and immorality, especially among the young, which called forth violent denunciations from Luther and many of his followers in Germany, and from Latimer and other reformers in England. In some respects these results were only transitory. Humanism and Protestantism, which had so far diverged that Erasmus (1467-1536) had declared that where Lutheranism flourished learning decayed, were brought together again by Melanchthon (1497-1560) under whose influence universities were founded or reorganized and schools re-established in Protestant German states; and in England the reign of Elizabeth saw many new educational foundations. But this restoration of the means of education was only partial, and the doctrine of the worthlessness of "carnal knowledge," which led the Barebones Parliament to propose the suppression of the English universities, was held by many fervent Protestants both in England and in Germany all through the 17th century.

Protestant schools.

Moreover, the schools established a tradition of curriculum and instruction which ignored the new directions of men's thoughts and the new view of knowledge as something to be enlarged, and not merely a deposit to be handed down from generation to generation. The later humanist theories of education, which the schools continued to follow generally for over two centuries, and in many cases for another hundred years after that, were drawn mainly from Erasmus and Melanchthon, who found in the classical languages and literatures, and especially in Latin, the only essential instruments of education. General knowledge of natural facts might be desirable to the cultured man as ornaments to his rhetoric, but it was to be sought in the writings of antiquity. Even so revolutionary a thinker on education as Rabelais (1495-1553) with all his demand for an encyclopaedic curriculum, held the writings of the ancients as authoritative on natural phenomena. Melanchthon, whose conception of instruction was much narrower, exercised enormous influence in the moulding of Protestant universities and secondary schools, both directly and through such disciples as Trotzendorf and Neander, but especially through his friend Sturm (1507-1589), whose Latin gymnasium at Strassburg became the model which the grammar schools of Protestant Europe strove to imitate. In this school nearly the whole of the energies of the boys was given to acquiring a mastery of the Latin language after the model of Cicero. Sturm, indeed, did not go to the extreme length of the Ciceronians, opposed and satirized by Erasmus, who would allow no word or construction which could not be found in the extant writings of their master, but a like spirit dominated him.

The Society of Jesus.

In Catholic countries the Church retained control of education. The practical reformation of abuses by the Council of Trent, and the energy and skill of the Society of Jesus, founded by St Ignatius Loyola, in 1534, brought back most of south Germany into the fold of the Church. Everywhere Catholic universities were mainly taught by Jesuit fathers; and under their influence, scholasticism, purged from the excretions which had degraded it, was restored, and continued to satisfy the longings of minds which felt the need of an authoritative harmonizing of faith and knowledge. Everywhere the society established schools, which, by their success in teaching and the mildness of their discipline, attracted thousands of pupils who came even from Protestant homes. Their curriculum was purely classical, but it was elaborated with much skill, and the methods of instruction and discipline were made the subject of much thought and of long-continued experiment. In the methods thus determined all Jesuit fathers were trained, so that the teachers in Jesuit schools attained a degree of skill in their art which was too generally wanting elsewhere.

Early proposals for reform.

So long as Latin remained the language of learning, and new fields of knowledge were not appropriated, the schools remained in harmony with the culture of their time, though, as Mulcaster (1530-1611) pointed out, such a training was not of value to the majority of boys. For them he urged an elementary education in the vernacular; but neither in this nor in his advocacy of the training of teachers was his advice followed.

In the 17th century the dislocation between the Latin schools and the needs of life began to be accentuated as Latin gradually ceased to be the language of learning; and, as a consequence, the numbers attending the schools decreased, and the mass of the people sunk continually lower in ignorance. In vain Hoole urged the establishment of a universal system of elementary schools giving instruction in the vernacular, Petty put forth his plan for elementary trade schools, and Cowley proposed the establishment of a college devoted to research. Ideas of reform were in the air, but the main current of scholastic practice flowed on unaffected by them. Some attention was, indeed, paid to the conservative reforms advocated by the Port Royalists, of which the most important was the inclusion of the vernacular as a branch of instruction, but the cry for more fundamental changes based on the philosophy of Bacon was unheeded. Of these, none was a more active propagandist than Comenius (1571-1635). Unfortunately his _Great Didactic_, in which he set forth his general principles, attracted little attention and won less adherence, though his school books, in which he attempted with very little success to apply his principles, were widely used in schools. But these were little more than bald summaries of real and supposed facts, stated in Latin and the vernacular in parallel columns. In content they differed from such medieval summaries of knowledge as the well-known work of Bartholomew Anglicus, which had been widely used since the 13th century, chiefly by their greater baldness and aridity of statement.

Decadence of universities.

In the universities, too, the 16th and 17th centuries saw a continuous decadence. The 16th century was not ripe for real intellectual freedom; and Protestantism, having based its revolt on the right of private judgment, soon produced a number of conflicting theological systems, vying with each other in rigidity and narrowness, which, as Paulsen says, "nearly stifled the intellectual life of the German people." Further, the idea of national autonomy, which exercised so great an effect on the politics of the time, included the universal adherence of the citizens to the religion of the state. Hence, till the end of the 17th century the universities of Protestant Europe were regarded mainly as instruments for securing adhesion to the national theological system on the part of future clergy and officials, and the state interfered more and more with their organization and work. Theology occupied the most important place in the higher studies pursued, which for the rest differed little in content and less in spirit from those of preceding centuries, except that more attention was paid to the study of classical literature. Even that decayed into formal linguistics as the Renaissance enthusiasm for poetry and oratory died out, and interest in logical and philosophical questions, fostered by the dominance of dogmatic controversial theology, again became dominant. In Paris, on the other hand, the faculty of theology had decayed through the withdrawal of those preparing for the priesthood into episcopal seminaries, and the higher studies pursued were mainly law and medicine. Thus, generally, the universities were less and less fulfilling the function of providing a general liberal education. Another change, due to the same causes and making for the same results, was the isolation of universities, often directly fostered by the state governments, which for the universal interchange of medieval thought substituted a narrow provincial culture and outlook. It is no wonder that numbers everywhere decayed and that complaints as to the habits of the students were loud and frequent.

Education of the higher classes.

At the close of the 17th century, then, universities as well as schools had reached a very low level of efficiency and were held in little respect by the cultured. Indeed, from the middle of the century, the main current of intellectual life had drifted away from the orthodox centres of learning. The formation of the Berlin Academy in Germany and of the Royal Society in England, and the refusal of Leibnitz to accept a chair in any German university, were signs of the times. In France, and later in Germany, the education of the noble youth was increasingly carried on apart from the schools, and was really an outgrowth from the education of chivalry. In the 16th century Castiglione and Montaigne had advocated a training directly adapted to prepare for polite life, and Elyot wrote on similar lines. But the most important movement in this direction was the formation of the courtly academies which flourished in France in the 17th century, and were soon imitated in the _Ritterakademien_ of Germany. In these schools of the nobility French was more honoured than classics, and the other subjects were chosen as directly adapted to prepare for the life of a noble at the court. Milton in his _Tractate_ advocated the foundation of such academies in England, though he proposed a curriculum far more extensive than had ever been found possible. More and more, too, foreign travel had, from the middle of the 16th century, been looked upon as a better mode of finishing the education of a gentleman than a course at a university.

Revival of university life.

The later years of the 17th century saw a revival of university life in Cambridge, through the work of Newton and the increasing attention paid to mathematics and the physical sciences, though the number of students continued very small. In Germany, also, a new era opened with the foundation of the universities of Halle (1694) and Gottingen (1737), which from the first discarded the old conception that the function of a university is to pass on knowledge already complete, and so opened the door of the German universities to the new culture and philosophy. It was soon seen that students could thus be attracted, and the influence spread to the other German universities, which by the end of the 18th century had regained their position as homes of the highest German thought.

Education of the poor.

At Halle, too, was set the example by Francke of providing for the education of the children of the poor, and to his disciple Hecker Germany owes the first _Realschule_. Simultaneous movements for the education of the poor were made by St Jean-Baptiste de la Salle and the Brothers of the Christian Schools in France, and by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge in England. But the total results were not great; the mass of the people in every European country remained without schooling throughout the 18th century.

18th-century thought and education.

The intellectual movements of that century were, indeed, essentially aristocratic. Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists aimed at the enlightenment of the select few, and Rousseau declared baldly that the poor need no education. That these movements influenced education profoundly is undoubted. The individualistic and abstract rationalism of Voltaire, derived from the sensationist philosophy of Locke through the more thorough-going Condillac, and finding its logical outcome in the materialistic atheism of La Mettrie and the refined selfishness of Rochefoucault, infected the more cultured classes. In Lord Chesterfield's _Letters to his Son_ is shown its educational outcome--a veneer of superficial culture and artificial politeness covering, but not hiding, the most cold-blooded selfishness. Against this fashionable artificiality, as well as against the obvious social and political abuses of the time, Rousseau's call for a return to nature was a needed protest.

Rousseauism.

Rousseauism, however, was not merely a transitory revolt against a conventionality of life that had become unbearable; it was emphatically the voicing of a view of life and of education which has profoundly influenced Europe ever since. In that Rousseau (1712-1778) attempted to look at life as a whole he was on truer ground than were the intellectualists of the "Enlightenment"; but in that he found the essence of life in the gratification of the desires and impulses of the moment, he enunciated a doctrine which banished high principle and strenuous effort from life and consequently from education. In the _Emile_ is presented a purely fantastic scheme of education based on a psychology of development so crude as to be absolutely false, and producing a young man utterly unable to guide his own life or to control his emotions and impulses. Rousseauism is, indeed, in its essence the application to education of the doctrines of naturalism--the philosophy which regards human life as a mere continuation of physical process, and consequently as determined wholly by environment. So Rousseau would abolish all moral training and leave the child to the reactions of the physical world upon his actions.

Kant.

Against this position the educational teaching of Kant (1724-1804), influenced though he was by the _Emile_, is essentially a protest. The most necessary element in education, according to Kant, is constraint, which by the formation of habit prepares the young to receive as principles of conduct the laws at first imposed upon them from without. And the supreme guide of life is the law of duty which is always more or less opposed to the promptings of inclination. Kant exaggerates the dualism: Rousseau would abolish it by ignoring the more important of the two antitheses.

Educational outcome of the Revolution.

The French Revolution--the natural outcome of the teachings of Voltaire and of Rousseau--was the second stage in the movement of which the Reformation was the first. It was essentially the assertion of the natural rights of man, and, as a logical sequence, of the right of every child to be properly trained for life. The reaction due to the excesses of the revolutionists no doubt delayed the acknowledgment for a time, but its gradual recognition is emphatically the characteristic mark of the educational history of the 19th century.

State education.

Preached and practised by Pestalozzi (1746-1827) in Switzerland, the general education of the poor was first made a reality by Prussia after the crushing defeat of Jena. In France and England it remained for nearly three-quarters of the century the work of the Church and other voluntary agencies, though aided by the state. Finally a state system of schools has been more or less fully set up in every state of western Europe and in America, and subjected to more or less state regulation and control. Equally marked has been the growing care for the scholastic education of girls as well as boys, though only in America are the two regarded as practically identical in form and content.

Thus the 19th century saw the final working out of the idea that the state should be substituted for the Church as the official agent of education, an idea which had its roots in the Renaissance conception of the right of man to direct his life apart from theological determinations. The more direct outcome of the same idea is apparent in the absolute liberty with which the presuppositions of knowledge are questioned, and the maxim of Descartes--to prove everything by the reason and to accept nothing which fails to stand the test--is acted upon. No greater contrast is possible than that between the medieval student and the modern searcher after truth.

Methods of instruction.

The influence of the same spirit has wrought an equally momentous change in the methods of instruction. The impetus given by the exaggerated doctrine of Rousseau to the view that the nature of the child should determine the means of education, led to more thorough-going attempts than had hitherto been made to base educational method on a knowledge of child psychology. Pestalozzi and Froebel (1782-1852), by their insistence on the need of educating a child through his own activity, and by their widespread influence, made the new view of method an actuality. The influence of Rousseau has, thus, passed into modern educational practice in a form that, in its essence, is true, though in practice it has shown itself apt to run into the same excess of emphasis on impulse and feeling which vitiated the teaching of Rousseau himself. The influence of Herbart (1776-1841) has tended to counteract this. The essence of Herbartianism is that mental life consists of presentations, or reactions of the mind on the environment, and that will springs from the circle of thought thus developed. The emphasis is therefore placed on intellect and instruction while in Froebelianism it is placed on spontaneous activity and on the arrangement of the environment. Each exaggerates the function of the one factor in concrete experience which it makes the centre of interest, and each is tinged with the individualistic conception of life which characterized the 18th and early 19th century.

Curriculum of instruction.

The most marked change in the outward aspect of education has been the modification of the curriculum of school and university by the introduction of various branches of natural science. Conjointly with this has been much increase of specialization, and that not only in the university but in the school. There is no longer a universally recognized circle of knowledge constituting a liberal education preparatory to specialist studies, as there was in the middle ages. Nor is there general agreement as to what such educational institutions as schools and universities should attempt to do, or even as to the end that should be sought by education as a whole. Nor can agreement on such points be expected while men differ widely as to the meaning and purpose of life. The work of the organization of the material means of education has largely been accomplished by the civilized world: that of determining the true theory and practice of the educative process itself is still incomplete. To that, both discussion of the philosophy of life and of the relative values in life, of various kinds of experience and experiment in the light of the conclusions reached, are needed. The problem will never be absolutely solved, for that would imply an absolutely best education irrespective of conditions, but its practical solution will be reached when a true adjustment is made between the process of education and the life for which that education is intended to be a preparation.

See also the articles ACADEMIES; CLASSICS; CO-EDUCATION; EXAMINATIONS;
POLYTECHNIC; SCHOOLS; TECHNICAL EDUCATION; UNIVERSITIES; WOMEN; &c.
(J. Wn.)

II. NATIONAL SYSTEMS OF PUBLIC EDUCATION

A statement of the principles commonly recognized by modern communities as governing the action of the state in relation to education may facilitate at the outset a clearer understanding of the problems which the organization of public education presents. The cardinal doctrine of state interference in the educational domain is universally accepted by all the great nations of the modern world; and in regard to its extent and limits a large measure of agreement has now been reached.

Principles of state interference.

In the first place, it is recognized as the duty of the state to insist upon a certain minimum of education for every future citizen. This does not necessitate a monopoly of education on the part of the state, such as was claimed by the Napoleonic despotism under the traditional influence (it would seem) of the old authoritative Gallo-Roman tradition, transformed in its outward manifestation but not in its inward spirit by the French Revolution. Such a monopoly would be plainly repugnant to the spirit of Anglo-Saxon individualism, and it is interesting to note that attempts to reassert it have in recent times been repudiated in republican France by some of the best exponents of modern free thought, as an infringement of personal liberty not calculated to justify itself by any corresponding public gain. Nevertheless, the recognition of this primary duty of the state plainly implies a state system of at least elementary education. The masses of the industrial population cannot afford the necessary minimum of instruction which the public interest demands, and private and voluntary effort cannot efficiently supply the want resulting from the unequal distribution of wealth. But it is in the nature of things that, so far as private effort attempts anything in this direction, it should be motived in the main by religion and associated with the great historical religious organizations; thus it comes about that the moment the state steps in to make good the deficiency of voluntary effort a fruitful and embittering source of difficulty and friction is disclosed. Hence, in England, the history of public elementary education since the beginning of the 19th century has been very largely the history of what is called the religious difficulty. Here we find ourselves in the region of acute controversy in which it is useless to do more than note empirically the various solutions adopted by different states. Perhaps all that can safely be indicated as commanding universal acceptance is the principle that the state must not impose upon an individual citizen in the person of his child any form of religious instruction to which he conscientiously objects. Modern controversies show the difficulty of applying even this rudimentary principle to the complicated circumstances of a free community split up into a number of groups differing profoundly in religious sentiment, and zealous each for the recognition of its own ideal within the common system. So far, however, as secular instruction (i.e. the teaching of other subjects than religion) is concerned it is now generally accepted that the elementary minimum must be both compulsory and free for every individual child whose parents will not or cannot (as the case may be) provide such instruction for it efficiently elsewhere than in the state-supported schools.

Next, the action of the modern state cannot stop short at elementary education. The principle of "the career open to talent" is no longer a matter of abstract humanitarian theory, a fantastical aspiration of revolutionary dreamers; for the great industrial communities of the modern world it is a cogent practical necessity imposed by the fierce international competition which prevails in the arts and industries of life. The nation that is not to fail in the struggle for commercial success, with all that this implies for national life and civilization, must needs see that its industries are fed with a constant supply of workers adequately equipped in respect both of general intelligence and technical training.

On political grounds too, the increasing democratization of institutions renders a wide diffusion of knowledge and the cultivation of a high standard of intelligence among the people a necessary precaution of prudent statesmanship, especially for the great imperial states which confide the most momentous issues of world policy to the arbitrament of the popular voice. The state then must satisfy itself that the means of education are placed within the reach of all, in grades adapted to the varying degrees of intelligence and educational opportunity to be found among a community upon the majority of whose members is imposed the necessity of entering upon the practical business of life at a more or less early age. The organization of the higher grades of education constitutes a task of less formidable magnitude than the organization of elementary education, for the reason that, at any rate in the prevailing social conditions, it is only a minority who can benefit by it, and that of this minority a large proportion can afford the whole or a considerable portion of the cost in each individual case. The class, however, whose education must needs be assisted by the state if it is not to remain inefficient must always be considerable; and account must be taken also of the necessities of the further class whose exceptional mental development is such as to make it worth while for the state to bestow gratuitously an education higher than elementary at the public expense. University education is distinguished from education of the lower grades by the fact that, being necessarily restricted to an elite of intellect or birth, it cannot, save in very exceptional circumstances, usefully be organized locally. Although universities are the necessary complement of a public educational system they do not in strictness or necessity form part of such a system, and in so far as they are brought within the purview of public authority it must be as a matter of national, rather than municipal or provincial, concern. Accordingly university education is separately treated (see UNIVERSITIES), and will not be referred to, save incidentally, in the present article.

Reserving to a final section the history of education in the United States of America, a brief description is given here of the educational systems of the leading European countries by way of introduction to a more detailed, but still summary, historical sketch of public education in England. The highly organized educational systems of France and Prussia (as representing Germany) are manifestly suitable for the purposes of a general study of the principles of educational polity as worked out upon logical and consistently thought-out plans by highly centralized states. As to other European countries, a brief mention must suffice of certain features of special interest presented by smaller progressive states of such different types as Switzerland, Belgium and Holland. Similarly, in the case of the United Kingdom, considerations of space forbid more than a brief notice of the educational systems of Scotland (q.v.) and Ireland (q.v.). For other countries see the sections in the articles under the headings of the respective states.

_France._

France (q.v.) presents the most complete type of a state system of education organized under a strongly centralized administration in all grades. This centralized administration in education, as in other departments, represents the Napoleonic heritage of the Republic, and, although there has been an increasing tendency of recent years to study local conditions in the internal organization of schools, anything approaching to local autonomy is unknown in educational affairs. The necessary checks upon bureaucracy are supplied not by popularly elected municipal bodies but by a strong infusion of the pedagogic element in the administrative machinery. The pedagogic element in turn does but represent another side of the collective activities of the state. The teaching profession both in the primary and higher spheres--and the two are sharply marked off from one another--consists of a highly organized body of state functionaries, united by a strong _esprit de corps_ and actuated by ideals and aims which are inspired by the state. The importance of this condition of things lies in the fact that the Republic is something more than a form of government: it is the social and moral expression of the democratic ideal as conceived by a people profoundly imbued by tradition with the sense of social solidarity, or collectivism; and nowhere has this expression been more characteristic or more complete than in the domain of public education. Yet the educational system of modern France is by no means exclusively the creation of the Third Republic, and the main stages in its development deserve to be traced historically.

Freres de la Doctrine chretienne.

No historical sketch, however slight, of French education can ignore the great Catholic religious educator of the 18th century, Jean Baptiste de la Salle, the founder of _Les Freres de la Doctrine chretienne_, commonly known as the "Christian Brothers." The Brothers were not merely pioneers of elementary education, they may also be regarded (as M. Buisson, formerly director of public instruction, has shown) as the originators of higher primary instruction. Under the Restoration they upheld the method of simultaneous teaching against the partisans of the mutual (or monitorial) method, successfully demonstrating the superiority of the trained teacher. The unfortunate effects of the monitorial system upon English education show the reality of the service which this religious congregation rendered to the national pedagogy in France.

The Revolution and Napoleon.

The Constitution of 1791 decreed that primary instruction should be compulsory and gratuitous. (It may be explained that the term "free education," _instruction libre_, does not bear the same meaning in France as in England. In France a free school means a school not under state control and not forming part of the state system.) In this as in much else the Revolution was powerless to do more than enunciate general principles which it left for later generations, in the present instance after the lapse of nearly a century, to carry into effect. True to its theories of individualistic liberty, the Revolution admitted liberty of teaching. Napoleon, on the other hand, by the law of 1806, centralized all forms of education in one official teaching body under the name of the Imperial University, thus securing a monopoly of teaching to the state. The Napoleonic idea of the university, doubtless because a true expression of the national genius, has never ceased to exert a profound influence upon French education, an influence which of late years has been revivified and reinforced by the modern ideal of social solidarity.

Reforms of Guizot.

Under the Restoration education fell inevitably under the control of the church, but under the Liberal Monarchy Guizot in 1833 passed a law which laid the foundations of modern primary instruction, obliging the communes to maintain schools and pay the teachers. It is also to the credit of Guizot as an educational reformer that he perceived the necessity for the higher primary as distinct from the secondary school. The higher primary schools which he founded were unfortunately suppressed by the _Loi Falloux_; their restoration constitutes one of the great positive services rendered by the Third Republic to the cause of popular education.

Loi Falloux.

The _Loi Falloux_ of 1850, passed by the Second Republic under the influence of the prince president, is chiefly memorable for its restoration of the liberty of teaching, which in a Catholic country means in effect free scope for priestly schools. This law also made provision for separate communal schools for girls, for adult classes and for the technical instruction of apprentices. In 1854 France was divided for purposes of educational administration into sixteen academies, each administered by a rector with an academy inspector under him for each department. This organization survives to-day, with the difference that for each academy (except Chambery) there is now a local teaching university.

Ministry of M. Duruy.

The ministry of the well-known educationist M. Duruy (1865-1869), corresponding to the period of the Liberal Empire, was notable for marked administrative progress. A permanent memorial of this epoch is the enactment rendering primary schools for girls obligatory in communes of over 500 inhabitants. Duruy also provided for the introduction of gratuitous instruction at the option of the commune.

The Third Republic.

The task of educational reform imposed itself upon the republic by a twofold necessity. The wars of 1866 and 1870 were victories for the Prussian schoolmaster, and aroused all western Europe to the national importance of popular education. For France then the reform of popular education was an essential part of the work of national restoration. For the republic too, menaced by older and hostile traditions, the creation of a national system of education inspired by its own spirit was an essential condition of the permanence and security of its government and the social ideals of which that government was the expression. Hence the energy with which the republican state addressed itself to the organization of primary instruction, "obligatory, gratuitous, secular."

Acquisition of elementary school buildings and organization of teaching
profession.

By the law of June 1, 1878, there was imposed upon the communes the obligation of acquiring their school buildings; and as a grant in aid a sum of L2,400,000 was set aside for this purpose by the state. In 1879 a law was passed compelling every department to maintain a training college for male and female teachers respectively. The two higher normal schools of Fontenay and St Cloud were also founded to supply the training colleges with professors. During the same period, among other _certificats_ or professional diplomas, there were established the _certificat d'aptitude pedagogique_, which qualifies probationer-teachers (_stagiaires_) for appointment as teachers in full standing (_titulaires_), and the _certificat d'aptitude_ for primary inspectors and heads of normal schools. The law of June 16, 1881, rendered obligatory for all teachers, whether public or private, the _brevet de capacite_. It was found impracticable to carry this law into immediate effect, and as late as 1902 only about 60% of the men and 52% of the women were provided with the professional certificate necessary for becoming _titulaires_.

Reforms of Jules Ferry. Laicization.