History of education

“ A new human and political theory as to education is to be evolved; the school is to be taken over from the Church, vastly expanded in scope, and made a constructive instrument of the State; and the wonderful nineteenth century is to witness a degree of human, scientific, political, and educational progress not seen before in all the days from the time of the Crusades to the opening of the nineteenth century. ”

“ The next step in the history of education came in the development of institutions where thinking and teaching could be carried on free from civil or ecclesiastical control, with the consequent rise of an independent learned class in western Europe. ”

“ While in the treatment major emphasis has been given to modern times, I have nevertheless tried to show how all modern education has been after all a development, a culmination, a flowering-out of forces and impulses which go far back in history for their origin. In a civilization such as we of to-day enjoy, with roots so deeply embedded in the past as is ours, any adequate understanding of world practices and of present-day world problems in education calls for some tracing of development to give proper background and perspective. ”

“ Instruction in real things— science, nature—was to take the place of instruction in words, and the vernacular was to be the language of instruction. The institution was to have the atmosphere of religion, but was not to be Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, or Jewish, and was to be free from "theologizing distinctions." Latin, German, French, mathematics, a knowledge of nature (geography, physics, natural history) , music, dancing, drawing, and physical training were the principal subjects of instruction. ”

“ In consequence of this scientific progress, the educational theorists began to introduce science and a knowledge of real things into the curriculum. It came to be widely felt that humanism gave a knowledge only of words, books, and opinions, and did not even at its best lead to a study of real things. ”

“ No text-book can be said to contain the last word upon any subject. Least of all can such a claim be made for a history of education, which aims to trace the intellectual development of the human race and to indicate the means and processes of that evolution. ”

“ But I have thought that in an age in which education, and its improvement, are the subject of more, if not of profounder study than at any former period of English history, it may be useful that there should be some record of an education which was unusual and remarkable, and which, whatever else it may have done, has proved how much more than is commonly supposed may be taught, and well taught, in those early years which, in the common modes of what is called instruction, are little better than wasted. ”

“ When we have learned the environment of a people, we are ready to study their elementary education. This takes us into the schoolroom, introduces us to the place where the school is held, indicates the course of study pursued, the discipline, methods of instruction, spirit and training of the teacher, as well as the results obtained. After this we are ready to consider the higher education, which completes the system and measures its efficiency. ”

“ Beginning with education to impart the ability to read and write and cipher, and as an aid to the political side of government, the education of the masses has been so expanded in scope during the century that today it includes aims, classes, types of schools, and forms of service scarcely dreamed of at the time the State began to take over the school from the Church, with a view to extending elementary educational advantages and promoting literacy and citizenship. ”

“ As the civilization in the leading world nations has increased in complexity, and the ramifications of the social and industrial life have widened, the school has been called upon to broaden its work, and develop new types of instruction to increase its effectiveness. An education which was entirely satisfactory for the simpler form of social and industrial life of two generations ago has been seen to be utterly inadequate for the needs of the present and the future. ”

“ Educational Progress.—One of the landmarks of the present century of progress will be the perfecting of educational systems. Education is no longer for the exclusive few, developing an aristocracy of learning for the elevation of a single class; it has become universal. The large number of universities throughout the world, well endowed and well equipped, the multitudes of secondary schools, and the universality of the primary schools, now render it possible for every individual to become intelligent and enlightened. ”

“ Education, then, being only for the male children of citizens, and citizenship a degree to be attained to on the basis of education and training, let us next see in what that education consisted, and what were its most prominent characteristics and results. ”

“ In the years that have elapsed since 1909 the conviction has gained almost universal acceptance in normal schools and colleges of education that the History of Education is not a suitable introductory course. ”

“ I have especially tried to present such a picture of the rise, struggle for existence, growth, and recent great expansion of the idea of the improvability of the race and the elevation and emancipation of the individual through education as would be most illuminating and useful to students of the subject. To this end I have traced the great forward steps in the emancipation of the intellect of man, and the efforts to perpetuate the progress made through the organization of educational institutions to pass on to others what had been attained. ”

“ The noble truths of brotherly love, equality before God, and human rights were obscured during the long centuries,—obscured sometimes by the very institution whose chief aim is to scatter light and give gladness to men. It has remained for modern education to rediscover the educational principles which the Great Teacher promulgated, and which through the struggle of centuries failed of recognition, and bore indifferent fruit. ”

“ The present widespread agitation for a more purposeful curriculum is fully recognized by this work on practical pedagogy. It discusses modern elementary education in a helpful manner, setting forth its acknowledged defects of standard, and presenting suggestions for the introduction of more industrial training. The book is broad in the best sense, and every problem affecting the school and its relation to the outside world is dealt with so simply and convincingly as to be clear to everybody, whether teachers or parents. Only the great issues of education are considered. ”

“ For those who were to form the official and directing class of Society—a closely limited, almost entirely male, intellectual aristocracy—education in separate classical schools, with university or professional training superimposed, was provided, and this type of training offered a very thorough preparation for a small and a carefully selected class. ”

“ The eighteenth-century conception of the educational process, too, which regarded education as something external and determined by adult standards and needs, and to be imposed on the child from without, also continued. The purpose of the school was to manufacture the standard man, and the business of the teacher was to so organize and methodize instruction that the necessary knowledge could be acquired as economically, from a financial point of view, as possible. ”

“ Education, if it had ever really been in question, would doubtless have been a noble gift; education in the sense of the central tradition of history, with its freedom, its family honour, its chivalry which is the flower of Christendom. But what would our populace, in our epoch, have actually learned if they had learned all that our schools and universities had to teach? ”

“ These four ‘studies,’ representing real life, irrespective of the school, constitute the curriculum, and the ‘three r’s’ are studied only as they are needed. Their content, therefore, being used, as in life, in meeting real needs, is studied most effectively. ”

“ It must not be forgotten that there is a vital distinction between Education and Schooling. Education takes into [Pg 19] account all those forces which enter into the civilization and elevation of man, whether it be the home, the school, the state, the church, the influences of environment, or all these combined. It is a continuous process which begins at birth and ceases only at the end of life. By schooling we mean the educative process which is carried on during a limited period of the child's life under the guidance of teachers.
The school is a product of civilization. ”

“ I have also tried to give a proper setting to the great historic forces which have shaped and moulded human progress, and have made the evolution of modern state school systems and the world-wide spread of Western civilization both possible and inevitable. ”

“ Science, history, philosophy, literature, must [43] no longer be the luxuries of the ‘educated’ classes; all classes must be educated and sit down to these things of the mind as they do to their daily bread. History must afford its pageants, science its wonders, literature its intimacies, philosophy its speculations, religion its assurances to every man, and his education must have prepared him for wanderings in these realms of gold. ”

“ The problem of how to produce as effective and as thorough education for leadership with a one-class school system as with a two- class; the opening-up of opportunity for youth of brains in any social class to rise and be trained for service; the selection and proper training of those of superior intelligence; the elimination of barriers to the advancement of children of large intellectual endowment ”

“ The practical tendency of modern education, by which discipline and culture may be given while at the same time preparing the student for the active duties of life, makes education more necessary for all persons and classes. The great changes that have taken place in methods of instruction and in the materials of scientific investigation, and the tendency to develop the man as well as to furnish him with information, evince the masterly progress of educational systems, and demonstrate their great worth. ”

“ One writer has characterized the Revival of Learning as the beginnings of the emergence of the individual from institutional control, and the substitution of the humanities for the divinities as the basis of education. ”

“ Each for a time furnished the new ideas in education, each introduced elements of importance into the elementary-school instruction, each deeply influenced the training of teachers in normal schools by giving a new turn to the instruction there, and each gradually settled down into its proper place in educational practice and history. ”

“ Out of the Protestant religious conception that all should be educated the popular elementary school of modern times has been evolved. The evolution, though, was slow, and long periods of time have been required for its accomplishment. ”

“ Why must the education of leaders always precede the education of the masses?
17. Explain how European countries came naturally to have two largely independent school systems—a secondary school for leaders and an elementary school for the masses—whereas we have only one continuous system.
18. Explain why modern state systems of education developed first in the German States, and why England and the Catholic nations of Europe were so long in developing state school systems. ”

“ If I were writing of education generally, I might have something to say of the measurable disappointment of the results of the common schools as at present conducted, both as to the diffusion of information and as to the discipline of the mind and the inculcation of ethical principles; which simply means that they need improvement. But the higher education has been transformed, and mainly by the application of scientific methods, and of the philosophic spirit, to the study of history, economics, and the classics. ”

“ In these Schools or Colleges for the scientific study of education the best thinking on the problems of the reorganization and administration of education, and the most new and creative work, has been and is being done. ”

“ Therefore, the amount of space and the perspective afforded the various peoples, epochs, and leaders must here be determined in large measure by the part they have played in the evolution of educational institutions and practices, and by the light their history sheds upon the aim, organization, content, and method of education to-day. ”

“ What a few of the more important of these new nineteenth-century forces have been, which have so fundamentally modified the character and direction of education, it may be worth while to set forth briefly, before proceeding further. ”

“ Instead he conceived the function of education to be to evolve the natural powers, cultivate the human side, unfold the inborn capacities of every human being, and to develop a reasoning individual, capable of intelligently directing his life under diverse conditions and in any form of society. A book setting forth such ideas naturally was revolutionary [1] in matters of education. It deeply influenced thinkers along these lines during the remaining years of the eighteenth century, and became the inspiring source of nineteenth-century reforms. ”