A STUDENT'S HISTORY OF EDUCATION CHAPTER I THE EARLIEST EDUCATION OUTLINE Even a brief survey of the history of education may greatly broaden one's view. Starting with primitive man, we find that his training aims only at the necessities of life, and is acquired informally through the elders and the medicine-men. In Oriental education, the next stage in progress, illustrated by India, a traditional knowledge is acquired through memoriter and imitative methods. While Oriental, Jewish education afforded greater development of individuality, but it was late in organizing schools, memoriter in methods, and restricted in content. Thus all education before the day of the Greeks was largely nonprogressive. view obtained The Value of the History of Education.-The His- Breadth of tory of Education from the earliest times should contribute largely to one's breadth of view and prove a study of the greatest liberal culture. A record of typical instances of the moral, æsthetic, and intellectual development of man in all lands and at all periods should certainly enlarge one's vision and enable him to appreciate more fully the part that education has played in the ༣ Space and perspective progress of civilization. Such cultural values may be found even in a limited survey of the world's educational development. Its Treatment in This Book.-And this is all that here given to will be undertaken here. For, while valuable as a liberal subject matter. study, the History of Education finds its justification chiefly in the degree to which it functions in the professional training of a teacher, and it will be necessary in a brief treatise to omit or pass over hastily much that might be of interest and value in a more complete account of the development of civilization. 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. At times, too, the history of a single epoch, state, or educational leader will be selected as a type, to the exclusion of others equally important, and treated with considerable intensiveness, instead of describing all sides of the subject with encyclopædic monotony. Now the first historical epoch to leave a real impress upon modern practice is that of Athens at its height. Hence a mere statement of the salient features of education preceding that period is all that can be afforded in this brief survey. A detailed account of the educational processes used by savage tribes, Oriental nations, and even Judæa may prove interesting and important in other connections, but it must here be largely curtailed. Training through elders and medicinemen ties the Primitive Education.-There is little to be noted in the training of the young among primitive peoples, |