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PART I. INTRODUCTORY

CHAPTER I

MEANING AND SCOPE OF ELEMENTARY
EDUCATION

The purpose of this text is to trace the development of modern elementary education in Western Europe and in the United States. The terms "elementary education" and "elementary school" are so well known as to seem to need little defining. Nevertheless, it may make the scope of the text somewhat clearer to say a few words about their meaning.

Elementary schools named according to content of curriculum. In the actual development of elementary schools in Europe we shall find that various terms were used at different periods to designate such schools, and that these terms often indicated what was taught in them. For example, under certain conditions in the Middle Ages, when some of these schools were intended primarily to train a limited number of children to sing in the church services, they were known as song schools. Under other conditions in the Middle Ages and later, when in the commercial cities they were intended primarily to train children to write, such schools were known as writing schools. In Germany during the same period such schools as were intended to train children to read the vernacular were known as Deutsche (German) schools, to distinguish them from the more common type of Latin schools. This name (German schools) seems to have been the one most commonly used in Germany for a long time.

This type of name was made general in its application to such schools in all countries by Comenius, the seventeenthcentury educational reformer, who used the term "vernacular schools" to distinguish them from the Latin schools. All of the names mentioned in this paragraph were suggestive of what was taught in the schools.

Elementary schools named for classes for whom intended. An entirely different basis of naming is suggested by the German term Volksschulen (people's schools) and the English term "common schools," which probably came into general use later than the terms mentioned in the previous paragraph. Instead of designating the content of the curriculum, these terms designate the social classes for whom the schools were intended, and sometimes have suggested social class distinctions. Certainly in Germany it was felt that the Volksschulen were intended only for the children of the nonprofessional and poorer classes. The same suggestion has been contained for many persons in the English term common schools (the schools for the common or ordinary people); but in recent years, under the democratic conditions in the United States, this term has come to suggest schools for all classes in common, that is, without distinction. It also designates schools supported by common tax or public funds.

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Elementary Latin schools distinguished from elementary vernacular schools. If we should think of elementary schools as designating the schools which the younger children attended, we should have to include, in addition to the above, the Latin schools of medieval and Renaissance Europe. Very commonly children entered upon the study of Latin as early as six years of age and spent all their early years in such study. Even at the present time (1912), in some European countries children enter such schools at nine years of age; and the period from nine to fifteen, which in America is considered a part of the elementary-school period, is spent in so-called secondary schools.

Arbitrary definition; preadolescent, native, vernacular education. In view of these facts it will be necessary, in order to secure a definite basis for the selection of material for our study, to choose some definite sense in which we shall use the terms "elementary education" and "elementary schools." But owing to the rapid changes which took place in the nature of elementary education during the nineteenth century (and are still taking place) it is almost impossible to define it. Consequently we shall say arbitrarily that for our purposes the term "elementary education" is used to denote education which, first, has been provided for children who have not passed the early stages of adolescence, that is, are under thirteen to fifteen years of age; and which, second, has for its primary aim to give children a command (appreciation and control) of the vernacular language and literature and other aspects of the native civilization or culture, including science, art, and industry. This arbitrary statement excludes most secondary education down to the latter part of the nineteenth century, for until such time the mastery of foreign languages was considered the most important work of the secondary schools. The age limit in the statement excludes recent developments in some secondary schools which have eliminated the study of foreign languages from the work of certain classes of students.

In the chapter on Medieval Education a few words will be said about the development of the Latin schools and the universities, as this will throw some light on the retarded development of elementary schools during the same period; but in the later chapters these higher schools will not be considered.

CHAPTER II

RETARDED DEVELOPMENT OF ELEMENTARY VERNACULAR SCHOOLS IN THE MIDDLE AGES

To the student. At the beginning of each chapter will be found a brief statement of its main points. This should be read in order to get the general drift of what is to come, but need not be learned until the chapter is finished, when it may be studied as a summary of the chapter. The pedagogical value of reading these summaries is stated in the quotation from Herbart on page 397 of this text.

Main points of the chapter. I. The history of modern elementary education may be said to begin about the fifteenth century, but a brief review of medieval social and educational conditions will be helpful in appreciating later developments.

2. The condition of the barbarian German tribes of northern Europe has been compared to that of the American Indians in 1492. It took approximately one thousand years (400 to 1400 A.D.) for the Germans to reach a condition of civilization in which elementary vernacular schools were needed to any considerable extent.

3. The desire to promote Christian spiritual interests impelled the Roman Catholic Church to maintain schools, and the necessity of permitting only orthodox instruction impelled it to monopolize the control of education in all of Western Europe.

4. These Church schools taught a foreign language, Latin. The use of Latin in medieval Europe tended to retard the development of the vernacular languages and literatures and consequently of native vernacular schools.

5. To understand this retarding influence it is necessary to appreciate that Latin was almost the exclusive language of the educated classes (clergy, lawyers, physicians, scientists, diplomats) during the Middle Ages.

6. Such vernacular literature as existed (tales and sermons) was transmitted orally and furnished no great stimulus for elementary vernacular schools, although such schools were probably maintained sometimes by parish priests.

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