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 Space and 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 perspective 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, present. save that it is intended largely for the satisfaction of savage to the immediate wants-food, clothing, and shelter. Naturally no such actual institution as a school has yet been evolved, but the training is transmitted informally by the parents. The method used is simply that of example and imitation, or, more specifically, 'trial and success.' But a more conscious and formal education is given at puberty through the 'initiatory ceremonies' (Fig. 1). In these rites the youths are definitely instructed by the older men about their relation to the spirits and the totem animals, subordination to the elders, the relations of the sexes, the sacredness of the clansman's obligations, and other traditional usages. Strict silence is enjoined upon them concerning this information, and to impress it upon their minds, and test their endurance, they are required to fast for several days and are often tortured and mutilated. As the savage does not clearly distinguish between himself and the tribe to which he belongs, there is practically no development of individuality, and since the race has not yet learned to treasure its experience in writing, he has no record of past experience and is virtually tied to the present. of the Orient. Oriental Education.-The nations of the ancient Vocational training and Orient-Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, China, India, and class divisions Persia-may be said to represent the next higher stage in civilization. Their systems of education prepare mostly for vocations, and are not sufficiently advanced to undertake a training for manhood or citizenship. But since a division of labor has now been evolved, the training has become more clearly differentiated and fits for specific occupations. In this way, class divisions, or even castes, have generally arisen in society, and the |