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CHAPTER XXVII.

THE HISTORY OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.
TO THE RENAISSANCE.

SUGGESTED READINGS.

*PRE-CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. Laurie. Index.

TEXT-BOOK IN THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION. Monroe. Index.
*THE PEDAGOGICAL BIBLE SCHOOL. Haslett. Chap. I.

THE MODERN SUNDAY SCHOOL. Cope. Chap. II.

THE RISE AND EARLY INSTITUTION OF UNIVERSITIES. Laurie. See Index
THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE. Bryce.

It is impossible in the brief space of a book like this to enter at all fully or adequately into the history of the marvellous evolution in progress of the ideals of religious education. It is a subject by itself, yet one of such transcendent importance that no leader in the Sunday School work, no trainer of teachers, should be content with the meagre outline here furnished.

Great nations of the past have each stood for a single ideal in education. Each nation as it rose and waned moved forward to a higher ideal than the nation which preceded it. It is a picture of continual progression of entrancing interest and pregnant with educational ideals. As we glance over this past history, we can see that in a way all Education is Religious. Strictly speaking, it has been born out of the needs of the race in its adjustment to the world of phenomena on the one side and its adjustment to the world of spirit on the other. If we were to study the history of Education in detail, which of course we cannot do here, we would enter into the consideration of man's adjustment to the world, first in obtaining the necessities of life (food, clothing, shelter), and second, in his social adjustment (the family, labor, crafts, and caste); and his adjustment to the spiritual world, first in relation to unfriendly spirits, and second, in relation to friendly ones. Let us consider briefly a few of the races that stand as types for particular ideals of education.

Chinese Education.

China is a type of Asiatic Education. It holds now with them as it held since 1000 A. D., and most of it even goes back to 500 B. C. Chinese ideals are based on the books of Confucius: "What Heaven has conferred is called Nature, and accordance with Nature in the past is beauty, regulation of this past is Education." That is, what is or has been is right, and Education is merely to direct in the beaten path. The Family is the foundation of Chinese Education-in the unit of the state individuality does not exist. All relations are definitely settled by rule. Acts have only an outer or external value motive plays no part. Punishment is always the same, corporal. There is no moral freedom, and no sense of honor or of shame. There is no Aristocracy in China except through Education, the advantages of which are open to all. The aim of this Education is simply conduct or behavior and the preservation of the past. It consists in committing to memory elaborate sermons and the training to act on these formulae. There is no call for principles, there is no moral element in life. In a word, in China, Authority is precedent.

Egyptian Education.

Egypt is a connecting link between the immutability of China and the progress of Greek Education. Egypt would retain the best in its essence, though not in its entirety. Progress took place in Egypt, but by chance. There was no conscious attempt to bring it about. The Priesthood and Religion in a polytheistic sense controlled their ideals. They had no definite means of instruction, and education, as such, clustered around. the Priesthood.

Their minds possessed much subtlety and acuteness. They were fond of literary composition. It is astonishing what extensive literature they possessed at a very early date; books on religion, morals, law, rhetoric, arithmetic, mensuration, geometry, medicine, travels, and even novels. All of these, however, were very meagre and brief.

As early as the Sixth Dynasty (3,500 B. C.) an official bore the title of "the Governor of the House of Books." The literary merit of the Egyptian works is very slight.

Of the learned professions, the most important was that of scribe. A large number of professional penmen were employed, either to multiply copies of the "Ritual of the Dead" or as private secretaries or bailiffs.

The religious aspect of this education in its highest form only reached the fruit of a dreamy meditation on the broad aspects of life and death; in its vulgar form it was a mixture of animal worship and debased superstition. Even the artistic tastes of the Egyptians were limited to the symbolic and realistic, and did not embrace ideal forms, save in architecture. Music was of a primitive and stereotyped kind, descended from the most remote antiquity.

Babylonian Education.

The Babylonians belonged to the Semitic race. So also did the Arabs, Assyrians, Phoenicians, and Hebrews. These races inhabited that central region of the Old World which extends from the Arabian and Persian Gulfs and the Zagros Mountains to the Mediterranean and the Taurus range. The Semitic races were, like the Egyptians, of a serious, prosaic, matter-offact character. The Hebrews alone exhibited a certain loftiness of genius, but this was in a narrow field. The Babylonians were the primary center of Mesopotamian culture and religion, though they themselves rested on a still earlier civilization. The true greatness of Babylon as a city began about the Eighteenth Century B. C. Nineveh was the center of war, while Babylon was the center of culture.

Babylonian culture in all its forms rested on that of the early occupants of the land, known as Accadians or SumirAccadians. Their religion was the animistic and fetichistic. They believed in many demons, good and evil, but also believed in a supreme god among the gods. They practised magic and incantations. It was taught that the gods received into pleasant regions all who served them well during life. This was a great ethical advance. They exhibited in their worship "a vivid sense of sin, a deep feeling of man's dependence, even of his nothingness before God." The sense of a personal relation between God and the human soul, so characteristic of the Semitic race, first made its appearance here.

In those things that pertain to comfort and luxury, the Babylonians acquired high architectural perfection and engineering skill. Their literature for the higher classes was extensive. Every town had its library on brick tablets, which were necessarily very brief, owing to the slow process of writing on soft clay with a stylus.

Of the schools and teachers we know nothing. Tablets have been found in Babylon on which school exercises were written, however. Where learning and teaching existed there must, of course, have been teachers, and we may conclude that priests and scribes were numerous, who probably gave individual, not class, instruction.

Assyrian Education.

Higher than Babylonians in emphasizing the personal character of the supreme God, under the name of Asshur, the god of battles, as was natural with a warlike people, were the Assyrians. Education of the better kind was, however, restricted to the priesthood, the royal court, and the scribes. The great Assyrian monarch, Assur-bani-pal, had an enormous library at Nineveh, which has been recently unearthed.

Phoenician Education.

With the Phoenicians we find material aims and luxurious living similar to those which characterized the Assyrians and Babylonians, but in a grosser form. Phoenicia has naught to teach us, save as a warning in the line of education, with the single exception that to her we owe the invention of symbols for numbers and the element of sound in words. There is no evidence of any moral idea in her civilization.

Hebrew or Jewish Education.

The most famous Semitic race was the Hebrews, who immigrated into Palestine about 2000 B. C. Their history, properly speaking, began with the emigration from Egypt under Moses, about 1490 B. C. Moses, the most exalted figure in all primitive history, thought of God as an intellectual Being, independent of all material existence. This thought was seized by him and incorporated into the nation which he led. God was One-the sole creator of heaven and earth-ultimate Being. He was a

God supremely ethical, and demanded of men the service of obedience to moral law. Moses, in a sense, was their first great schoolmaster. Under his training and instruction the oral code was followed.

Early in the history of the nation the priests were engaged in teaching, as Micah 3-11 would indicate; but the school in an organized form came much later. In the richer families, private teachers were employed, as is still the custom among the Jews (see II Kings 10:5; II Samuel, chs. 12-25). A certain amount of religious instruction was connected with the Passover Service.

A little later, at Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerizim, two mountains near together, upon which altars were erected, Joshua read all the Works of the Law before the whole congregation (Joshua 8:30-35). This was done probably two or three times a year.

The "Schools of the Prophets" were at one time thought to be of great importance, as a kind of theological seminary, but later scholarship denies them the right to the term "school" at all, but rather Associations of Prophets, not education, but edification being the object of these meetings at Jordan, Ramah, Bethel, Jericho, and Gilgal. In II Chronicles 17: 7-9 is given an account of the Royal Commission sent out by Jehosaphat to introduce in a systematic way a plan of instruction. A similar work is recorded of Josiah in II Kings, chs. 22 and 23.

At the return from the Exile, a new era in the Education of the history of Hebrews was begun. Ezra presided over a Bible School at Jerusalem, where children and youths and adults gathered to receive instruction in the Law, given by priests who had received special preparation for the work. It is really the first assembly among the Hebrews that could be called a religious school.

It was about this time that the synagogue arose, and through it regular instruction continued to be imparted. The "Bible became the spelling book of the community school; religion an affair of teaching and of learning. Piety and education were inseparable; whoever could not read was no Jew. We may say that in this way were created the beginnings of a popular education." (Hastings' BIBLE DICTIONARY.)

If we were to divide Jewish education into periods we would

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