14. Exclusive and Jealous Spirit. ВЂ” Some reservation

must accompany the encomiums justly due Jewish education.

With respect to the rest of the human race, the Jewish spirit

was mean, narrow, and malevolent. The Israelites of this

day have retained something of these jealous and exclusive

tendencies. At the beginning of the Christian era, the fierce

and haughty patriotism of the Jews led them to proscribe

whatever was of Gentile origin, whatever had not the

sanction of the national tradition. Nothing of Greek or

Roman culture penetrated this closed world. 1 The Jewish

doctors covered with the same contempt him who raises

ho<rs and him who teaches his son Greek science.

'O"

15. Education among the Chinese. — We have at-

tempted to throw into relief the educational practices of

two Eastern nations to which the civilization of the

West is most intimately related. A few words will suf-

fice for the other primitive societies whose histoiy is too

little known, and whose civilization is too remote from

our own, to make their plans of education anything more

than an object of curiosity.

1 This statement needs qualifying. "In nearly .'ill the families of high

rank," says the Dictionnaire de P4dagogie (l"" : Partie, Article JurFs),the

daughters spoke Greek. The Rabbins did not look with any favor upon

the study of profane philosophy; hut notwithstanding their protests, there

were many devoted readers of Plato and Aristotle. It is said that among

the pupils of the celebrated Gamaliel there were five hundred who studied

the philosophy and the literature of Greece." (P.)

12 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

China has been civilized from time immemorial, and at

every period of her long history she has preserved her

national characteristics. For more than three thousand

3'ears an absolute uniformity has characterized this immo-

bile people. Everything is regulated by tradition. Edu-

cation is mechanical and formal. The preoccupation of

teachers is to cause their pupils to acquire a mechanical

ability, a regular and sure routine. They care more for

appearances, for a decorous manner of conduct, than for

a searching and profound morality. Life is but a cere-

monial, minutely determined and punctually followed.

There is no liberty, no glow of spontaneity. Their art

is characterized by conventional refinement and by a

prettiness that seems mean ; there is nothing of the grand

and imposing. By their formalism, the Chinese educa-

tors are the Jesuits of the East.

1G. Lao-tsze and Khung-tsze. — Towards the sixth cen-

tury b.c. two reformers appeared in China, Lao-tsze and

Khung-tsze. The first represents the spirit of emancipa-

tion, of progress, of the pursuit of the ideal, of protest

against routine. lie failed. The second, on the contrary,

who became celebrated under the name of Confucius, and

to whom tradition ascribes more than three thousand

personal disciples, secured the triumph of his ideas of

practical, utilitarian morality, founded upon the authority

of the State and that of the family, as well as upon the

interest of the individual.

A quotation from Lao-tsze will prove that human

thought, in the sixth century B.C., had reached a high

mark in China : —

" Certain bad rulers would have us believe that the

heart and the spirit of man should be left empty, but

EDUCATION IN ANTIQUITY. 13

that instead his stomach should be filled ; that his bones

should be strengthened rather than the power of his will;

that we should always desire to have the people remain

in a state of ignorance, for then their demands would

he few. It is difficult, they say, to govern a people that

are too wise.

"These doctrines are directly opposed to what is due

to humanity. Those in authority should come to the aid

of the people by means of oral and written instruction;

so far from oppressing them and treating them as slaves,

they should do them good in every possible way."

In other words, it is by enlightening the people, and

by an honest devotion to their interests, that one be-

comes worthy to govern them.

If the Chinese have not fully profited by these wise and

exalted counsels, it appears that at least they have at-

tempted to make instruction general. line, a Chinese

missionary, boldly declares that China is the country of

all countries where primary instruction is most widely dif-

fused. To the same effect, a German writer affirms that

in China there is not a village so miserable, nor a ham-

let so unpretending, as not to be provided with a school

of some kind. 1 In a country of tradition, like China,

we can infer what once existed from what exists to-day.

But that instruction which is so widely diffused is wholly

superficial and tends merely to an exterior culture. As

Dittes says, the educational method of the Chinese con-

sists, not in developing, but in communicating. 2

1 For a scries of interesting documents on the actual state of education

in China, consult the article Chine, in Buisson's Dictionnaire de Ptd-

agogio.

2 Dittes, op. fit., p. :;i2.

14 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

17. Education among the Othek Nations of the

East. — Of all the oriental nations, Egypt is the one in

which intellectual culture seems to have reached the high-

est point, but only among men of a privileged class.

Here, as in India, the priestly class monopolized the

learning of the clay ; it jealously guarded the depository

of mysterious knowledge which it communicated only to

the kings. The common people, divided into working

classes, which were destined from father to son to the

same social status, learned scarcely more than was nec-

essary in order to practise their hereditary trades and

to be initiated into the religious beliefs.

In the more military but less theocratic nation, the

Persian, efforts were made in favor of a general edu-

cation. The religious dualism which distinguished Ormuzd,

the principle of good, from Ahriman, the principle of

evil, and which promised the victory to the former, made

it the duty of each man to contribute to this final vic-

tory by devoting himself to a life of virtue. Hence arose

noble efforts to attain physical and moral perfection. The

education of the Persians in temperance and frugality has

excited the admiration of certain Greek writers, especially

Xeuophou, and there will be found in his Cyropcedia a thrill-

ing picture of the brave and noble manners of the ancient

Persians. 1

1 On a recent occasion Archdeacon Farrar referred to Persian edu-

cation as follows : " We boast of our educational ideal. Is it nearly

as high in some essentials as that even of some ancient and heathen

nations long centuries before Christ came? The ancient Persians were

worshippers of fire and of the sun ; most of their children would have

beeu probably unable to pass .the most elementary examination in

physiology, but assuredly the Persian ideal might be worthy of our

study. At the age of fourteen — the age when we turn our children

adrift from school, and do nothing more for them — the Persians gave

EDUCATION IN ANTIQUITY. 15

On the whole, the history of pedagogy among the people of

the East offers us but few examples to follow. That which,

in different degrees, characterizes primitive education is that

it is the privilege of certain classes ; that woman is most gen-

erally excluded from its benefits ; that in respect of the com-

mon people it is scarcely more than the question of an

apprenticeship to a trade, or of the art of war, or of a

preparation for the future life ; that no appeal is made to

the free energy of individuals, but that the great masses of

the people in antiquity have generally lived under the har-

assing oppression of religious conceptions, of fixed tradi-

tions, and of political despotism.

[18. Analytical Summary. — Speaking generally, the edu-

cation of the primitive nations of the East had the following

characteristics : —

1 . It was administered by the hieratic class. This was

due to the fact that the priests were the only men of learn-

ing, and consequently the only men who could teach.

2. The knowledge communicated was in the main relig-

ions, ethical, and prudential, and the final purpose of instruc-

tion was good conduct.

3. As the matter of instruction was knowledge bearing

the sanction of authority, the learner was debarred from free

inquiry, and the general tendency was towards immobility.

4. As the knowledge of the day was embodied in lan-

guage, the process of learning consisted in the interpretation

of speech, and so involved a large and constant use of the

their young nobles the four best masters whom tiny could find to

teach their boys wisdom, justice, temperance, and courage wisdom

including worship, justice including the duly of unswerving truthful-

ness through lite, temperance including mastery over sensual tempta-

tions, courage including a free mind opposed t<> all things coupled

with guilt." (P.)

1G THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

memory ; and this literal memorizing of the principles and

rules of conduct promoted stability of character.

5. As the purpose of instruction was guidance, there was

no appearance of the conception that one main purpose of

education is discipline or culture.

G. The conception of education as a means of national

regeneration had a distinct appearance among the Jews ; and

among this people we find one form of compulsion, — the

obligation placed on towns to support schools.

7. In Persia, the State appears for the first time as a dis-

tinct agency in promoting education.

8-. In China, from time immemorial, scholarship has been

made the condition for obtaining places in the civil service,

and in consequence education has been made subordinate to

examinations.

9. Save to a limited extent among the Jews, woman was

debarred from the privileges of education.

10. In the main, education was administered so as to

perpetuate class distinctions. There was no appearance of

the conception that education is a universal right and a

universal good.]

CHAPTER II.

EDUCATION AMONG THE GREEKS.

greek pedagogy; athenian and spartan education j the schools

of athens ; schools of grammar; schools of gymnastics; the

palestra; schools of music; the schools of rhetoric and of

philosophy; SOCRATES and the socratic method ; SOCRATIC

IRONY; MAIEUTICS, OR THE ART OF GIVING BIRTH TO IDEAS;

EXAMPLES OF IRONY AND OF MAIEUTICS BORROWED FROM THE

MEMORABILIA OF XENOPHON J PLATO AND THE REPUBLIC J THE EDU-

CATION OF WARRIORS AND MAGISTRATES ; MUSIC AND GYMNASTICS ;

RELIGION AND ART IN EDUCATION; THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE GOOD ;

HIGH INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION; THE LAWS J DEFINITION OF EDUCA-

TION J DETAILED PRECEPTS J XENOPHON J THE ECONOMICS AND THE

EDUCATION OF WOMAN; THE CYROP^DIAJ PROTESTS OF XENOPHON

AGAINST THE DEGENERATE MANNERS OF THE GREEKS J ARISTOTLE;

GENERAL CHARACTER OF HIS PLAN OF EDUCATION; PUBLIC EDUCA

TION J PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN NATURE; PHYSICAL

EDUCATION J INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL EDUCATION J DEFECTS IN

THE PEDAGOGY OF ARISTOTLE, AND IN GREEK PEDAGOGY IN GEN-

ERAL J ANALYTICAL SUMMARY.