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Education, History of 2014

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Education, History of
Contents
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Early Educational Systems

Basic Traditions of the Western World
Christianity as a Guiding Force
The Middle Ages
Humanism and the Renaissance
The Influence of Protestantism
Roman Catholic Influences
Growth of the Sciences in the 17th Century
The Spread of European Ideas to Other Continents

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The 18th Century: Rousseau and Others

The 19th Century and the Rise of National School Systems
The 20th Century: Child-Centered Education
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Education, History of, the theories, methods, administration, and problems of schools and other agencies
of information, both formal and informal, throughout the world from ancient times to the present. Education
denotes the methods by which a society hands down from one generation to the next its knowledge,
culture, and values. The individual being educated develops physically, mentally, emotionally, morally, and
socially. The work of education may be accomplished by an individual teacher, the family, a church, or any
other group in society. Formal education is usually carried out by the school, the agency that employs
people who are professionally trained for this task.
Early Educational Systems
The oldest known systems of education in history had two characteristics in common: They taught religion,
and they promoted the traditions of the people. In ancient Egypt the temple schools taught not only religion
but also the principles of writing, the sciences, mathematics, and architecture. Similarly, in India, much of
the education was carried on by priests. India was the fountainhead of the Buddhist doctrines that were
taught in its institutions to Chinese scholars; they, in turn, spread the teachings of Buddha to the various
countries of the Far East. Education in ancient China stressed philosophy, poetry, and religion, in accord
with the teachings of Confucius, Lao-tzu, and other philosophers. The Chinese system of civil-service
examination, which originated more than 4000 years ago and was used in China until the present century,
made it possible to select the best scholars for important posts in the government.
The methods of physical training that prevailed in Persia and were highly praised by several Greek writers
apparently served as the model for the educational systems of ancient Greece, which stressed gymnastics
as well as mathematics and music.
The Bible and the Talmud are the basic sources of information about the aims and methods of education
among the ancient Jews. Jewish parents were urged by the Talmud to teach their children such subjects as
vocational knowledge, swimming, and a foreign language. Today, religion serves as the basis for education
in the home, the synagogue, and the school. The Torah remains the foundation of Jewish education.
Basic Traditions of the Western World
The educational systems in the countries of the Western world were based on the religious tradition of the
Jews, both in the original form and in the version modified by Christianity. A second tradition was derived
from education in ancient Greece, where Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Isocrates were the influential

thinkers on education. The Greek aim was to prepare intellectually well-rounded young people to take
leading roles in the activities of the state and of society. In later centuries, Greek concepts served as the
basis for the liberal arts, the teaching of the various branches of philosophy, the cultivation of the aesthetic
ideal, and the promotion of gymnastic training.
Following the Hellenistic period, Greek influences on education were transmitted primarily through such
writers as Plutarch, who urged the education of parents as the first essential step in the education of
children.
Roman education, after an initial period of intense loyalty to the old religious and cultural traditions,
approved the appointment of Greeks as teachers of Roman youth both in Rome and in Athens. The
Romans considered the teaching of rhetoric and oratory important. According to the 1st-century educator
Quintilian, the proper training of the orator was to be organized around the study of language, literature,
philosophy, and the sciences, with particular attention to the development of character. Roman education
transmitted to the Western world the Latin language, classical literature, engineering, law, and the
administration and organization of government.
Christianity as a Guiding Force
As the Roman Empire declined, Christianity became a potent force in the countries of the Mediterranean
region and in several other areas in Europe. The earliest types of Christian education were the
catechumenal, or neophyte, schools for converts; the more advanced catechetical, or question-andanswer, schools for Christians; and the episcopal, or cathedral, schools that trained priests. The early
Fathers of the Church, especially St. Augustine, wrote on educational questions in light of the newly
adopted Christian concepts.
Many monasteries or monastic schools as well as municipal and cathedral schools were founded during
the centuries of early Christian influence. Collections, or compendiums, of knowledge centered on the
seven liberal arts: the trivium, composed of grammar, rhetoric, and logic, and the quadrivium of arithmetic,
geometry, astronomy, and music. From the 5th to the 7th century these compendiums were prepared in the
form of textbooks by such scholars as the Latin writer Martianus Capella (fl. 5th cent.) from northern Africa,
the Roman historian Cassiodorus, and the Spanish ecclesiastic Isidore of Seville. Generally, however, such
works disseminated existing knowledge rather than introducing new knowledge.
The Middle Ages
In western Europe, two revivals of learning took place in the 9th century, one on the Continent, under
Charlemagne, and one in England, under King Alfred the Great. Charlemagne, recognizing the value of
education, brought the cleric and educator Alcuin of York from England to set up a palace school at
Aachen. King Alfred became a scholar himself and established educational institutions in England; he also
encouraged monasteries to expand their educational work. Ireland had centers of learning from which
many monks were sent out to teach in countries on the Continent. Between the 8th and the 11th centuries
the highly cultivated Moorish conquerors of Spain revived the Roman university in the capital city of
Crdoba. This became a center for the study of philosophy, ancient culture, science, and mathematics.
Elsewhere, Babylonia had had Jewish academies for many centuries; Persia and Arabia from the 6th to the
9th century had institutions for research and the study of science and language; and centers of Muslim
learning were established in 859 at al-Qarawiyin University at Fez, in Morocco. In 970 at Cairo, al-Azhar
University was founded.
During the Middle Ages the doctrines of Scholasticism were widely taught in western Europe.
Scholasticism employed logic to reconcile Christian theology with the pre-Christian philosophical concepts
of Aristotle. A leading teacher of Scholasticism was the churchman Anselm of Canterbury, who, like Plato,
argued that ideas alone are real. Another cleric, Roscelinus de Compigne (1050?1125?), following
Aristotle, taught nominalism, the doctrine that universal ideas are labels and concrete things are real.
Other great Scholastic teachers were the French theologian Peter Abelard, pupil of Roscelinus, and the
Italian philosopher and theologian St. Thomas Aquinas. The renown of such teachers attracted many
students and was chiefly responsible for the establishment of universities in the north of Europe beginning
in the 12th century. All during the Middle Ages the chief repositories of learning were the monasteries,
which maintained archives preserving many manuscripts of the preceding classical culture.
At about this time several universities were opened in Italy, Spain, and other countries, with students
traveling freely from one institution to another. The northern universities, such as those in Paris and in
Oxford and Cambridge, England, were administered by the professors; the southern universities, such as

the one in Bologna, Italy, were run by students. Medieval education also took the form of apprenticeship
training in some craft or service. As a rule, however, education was the privilege of the upper classes, and
most members of the lower classes had no opportunity for formal learning.
Of significance to the development of higher learning during the Middle Ages were the Muslims and the
Jews, both of whom were outside the Christian society that dominated Europe. Not only did these groups
promote education within their own societies, but they also served as translators and as intermediaries who
brought ancient Greek thought and science to the attention of European scholars.
Humanism and the Renaissance
The Renaissance was the period in which education of boys in mathematics and the classics became
widespread. Interest in the culture of ancient Greece and Rome revived. The ideas of the classical world
were acquired through the discovery of the old manuscripts preserved in the monasteries. Many excellent
teachers of the Greek language and literature had also migrated from Constantinople to Italy, beginning
with the Greek scholar Manuel Chrysoloras in 1397. Among the discoverers of classical manuscripts were
the Italian humanists Francesco Petrarch and Poggio Bracciolini (13801459).
The spirit of education during the Renaissance was best exemplified by the schools established by the
Italian educators Vittorino da Feltre (13781446) in Mantua (1425) and by Guarino Veronese (13741460).
These educators introduced into their schools such subjects as the sciences, history, geography, music,
and physical training. These immensely successful schools influenced the work of other educators and
indeed served as examples for educators more than 400 years later. Among the other Renaissance
contributors to educational theory were the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus, the German educator
Johannes Sturm, the French essayist Michel de Montaigne, and the Spanish humanist and philosopher
Juan Luis Vives (14921540). The major emphasis of this period was on the classical Greek and Latin
subjects taught in the Latin grammar school, which, originating in the Middle Ages, became the chief
secondary school of Europe until the early 20th century.
The Influence of Protestantism
The Protestant churches deriving from the Reformation instituted by Martin Luther in the early 16th century
established schools to teach reading, writing, arithmetic, and catechism on the elementary level; and the
classical subjects, such as Hebrew, mathematics, and science, on the secondary level. In Switzerland,
another branch of Protestantism was founded by the French theologian and reformer John Calvin, whose
academy at Geneva, established in 1559, was an important educational center. The modern practice of the
control of education by government can be traced to Luther, Calvin, and other religious and educational
leaders of the Reformation.
Roman Catholic Influences
The Roman Catholics also made use of Renaissance educational ideas in the schools that they already
conducted, or had quickly established, in the movement to offset the growing influence of Protestantism
called the Counter Reformation. This synthesis was accomplished in the schools of the Society of Jesus,
organized by the Spanish ecclesiastic St. Ignatius Loyola in 1540 with the approval of Pope Paul III. The
Jesuits, as the members of the society were called, set up a system of schools that has succeeded in
bringing Roman Catholic education to many countries since the 16th century.
Growth of the Sciences in the 17th Century
The 17th century, a period of rapid progress in the various sciences, was marked by the founding in 1660
of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge. This institution and other learned
organizations simplified the exchange of scientific and cultural information and ideas among the scholars in
the different countries of Europe. The new scientific subjects were introduced into the courses of study in
the universities and the secondary schools. Christs Hospital in London was probably the first secondary
school to teach science with any degree of competence. It served as the model for the establishment of the
first scientific secondary school in Russia, the Moscow School of Navigation and Mathematics, in the early
18th century. The importance of science was set forth in the writings of the 16th-century English
philosopher Francis Bacon, who stressed the principle of learning by the inductive process. This means
that students are encouraged to observe and examine many things with their senses and their minds
before coming to conclusions about them.
During the 17th century, many outstanding educators exerted their influence. The German educator
Wolfgang Ratke (15711635) pioneered in new methods of more rapid teaching of the vernacular, the
classical languages, and Hebrew. Ren Descartes, the French philosopher, emphasized the role of logic

as the fundamental principle of rational thinking, and logic to this day has remained the basis of education
in France. The English poet John Milton proposed an encyclopedic program of secondary education, with
classical learning as a means of instilling morality and completing the person of well-rounded intellect. The
English philosopher John Locke recommended a curriculum and method of education, including physical
training, that was based on the empirical examination of demonstrable facts before reaching conclusions.
In Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693), Locke advocated a number of reforms, including an
emphasis on things instead of books, learning through travel, and variety of subject matter. Locke advised
the student to study a tree rather than a book about trees; to go to France rather than read a book about
France. The doctrine of formal mental discipline, namely, the ability to strengthen the faculties or powers of
the mind by exercising them in the use of logic and the refutation of fallacies, often attributed to Locke, was
a major influence on the educational thinkers of the 18th and 19th centuries. The French educator St. John
Baptist de La Salle, founder of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools in 1684 in France,
established a seminary for teachers in 1685 and thereby became a pioneer in the systematic education of
teachers.
Perhaps the greatest educator of the 17th century was Jan Komensky, the Protestant bishop of Moravia,
better known by his Latin name, Comenius. His work in education brought him invitations to teach
throughout Europe. He wrote a widely read, profusely illustrated textbook for the learning of Latin,
called The Visible World(1658; trans. 1659). In his Great Didactic (162832; trans. 1931) he emphasized
the furthering of the educational process by stimulating the pupils interest and by teaching with reference
to concrete things rather than to verbal descriptions of them. His educational objective can be summed up
in the phrase on the title page of the Great Didactic, teaching thoroughly all things to all men. Comeniuss
efforts on behalf of universal education earned him the title of Teacher of Nations.
Another important educator, August Francke (16631727) of Germany, made his influence felt from the late
17th century on. Francke, a Lutheran minister, served as professor of theology at the University of Leipzig,
and later as professor of Hebrew at the University of Halle, near his pastorate. His major achievements
were in the areas of secondary, teacher, and adult education; international missions training; the
modernization of the curriculum; and the network of schools, the Franckesche Stiftungen, that still exists
after almost three centuries.
The Spread of European Ideas to Other Continents
From the 16th century onward, European education began to penetrate into Africa, Asia, the western
hemisphere, and other parts of the world. The educational institutions set up in Central and South America
and portions of North America were the work of educators from Spain and Portugal. England and France
were mainly responsible for establishing schools in what are now the U.S. and Canada. Although colleges
and universities were set up in the New World, students there would often go to Europe for higher
education in the older institutions (seeeducation, higher).
The 18th Century: Rousseau and Others
During the 18th century a school system was established in Prussia, formal education began in Russia
under Peter the Great and his successors, schools and colleges developed in Colonial America, and
educational reforms resulted from the French Revolution. Late in the century the Sunday school movement
was inaugurated in England by the philanthropist and newspaper publisher Robert Raikes (17361811) for
the benefit of poor and working children. During this same period the monitorial method of teaching was
introduced. Hundreds of children could be taught by one teacher with the aid of pupil monitors or
assistants. Both plans laid the foundation for the possibility of mass education.
The foremost educational theorist of the 18th century was Jean Jacques Rousseau, who was born in
Geneva. His influence on education reached throughout Europe and beyond. In mile (1762) he insisted
that children should be treated as children rather than as miniature adults and that the personality of the
individual must be cultivated. Among his concrete suggestions were the teaching of reading at a later age
and the study of nature and society by direct observation. His radical proposals were to be applied to boys
only; girls were to receive a conventional education.
The educational contributions of Rousseau were largely in the realm of theory. It remained for his followers,
however, to put his ideas into practice. The German educator Johann Basedow and others opened schools
in Germany and elsewhere based on the idea of everything according to nature.
The 19th Century and the Rise of National School Systems

The most influential of all the followers of Rousseau was the Swiss educator Johann Pestalozzi, whose
ideas and practices influenced schools on every continent. The principal aim of Pestalozzi was to adapt the
method of teaching to the natural development of the child. To attain this objective, he worked toward the
harmonious development of all the faculties (head, heart, and hand) of the learner. Among the other
influential educators of the 19th century were Friedrich Froebel of Germany, the father of the kindergarten,
which was introduced in America in 1856; Johann Herbart, also of Germany, who introduced the principles
of psychology and philosophy into the science of education, and whose ideas spread to the U.S. toward the
end of the century; Horace Mann and Henry Barnard, the foremost American educators, who brought to
the U.S. the doctrines of Pestalozzi and other European educators; the British philosopher Herbert
Spencer, who advocated scientific knowledge as the most important subject matter to be taught in school;
and Bishop Nikolai Grundtvig (17831872) of Denmark, whose educational ideas became the basis for the
folk high school movement.
The 19th century was the period when national school systems were organized in England, France,
Germany, Italy, and other European countries. The newly liberated nations of Latin America, especially
Argentina and Uruguay, looked to Europe and the U.S. for models for their schools. Japan, which had just
emerged from its traditional isolation and was trying to Westernize its institutions, drew on the experience
of several European countries and the U.S. in the establishment of a modern school and university system.
Also significant in the 19th century was the widespread organizing of missionary education in the
undeveloped areas of the world, particularly in Africa and Oceania. Education in colonial areas such as
India was given attention by the administrative powers. In general, however, the vast majority of the people
in the colonial and underdeveloped regions received little, if any, formal education.
The 20th Century: Child-Centered Education
At the beginning of the century, education was greatly influenced by the writings of the Swedish feminist
and educator Ellen Key (18491926). Her book The Century of the Child (1900) was translated into many
languages and inspired progressive educators in various countries. Progressive education was a system of
teaching based on the needs and potentials of the child, rather than on the needs of society or the precepts
of religion. It had existed in idea and in fact under other names throughout history and had appeared in
varying forms in different parts of the world. Among the influential progressive educators were Hermann
Lietz (18681919) and Georg Kerschensteiner (18541932) of Germany, Bertrand Russell of England, and
Maria Montessori of Italy. Especially influential in the U.S., and even on a worldwide scale, was the
American philosopher and educator John Dewey. The activity program, which was derived from the
theories of Dewey, stressed the educational development of the child in terms of individual needs and
interests. It became the major method of instruction for many years in elementary schools of the U.S. and
other countries.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the USSR was an object of educational interest. Particularly after
1957, when the Soviet Sputnik, the first artificial earth satellite, was launched into space, indicating the
advanced state of Soviet technological learning, Soviet schools attracted large numbers of foreign visitors,
especially individuals from developing countries. Contributing to the international interest in Soviet
education were the educational theories and practices arising out of Marxist-Leninist ideology, as well as
the work of Anton S. Makarenko (18881939), an exponent of the rehabilitation of juvenile delinquents and
of collective education.
The current century has been marked by the expansion of the educational systems of the industrial
nations, as well as by the emergence of school systems among the newer, developing nations in Asia and
Africa. Compulsory elementary education has become nearly universal, but evidence indicates that large
numbers of children, perhaps 50 percent of those of school age throughout the world, are not attending
school. In order to improve education on the elementary and adult levels, the United Nations Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) inaugurated literacy campaigns and other educational
projects. The aim of this organization is to put every child everywhere into school and to eliminate illiteracy.
Some progress has been noted, but it has become obvious that considerable time and effort are needed to
produce universal literacy.
For information on national systems of education, see the Education section in the articles on individual
countries.

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