^^*o^ Author Title Imprint 16— 4737»-3 OPO VITAL ELEMENTS IN HISTORIC EDUCATION AN EXAMINATION OF THE MORE VALU- ABLE FACTORS IN ANCIENT and MEDIEVAL EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE Bg E. LEIGH MUDGE, PH. D. HEAD OF DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION EDINBORO STATE NORMAL SCHOOL EDINBORO PUBLISHING CO. EDINBORO, PA. Copyright, 1920 By E. LEIGH MUDGE JAN 6\ (M?l ©C1A6C78;:0 Preface An important part of a teacher-training curriculum is a pro- perly presented course in the history of education. If this sub- ject, like many in our American schools, is taught merely as a subject, as a field of intellectual or sentimental interest, its pre- sentation in our institutions will soon be of the past. But if it be related to present-day problems, so that it may shed the light of world-experience upon the perennial questions of mental and moral development, it will be of the highest value. The contributions of ancient and medieval educators to the world's progress, and our consequent debt to them, have been often and admirably treated. It is not my purpose to at- tempt such a characterization of those who have shaped edu- cational history, but rather to point out some features of earlier educational theory and practice which have been found worthy enough to live, in Some form and degree, to the present day. Many elements in past systems were significant as stepping-stones but w^ere soon passed by. We remember them gratefully but would not resurrect them into modern practice. But some ele- ments are still vitally fresh and significant. This is a recognition of the past originality of which the present and the future are the favored heirs. It aims to ignore the negations in a search for the positive and permanent suggestions which still affect our educatonal practice and thus to be essentially and positively appreciative. It is the hope of the writer that these siftings from past theory and practice may suggest to students a method of vitalizing the study of various periods of educational history. VITAL ELEMENTS IN HISTORIC EDUCATION 3 PART I GREEK EDUCATION VITAL ELEMENTS IN HISTORIC EDUCATION EARLY GREEK EDUCATION Social Aim. A significant factor in the earlier education of Greece was its directly social aim. The training of a Greek boy was with constant reference to his becoming a man, a citizen. Doubtless the play of childhood was too much lim- ited, and certainly the life of the Spartan boy was a vigorous forcing of an extreme and unnatural hardihood, but the sons of the Greek freemen enjoyed a social life together which aided greatly in fitting them for the responsibilities of adult society. The Spartan barracks were no more unnatural than the more modern method of isolating a boy with a private tutor, and the social value of Greek boy life may be found in the more demo- cratic boy life of our public schools. Association With Men. Another social element in Greek education was the association of boys with adult men. There was a basis in Spartan custom for a sort of "big brother" tutor- ship, so that "every Spartan adult was a teacher, and every Spartan boy had a tutor, selected through mutual esteem, bound together by no economic ties, but by those of friendship, and affection. Sparta having practically destroyed family life, this was really an inferior substitute for the relation which should exist betw^een father and son. But it is a significant recognition of the fact that a training for manhood should include association with worthy men. The Greeks largely disregarded the educa- tional value of family relationships, but they learned the value of manly virtue exemplified and personified in a man who might be a boy's friendly counsellor as well as his ideal example. Harmonious Development. In modern times we have re- curred to the Greek insistence upon a sound mind in a sound body. The ideal of Hellenic education was a harmonious devel- opment of all sides of human life. The methods were doubtless relatively crude and inefficient, but the ideal is abidingly signifi- cant. The two great educational specifics, in the Greek view, were gymnastics and music. Music, to be sure, was a comprehensive term, including such matters a*s the memorizing of the poems of Homer and Hesiod, and certain linguistic studies which involved a variety of intellectual activity, but it was a recognition of the value of aesthetic training, the exercise of the affective powers of appreciation which mean so much in any worthy modern VITAL ELEMENTS IN HISTORIC EDUCATION 5 system of education. Modern education has passed through deadly periods of intellectuaHsm, when the physical and the aesthetic were alike dominated if not deposed by the intellectual. "Gymnastic for the body, music for the soul," is the ancient formula which has a deserved influence upon modern education. Development of Originality. It should be noted that the training of the Greek youth in "music" was not a matter of mere imitation and memory, but encouraged the exercise of originality. An important part of his work was playing the lyre in accom- paniment of the reading of the poets. This was not the practice of an accompanment in w^hich the boy had been instructed, but the actual w^orking out of an accompaniment appropriate to the words. Training of this sort in actual self-expression must have been the best of preparation for the artistic and philosophic and political originality which have caused the Greeks to be so long remembered. It is in harmony with the educational principle, "We learn to do by doing." Limited as this supervised self- expression seems to have been, it was based upon a vitally im- portant educational principle. SOCRATES The chief contributions of Socrates and the systematic phil- osophers to educational progress are closely involved in the history of philosophy and can be but indirectly reflected here. We shall consider only the distinct educational principles which have survived the fate of the temporary and maintain a modern significance. Conversational Method. The dialectic of Socrates repre- sents something more than a method of imparting information. It was opposed to the eX cathedra dogmatism of the Sophists upon the Sophists' own ground of the relativity of knowledge. To be sure there are established facts which must be socially imparted through instruction, but the knowledge in which Soc- rates was interested, involving standards and modes of human conduct, was to be developed largely through the mental initia- tive of the student. The significance of the dialectic method is in its utilization of self-expression and personal attitudes. The method of the Sophists had been the lecture method, val- uable in its place, but productive of dogmatism on the part of the instructor or of a passive receptivity on the part of the stu- 6 VITAL ELEMENTS IN HISTORIC EDUCATION dent. Socrates saw the inefficiency, for mental training, of the jug-pouring method which w^as not new w^ith the Sophists and did not altogether disappear with Mr. Gradgrind. The Socratic Definition. Socrates made use of the dialec- tic method for two distinct ends. He first desired to destroy the false assurances, prejudices, superstitions, and such like sub- stitutions for know^ledge, which obstructed the way to truth. Hence his questions w^ere such as to cause his students to thor- oughly examine their opinions, criticise their own points of view, and if necessary change them. The ca.sual readers of the dialogues of Socrates, as represented in Plato's earlier works, may feel that his aim is chiefly negative. But the negative phase !|S essentially preparatory to the positive construction, by the inductive method, of reasonable definitions w^hich may bear positive truth. Says Aristotle: "There are two things that one can rightly attribute to Socrates: inductve reasoning and uni- versal definition. " Just what a Socratic definition is may in- volve an incursion into epistemology, but it is clear that there is a recognition of the social and experiential basis for what is to be accepted as true, since an acceptable definition is to be one which involves only "those qualities in which all men are agreed, and without which the thing would cease to be what it is. " PLATO Plato's great educational Utopia, described in the Republic, was limited by his aristocratic prejudices, and from the position of American democracy we can criticize the great Platonic scheme in many particulars. An American educator has said that the modern educational system coming nearest to the ideal of the Republic of Plato is that of Germany. Aside from the undemocratic attitude which was common in Plato's day and much less to be condemned than in a modern civilized state, this ancient dream of social and educational order is astonish- ingly modern. The Platonic Dialectic. Like Socrates, Plato utilizes the dialectic method, but he seems to have looked more deeply into its significance in education. He seems to recognize the essen- tially social character of thought. It is not a merely subjective VITAL ELEMENTS IN HISTORIC EDUCATION process, but a matter of attitudes and reactions involving per- sonal responses. He defines dialectic as a "continuous discourse with one's self," and this is really the nature of normal thought. Thus it is that speech helps thought as much as thought helps speech. The question method in education is a method of ift" citing to thought, and in asking questions the Platonic Socrates is really stimulating and clarifying the thought of his disciples. individual Difference. Plato made the significant dis- covery that "people are born not quite like each other," and succeeding history and modern experimental methods have con- firmed this statement. The full implications of this apparently simple conclusion have scarcely begun, even yet, to dawn upon the educational world. Vocational education, continuation schools, special promotion systems to provide for the unusually bright or retarded^ — these and many other modern problems grow out of an increasing consciousness of this Platonic truth. The educational corollary to this psychological fact is that each person in Plato's ideal state is to do what he is by nature best fitted for. It is the business of education to find out w^hat this is. The thorough application of this principle would have amazed Plato, beyond a doubt. From cur experience in demo- cratic America, w^e are quite sure that ability to serve the state as soldiers, to rule it as public guardians, or even to engage in the study of philosophy, would have been found among the im- mense slave class of Athens, had they been given full social opportunity for a generation. When the full responsibility of the state for the discovery of individual abilities is recognized, We shall have use for the mental tests we are so painfully working out. Vocational guidance and the discovery of hidden native aptitudes w^ill be the recognized function of the school system. Vocational Education. But even the great educational function just described is preparatory to another. It is the duty of the state to make possible the fullest development of the powers thus brought to light. Having found a boy fitted by nature for the work of a soldier, it is in the interest of the state that he be thoroughly trained for his calling. This involves a classification of schools, or at least a differentiation of their func- tions, according to the native abilities of the pupils. In the actual plan of the Republic, Plato was limited by the traditional education and by fancifully ideal methods, and of course lacked 8 VITAL ELEMENTS IN HISTORIC EDUCATION altogether the scientific tests toward which w^e are looking to-day, but this conception of people with different functions but each trained for his particular w^ork is in harmony w^ith modem edu- cational ideals. Add to it the broad democratic ideal of our American school system, and the conception of the ancient specu- lative philosopher much resembles that of a modem practical schoolman. It should be emphasized that the training which Plato would prescribe for the various social classes of his ideal state was not merely narrowly vocational. All were to have the fundamental training in gymnastic and music, which included instruction in the history and literature of their country, and there was provision for reading, w^riting, and mathematics. Practical and Social Education. A principle of great sig- nificance is Plato's union of the theoretical and the practical in education. The school w^as not to be isolated from life. Its teachings were not to be merely academic, but w^ere to be con- stantly related to the problems of life. It was a training for life, but not merely in the sense of preparation. It was life, includmg active participation in those things which the Greeks deemed essential to the worth-while life. Indeed the whole scheme of the Republic may be considered educational, as it involves a life-long preparation, but it found its justification and expression in practical duties for the state. Even philosophy, in the hands of its chosen devotees, was to be a preparation for the practical work of statecraft. We moderns may criticise the means em- ployed, we may object to certain of Plato's social ideas, but his purpose was evidently a thoroughly socialized education, an educational program in the interest of the state. Education of Women. It seems almost paradoxical that Plato, who held the common Greek view that woman is man's inferior, should have been the first defender of female education. Woman's inferiority, however, in Plato's judgement, does not consist in any fundamental difference from man, but in her being, as he puts it, "only a weaker man." Hence the principles con- trolling the education of men were to be applied to the education of women. To be sure, girls had been given the gymnastic training of early Sparta, but the motive seems to have been their physical preparation for child-bearing. Plato, in his recognition of woman's educability, in any throughgoing sense, was far in advance of his time. VITAL ELEMENTS IN HISTORIC EDUCATION 9 ARISTOTLE Education as Life. Out of Aristotle's immense contribu- tion to educational history the world has preserved more than appears on the surface of his teachings. Perhaps the chief edu- cational bequest of this greatest of thinkers is the conception of education which comes out of his functional conception of reality. Education is not preparatory to life; it is life. It is not to be thought of as an attainment or even as the means to an attain- ment. It is life in action, comprising its own value within itself. This being true, the school is not merely preparatory to life, but essential to life. Our schools, with this conception of their function, will not be separate from the social life outside their gates; they will be of a piece with that life. Their pupils will learn to live by living, will learn to adjust themselves to life outside the walls because they lead the same life within the walls, w^ill deal w^ith problems which are not peculiar to school rooms but which are involved in life adjustments. The socialized school w^ould be the outcome of this Aristotelian application. Induction. That for centuries the deductive logic of Aris- totle should have been given divine honors, w^hile his recognition of the fundamental essentiality of induction remained unknow^n, is one of the paradoxical humors of history. Socrates had recognized the function of induction; Aristotle carried this method far on the way toward its efficient use in modern science. The medieval fallacy of a dogmatic method still influ- ences education. Progressive teachers are beginning to ap- preciate the union of induction and deduction which marked the teachings of the great Peripatetic. Habit. Readers of Aristotle are wonder-struck by the freshness and modernity of much of his teaching. With astonishing insight he foreshadows the psychology of our own scientific age. Recognizing the binding character of heredity, he realized that education must be a matter of habit formation. A worthy life was the result, or rather the process, of worthy habits of action; and hence, to mention one phase of education, the function of gymnastics, always valued by the Greeks for its moral effects, was to be the development of habits of self-con- trol. He did not value athletics merely for the production of physical vigor, but for the moral effect as well. 10 VITAL ELEMENTS IN HISTORIC EDUCATION Aesthetics. "There seems to be in us," says Aristotle, "a sort of affinity to harmonies and rhythms;" and hence he values music as an element in moral training. This close relation between aesthetics and ethics is being recognized by modern psychology. Although Plato had the instincts of the poet and the dramatist thoroughly developed in himself, it was Aristotle who most valued their educational influence. "The perpetual demand for what is merely useful is anything but a mark of breadth or liberality." In these days we are beginning to see the limitations of a mere intellectual training and to realize the importance of training the aesthetic and appreciative as well as the social activities of our young people. Education and Virtue. Knowing as we do the evils con- nected with illiteracy, we are in sympathy with Aristotle's doctrine that education is necessary to virtue. This means that the state should be, essentially and functionally, an educational institution. It is perhaps too much to expect that in those days of established slavery even Aristotle should see the responsibility of the state for universal education. "It is not possible," he says, "to care for the things of virtue while living the life of the artizan or the slave;" but this apology for limited education is really, as w^e see it to-day, an argument for such a social order as shall make universal virtue possible. Recreation. Of special significance to-day is Aristotle's emphasig upon education for leisure. Recognizing the necessity for vocational training, he also saw the importance of the right use of leisure. In his day the ruling classes of Athens had achieved special opportunity for leisure, as many of our Ameri- cans of to-day have done, and the worthy use of this leisure time Aristotle considered an important educational problem. Recreation w^as to be taken systematically and with forethought, as a medicine for the soul. This conception is in striking har- mony with the recent educational emphasis upon training for the right use of leisure time. GENERAL INFLUENCE OF THE GREEKS UPON MODERN EDUCATION Modern Subjects of Study. The Greek love of learning and systematized thought has left a profound influence in the world. We have outgrown the science of Aristotle but not his scientific spirit and method. We have retained even the form VITAL ELEMENTS IN HISTORIC EDUCATION 11 of Euclid's geometry, in great degree, and formal logic was largely the permanent contribution of Aristotle. The number of modern sciences which may be traced from the active study of the Greeks is indicated by the names of subjects now^ taught in our schools. An investigation of the subjects taught in a sec- ondary academy, which w^as until recently connected with one of our colleges, indicates that, after ruling out the language courses, the names of nine out of thirteen distinct subjects given in the catalogue are of Greek derivation. Of the other four, two are from the Latin one from the Arabic, and one from the Anglo- Saxon. The list of departments in a college with which the author was formerly connected, excluding languages as before, shows sixteen names of Greek derivation, as against seven w^hich are either Latin or Anglo-Saxon. Of course the list of subjects included under these departments would include many other Greek-derived terms. The Spirit of Greek Thought. But the spirit and tendency of Greek learning are more important than the facts which that ancient people discovered or the forms w^hich they developed. The spirit of Greek thought was far different from the human- istic mind of modern times which reverences the ancient literature as his chief mental food. The Greeks were active, progressive thinkers. The writer of the Acts said of the Greeks of Paul s day: "All the Athenians and the strangers sojouring there spend their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear something new." This was long after the productive era of Greek thought, but it may indicate a characteristic of the restless Greek mind. In Paul's day the Greeks may have become mere dilattante thinkers; in the days of their earlier glory the free Greeks were mentally alert and progressive. They were cre- ative; they invented new scientific methods, worked out original philosophic systems and new art forms, and studied how all the existing subjects of human thought might be improved and developed. The spirit of the Greeks at its best was not a back- ward-looking impulse. It was chiefly interested in the present and the future. The Greek Renaissance which we need to-day is not a mere renewal of appreciation of the work of literary and scientific and artistic Athens, but a spirit of original, independent thought, facing the problems of to-day and looking forward to the greater problems of to-morrow. 12 VITAL ELEMENTS IN HISTORIC EDUCATION PART 11 HEBREW EDUCATION VITAL ELEME NTS IN HISTORIC EDUCATION 13 HEBREW EDUCATION Ethical Values. Hebrew education was superior to that of other oriental countries because of the nobler ethical feelings and conceptions which underlay it. Philo stated the subject of instruction to be "the native philosophy" and "every kind of virtue;" and both the philosophy and the accepted virtues of the Hebrews were broader and more comprehensive than those of any other Eastern people. There are certain oriental pro- verbs which illustrate the value which the Hebrews placed upon education. The significance of heredity as well as the environ- ment necessary for education is indicated in the saying: "You can only take out of a pot what you put into it." Other edu- cational proverbs are the following: "If the father be onion and the mother garlic how can there be any sweet perfume?" "The teaching of children is like engraving in stone, the teaching of adults like waves on the sea." Hebrew education was essen- tially religious, and involved the sanction,s of the fullest and noblest system of ethics of ancient times. In spite of the Pharisaism which exceeded the errors of more modern Puritanism, there is an insistance in the Hebrew consciousness upon broad and basic principles of conduct. The literature which constituted the curriculum of Hebrew schools w^as not merely ecclesia^stical and philosophic. The "wisdom" books, which comprise many of the pungent expressions of a proverb- loving people, abound in praise of practical, ethical, active wisdom. History and Biography. There is much to be said in favor of the Hebrew emphasis upon biography as a socializing subject of study. The practical center of the curriculum was the repetition of the hero tales of the nation. They were mythical, in a degree, but what nation has not its historical myths? There was a tremendous social energy latent in the old hero tales, and it became released and transformed into practical action in the boyhood of Israel. Teachers of to-day have found that there is a perennial appeal, for boys, in the hero tales of the Old Test- ament. Doubtless the earlier training of children in Israel was the oral repetition of these tales, the stories of the traditional deliverance df their ancesters, and the moral maxims accom- panying these stories. The maxims probably gained attention through their association with stories. 14 VITAL ELEMENTS IN HISTORIC EDUCATION National Feasts. One institution of the Hebrews should be mentioned for its peculiar educational value. The great national feasts united the sanctions of religion and family life in impressing the facts of national history upon the children. They were religious, patriotic, national festivals, often attended by families in a body, with recreational elements, joy and feasting, and also w^ith vivid historico-religious ceremonies. One of these feasts w^as something like a great patriotic pageant, and it must have deeply impressed the child who witnessed it. Early Training. The Hebrews recognized the significance of early training. A proverb quoted above indicates that the impressibility of childhood has been recognized in the orient. Josephus says of moral precepts: "Since we learn them from our first consciousness, we have them, as it were, engraven on our souls." In the Roman period (75 B. C. to 70 A. D. ) pro- vision seems to have been made for compulsory school attend- ance of boys from six to seven years of age. Union of Theory and Practice. It is significant that in Hebrew education practice and theory w^ere closely united. There were certain points of the law which were considered binding upon even the children, and it looks as though there were a gradual addition of obligations until at puberty the boy was considered fully responsible under the law. Of course the spirit of the Hebrew law became harsh and formal, but it is good pedagogy to teach the law through actual experience with it. Family Education. Among the most significant elements in Hebrew education was its recognition of the significance of family life. Among no ancient people was the mother more honored, and the early training of the boys as well as the girls was chiefly in her hands. However, the place of the father is notable. He it is to whom is entrusted the instruction of the children in the national traditions. Modern education owes much to its inheritance from two civilizations, the Hebrew and the Roman, in which the pater famiUaS has a central function in early education. Schools and Teachers. The Talmudic boast that in the time of Hezekiah "not one unlettered person could be found by a search from Dan to Beersheba," may be doubted, but it VITAL ELEMENTS IN HISTORIC EDUCATION 15 is certain that in the later national life of the Jews the school became a significant institution. The educational purpose of the synagogue is indicated by the use of the modern Yiddish term "Schule," and there was developed a school for children, meeting either in the synagogue or in a separate building. The teacher of such a school was called "the servant of the congre- gation," and it was provided that "an idle man shall not keep a school for children." In Jerusalem each synagogue is said to have had, in later Jewish history, two schools connected with it, — a primary school and a higher school for those who "might wish to become learned in the law." There is evidence of at least one still higher institution. The curriculum of these schools w^as, in general, narrowly Jewish, but at least one insti- tution in Jerusalem taught Greek philosophy, . and some know- ledge of Greek became a requirement for admission to the San- hedrin. \^ 16 VITAL ELEMENTS IN HISTORIC EDUCATION PART III ROMAN EDUCATION VITAL ELEMENTS IN HISTORIC EDUCATION 17 ROMAN EDUCATION Roman education cannot be treated as an independent system since much of it was dravs^n from Greek sources. But there are certain quite distinct elements which are characteris- tically Roman, and even opposed to the pedagogical tendencies of the Greeks. Practicality. In these days of vocational emphasis it is easy to appreciate the practical aim of the Roman school and home training. We may feel that the interpretation of prac- ticality was narrow and inadequate to the full, well-rounded life — here w^e take the attitude of the Greeks — but w^e are to-day insisting that education be measured by its fruits, by what the educated man or woman can do. From this viewpoint it is interesting to notice that in Rome the theory of learning to do by doing was thoroughy applied. Roman education was not concerned with disciplinary values, or with studiess that fur- nished a general or transferable training. One learned the art of war not through gymnastic games, but through the actual use of arms; one learned the art of agriculture through actual apprenticeship in that occupation. The strength of this system w^as that education w^as one with life and not an isolated set of experiences w^ithout obvious relation to life. Ethical Aim. Roman education was marked, as was that of the Hebrews, by its ethical purpose. It emphasized obli- gation and sought to develop the valued virtues of the Romans. It was not so much concerned w^ith intellectual development ajs with character development. Habitual virtue was its aim. It sought to train in habits of loyalty to family and nation, hon- esty, courage, and self-control. Hero Tales. Biography has played an important part in the education of many peoples. We have seen its significance in the case of the Hebrews. The Roman boy was told the hero tales of his nation, which, in general, involved a minimum of mythology and represented the actual achievements of men in the Roman virtues. "The grandeur that was Rome" has stimulated the imagination of the world even to the present day. Its hero tales must have been a potent element in the training of the Roman boys. Domestic Education. Athough there was a late introduc- 18 VITAL ELEMENTS IN HISTORIC EDUCATION tion of schools, much after the Greek pattern, the center and focus of distinctly Roman education began and remained in the home. There are glimpses in literature of the pleasant fellow- ship of boys with their fathers, and the home life of the Romans is distinctly higher and healthier than that of the Greeks. Even when Greek ideals had largely affected the educational practice, we find the Roman leaders of thought praising the influence of fathers and mothers upon their children. The social and legal unity of the home, the co-operation of the parents in the rearing of their children, the responsibility of the father for the physical and moral training of his boys, made this fundamental social group of chief educational importance. Quintilian. The development of the Roman educational system, affected as it became by Greek ideals, may well be illustrated by a few^ quotations from Quintilian, the great teacher of the first century. "We are by nature most tenacious of what we have inbibed in our infant year's, as the flavor with which you scent vessels when n^ew, remains in them ; nor can the colors of wool, for which its plain white- ness has been exchanged, be effaced; and those very habits, which are of a more objectionable nature, adhere with the greater tenacity; for good ones are easily changed for the worse, but when will you change bad ones into good?" "In parents I should wish that there should be as much learning as possible. Nor do I speak, indeed, merely to fathers." "Of pedagogi this further may be said, that they should either be men of acknowledged learning, which I wish to be the first object, or that they should be conscious of their want of learning; for none are more pernicious than those who, having gone some little beyond the tirst elements, clothe themselves in a mistaken persuasion of their own knowledge." "Some have thought that boys, as long as they are under seven years of age, should not be set to learn. Those, however, advise better, who, like Chrysippus think that no part of a child's life should be exempt from tuitiom; for Chrysippus, though he has allowed three years to the nurses, yet is of opinion that the minds of children^ may be imbued with excellent instruction even by them. And why should not that age be under the influence of learning, which is now con- fessedly subject to moral influences?" "Let his instruction be an amusement to him; let him be ques- tioned and praised." "The first rudiments of instruction are best treated by the most accomplished teacher." VITAL ELEMENTS IN HISTORIC EDUCATION 19 "Nor should a good master ejiciimber himself with a greater num- ber of scholars than he can manage; and it is to be a chief object with us, also, that the master may be in every way our kind friend, and may have regai'd to his teaching." "Friendships formed at school . . . remain in full force even to old age, as if cemented with a certain I'eligious obligation." "At home he can learm only what is taught himself; at school, even what is taught others. He will daily hear many things com- manded, many things corrected; the idleness of a fellow student, when reproved, will be a warning to him; the industry of any one, when commended, will be a stimulus; emulation will be excited by praise." "Let him that is skilled in teaching, ascertain first of all, when a boy is entrusted to him, his ability and disposition." "Boys .... when re-invigorated and refreshed, bring more sprightliness to their learning, and a more determined spirit, which for the most part spurns compulsion." "Let his (the teacher's) austerity not be stern, nor his affability too easy, lest dislike arise from the one, or contempt from the other." "It is generally, and not without reason, I'egarded as an excellent quality in a master to observe accurately the differences of ability in those whom he has undertaken to instruct, and to ascertain in what direction the nature of each paticularly inclines him; for there is in talent an incredible variety." 20 VITAL ELEMENTS IN HISTORIC EDUCATION PART rv EARLY AND MEDIEVAL CHRIS- TIAN EDUCATION VITAL ELEMENTS IN HISTORIC EDUCATION 21 EARLY AND MEDIEVAL CHRISTIAN EDUCATION Moral Education. The merits of education in the early church and through the long medieval centuries were chiefly the merits of Christian ethics and religion. The moral purity of early Christianity stands in vivid contrast to the current degen- eracy of morals in the Roman world of that day. The Chris- tians, whatever their neglect of intellectual training, were right in using the forces of education in the service of the moral life. It was a one-sided education, but it met the moral condition of the time with such a training of the life of feeling and emotion as adapted it to the chief need of that day. Preserving Intellectual Interests. The principal intellectual values in early Christian education were borrowed from the Greeks and Romans, and while there was a tendency to oppose all such influences, the intellectual preservation of Europe was due, in great part, to their use. Aside from the moral emphasis of the early church we can find little educational originality of any value to us for many centuries. But we may recognize the value of systems of thinking, narrowly limited though they were, w^hich preserved an interest in learning and at least a trace of in- tellectual training. In the chief form of medieval education, that of the monasteries, the intellectual life was valued only in relation to a system of ethics and religion; but the monasteries maintained some sort of educational tradition,s, and later came to be the centers of a more humanistic type of education, as w^ell as the treasuries of the literature of earlier centuries. Music. An important part in early Christian education appears to have been taken by music. There was a long-lived prejudice against musical instruments, due to their association with pagan rites, but from the time of Jesus great attention was given to hymn-singing. Pliny describes some sort of antiphonal singing, and the music of that day seems to have consisted of congregational singing. Chrysostom used antiphonies and dox- ologies to counteract heretical doctrines w^hich w^ere expressed in songs. Music was given a new dignity after the fourth cen- tury in the development of the style commonly attributed to Gregory the Great, and in the accumulation of a large variety of songs. The educational value of music in a period marked by 22 VITAL ELEMENTS IN HISTORIC EDUCATION such meagerness in other emotional and intellectual phases of life must have been great. Scholasticism and Learning. With the rise of scholasticis*- came a stimulation of intellectual interest. To us, its form logic, its deductions from dogma, its utter dependence upc authority, seem opposed to the very spirit of scholarship. B' scholasticism represents the first awakening from the intellectu stupor that so largely affected the earlier centuries. While ou wardly an apologetic for the doctrines of the church, scholar ticism was really the development of a new love of learning And this interest in things intellectual is surely of value in a, ages. It is this that makes through science and philosoph; possible even to-day. Mysticism. The values in the educational phases of mysticism, while commonly underestimated, are always involved in religious education. With all their intellectual and emotional extravagances, the mystics w^ere concerned with the problem of the attitude of man toward the unseen. This is not so much a matter of intellectual training as of the training of the life of feeling and emotion. The mystics have been credited with the preservation of religion. They are also entitled to fully as much credit as the dry-as-dust scholastics for the preserving of edu- cation, since the motivation of the educational movements leading up to modern times was very largely religiou,s and mystical. Chivalry. The ideals of chivalry w^ere those of feudalism and aristocracy at their best. However, w^e in our democratic spirit can find some significant elements which are still of value. Chivalry brought into Christendom the nobler ideals of the Teutonic peoples, blended them with Christian virtues, and pro- duced, at its best, a system of conduct which has its inspiration for boys of to-day. The training of a knight involved a long period of preparation, during which the boy, first as page and then as .squire, must learn such virtues as unselfishness, personal honor, respect for superiors, consideration for his inferiors, cour- tesy toward women, gentleness and liberality toward the weak, together with the fiercer characteristics of the warrior. To be sure, there was an aristocratic exclu,siveness in chivalry, and doubtless snobbishness and condescension in the attitude of a knight toward the lower orders of society, but there is something in the finer idealism of chivalry that distinctly appeals to boys to-day. -i 4 i I i ■ m ml. W m 111 m