And Locke’s ‘discipline’ is of this kind.
Locke’s Real Position on Formal Discipline.—It would seem as if this modified form of general power were all that Locke had in mind. He definitely concedes that “learning pages of Latin by heart, no more fits the memory for retention of anything else, than the graving of one sentence in lead makes it the more capable of retaining firmly any other characters.” Andwhile he holds that the method of reasoning in mathematics can be transferred ‘to other parts of knowledge,’ he declares that men who are reasonable in some things are often very unreasonable in others, and “men who may reason well in one sort of matters to-day may notGeneralized values of mathematics.do so at all a year hence.” The generalized benefits that students may obtain from mathematics are simply that it “would show them the necessity there is, in reasoning, to separate all distinct ideas, and see the habitudes that all those concerned in the present inquiry have to one another, and to lay by those which relate not to the proposition in hand and wholly to leave them out of the reckoning. This is that which in other subjects is absolutely requisite to just reasoning.” Thus Locke appears to be rather in harmony with modern educationalLocke did not defend the formalism of public schools.theory than a thorough-going advocate of formal discipline. At any rate, it should be recognized that he did not defend, but vigorously assailed, the grammatical and linguistic grind in the English public schools. His attitude toward formal discipline seems to have sprung from his desire to root out the traditional and false, rather than to support the narrow humanistic curricula of the times.
Graves,During the Transition(Macmillan, 1910), pp. 305-311; andGreat Educators(Macmillan, 1912), chap. VI; Monroe,Text-book(Macmillan, 1905), chap. IX. For a more extended account of Locke, read hisThoughtsandConduct, and Fowler, T.,John Locke(Macmillan, 1901). The literature of formal discipline is most extensive and the subject is still under discussion; but a good summary of all written up to 1911 is furnished in Heck,W. H.,Mental Discipline and Educational Values(John Lane, New York), and later articles can be found by consulting the index ofThe American Psychological Review. In a doctoral dissertation (University of Virginia),John Locke and Formal Discipline, Hodge, F. A., makes it clear that the common interpretation of Locke as a formal disciplinarian is unfair. The most typical of the earliest opposition to the disciplinary argument is probably found in Thorndike, E. L.,Educational Psychology(Teachers College, New York, 1910), chap. VIII; the sanest discussion of the possible transfer of ideals appears in Bagley, W. C.,Educative Process(Macmillan, 1905), chap. XIII; and the reaction to the reaction is best portrayed by Angell, Pillsbury, and Judd inEducational Review, vol. XXXVI, pp. 1-43. Lyans, C. K., in his article uponFormal Discipline(Pedagogical Seminary, vol. XXI, pp. 343-393) makes a most careful analysis of the interpretations of the defenders and opponents of the theory, and gives a very thorough discussion of transfers.
The schools of the American colonies closely resembled those of the European countries from which the colonists came, and were influenced by the various religious conceptions of education that were current in each case. In general, where the Calvinistic attitude prevailed, the colonies attempted universal education, but where the Anglican communion dominated, the aristocratic ideal of education was in evidence.Three types of colonial school organization appeared: (1)laissez fairein Virginia; (2) ‘parochial’ in New Netherlands; and (3) governmental activity in Massachusetts. The South generally followed the same plan as Virginia, and New York (after the English occupation) and Rhode Island also developed on this basis. The other Middle and New England colonies followed the parochial and governmental patterns respectively.
The schools of the American colonies closely resembled those of the European countries from which the colonists came, and were influenced by the various religious conceptions of education that were current in each case. In general, where the Calvinistic attitude prevailed, the colonies attempted universal education, but where the Anglican communion dominated, the aristocratic ideal of education was in evidence.
Three types of colonial school organization appeared: (1)laissez fairein Virginia; (2) ‘parochial’ in New Netherlands; and (3) governmental activity in Massachusetts. The South generally followed the same plan as Virginia, and New York (after the English occupation) and Rhode Island also developed on this basis. The other Middle and New England colonies followed the parochial and governmental patterns respectively.
American Education a Development from European.—We have hitherto had little occasion to speak of American education, except by way of anticipating certain great waves of influence and important institutions that have come into America from Europe. But we have now reached the period when the New World began to be extensively colonized, and in the rest of our study educational practices in America will become increasingly distinctive and influential. The schools of America are the offspring of European institutions, and have their roots deep in the social soil of the lands from whichthe colonists came. While the universal, free, and secular schools of the United States are a natural accompaniment of its republican form of government, like the new democracy itself, this development of popular education was not reached at a bound. At first the American schools resembled the institutions of theThe seventeenth century a period of ‘transplantation of schools.’Mother Country as closely as the frontier life would permit. The seventeenth century was, therefore, for American education distinctly a period of ‘transplantation of schools,’ with little or no conscious change; and it is only toward the middle of the next century, as new social and political conditions were evolving and the days of the Revolution were approaching, that there are evident the gradual modification of European ideals and the differentiation of American schools toward an ideal of their own.
Conditions in Europe from Which American Education Sprang.—Hence, in order to understand American education in the colonial period, we must briefly consider the social and educational conditions in EuropeInfluence of Reformation period upon the colonists.during the early part of the seventeenth century, when the colonists began their migrations. The thirteen American colonies were started while the fierce agitations of the Reformation period were still at their height. The settlers, for the most part, were Protestants, and many of them had emigrated in order to establish institutions—political, ecclesiastical, educational—that would conform to their own ideals, and in all cases education in the New World was given a peculiar importance by the dominant religious interests and conflicts of the old. At this time in practically all the states of Europe, educational institutions were controlled and supportedby the Church and religious orders, with the assistance of private benevolence; but a few schools everywhere, and especially in Teutonic countries, were maintained by pre-Reformation craft gilds, and so had a close connection with municipalities (see p. 92). Thus the American schools at first naturally adopted the religious conception of education and religious domination, but had some acquaintance with free schools and municipal management.
In addition to these characteristics, the religious reformers,Tendency toward universal education among Calvinists, but aristocratic ideals among Anglicans.like Luther and Calvin, generally held to the idea that a system of schools should be supported, or at least established, by the state, and that all children should have an opportunity to secure an education sufficient to make them familiar with the Scriptures. If people were to be guided by the word of God, they must all be able to read it. But this view of education was not held by those for whom, as in the English Church, the Reformation was not primarily a religious and theological, but rather an ecclesiastical and political revolt. In Holland and Scotland, for example, where Calvinism prevailed, universal education was upheld by the mass of the people, but in France and England only a small minority, the Huguenots and Puritans respectively, adopted this attitude. Hence it happens that, wherever in America the influence of Puritanism, the Dutch Reformed religion, Scotch Presbyterianism, or other forms of Calvinism was felt, the nucleus of public education appeared, while in the colonies where the Anglican communion was dominant, the aristocratic idea of education prevailed and training of the masses was neglected. However, even among the Calvinists, who held thatelementary education should be universal, and that the State as well as the Church should hold itself responsible for its being furnished, the logical solution of the problem was not perceived for scores of years. In the Calvinistic colonies it was not at first believed that education should be the same in character for all or that the State should bear the expense through taxation. This distinctively American interpretation of public education did develop later, but in the beginning even the most advanced colonies to some extent placed the financial responsibility upon the parent or guardian.
Colonial School Organization: The Aristocratic Type in Virginia.—As a result of these general traditions and characteristics, there would seem to have been three chief types of school organization in the colonies. TheseThree chief types.were (1) thelaissez fairemethod, current in Virginia and the South; (2) the parochial organization of New Netherlands and the Middle Colonies in general; (3) the governmental activity in Massachusetts and most of the other New England colonies. We may profitably discuss these typical organizations in order. Turning first to the aristocratic colonies of the South, we mayIn Virginia, selective education, inherited from England.select Virginia, the oldest of these provinces, as representative of the type. That colony constituted the first attempt of England at reproducing herself in the New World, and here are found an order of society, form of government, established church, and distinction between classes, similar to those of the Mother Country. For some time there existed a sharp line of demarcation between the gentry, or landowning class, and the masses, which included the landless, indentured servants, and other dependents. In education, the colonists had broughtwith them the idea of a classical higher and secondary training for the upper classes in the semi-monastic type of university and the (Latin) grammar school (seepp. 120f.), and but little in the way of elementary education, except private ‘dame’ schools and the catechetical training by the clergy. There were, in addition, the family ‘tutorial’ education, both secondary and elementary, for the children of the wealthy, and evident attempts at perpetuating the old English industrial training through apprenticeship for orphans and children of the poor. But no such institution as a public elementaryConsequent educational legislation.school was at first known. In consequence, the educational legislation in colonial Virginia is concerned mainly with (a) the organization of a college or university, (b) individual schools of secondary grade, and (c) apprenticeship education for the poor.
During the first quarter of a century most educationalEfforts to found a collegeefforts in Virginia were in behalf of the foundation of an institution of higher learning, and were aided by the king, the Anglican bishops, and the London Company. By 1619 over £2000 and a grant of ten thousand acres of land had been obtained for a University at Henrico, but this rather indefinite plan was brought to a violent end by the Indian massacre of 1622, and the funds were diverted to a school in the Bahamas. An even more fruitless endeavor to found a college was made in 1624 by Sir Edwin Palmer upon an island in the Susquehanna. During this period also there was at least one abortive attempt to establish a school by collections and gifts, and during the second quarter century of the colonyand secondary schools.there were chartered a number of secondary schools, endowed with bequests of land, money, cows, horses,slaves, or other property. These schools, however, were local, and resembled the endowed Latin schools of England, except that they may sometimes have been obliged by circumstances to include more or less elementary instruction. In 1660 there was also a renewed attempt to establish by subscriptions a college and “free (secondary) school for the advance of learning, education of youth, supply of the ministry and promotion of piety.” But none of the efforts at founding schools could have been very successful, for, a decade later, when interrogated as to what kind of education existed in the colonies, Governor Berkeley made his famous reply: “The same course that is taken in England out of towns; every man according to his ability instructing his children.... I thank God there are no free schools, and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world.”
However, despite these biased remarks of the testy governor, by 1692 the constant efforts to obtain an institution of learning were finally rewarded. Through the management of the Reverend James Blair, D. D., the bishop’s commissary in Virginia, a charter for the College of William and Mary, a gift of £2000 and of twenty thousand acres of land, and the right to certain colonial taxes were obtained from the king, and large donations were made by the planters and additional support provided by the assembly. In fact, the college was munificently endowed for the times, and it did a great work in training the greatest scholars, statesmen, judges, military officers, and other leaders during the struggle for independence. Moreover, ‘free’ schoolsnow greatly increased in number and their courses wereApprenticeship education for the poor.much improved. But education was throughout this early period regarded as a special privilege, and the masses were mostly employed in making tobacco, and other manual pursuits. For the sons of these people the only educational legislation was that provided between 1643 and 1748 in various acts concerning the industrial training of the poor, apprentices, wards, and orphans. In keeping with English precedents, these children were taught a trade by the masters to whom they were indentured, or trained in the flax-house established by public funds at James City. Thus, by the middle of the eighteenth century a fair provision of secondary and higher education had been voluntarily made in various localities, but as yet no real interest in common schools had been shown by the responsible classes in Virginia. Education was there predominantly ‘selective’ in character.
The Parochial Schools in New Netherlands.—A second type of colonial organization of education appears in the New Netherlands, as the country between the Delaware and Connecticut rivers was called during the period of Dutch control (1621-1674). In contrast to thelaissez faireattitude of Virginia, the foundation of schools was parochial. Instead of the chance endowment of schools wherever the benefactors happened to be located, a school was founded in connection withCalvinistic conception of universal education, as in Holland.every church. This arrangement grew out of the Calvinistic conception of universal education, which formed an essential part of the social traditions in Holland during the seventeenth century. Long before the Dutch came to America, the parochial school, as a means of preservingthe Reformed faith, had become an indispensable part of church organization. But the Dutch state also had concerned itself with the facilities for education. The Reformed Dutch Church was granted the right to examine teachers, enforce subscription to the creed, and, in the case of the elementary schools at least, largely determine the appointments, but the legal support and control of education were vested in the civil authorities. Hence there early arose in New Amsterdam and the villages of New Netherlands a parochial school system and a distribution of control between Church and StateCatechism and prayers of Reformed Church, as well as elementary branches, taught.very similar to that in Holland. Besides the ordinary elementary branches, these parochial schools of the New Netherlands taught the ‘true principles of Christian religion,’ and the catechism and prayers of the Reformed Church. Thus the Dutch school differed from those in the Anglican colonies of the South, which stressed secondary education, in being chiefly elementary, although some attempt at conducting a Latin or ‘grammar’ (see p. 120) school was also made in New Amsterdam from 1652 on. However, after the English took permanent possession of New York (1674), the parochial school of the city was limited to the support of the Reformed Church, and, as a result of its long refusal to adopt the English language, its possible influence toward the realization of universal education was completelyBut, with English occupation, replaced bylaissez faireorganization.lost. While the Dutch schools of the villages generally retained the joint control and support of the local court and church, with a constantly increasing domination of the former, as a whole the English occupation of New York would seem to have set public education back about a hundred years. At any rate, by the eighteenthcentury colonial New York seems to have fallen into the samelaissez fairesupport of education that prevailed in the Southern colonies. The policy of universal education by means of parochial schools no longer existed.
Sectarian Organization of Schools in Pennsylvania.—As a colony, Pennsylvania developed a church school organization, similar to that of the New Netherlands, except that it was carried on in connection with a number of creeds, and that the municipality was seldom aMore sects and the municipality not coördinated.coördinate factor. Pennsylvania was more heterogeneous in population than New York, as the tolerant attitude of the Quaker government had attracted a large variety of German sects, Swedes, Dutch, English, Welsh, and Scotch and Irish Presbyterians, and each was devoted to its own denominational schools. Early in the eighteenth century all Protestant religious bodies were authorized by statute to conduct schools and to receive bequests and hold land for their support. Even beforeFriends,this the Friends had started the ‘Penn Charter School,’ which, while itself a secondary school, soon established elementary schools as branches throughout the city upon various arrangements. In keeping with the conclusions of various ‘Yearly Meetings’ (1722, 1746, etc.), the Friends also provided elementary, and to some extent secondary, schools in close proximity to all meeting-housesLutherans,throughout the colony. Similarly, the Lutheran congregations, for example, each set up a school alongside of the church as early as possible. Likewise theMennonites,Mennonites included in their system the famous schools of Christopher Dock, who in 1750 produced the first elaborate educational treatise in America. There was also some attempt at ‘grammar’ schools (see p. 120)and others.or secondary education, especially in the case of the well-known Moravian institutions at Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Lititz, and the Presbyterian Log College at Neshaminy, which became the cradle of Princeton, Washington and Jefferson, Hampden-Sidney, and Union Colleges.
A somewhat broader spirit was manifest in the voluntary ‘neighborhood’ schools of Western PennsylvaniaBroader attempts.and elsewhere, in the attempts at universal education of the Connecticut colonists in the Wyoming Valley, and in the ‘academy’ (see p. 159) set up at Philadelphia through Franklin, to train public men and teachers, and fuse the various nations in a common citizenship. But, as a whole, parochial schools exerted the greatest influence in the colony of Pennsylvania.
Town Schools in Massachusetts.—The third type of colonial school organization appeared first in Massachusetts. As compared with thelaissez faireand the parochial methods, governmental activity here prevailed. Accordingly, Massachusetts may be said to have inaugurated the first real system of public education in America. The character of the schools in this colony developed from its peculiar form of society and government. ItDemocratic and homogeneous society produced governmental activity.was democratic, concentrated, and homogeneous, as compared with the cosmopolitan and sectarian social structure in the Middle colonies, or the class distinctions and scattered population of the South. While there were some servants and dependents in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and a distinction was made between ‘freemen’ and others, there were at no time rival elements that were unable to combine. The settlements were not a mere confederation, but the blending of all elementsinto a single organism, where the individuality of each was merged in a new social whole. This condition was a result of the radical ingrained religious conviction that every one was a child of God, capable of becoming a vital and useful member of society, and that the community was obligated to give him training to that end in the home, the church, and the school.
Out of this Calvinistic attitude sprang a spirit of coöperation and helpfulness, a general participation of all townsmen in local government, and the Massachusetts type of school organization. Common schools seem to have been supported in most towns from the first by voluntary or compulsory subscriptions, and before the close of the first quarter of a century there had been established by the colony at large an educational system in which every citizen had a working share. Because of this inclusiveness and unity in matters theological, the schools, while religious and moral, could hardly be considered sectarian. The first educational act of the colony,Acts of 1642passed in 1642, was similar to the old English apprenticeship law in its provision for industrial education, and, while it was broadened so as to include some literary elements and a rate to procure materials was established,and 1647.no school is mentioned in it. But in 1647 each town of fifty families was required, under a penalty of £5, to maintain an elementary school (Fig. 22), and every one of a hundred families a (Latin) ‘grammar’ (Fig. 23) school. These schools might be supported in part by tuition fees, as well as by the town rate, and the obligation seems to have still rested on the parents to see that the children did ‘resort’ to the school, but the germs of the present common school system in the United Statesappear in the educational activity of the legislature in colonial Massachusetts. The ‘grammar’ schools were to prepare boys for Harvard College (Fig. 24), which had been founded in 1636.
Education in the Other Colonies.—In general, the organization of education in the remaining nine colonies can be classed under one of the three types, described above, but there are various modifications and some exceptions to be noted. Thelaissez fairefoundation of schools and colleges during the colonial period, which was evident in Virginia, seems to be characteristic of the four other colonies of the South. But the problems were in every case a little different, and in each thereCounty schools in Maryland.were variations in development. Maryland, for example, while mainly following the same random foundation of schools as Virginia, also seriously endeavored (1696) to support schools in every county by a general colonialParish schools in South Carolina.tax. South Carolina likewise made an unsuccessful attempt (1722) at establishing a county system of schools, and, a decade before, it undertook to subsidize a schoolGeorgia financed by parliament.in each parish. Georgia, on the other hand, until the Revolution, had its entire budget, including the items for education, financed by the English parliament.Democratic tendencies in North Carolina.And North Carolina, through a large number of Irish and Scotch Presbyterians, German Protestants, and other immigrants, mostly from Pennsylvania, after 1728 began to break away from the aristocratic policy.
Moreover, after the permanent occupation (1674) by the English, New York went over to thelaissez faireplan (see p. 194). And, although in the remaining ‘middle’ colonies, New Jersey and Delaware, something was accomplished by the parochial schools of theRandom organization in New York and Rhode Island.various sects, much of the school organization there waslaissez faire. Likewise, Rhode Island, dominated by a fanatical devotion to freedom in thought and speech, failed throughout colonial days to pass any general regulations on education, like those of Massachusetts, and followed more closely the random organization of schools in Virginia. But the other New England colonies, Connecticut and New Hampshire, when it separated from Massachusetts, tended to provide schools afterGovernmental activity in New England.the Massachusetts plan. The Hartford colony of Connecticut in its statutes of 1650 copied almostverbatimthe phraseology used by Massachusetts in the establishment of schools. It remains for later chapters to show how the practices suggested by this type of organization have eventually overcome those of the other two, for that did not come to pass until after the colonial period.
Fig. 22.—Town school at Dedham (Massachusetts) with watch-tower, built in 1648.
Fig. 22.—Town school at Dedham (Massachusetts) with watch-tower, built in 1648.
Fig. 23.—Boston Latin School, founded in 1635.
Fig. 23.—Boston Latin School, founded in 1635.
Fig. 24.—The buildings of Harvard College (founded 1636) erected in 1675, 1699, and 1720.
Fig. 24.—The buildings of Harvard College (founded 1636) erected in 1675, 1699, and 1720.
Graves,History of Education in Modern Times(Macmillan, 1913), chap, iv; Clews, Elsie W., affords primary source material inEducational Legislation and Administration of the Colonial Governments(Columbia University, Department of Philosophy and Psychology, No. 6). The interpretation of educational organization inColonial Schoolsused in this chapter is furnished by Monroe and Kilpatrick in the MonroeCyclopædia of Education(Macmillan, 1910-14). For conditions in the various colonies, consult Dexter, E. G.,History of Education in the United States(Macmillan, 1904), chaps. I-VI; Jackson, G. L.,The Development of School Support in Colonial Massachusetts(Columbia University, Teachers College Contributions, No. 25, 1909); Kilpatrick, W. H.,The Dutch Schools of New Netherland(Bulletin, U. S. Bureau of Education, 1912); McCrady, E.,Education in South Carolina(Collections of the Historical Society of South Carolina, vol. IV); Smith,C. L.,History of Education in North Carolina(U. S. Bureau of Education, Circular of Information, no. 2, 1894); Steiner, B. C.,History of Education in Connecticut(U. S. Bureau of Education, Circular of Information, no. 2, 1893) andHistory of Education in Maryland(U. S. Bureau of Education, Circular of Information, no. 2, 1894), chaps. I-IV; Stockwell, T. B.,History of Public Education in Rhode Island(Providence Press Co., Providence, 1876), pp. 281-404; and Wickersham, J. P.,History of Education in Pennsylvania(Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1886), chaps. I-XII.
During the eighteenth century, there appeared the climax to the revolt against absolutism.This movement was directed against repression of intellect in the first half of the century, and against repression of political rights in the second half. The former phase, through Voltaire, made reason the basis of society and education, but introduced the tyranny of an intellectual few; the latter, through Rousseau, promoted an emotionalism and ‘naturalism’ that were in keeping with the sentiments of the times.The early treatises of Rousseau advocated a complete return to nature, but his later works somewhat modified this attitude.
During the eighteenth century, there appeared the climax to the revolt against absolutism.
This movement was directed against repression of intellect in the first half of the century, and against repression of political rights in the second half. The former phase, through Voltaire, made reason the basis of society and education, but introduced the tyranny of an intellectual few; the latter, through Rousseau, promoted an emotionalism and ‘naturalism’ that were in keeping with the sentiments of the times.
The early treatises of Rousseau advocated a complete return to nature, but his later works somewhat modified this attitude.
The Revolt from Absolutism.—The ideal of universality and of state control in the education of America and other countries was greatly assisted by the climax to the general revolt against absolutism and ecclesiasticism that appeared in the eighteenth century. During this period of time most strenuous efforts were made to interpret life from a more reasonable and natural point of view and to overthrow all customs and institutions that did not square with these tests. ThisThe eighteenth century marked the climax of the rebellion against the enslavement of the individual.century marked the climax of the rebellion against authority and against the enslavement of the individual that had been manifesting itself in one form or another from the close of the Middle Ages. One revival afteranother—the Renaissance, the Reformation, realism, Puritanism, Pietism—had burst forth only to fade away or harden into a new formalism and authoritative standard. Yet with each effort something was really accomplished for freedom and progress, and the way was paved for the seemingly abrupt break from tradition that appears to mark the period roughly included in the eighteenth century. At this point despotism and ecclesiasticism were becoming thoroughly intolerable, and the individual tended more and more to assert his right to be an end in himself. At times all institutional barriers were swept aside, and in the French Revolution destruction went to an extreme. The logical consequence of these movements would have been complete social disintegration, had not the nineteenth century happily made conscious efforts to justify the eighteenth, and bring out the positions that were only implied in the negations of the latter. Thus the revolutionary tendencies and destruction of absolutism in the eighteenth century led to evolutionary movements and the construction of democracy in the nineteenth.
The Two Epochs in the Eighteenth Century.—But this revolt of the eighteenth century from absolutism in politics, religion, and thought, falls naturally into two parts. During the first half of the century the movementThe revolt against repression (1) of intellect and (2) of political rights.was directed against repression in theology and intellect, and during the second half against repression in politics and the rights of man. The former tendency appears in the rationalism and skepticism of such men as Voltaire and, the ‘encyclopedists,’ while the latter becomes evident chiefly in the emotionalism and ‘naturalism’ of Rousseau. Although these aspects of therevolutionary movement somewhat overlapped each other and had certain features in common, they should be clearly distinguished. The one prepared the way for the other by seeking to destroy existing abuses, especially of the Church, by the application of reason, but it gave no ear to the claims of the masses, and sought merely to replace the traditionalism of the clergy and monarch with the tyranny of an intellectual few. In distinction to this rule of ‘reason,’ ‘naturalism’ declared that the intellect could not always be trusted as the proper monitor, but that conduct could better be guided by the emotions as the true expression of nature. It opposed the control of intellectual aristocracy and demanded rights for the common man.
Voltaire and the Encyclopedists.—The rationalistic and scientific tendency was chiefly developed by Diderot, Voltaire, Condillac, D’Alembert, and others interested in the production of the FrenchEncyclopédie. Of all these ‘encyclopedists’ the most keen and brilliant was Voltaire (1694-1778), who may well serve as the type of the whole movement. With matchless wit and literary skill, in a remarkable range of poems, epistles, epigrams,Championed reason against traditions,and other writings, he championed reason against the traditional institutions of State and Church. His chief object of attack was the powerful Roman Catholic Church, which seemed to him to stand seriously in the way of all liberty, individuality, and progress, and the slogan with which he often closed his letters was,—“crush the infamous thing.” The Protestant beliefs he likewise condemned as hysterical and irrational. While an exile in England, as the result of a quarrel with a member of the nobility, he became acquainted with the workof Newton, Harvey, Bacon, Locke, and others (see pp. 164f.),and undertook to transplant English scientific movement.and undertook to transplant the English scientific movement to France, and make it the basis of a new régime in society, religion, and education.
The other rationalistic writers had similar doctrines and purposes, and, although details of their ideas are hardly worthy of consideration here, most of them produced treatises upon education. In these they freely criticised the traditional school systems, and proposedNew theories of education.new theories of organization, content, and method, which must later have assisted to demolish the existing theory and practice in France. Thus rationalism sought to destroy despotism and superstition, and to establish in their place freedom in action, social justice, and religious toleration. But in casting away the old, it swung to the opposite extreme and often degenerated into skepticism, anarchy, and license. In their fight againstDegenerated into skepticism and license.despotic ecclesiasticism, the rationalists often failed to distinguish it from Christianity, and they opposed the Church because it was irrational rather than because it was not sincere. They felt that it might have a mission with the masses who were too dull and uneducated to be able to reason. So while rationalism wielded a mighty weapon against the fettering of the human intellect, it cared little about improving the condition of the lower classes, who were sunk in poverty and ignorance, and were universally oppressed.
Rousseau and His Times.—In opposition to this intellectualistic and rationalistic attitude, Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) developed his emotionalism and ‘naturalism.’ The social and educational positions of this reformer find a ready explanation in his antecedentsand career. From his father he inherited a mercurial temperament, love of pleasure, and irresponsibility, and from his mother a morbid and emotional disposition.Sentimentalism and want of control.His tendency toward sentimentalism, idleness, and want of control was also strengthened by the indulgent aunt that brought him up, and by low companions during his trade apprenticeships in the city of Geneva. At sixteen he ran away from the city, and spent several years inLove of nature.vagrancy, menial service, and dissoluteness. A love of nature was impressed upon him by the wonderful scenery of the country in which he spent his boyhood and hisSympathy with poor.years of wandering. He also learned to sympathize with the poor and oppressed, whose condition was at thisSporadic education.time forced upon his attention. He received some sporadic instruction, but his education was inaccurate and unsystematic.
Blended well with inchoate sentiments of the period.
At twenty-nine Rousseau settled down in Paris, but his days of vagabondage had left an ineffaceable stamp upon him. His sensitiveness, impulsiveness, love of nature, and sympathy for the poor were ever afterward in evidence. These characteristics blended well with a body of inchoate sentiments and vague longings of this period. It was the day of Louis XV and royal absolutism, when affairs in the kingdom were controlled by a small clique of idle and extravagant courtiers. A most artificial system of conduct had grown up in society. Under this veneer the degraded peasants were ground down by taxation and forced to minister to the pleasure of a vicious leisure class. But against this oppression there had gradually arisen an undefined spirit of protest and a desire to return to the original beneficent state of nature from which it was felt that man had departed. Henceit happened that Rousseau, emotional, uncontrolled, and half-trained, was destined to bring into consciousness and give voice to the revolutionary and naturalistic ideas and tendencies of the century.
Rousseau’s Works.—In 1750 he first crystallized this spirit of the age and resultant of his own experience in aHis discourses,discourse onThe Progress of the Arts and Sciences. In this he declared with much fervor and conviction, though rather illogically, that the existing oppression and corruption of society were due to the advancement of civilization. Three years later he wrote his discourse onThe Origin of Inequality among Men. Here again he held that the physical and intellectual inequalities of nature which existed in primitive society were scarcely noticeable, but that, with the growth of civilization, most oppressive distinctions arose. This point of view in a somewhat modified form he continued in his remarkableNew Heloise,romance,The New Heloise, published in 1759, and three years afterward in his influential essay on political ethics,Social Contract,known as theSocial Contract, and in that most revolutionaryandEmile.treatise on education, theEmile. TheNew Heloisecommends as much of primitive conditions as the crystallized institutions of society will permit. In theSocial Contract, Rousseau also finds the ideal state, not in that of nature, but in a society managed by the people, where simplicity and natural wants control, and aristocracy and artificiality do not exist. But the work that has made the name of Rousseau famous is theEmile. This, while an outgrowth of his naturalism, assumes the modified position of the later works, and undertakes to show how education might minimize the drawbacks of civilization and bring man as near to natureas possible. But the educational influence of theEmilehas been so far-reaching that we must turn to another chapter to study the positions of Rousseau and the effects of naturalism in education.
Graves,During the Transition(Macmillan, 1910), pp. 311-313;History of Education in Modern Times(Macmillan, 1913), pp. 1-10; andGreat Educators(Macmillan, 1912), pp. 77-85; Monroe,Text-book(Macmillan, 1905), pp. 533-542. See also Boyd, W.,The Educational Theory of Rousseau(Longmans, Green, 1911); Morley, J.,VoltaireandRousseau(Macmillan).
Rousseau attempts in theEmileto outline a natural education from birth to manhood. The first book takes Emile from birth to five years of age, and deals with the training of physical activities; the second, from five to twelve, treats of body and sense training; the third, from twelve to fifteen, is concerned with intellectual education in the natural sciences; the fourth, from fifteen to twenty, outlines his social and moral development; and the fifth describes the parasitic training of the girl he is to marry.TheEmileis often inconsistent, but brilliant and suggestive; and, while anti-social, the times demanded such a radical presentation. Through it Rousseau became the progenitor of the social, scientific, and psychological movements in education.The first attempt to put the naturalism of Rousseau into actual practice was made by Basedow. He suggested that education should be practical in content and playful in method, and he produced texts on his system, and started a school known as the ‘Philanthropinum.’ He planned a broad course, and taught languages through conversation, games, and drawing, and other subjects by natural methods. The Philanthropinum was at first successful, and this type of school grew rapidly, but it soon became a fad.
Rousseau attempts in theEmileto outline a natural education from birth to manhood. The first book takes Emile from birth to five years of age, and deals with the training of physical activities; the second, from five to twelve, treats of body and sense training; the third, from twelve to fifteen, is concerned with intellectual education in the natural sciences; the fourth, from fifteen to twenty, outlines his social and moral development; and the fifth describes the parasitic training of the girl he is to marry.
TheEmileis often inconsistent, but brilliant and suggestive; and, while anti-social, the times demanded such a radical presentation. Through it Rousseau became the progenitor of the social, scientific, and psychological movements in education.
The first attempt to put the naturalism of Rousseau into actual practice was made by Basedow. He suggested that education should be practical in content and playful in method, and he produced texts on his system, and started a school known as the ‘Philanthropinum.’ He planned a broad course, and taught languages through conversation, games, and drawing, and other subjects by natural methods. The Philanthropinum was at first successful, and this type of school grew rapidly, but it soon became a fad.
TheEmileforced educational thinking.
The Influence of Rousseau’s Naturalism.—The influence of Rousseau’sEmileupon education in all its aspects has been tremendous. It is shown by the library of books since written to contradict, correct, or disseminate his doctrines. During the quarter of a century followingthe publication of theEmile, probably more than twice as many books upon education were published as in the preceding three-quarters of a century. This epoch-making work forced a rich harvest of educational thinking for a century after its appearance, and has affected our ideas upon education from that day to this.
Naturalistic Basis of theEmile.—In theEmileRousseau aims to replace the conventional and formal education of the day with a training that should be natural and spontaneous. Under the existingrégimeit was customary for boys and girls to be dressed like men and women of fashion (Fig. 25), and for education to be largely one of deportment and the dancing master. On the intellectual side, education was largely traditional andThe substitution of a natural education for the conventional type in vogue.consisted chiefly of a training in Latin grammar, words, andmemoriterwork. Rousseau scathingly criticises these practices, and applies his naturalistic principles to an imaginary pupil named Emile “from the moment of his birth up to the time when, having become a mature man, he will no longer need any other guide than himself.” He begins the work with a restatement of his basal principle that “everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Author of Nature; but everything degenerates in the hands of man.” After elaborating this, he shows that we are educated by “three kinds of teachers—nature, man, and things, and since the coöperation of the three educations is necessary for their perfection, it is to the one over which we have no control (i e., nature) that we must direct the other two.” Education must, therefore, conform to nature.
The Five Books of theEmile.—Now the natural objects, through which Emile is to be educated, remain theEmile’s impulses examined and trained at different periods:same, but Emile himself changes from time to time. In so far, therefore, as he is to be the guide of how he is to be educated in a natural environment, his impulses must be examined at different times in his life. Hence the work is divided into five parts, four of which deal with Emile’s education in the stages of infancy, childhood, boyhood, and youth respectively, and the fifth with the training of the girl who is to become his wife. The characteristics of the different periods in the life of Emile are marked by the different kinds of things he desires.
In infancy, physical activities.
In the first book, which takes him from birth to five years of age, his main desire is for physical activities, and he should, therefore, be placed under simple, free, and healthful conditions, which will enable him to make the most of these. He must be removed to the country, where he will be close to nature, and farthest from the contaminating influence of civilization. His growth and training must be as spontaneous as possible. He must have nothing to do with either medicine or doctors, “unless his life is in evident danger; for then they can do nothing worse than kill him.” His natural movements must not be restrained by caps, bands, or swaddling clothes, and he should be nursed by his own mother. He should likewise be used to baths of all sorts of temperature. In fact, the child should not be forced into any fixed ways whatsoever, since with Rousseau, habit is necessarily something contrary to impulse and so unnatural. “The only habit,” says he, “which the child should be allowed to form is to contract no habit whatsoever.” His playthings should be such simple products of nature as “branches with their fruits and flowers, or apoppy-head in which the seeds are heard to rattle.” Language that is simple, plain, and hence natural, should be used with him, and he should not be hurried beyond nature in learning to talk. He should be restricted to a few words that express real thoughts for him.
The education of Emile during infancy is thus to be ‘negative’ and purely physical. The aim is simply to keep his instincts and impulses, which Rousseau holds to be good by nature, free from vice, and to afford him the natural activity he craves. Next, in the period ofIn childhood, limb and sense development,childhood, between the years of five and twelve, which is treated in the second book, Emile desires most to exercise his legs and arms, and to touch, to see, and in other ways to sense things. This, therefore, is the time for training his limbs and senses. “As all that enters the human understanding comes there through the senses, the first reason of man is a sensuous reason. Our first teachers of philosophy are our feet, our hands, and our eyes.... In order to learn to think, we must then exercise our limbs, our senses, and our organs, which are the instruments of our intelligence.” To obtain this training, Emile is to wear short, loose, and scanty clothing, go bareheaded, and have the body inured to cold and heat, and be generally subjected to a ‘hardening process’ similar to that recommended by Locke (see p. 181). He is to learn to swim, and practice long and high jumps, leaping walls, and scaling rocks. But, what is more important, his eyes and ears are also to be exercised through natural problems in weighing, measuring, and estimating masses, heights, and distances. Drawing and constructive geometry are to be taught him, to render him more capable of observingaccurately. His ear is to be rendered sensitive to harmony by learning to sing.
This body and sense training should be the nearest approach to an intellectual training at this period. Rousseau condemns the usual unnatural practice of requiring pupils to learn so much before they have reached the proper years. In keeping with his ‘negative’ education, he asks rhetorically: “Shall I venture to state at this point the most important, the most useful, rule of all education? It is not to gain time, but to loseno geography, history, or reading,it.” During his childhood Emile is not to study geography, history, or languages, upon which pedagogues ordinarily depend to exhibit the attainments of their pupils, although these understand nothing of what they have memorized. “At the age of twelve, Emile will hardly know what a book is. But I shall be told it is very necessary that he know how to read. This I grant. It is necessary that he know how to read when reading is useful to him. Until then, it serves only to annoy him.”
Incidentally, however, in order to make Emile tolerable in society, for he cannot entirely escape it, he mustthough moral training through ‘natural consequences.’be given the idea of property and some ideas about conduct. But this is simply because of practical necessity, and no moral education is to be given as such, for, “until he reaches the age of reason, he can form no idea of moral beings or social relations.” He is to learn through ‘natural consequences’ until he arrives at the age for understanding moral precepts. If he breaks the furniture or the windows, let him suffer the consequences that arise from his act. Do not preach to him or punish him for lying, but afterward affect not to believe him even whenhe has spoken the truth. If he carelessly digs up the sprouting melons of the gardener, in order to plant beans for himself, let the gardener in turn uproot the beans, and thus cause him to learn the sacredness of property. As far as this moral training is given, then, it is to be indirect and incidental.