Edinburgh, County of, orMidlothian, is bounded north by the Firth of Forth, along which it extends 11 or 12 miles; and by the counties of Linlithgow, Haddington, Berwick, Lanark, Peebles, Selkirk, and Roxburgh; area, 234,926 acres, over half of which is arable or under permanent pasture. The south-south-east and south-west parts of the county are diversified with hills, of which the two principal ranges are the Pentlands and Moorfoots, the former stretching across the county to within 4 miles of Edinburgh. The principal rivers are the North and South Esks and the Water of Leith, all running into the Forth. The lowlands towards the Forth are the most fertile; the farms are of considerable size, and the most approved methods of agriculture are in use. The hilly parts are chiefly under pasturage and dairy farming. The chief crops are oats, barley, turnips, and potatoes. The manufactures are comparatively limited, but include ale, whisky, gunpowder, paper, and tiles. The fisheries are valuable. The chief towns are: Edinburgh, Dalkeith, and Musselburgh. Midlothian and Peebles return two members to Parliament. Pop. 506,378.
Edinburgh, Duke of, H.R.H. Prince Alfred Ernest Albert,K.G.,K.T.,K.P., &c., Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the second son of Queen Victoria, was born at Windsor Castle, 6th Aug., 1844, died in 1900. At the age of fourteen he joined the navy as naval cadet, and served on various foreign stations. In 1862 he declined the offer of the throne of Greece. On his majority he received £15,000 a year from Parliament, and was created Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Kent, and Earl of Ulster. In 1867 he was appointed to the command of the frigateGalatea, in which he visited Australia, Japan, China, and India. In 1873 he received an additional annuity of £10,000, and next year he married the Grand-Duchess Marie, only daughter of the Emperor of Russia. In 1882 he was made a vice-admiral, and subsequently held important commands. In 1898 he succeeded his uncle as ruler of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and resigned £15,000 of his annuity and his other privileges as an English prince, but retained his rank of admiral. He had one son (who predeceased him) and four daughters. He was succeeded as Duke of Saxe-Coburg by his nephew, Leopold Charles, Duke of Albany.
Edinburgh Review, The, a quarterly review established in 1802. It had an immediate and striking success, the brilliancy and vigour of its articles being much above the standard of the periodical literature of that time. In politics it was Whig, and did good service to the party. TheReviewwas founded by a knot of young men living in Edinburgh, the more prominent of whom were Brougham, Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, and Francis Horner. It was edited from 1803 to 1829 by Jeffrey, under whom it was very successful. In reply to his criticisms Byron wrote hisEnglish Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Among the famous contributors to theReviewwere Lord Macaulay, Lord John Russell, and John Stuart Mill.
Edinburgh University, the latest of the Scottish universities, was founded in 1582 by a charter granted by James VI. The number of professors and other teachers is now over 240. The university is a corporation consisting of a chancellor, rector, principal, professors, registered graduates and alumni, and matriculated students. Its government is administered by the University Court, the Senatus Academicus, and the General Council, as in the other Scottish universities, in all of which new ordinances have been introduced under the Universities (Scotland) Act of 1889. The University Court, which is the supreme governing body of the university,consists of the rector, who is president, the principal, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, and eleven assessors. The Senatus superintends the teaching and discipline of the university, and consists of the principal and professors. The General Council consists of the chancellor, who is president, the members of the University Court and Senatus, and the graduates of the university. It takes cognizance of matters generally affecting the well-being of the university. The chancellor is the official head of the university, and it is through him or his deputy, the vice-chancellor, that degrees are conferred. He is elected for life by the General Council. The principal is the resident head of the university and president of the Senatus, and is appointed for life (at Edinburgh by a body called the 'Curators', elsewhere by the Crown). The lord rector is elected for three years by the matriculated students. There are six faculties in the university, viz. arts, science, divinity, law, medicine, and music. Some of the professors are appointed by the Crown, others by special electors, and a considerable number by the curators, who represent the university court and the town council. The number of students in 1919-20 was over 4300. Candidates for degrees in the different faculties must now pass an entrance examination before attendance upon classes. Women are admitted to all courses and degrees, equally with men, except in the faculty of divinity. Those desirous of taking the degree of Master of Arts (M.A.) must attend classes and pass examinations in at least seven subjects, selected from four departments, viz. language and literature, mental philosophy, science, history and law, the course of study extending over three academic years at least. There is a considerable restriction in choice of subjects, since four of them must be (a) Latin or Greek; (b) English or a Modern Language; (c) Logic or Moral Philosophy; (d) Mathematics or Natural Philosophy; and the whole subjects must include both of (a) or both of (c), or two out of the three—mathematics, natural philosophy, and chemistry. Four medical degrees are conferred: Bachelor of Medicine (M.B.), Bachelor of Surgery (Ch.B.), Master of Surgery (Ch.M.), and Doctor of Medicine (M.D.). Before any of these degrees can be obtained the candidate must have been engaged in medical study for at least five years. The degrees in law are Bachelor of the Law (B.L.), Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.), and Doctor of Laws (LL.D.), the last being purely honorary. In divinity the degrees are Bachelor and Doctor of Divinity (B.D. and D.D.), the latter being honorary. In science the degrees are likewise Bachelor and Doctor (B.Sc. and D.Sc.), both conferred in the three departments of pure science, engineering, and public health. There is also a B.Sc. in agriculture. The degree of Doctor of Philosophy (D.Phil.) is conferred for proficiency in mental science, and that of Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) for proficiency in literary, philological, and linguistic studies. The degrees of Bachelor and Doctor of Music (Mus.B. and Mus.D.) are also conferred. There is a joint board of examiners for the four Scottish universities, having the control and supervision of the preliminary examinations. The university has splendid laboratories and museums. The foundation stone of a new science laboratory was laid by King George on 6th July, 1920. The library contains 200,000 volumes. There are bursaries, scholarships, and fellowships, amounting annually to about £12,500. Since 1918 the University of Edinburgh unites with the other Scottish universities in returning three members to Parliament. The constituency consists of the General Council.—Bibliography: J. Kerr,Scottish Education, School and University, from Early Times to 1908;University Calendar; Sir Alex. Grant,The Story of the University of Edinburgh from Early Times to 1908.
Ed´ison, Thomas Alva, an American inventor, born in Ohio in 1847. He was poorly educated, became a newsboy on the Grand Trunk Railway, and afterwards, having obtained some type, issued a small sheet of his own known as theGrand Trunk Herald, printing it in a freight car. He then set himself to learn telegraph work, and in a short time became an expert operator. In 1863, while at Indianopolis, he invented an automatic telegraph repeater. This was the first of a long series of improvements and inventions. He opened an extensive establishment at Newark for the manufacture of electrical, printing, automatic, and other apparatus. In 1876, his health breaking down, he gave up manufacturing and devoted himself to investigation and invention. Amongst his numerous inventions are the quadruplex and sextuplex telegraph, the carbon telephone transmitter, the 'Edison system' of lighting, the electric fire-alarm, the 'Edison electric railway', the phonograph, and the megaphone. His improvements in the cinematograph made it practicable, though he did not originate the idea of it.
Ed´monton, an urban district and parliamentary borough in England, county of Middlesex, 7½ miles north of London, with an extensive trade in timber, carried on by the Lea River navigation. The 'Bell at Edmonton' has become famous by association with the adventures of Cowper'sJohn Gilpin. The borough returns one member to Parliament. Pop. 64,820.
Edmonton, a town of North-Western Canada, on the North Saskatchewan (here navigable). Since 1905 it is the capital of the province of Alberta, and has grown considerably in recent years. It is an important station on the Canadian Pacific, Grand Trunk Pacific, and CanadianNorthern railway systems, and is the distributing centre of an immense area, being also the centre of an excellent farming district. Easily-mined coal is worked here. Pop, 61,000.
Ed´mund, St., King of the East Angles, began to reign in 855, died in 870. He was revered by his subjects for his justice and piety. In 870 his kingdom was invaded, and he himself slain, by the Danes. The Church made him a martyr, and a town (Bury St. Edmunds) grew up round the place where he was buried.
Edmund I, King of England, an able and spirited prince, succeeded his brother Athelstan in 940. He conquered Cumbria, which he bestowed on Malcolm, King of Scotland, on condition of doing homage for it to himself. He was slain at a banquet 26th May, 946.
Edmund II, surnamedIronside, King of England, the eldest son of Ethelred II, was born in 989. He was chosen king in 1016, Canute having been already elected king by another party. He won several victories over Canute, but was defeated at Assandun in Essex, and forced to surrender the midland and northern counties to Canute. He died after a reign of only seven months.
Edom, in the New TestamentIdumæa, in ancient times a country lying to the south of Palestine. The Edomites are said inGenesisto be the descendants of Esau, who was also called Edom (a word signifying 'red'), and who dwelt in Mount Seir, the mountain range now calledJebel Shera, stretching between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Akabah. Edom is frequently mentioned in the Assyrian inscriptions. The Edomites were subdued by King David, and after the separation of the ten tribes remained subject to the Kingdom of Judah until the reign of Jehoram, when they revolted and secured their independence for a time. They were again subdued about half a century later by Amaziah, and again, in the reign of Ahaz, recovered their independence, which they maintained till the time of the invasion of Judea by Nebuchadnezzar. They fell under the rule of the Persians, and afterwards their fortunes were merged in those of Arabia. The chief city in this region was Petra, which now presents remarkable ruins, as well as several rock-cut temples.
Edred, King of England, son of Edward the Elder, succeeded to the throne on the murder of his brother, Edmund I, in May, 946. He quelled a rebellion of the Northumbrian Danes, and died in 955.
EdriophthalmataEdriophthalmata1, Fresh-water shrimp (Gammarus pulex).a, Single eye. 2, Head of Cymothoa.b, Clusters of simple eyes.
1, Fresh-water shrimp (Gammarus pulex).a, Single eye. 2, Head of Cymothoa.b, Clusters of simple eyes.
Edriophthal´mata, one of the great divisions of the Crustacea, including all those genera which have their eyes sessile, or embedded in the head, and not fixed on a peduncle or stalk as in the crabs, lobsters, &c. It is divided into two orders. (1) Amphipoda, laterally flattened, as in the marine sandhopper (Talitrus), and the fresh-water shrimp (Gammarus). (2) Isopoda, flattened from above downwards. Sea-slaters or wood-lice (Ligia and Idothea); fish parasites (Cymothoa); fresh-water wood-lice (Asellus); land wood-lice (Oniscus, Porcellio, Armadillidium, which can roll up).
Edri´si, Abu-Abdallah Mohammed, a famous Arabian geographer, a descendant of the ancient princely family of the Edrisites, born aboutA.D.1100, died about 1180. He studied at the Moorish university of Cordova, after which he travelled through various countries. At the request of King Roger II of Sicily he constructed a globe with a map of the earth, which represented all the geographical knowledge of the age. He accompanied this with a descriptive treatise completed about 1154, and still extant. The work was published at Rome in Arabic (1592), and in 1619 a Latin translation of it, under the title ofGeographia Nubiensis, appeared in Paris.
Educationis the name applied to the systematic instruction given by each succeeding generation to the young of the race to fit them for the work of life. The word itself is derived from the Latin verbeducare, which means to rear, to nourish, to bring up, and also to educate. Long before the dawn of civilization men saw that the young had to be prepared for the battle of life; had to learn how to make and how to use the offensive and defensive weapons employed against their enemies; how to form or build shelters to protect themselves against the weather and against their foes; how to make traps or snares for the wild things on which they fed; how, in fact, to use their powers of mind and body in such a way as to secure for themselves the fullest and most satisfactory life possible under the circumstances in which they found themselves.
While education thus understood would be the story of man on the earth, an account of his more or less satisfactory, but always continuous, efforts to perfect the relations between his desires and his environment, it would have to embrace also an account of the conflict between the demands of communities and the rights of individuals. Education, however, as weunderstand it, is more limited in its scope. It is the instrument employed by the State for the training of its citizens.
The Greeks were the first Europeans to treat education as a science. The results they obtained were good, and have to a certain extent determined the course taken by European education ever since. Plato defined the aim of the education of which he gives us an account in theRepublic, to be the "development in the body and in the soul of all the perfection which it is possible for them to attain". This was the Greek ideal of what education should aim at; a high ideal indeed; but one that omits an element of immense importance which we find introduced in Milton's definition of the 'end of learning', that is, the aim of education. Milton boldly declares this to be: "To repair the ruin of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love Him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith makes up the highest perfection". Perfection is the end sought in both cases, and which seems the nobler it is unnecessary to say. This impression is deepened when he proceeds to declare that as "Our understanding cannot ... arrive so clearly to the knowledge of God and things invisible, as by orderly conning over the visible and inferior creatures, the same method is necessarily to be followed in all discreet teaching".
By Aristotle the order of education was: first, education of the body, the just and proportionate development of its powers. The instrument employed for this purpose was gymnastics; not the gymnastics employed in training professional athletes, but more moderate exercises; for, as the philosopher insists, too strenuous bodily exertion is apt to spoil the child, because body and mind must not be hard worked at the same time. Music, according to him, had various aims: education proper, the training of the affections, and the occupation of leisure. Drawing was taught as a branch of music for the purpose of developing the child's sense of beauty, mathematics were taught to cultivate his intellect, and dialectic (logic and philosophy) to prepare the pupil for a scientific training.
To the idealistic philosopher Plato, the whole life of man, at least the whole of what we may call the active life, was educative. Education was State-controlled, and at the end of the first six years, spent by the child in the seclusion of family life, the State took charge. The aim of the education proposed by Plato was to develop in the child the cardinal virtues—honour to parents, love of fellow-citizens, courage, truthfulness, and self-control. From the seventh to the tenth year the training was mainly in gymnastics; from the tenth to the thirteenth the child learned to read and to write; from the thirteenth to the sixteenth his affections and his sense of the beautiful were cultivated through learning poetry and studying music; from the seventeenth to the twentieth year he applied himself mainly to athletics, so that he might be qualified to take his share in the defence of the State. At twenty men were called upon to choose their occupation; to turn their minds to the study of the sciences; and to shape by practical military and other services to the State that character which it was the aim of education to form. From thirty to thirty-five Plato supposes the citizens of his ideal republic to devote themselves to the study ofDialectics, the method of purely intellectual knowledge, by which reason, using hypothesis, arrives at the first principles of things. From thirty-five to fifty the life of the citizen was to be given up to public service, that is, to the promotion in the position for which he was best fitted of the general well-being.
The training set forth by the Greek philosophers was the training thought necessary to fit a man to be a ruler. As the Greek city states were slave states, and most of the manual work was performed by slaves, that necessary part of the training of the youth of the community is ignored. This fact has had, undoubtedly, an enormous influence on the ideas of education put forward since. The preliminary training demanded by the Greeks included, besides gymnastics, grammar and music. At a later time these were understood to include the seven arts: Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialectic (Trivium), and Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, and Astronomy (Quadrivium). To the Greeks, myths were the instruments of the earliest education, the aim of which was the development of a character in the citizen which would lead him to give his best and most loyal services to the State.
The aim of Greek education was the formation of the philosophic thinker, the man fitted by nature and training to guide and direct the energies of the man of action. Roman education, on the other hand, directed its efforts mainly to the moulding of the man of action himself. The Romans adopted the form rather than the spirit of Greek education. The aim of Roman education was to make a man who could do things; a practical man, a man full of energy, who was ever ready to sacrifice himself in the interests of the State; a man who knew the laws and who regulated his conduct by them; who reverenced his father and his country's gods; and found his chief pleasure in the complete overthrow and utter destruction of his country's foes. He could discourse eloquently and not unphilosophically; and he spared neither himselfnor others in his effort to maintain the freedom of his country, and to bring destruction on the enemies of Rome. Roman education began in the home, and during the earlier years was largely directed by the mother. Later the preparation of the boy for life was taken over by the father; but it is probable that, from very early times many, if not most, Romans boys were sent to school, where, under themagister literarius(elementary teacher), thegrammaticus(advanced teacher), and therhetor(professor), they acquired the knowledge and accomplishments it was needful for them to obtain.
The Roman schools, elementary and secondary, seem to have been conducted in a verandah, and boys and girls seem to have been taught in the same school. The chief Roman writers on education are Cicero, Seneca, and Quintilian. Quintilian tells us that Cato also wrote a treatise on the subject, but that that work had been lost. The oratorical training of which Quintilian was the expositor seems to have been largely out of connection with real life; and, though he claims that the orator must be a widely cultured, wise, and honourable man, seems to have developed a tendency to the bombastic abuse of ornate and stilted speech. The practical effects, too, of the corruption of family education were far from satisfactory. Moral degradation followed, and humanity seems to have been rescued only by the introduction of a new ideal of life, which substituted for the pagan self-reliance, self-control, moderation, and proportion, self-denial, self-forgetfulness, and humility; which made the last, indeed, the chief virtue, and looked on pride and self-confidence as spiritual sins.
The introduction of Christianity was followed by the inroads into the Roman Empire of barbarous tribes from the north and east. Before these attacks the Western Roman Empire collapsed, and with it to a greater or less extent the educational system of the time.
It must be remembered that between three and four hundred years elapsed between the downfall of the Western Roman Empire and the beginnings of the Holy Roman Empire under Charlemagne. Classical or pagan culture, as profane learning, was at a discount, and the aim of the monasticism which grew out of the introduction of Christianity was mystic absorption in the contemplation of God.
This interval was followed by the efforts of Charlemagne to revive Roman culture, and to establish schools throughout Western Europe. In this he was aided by Alcuin and other scholars from England, where in the comparative quiet that followed the conquest of Britain there had grown up a system of education. Throughout his dominions three classes of schools were established by Charlemagne, the Palace School, the Bishop's School, and the Monastery School. These were intended to take the place of the splendid system of public schools that had grown up under the Roman Empire. The course of studies established in these mediæval schools, following the practice of Greece and Rome, was divided into two parts: theTrivium, including Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric; and theQuadrivium, which embraced Geometry, Arithmetic, Music, and Astronomy. Education in the palace or castle schools had a different aim. It sought to develop the bodily powers, and to awake in the pupils that respect for the weak which was shown in the worship of women, and that love of justice, and belief in its supremacy, which characterized thechivalryof the Middle Ages.
The scholastic education of this time laid special stress on formal logic and metaphysics. Latin was taught, was, indeed, the universal language of the period. Questions about the nature of the unseen and the spiritual occupied much of men's minds; while their time was taken up in discussing the character of universals, the true realities which lay behind the individual manifestations of experience. As a rule, the physical world was ignored, and human intelligence disregarded; but there were notable exceptions, among which the teachings of Bishop Grosseteste (died 1253) and of Roger Bacon (1214 to 1294) take a prominent place.
It was during the period of scholasticism that universities, in imitation of the trade guilds of the time, sprung up in different parts of Europe, particularly in Spain, Italy, France, and England. To the famous schools both in England and on the Continent scholars flocked from all parts, and their instruction presented little difficulty, as Latin, the language in which the instruction was given, was the common language of scholars in Western Europe. The establishment of universities in different countries was a sign rather than a cause or result of that intellectual and spiritual awakening which, after nearly a thousand years of almost complete stagnation, manifested itself among the peoples of Europe.
It is usual to date the Renaissance from 1453, the fall of Constantinople; but it must not be forgotten that owing to the clash between East and West, the struggle between Christianity and Mohammedanism (the Crusades, as these religious wars were called), there had from the end of the eleventh century been a considerable change of outlook among the nations of Western Europe. This was specially the case in Italy, where city states, not unlike those of Greece in their character, had sprung up, and where, as in Greece in the time of Pericles, there had been the great outburst of literary activity which is associated with the names of Boccaccio, Dante, andPetrarch. In Northern and Western Europe the intelligence stimulated by the new learning was directed towards the improvement of the method of study. All study was linguistic. Latin was the instrument of common intercourse; Greek and Hebrew were sacred as the tongues in which the Scriptures had been conveyed; it was no wonder, therefore, that the humanistic education was almost entirely confined to the study of languages. Sturm (1507 to 1589) drew up a scheme of studies which had long a great influence on the school courses of instruction throughout Europe.
The reaction against authority which marked the Reformation period was specially noted for the reaction against the purely verbal education given to the young, whose education, as we learn from Locke, was calculated to teach them "not to believe, but to dispute", and to fit them "for the university, not for the world". On the Continent Rabelais (1483 to 1533) led this realistic movement, which was continued by Montaigne (1533 to 1592) in France, and under the influence of Bacon by Brinsley and Hoole in England, and Ratke and Comenius on the Continent. Up to this time the chief English writers on the subject of education had been Sir Thomas Elyot in hisGovernour, Roger Ascham in hisScholemaster, and Richard Mulcaster in hisPositions.
The intellectual activity which marked in England the closing decades of the sixteenth and the first part of the seventeenth century saw the issue of Milton'sTractate, one of the most famous books on education ever produced. TheTractatediscusses only the kind of education that should be given to gentlemen's sons between the ages of twelve and twenty-one, so that it is strictly limited in its application, as it does not deal with the education of the people, nor with the education of women. The ideal which Milton put before him as the aim of "a complete and generous education" was "to fit a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices both private and public of peace and war". Milton in hisTractatediscusses studies, exercise, and diet, showing that he clearly understood that education was concerned with the body as well as the mind and spirit.
Towards the close of the seventeenth century Locke, an English physician and philosopher, published (1693) hisThoughts concerning Education, a book which influenced immensely the character and direction of future educational studies. As he informs his readers in his letter to Edward Clarke, he counsels everyone "after having well examined and distinguished what fancy, custom, or reason advises in the case ... to promote everywhere that way of training up youth ... which is the easiest, shortest, and likeliest to produce virtuous, useful, and able men in their distinct callings". He begins his essay with the statement, "A sound mind in a sound body is a short but full description of a happy state in this world", and the suggestions he makes as to the physical, moral, and intellectual training of the young are for the most part sound. He decried a too severe discipline, maintaining that "If the mind be curbed and humbled too much in children, ... they lose all their vigour and industry". On the other hand, he held that if you "Remove hope and fear, there is an end of all discipline"; and he held that, as far as possible, "Childish actions are to be left perfectly free and unrestrained". He applied the science of psychology to the study of child nature, and of the methods to be employed in training it; and so prepared the way for the modern methods of education. "Interest is the secret of Herbart", according to one of his devoted admirers. Locke seems to have anticipated this when he declares that "None of the things they are to learn should ever be made a burden to them, or imposed on them as a task".
Though his attitude towards the universe was utterly opposed to the attitude of Locke, Rousseau drew almost all that was practical in his scheme for the education of the young from the English writer. Rousseau's work, though largely inspired by Locke, was essentially of a revolutionary kind. It held that man is the great corrupter; that "Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Creator; and that man's handling makes everything worse". In effect he said, leave the child as much as possible alone. An attempt constantly to direct him can only result in stupefying him. It is true we receive our education from nature, from men, and from things; but nature must be our guide in determining the use of the other two. As few restraints as possible must be imposed on the child, and the use of books should be prohibited. For the child there should be "no other book but the world", and "no other instruction but facts". The child's education he divides into four stages, infancy, childhood, boyhood, and youth. The first two stages last till the beginning of the thirteenth year, when the boy is supposed to be fit for instruction. From such instruction the teaching of words must disappear, and the teaching of things must take its place. The subjects most suitable for instruction were, Rousseau declared, measuring, drawing, geometry, speaking, and singing. Books, he declares, are useless, are, indeed, altogether harmful. The method he advocates is the method of self-teaching and the use of the senses, which Rousseau held would work to the profit of the intelligence. The child's knowledge should reston his own observation, and not on belief in authority, and each child should be taught a manual trade.
At fifteen, according to Rousseau, real education begins; and it is the duty of the teacher to study the subject he has to act upon, in other words, to discover the nature of the pupil, which must in all cases determine the means and the method employed in his education. Two things must be taught. These are the true relations, racial and individual, that exist among men; and how to direct and control the emotions aroused by the environment so that the best results may arise. Here he finds occasion for the use of moral teaching and for instruction in religion. The facts of history must be placed before him; but he must be left to form his own judgment. He is now to be taught religion as a help to the regulation of the passions; but not the religion of any particular sect. His time is to be given up largely to reading and to the acquirement of taste; to the study of history and eloquence; and to attendance at the theatre.
The revolutionary doctrines preached by Rousseau in hisÉmileand in his other educational works had an immense effect on the Continent, and particularly on the work of one of his most ardent admirers, the Swiss farmer and schoolmaster Pestalozzi, an eccentric, dubbed by his schoolfellows "Harry Oddity of Fools-town". Thinking the education demanded for Émile by Rousseau vastly superior to that which he himself received, he very early became an ardent admirer of the system advocated by the French philosopher, and an eager reformer.Émileand theContrat Socialwere condemned by the magistrates of Zurich, and Pestalozzi and some of his fellow-students were imprisoned for theMemorialin which they defended these works. Later Pestalozzi determined to be a farmer. He was married at the age of twenty-three, and started growing madder and vegetables on some poor land near Zurich. On the land he built for himself a house, theNeuhof.
In the winter of 1774 he hit upon the expedient of taking into his house some twenty poor children of the neighbourhood, whom he treated as his own. They worked with him in summer in the fields, and in winter in the house. Improved health for the children, increased intelligence, and a manifest devotion to their benefactor were some of the results speedily displayed, and the experiment drew much attention to itself. Urged on by his love for the children, Pestalozzi took in a larger number, and in a very short time found himself bankrupt. In this period of seeming disaster Pestalozzi turned author. The books which he produced were greedily read on the Continent, and aroused the greatest interest. After some work at Stanz and at Burgdorf, Pestalozzi settled to work in the castle of Yverdun on Lake Neuchâtel, which became in the early years of the nineteenth century a place of pilgrimage for European students and lovers of education. Forced to leave Yverdun in 1815, he continued his work at Clindy till 1824.
Friedrich Froebel spent the years 1807 to 1809 at Yverdun, and so fitted himself to carry on the work Pestalozzi had to some extent made popular. His name, however, is specially associated with the schools for very young children to which he gave the name ofKindergarten, that is, 'gardens of children', places where young children, like young plants, were properly watched and tended. For the children in these schools their employment was to be play, play from which and by which they acquired clear notions regarding themselves and their environment. "Education", he asserted, "should lead and guide man to clearness concerning himself and in himself, to peace with nature, and to unity with God." He held that powers were developed by exercise; that failure to use any part of the body or mind led to the shrinkage of the part, and sometimes even to its complete loss. He held that if we wish to develop the body we must exercise the body, and that, similarly, if we wish to develop the intellect or the emotions they must be exercised. He insists that teachers must be careful to interfere as little as possible; must remember at all times that the aim of teaching is "to bring ever more and more out of man rather than to put more and more into him". He based his system on action; agreed with Montaigne that "children's games were their most serious occupations"; and with Locke that "All the plays and diversions of children should be directed towards good and useful habits". Froebel was not the founder of infant schools. These were first established on the Continent and in Britain with the object of helping mothers. In Britain their establishment is associated with the names of the educational enthusiasts James Buchanan and Samuel Wilderspin.
Nearly ten years before Froebel's stay with Pestalozzi at Yverdun, Herbart, next to Kant and Hegel the most influential of German philosophers, visited the inspired educationist at Burgdorf, and found him employing methods based on the principles which he himself had worked out in his psychology. To both it was clear that there is a definite order in which subjects should be taught to the children, and that this order is determined, not merely by the relation of the subjects to each other, but by their power of satisfying the growing wants and capacities of the child. Pestalozzi had arrived intuitively at a method, and had practically applied it, which Herbart had scientificallyworked out as applicable to the whole educational field. Three years later Herbart published pamphlets on Pestalozzi's best-known book,How Gertrude teaches her Children, and onThe A.B.C. of Sense-perception, and in these showed what weight he attached to observation as an instrument of education. Two years later he published one of his most notable works on education,The Æsthetic Revelation of the World, and in 1806General Pedagogy. In 1809 he was appointed professor of philosophy at Königsberg, where he remained till 1833, and where his services to the cause of education, both by his writings and by his establishment of normal schools and experimental schools, cannot be exaggerated. He warns teachers not to educate too much; to be careful not to destroy the individuality of the child, such individuality being that which characterizes individuals of the same class. He lays the greatest stress on the importance to the teacher of child study, maintaining that he will be unable to teach unless he knows the child as he is. For Herbart the aim of education is summed up in morality, "the highest aim of humanity and consequently of education", itself. "I have no conception", he writes, "of education without instruction, just as I do not acknowledge any instruction that does not educate." "Instruction", he says elsewhere, "will form the circle of thought, and education the character; the last is nothing without the first." A great deal, according to Herbart, depends upon the pupil himself, who "grasps rightly what is natural to him", and who must be saved from the tendency to one-sidedness in which following his bent would result, by the cultivation in him of many-sidedness. This cultivation involves the control of the pupil's mental activity, and the instrument for this control is interest, which causes the pupil's complete absorption in its object. For the attainment of this Herbart proposes certain formal steps of instruction. These steps are usually set forth as (1) Preparation, (2) Presentation, (3) Comparison, (4) Generalization, (5) Application.
The nineteenth century was a period of continuously increasing interest in education, and of a generally growing belief in its utility. It was taken up by the Governments of the different countries, and ordered and regulated almost out of existence. Seven years before the death of Pestalozzi the first public grant for education was made by the British Parliament, and from that time up to the present the Government has continued to extend its power over the education of the country. For a long time the Government in Britain was satisfied to subsidize elementary education; but later it insisted on hard-and-fast lines of instruction. So thoroughly were these regulated in most countries that a French Minister of Education could boast he was able to say what work every child in France was engaged in at that particular moment.
In Britain it was only bit by bit, and with very considerable reluctance, that the Government took upon itself the responsibility for the education of the country. In Scotland a national system of general education, constituted in 1560, remained in force until reconstructed by theEducation Actof 1872. (SeeScotland.) Compulsory education was introduced into England in 1870, together with what was described as payment by results; and, for some time, the aim which the teacher had to keep before him was the production at the annual examination of the largest number of pupils who could satisfy the tests in Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, or, as they were called, the 'three R's', and so earn the Government grant. For between thirty and forty years this unnatural and mechanical system remained in force. From 1864 onwards Commission after Commission sought to reduce English secondary education to order. The most notable of these was The Bryce Commission of Enquiry into Secondary Education, 1894-5, whose recommendations have since been put into force by legislation. One of the results of the increasing interest in education throughout England was the founding, early in the latter half of last century, of great day schools, like the City of London, St. Paul's, and Merchant Taylors, in London and other large cities; and, after the passing of the Education Act of 1902, the establishment everywhere of Council Secondary Schools.
Of the immense number of works on education issued during the last half of the nineteenth century, perhaps the best known are those of Herbert Spencer and of Professor Bain. The former seeks to explain education from the Darwinian standpoint, and the latter to determine from psychology the intellectual value of the various subjects taught in school, and the average age at which they should be taught to children. Of practical English educators during the nineteenth century, the most outstanding names are undoubtedly those of Arnold of Rugby, Thring of Uppingham, and Abbott of the City of London School.
In recent times the advances made in the theoretical and practical studies of the sciences of anthropology, physiology, and psychology have exercised an enormous influence on educational theories and practices. Careful observations of young children by scientific observers like Darwin, Dearborn, and Preyer have added greatly to our knowledge of child-nature; and helped to suggest new methods of studying it and developing it. The result has been the promulgation within the present century of a number of educational methods, some of which, incontrast to the older practices, must seem almost revolutionary. Among these must be remembered the 'Heuristic Method' of teaching science put forward by Professor H. E. Armstrong. The object of the method is to put the student as completely as may be in the position of an original investigator; and it has been classed by writers on education as being, like so many other modern methods, a 'play method'. Froebel in his kindergarten was one of the first to introduce successfully the play method in education, and the 'gifts' by which the plan was carried through were of his own devising; but such cannot be said of Dr. Montessori, whose method of education engrosses so much attention at the present time. The Montessori apparatus was originally devised by Dr. Seguin for the instruction of mental defectives. Dr. Montessori used the apparatus first for the training of young children; but the cardinal feature of the Montessori system is the determined effort to make the child entirely responsible for his own education, and to interfere as little as possible with his development. The apparatus is so contrived that it can only be used in one way if the problem is to be solved; so the child is forced to attend to the differences in size and shape and carefully to compare the different pieces. In addition, the Montessori system attempts to cultivate the social virtues; teaches the children to live and to work and play with others, and so to learn to be well-mannered. The teacher in this system retires into the background, and the children are left to go their own way, to choose their own tasks, and to be their own critics. Great attention is also given to the physical development of the children.
Experimental education has been attempted both in Germany, where the need for it was first put forward by Kant, and in England; but it is in the United States of America that the chief advances in this direction have been made. There the Binet attempt to measure the intelligence of the child, to fix in fact a metric scale of intelligence, has been elaborated, and the Binet-Simon system of tests devised, and later modified by L. M. Terman. There, too, schools have been established which have tried the working out of what may be described as the non-interference with the pupil principle. Among these may be mentioned the 'George Junior Republic' and the Gary Schools. The latter, we are told by their founder, were "not instituted to turn out good workers for the steel company, but for the educational value of the work they involved". To this must be added the 'Dalton Laboratory Plan', tried lately as an experiment by Miss Helen Parkhurst in a public secondary day school in Dalton. By this plan, the time-table is abolished, the child undertakes to get up a certain amount of work each month in each particular subject, and is left free to distribute his time as he chooses, so that he can devote more time to those subjects in which he is backward. The school is divided into departments (laboratories) each under a specialist who gives the help needed, but leaves the pupil to himself as much as possible.—Bibliography: Bartley,The Schools for the People; Norwood and Hope,Higher Education of Boys in England; Quick,Essays on Educational Reformers; Browning,An Introduction to the History of Education Theories; Sleight,Educational Values and Methods; Nunn,Education: Its Data and First Principles; Wilton,What do we mean by Education?The New Teaching, edited by Adams; Kerr,Scottish Education; Morrison,Education Authorities' Handbook; Dewey,Schools of To-morrow; Rusk,Introduction to Experimental Education; Montessori,The Montessori MethodandThe Advanced Montessori Method.
Education Act, the name given to several Acts dealing with education in Great Britain. Among the principal Education Acts are: (1) that of 1870, which introduced compulsory education; (2) that of 1891, which reduced, or in some cases abolished, school fees; (3) that of 1902, which authorized the levying of an education rate; and (4) that of 1918, which raised the age for leaving school, and made education compulsory up to the age of eighteen by means of continuation schools. Pupils must attend these schools for 320 hours each year.
Edward, known asthe Elder, King of England, son of Alfred the Great, born about 870, died in 925. He succeeded his father in 901, and his reign was distinguished by successes over the Danes. He fortified many inland towns, acquired dominion over Northumbria and East Anglia, and subdued several of the Welsh tribes.
Edward, surnamedthe Martyr, King of England, succeeded his father, Edgar, at the age of fifteen, in 975. His reign of four years was chiefly distinguished by ecclesiastical disputes. He was treacherously slain in 979 by a servant of his stepmother, at her residence, Corfe Castle. The pity caused by his innocence and misfortune induced the people to regard him as a martyr.
Edward, King of England, surnamedthe Confessor, was the son of Ethelred II, and was born at Islip, in Oxfordshire, about 1004. On the death of his maternal brother, Hardicanute the Dane, in 1041, he was called to the throne, and thus renewed the Saxon line. Edward was a weak and superstitious, but well-intentioned prince, who acquired the love of his subjects by his monkish sanctity and care in the administration of justice. His queen was the daughter of Godwin, Earl of Kent. He died in 1066, and was succeeded by Harold, the son of Godwin.Edward caused a body of laws to be compiled from those of Ethelbert, Ina, and Alfred, to which the nation was long fondly attached. He was canonized by Pope Alexander III in 1161.
Edward, Prince of Wales, surnamedthe Black Prince, born 15th June, 1330, the eldest son of Edward III and Philippa of Hainault. In 1346 he commanded part of the forces at the battle of Crécy, and earned the praise of his warlike father. It was on this occasion that he adopted the mottoIch dien(I serve), used by all succeeding Princes of Wales. In 1355 he commanded the army which invaded France from Gascony, and distinguished himself the following year at the great battle of Poitiers. By the Peace of Brétigny the provinces of Poictou, Saintonge, Périgord, and Limousin were annexed to Guienne and formed into a sovereignty for the prince under the title of the Principality of Aquitaine. A campaign in Castile, on behalf of Pedro the Cruel, and the heavy taxes laid on Aquitaine to meet the expenses, caused a rebellion, and ultimately involved him in a war with the French king. His own health did not allow him to take the field, and having seen his generals defeated he withdrew into England, and after lingering some time died (1376), leaving an only son, afterwards Richard II.
Edward I(of the Norman line), King of England, son of Henry III, was born at Winchester in 1239, died 7th July, 1307. The contests between his father and the barons called him early into active life, and he finally quelled all resistance to the royal authority by the decisive defeat of Leicester at the battle of Evesham, in 1265. He then proceeded to Palestine, where he showed signal proofs of valour, although no conquest of any importance was achieved. His father's death in 1272 gave him the crown. On his return home he showed great vigour as well as a degree of severity in his administration. He commenced a war with Llewellyn, Prince of Wales, which ended in the annexation of that Principality to the English Crown in 1283. Edward's ambition was to gain possession of Scotland, but the death of Margaret, the Maid of Norway, who was to have been married to Edward's son, for a time frustrated the king's designs. But on 26th Dec., 1292, John Baliol was induced to do homage for his crown to Edward at Newcastle. Baliol was forced by the indignation of the Scottish people into war with England. Edward entered Scotland in 1296, devastated it with fire and sword, and placed the administration of the country in the hands of officers of his own. Next summer a new rising took place under William Wallace. Wallace's successes recalled Edward to Scotland with an army of 100,000 men. Wallace was at length betrayed into his hands and executed as a traitor. All Edward's efforts, however, to reduce the country to obedience were unavailing, and with the flight of Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, to Scotland, the banner of Scottish independence was again unfurled. Edward assembled another army and marched against Bruce, but only lived to reach Burgh-on-Sands, a village near Carlisle, where he died. Edward I was wise in council and vigorous in action. During his reign great progress was made in the establishment of law and order throughout the land.
Edward II, King of England, born at Carnarvon Castle in 1284, and the first English Prince of Wales, succeeded his father, Edward I, in 1307. He was of an agreeable figure and mild disposition, but indolent and fond of pleasure. After marching as far as Cumnock, in Ayrshire, with the army collected by his father, he returned, dismissed his troops, and abandoned himself entirely to amusements. His weakness for a clever but dissolute young Gascon, Piers Gaveston, on whom he heaped honours without limit, roused the nobles to rebellion. Gaveston was captured in Scarborough Castle, and executed as a public enemy on 19th June, 1312. Two years after this, Edward assembled an immense army to check the progress of Robert Bruce, but was completely defeated at Bannockburn. In 1322 he made another expedition against Scotland, but without achieving anything important. The king's fondness for another favourite, Hugh le Despenser, had made a number of malcontents, and Queen Isabella, making a visit to France, entered into a correspondence with the exiles there, and formed an association of all hostile to the king. Aided by a force from the Count of Hainault, she landed in Suffolk in 1326. Her army was completely successful. The Despensers, father and son, were captured and executed, and the king was taken prisoner and confined in Kenilworth, and ultimately in Berkeley Castle, where he was murdered 21st Sept., 1327.
Edward III, King of England, son of Edward II by Isabella of France, was born in 1312, died 21st June, 1377. On his father's deposition in 1327 he was proclaimed king under a council of regency, while his mother's lover, Mortimer, really possessed the principal power in the State. The pride and oppression of Mortimer led to a general confederacy against him, and to his seizure and execution (10th Oct., 1330). Edward now turned his attention to Scotland, and, having levied a well-appointed army, defeated the regent, Douglas, at Halidon Hill, in July, 1333. This victory produced the restoration of Edward Baliol, who was, however, again expelled, and again restored, until the ambition of the English king was diverted by the prospect of succeeding to the throne of France. Collecting an army and accompanied by the Black Prince, he crossedover to France. The memorable battle of Crécy followed, 25th Aug., 1346, which was succeeded by the siege of Calais. In the meantime David II, having recovered the throne of Scotland, invaded England with a large army, but was defeated and taken prisoner by a much inferior force under Lord Percy. In 1348 a truce was concluded with France; but on the death of King Philip, in 1350, Edward again invaded France, plundering and devastating. Recalled home by a Scottish inroad, he retaliated by carrying fire and sword from Berwick to Edinburgh. In the meantime the Black Prince had penetrated from Guienne to the heart of France, fought the famous battle of Poitiers, and taken King John prisoner. A truce was then made, at the expiration of which (1359) Edward again crossed over to France and laid waste the provinces of Picardy and Champagne, but at length consented to a peace. This confirmed him in the possession of several provinces and districts of France which were entrusted to the Prince of Wales (the Black Prince), but gradually all the English possessions in France, with the exception of Bordeaux, Bayonne, and Calais, were lost.
Edward IV, King of England, was born in 1442, died in April, 1483. His father, Richard, Duke of York, was grandson of Edmund, Earl of Cambridge and Duke of York, fourth son of Edward III, while the rival line of Lancaster descended from John of Gaunt, the third son. The York line had intermarried with the female descendants of Lionel, the second son, which gave it the preferable right to the Crown. Edward, on the defeat and death of his father at the battle of Wakefield, assumed his title, and, having entered London after his splendid victory over the troops of Henry VI and Queen Margaret at Mortimer's Cross, in Feb. 1461, was declared king by acclamation. The victory of Towton, soon after his accession, confirmed his title, and three years after this, on 4th May, 1464, the battle of Hexham completely overthrew the party of Henry VI. The king now made an imprudent marriage with Elizabeth, widow of Sir John Grey, at the very time when he had dispatched the Earl of Warwick to negotiate a marriage for him with the sister of the French king. He thus alienated powerful friends, and Warwick, passing over to the Lancastrian cause, gathered a large army, and compelled Edward to fly (in Sept. 1470). Henry's title was once more recognized by Parliament. But in 1471 Edward, at the head of a small force given him by the Duke of Burgundy, landed at Ravenspur in Yorkshire, and his army, being quickly increased by partisans, marched swiftly on London and took the unfortunate Henry prisoner. Warwick now advanced with an army to Barnet, where a battle was fought, 4th April, 1471, which ended in the death of Warwick and a decisive victory for Edward. Shortly afterwards Edward also met and defeated a Lancastrian army, headed by Queen Margaret and her son Edward, at Tewkesbury. The prince was murdered, and the queen was thrown into the Tower, where Henry VI soon after died. Edward was preparing for an expedition against France when he died.
Edward V, King of England, the eldest son of Edward IV, was in his thirteenth year when he succeeded his father in 1483. His uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, soon made himself king as Richard III, and caused the young king and his brother to be sent to the Tower, where he had them smothered by ruffians.
Edward VI, King of England, son of Henry VIII by Jane Seymour, was born in 1537, died in July, 1553. At his father's death he was only nine years of age. His education was entrusted to men of the first character for learning, under whose training he made great progress, and grew up with a rooted zeal for the doctrines of the Reformation. His reign was, on the whole, tumultuous and unsettled. In Oct., 1551, the Protector Somerset, who had hitherto governed the kingdom with energy and ability, was deposed by the intrigues of Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who became all-powerful. He induced the dying Edward to set aside the succession of his sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, and settle the crown upon Lady Jane Grey, to whom he had married his son Lord Guildford Dudley. Edward VI restored many of the grammar schools suppressed by Henry VIII, and these schools are still known as King Edward's schools.
Edward VII, King of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, eldest son of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, was born at Buckingham Palace on 9th Nov., 1841, died 6th May, 1910. In Dec., 1841, he was created Prince of Wales. He was educated under private tutors and at Edinburgh, Oxford, and Cambridge; visited Canada and the United States in 1860; and underwent military training at the Curragh camp in 1861. Promoted to the rank of general in 1862, he visited Palestine and the East, and next year took his seat in the House of Lords. On 10th March, 1863, he was married in St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, to Princess Alexandra, eldest daughter of Christian IX of Denmark, and from this time onwards he discharged many public ceremonial functions. Attacked by typhoid fever in the winter of 1871, his life was for a time despaired of, but he recovered early in 1872, his recovery being made the occasion of a thanksgiving service in St. Paul's Cathedral. During 1875 and 1876 he visited India. He was a member of the Poor Law Commission of 1893. He promoted the establishment of the Imperial Institute as amemorial of Queen Victoria's jubilee (1887), and he commemorated her diamond jubilee (1897) by founding the Prince of Wales's (now King's) Hospital Fund for the better financial support of the London hospitals. On the death of Queen Victoria on 22nd Jan., 1901, he succeeded to the throne, and was crowned on 9th Aug., 1902. King Edward did much to promote friendly relations with foreign powers, especially with France and the United States. It was through his personal influence that the Entente Cordiale with France was brought about. To him and Queen Alexandra were born: Albert Victor Christian Edward, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, born 1864, died 1892; George Frederick Ernest Albert, who succeeded his father as George V, born 1865, married 1893, to Princess Victoria Mary of Teck; Princess Louise, now Princess Royal, born 1867, married 1889, to the Duke of Fife, who died 29th Jan., 1912; Princess Victoria, born 1868; and Princess Maud, born 1869, married 1896, to Prince Charles of Denmark, now King of Norway as Haakon VII.—Bibliography:Life of the King, by 'One of His Majesty's Servants'; Holt-White,The People's King; E. Legge,King Edward in his true Colours; J. P. Brodhurst,The Life and Times of Edward VII; W. H. Wilkins,Edward the Peacemaker.
Edward, Thomas, a Scottish naturalist, born 1814, died 1886. The son of poor parents, he was apprenticed to a shoemaker and worked at his trade till nearly the end of his life, but succeeded in acquiring much knowledge of natural history and some fame as a naturalist. An interesting biography of Edward (Life of a Scottish Naturalist), written by Samuel Smiles, appeared in 1876, and a pension of £50 a year was shortly afterwards conferred on him by Queen Victoria.
Edwards, Amelia Blandford, English novelist and Egyptologist, born in London in 1831, died in 1892. She gave early evidence of great literary ability by her contributions to periodicals, and attracted attention by her novelMy Brother's Wife(1855). Among her best-known novels are:Hand and Glove(1859),Barbara's History(1864),Half a Million of Money(1865),Debenham's Vow(1870), andLord Brackenbury(1880). Miss Edwards wrote also ballads and books of travel, and in 1882 founded the Egypt Exploration Fund and devoted herself to Egyptology, leaving funds to found a chair of Egyptology in University College, London.
Edwards, Bryan, English writer, born in Wiltshire in 1743, died in 1800. He inherited a large fortune from an uncle in Jamaica, where he long resided. HisHistory, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indiesappeared in 1793.
Edwards, John Passmore, British philanthropist and journalist, born at Blackwater, Cornwall, in March, 1823, died on 22nd April, 1911. Trained as a journalist, he became representative of the paperThe Sentinel, and was opposed to the Corn Laws. In 1862 he boughtThe Building News, and in 1876 the LondonEcho, of which he was director for twenty years. Although somewhat unpopular on account of his opposition to the Boer War, he is remembered as a public benefactor, having founded numerous Passmore Edwards institutions, public libraries, and settlements, and contributed largely to hospitals. He was a delegate to the peace congresses at Brussels, Paris, and Frankfort (1848-50), and twice refused a knighthood.
Edwards, Jonathan, American theologian and metaphysician, born 5th Oct., 1703, died 22nd March, 1758. He entered Yale College in 1716, and studied till 1722, when he received a licence as preacher. In 1723 he was elected a tutor in Yale College, but resigned in 1726 to be ordained as minister at Northampton (Mass.). After more than twenty-three years of zealous service here, he was dismissed by the congregation owing to the severity with which he sought to exercise church discipline. He then went as a missionary among the Indians at Stockbridge, in Massachusetts. Here he composed his famous work on theFreedom of the Will, which appeared in 1754. In 1757 he was chosen president of the college at Princeton, New Jersey, but died shortly afterwards.
Edwy, King of England, son of Edmund I, succeeded his uncle Edred in 955. Taking part with the secular clergy against the monks, he incurred the confirmed enmity of the latter. The Papal party, headed by Dunstan, was strong enough to excite a rebellion, by which Edwy was driven from the throne to make way for his brother Edgar. He died in 959, being probably not more than eighteen or nineteen years old.
Eecloo(āk-lō´), a town, Belgium, province of East Flanders, 11 miles north-west of Ghent, the seat of textile manufactures. Pop. 13,536.