HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE THEoRY OF EDU cATIoN. 'Flit Greeks were the first to work out a theory and practice of education. based upon scientific principles rather than upon religious beliefs and ecclesiastical ceremonies. The pur pose of the early ...lineation. with both Athenian and Spartan, was preparation for the duties of citizenship. military. political. and With the Athenians their activities provided for intellectual and asthetie development. illustrated in the drama, religious ceremonial. the sym posiurn. the choral performance. etc. From the middle of the seventh century 13.Cs were at Athens elementary schools of a twofold charac ter: one was the school, which in time embraced instruction in reading and writing: the other was the select for gvmnast ie.: and dancilw. which for earlier years was ealled the palrestra. and, for the period of adolescence. the gymna sium. The in gymnasties was not a di rect military training, but was aimed to produce a beautiful. symm•trieal. agile. and sound body through vari .... s eNer•ises, ehietly running. jump ing. discus-throwing. javelin-casting, wee fling. and boxing. Nor suit. the music schools de signed to produce performers: they were rather schools of expression. for the body, music for the was Plato's summary of the process of education, each in its way to produce harmony of development. In the fifth centltry B.C. haenertlial much broadened by the Sophists. and much greater scope given to individualism. It became more largely a liter ary process. differentiating into the rhetorical or oratorical and the philosophical education. Gf the former. Socrates is the chief exponent: Socrates. Plato, and Aristotle are the chief ex ponents of the latter. in the Republic of Plato, which may be termed the first scientific treatise on the subject, elementary education consists of training in gymnastic and music, including let ters: secondary. of the study of arithmetic. geom etry. music, and astronomy; and higher, nf dia lectics or philosophy. The elementary studies produced a harmony of body and soul that was the basis of all virtue: the secondary led to unity of thought ; and the higher led to the contempla tion of inure being. the union of truth and beauty. The purpose of this education was to obtain an insight into the essential nature of things. in this treatise. together with that contained in the Laws, there is found the fundamental distinction between the liberal and the practical education. between the different stages of education, and between the groups of study so long recognized under the terms frit-hi/a and quad rir hon. it is indicative of the importance of education in Greek thought that. with Plato and Xenophon and Aristotle, it finds a place in the discussion of the science of government. Not only is education to be intrusted to the State, it is the State's most important function. however, in practice the philosophical intInenee on education but reinforced the tendency toward individualism; for the for mation of the philosophical schools still further weakened the Greek Commonwealth, instead of counteracting the disintegrating influence of the Sophists. as was the aim of the theory.
The rhetorical education of the later Greek period is best represented by Isocrates. It is this type that is reproduced at Rome. and best pre sented in Cicero's dialogue On Ora tory, and Quin tilian's Ingtitates of Oratory. The early Roman education consisted of a training for the prac tical affairs of life, economic, military, and po litical. for which little or no literary instruction was necessary. The Laws of the Twelve Tables. with the biography and legends of historical characters, furnished all the subject-matter of this stage. aside from the training given in practical duties. Under the influence of the Greeks a literary education was substituted, and with the early Empire there was developed all elaborate system consisting of an elementary school, the jades, which had existed from early times. the grammar or se'condlary school. the rhe torical schools. and, in certain centres. as Rome, Constantinople. :Marseilles, etc., a higher insti tution resembling the modern university. With
the loss of liberty under the Empire. oratory lost its chief inspiration. and education became large ly a process of formal training, in which even literature became a study of form. Though many of the emperors—among them Vospasian, Ha drian, and Antonini's—were patrons of education, learning ceased to have any profound influence on the character of society. Toward this formal intellectual life, represented in Grevee by the philosophical schools, and in Rome by the rhetori cal schools, the early ('Iiristi;rr were rather favorably inclined, notably Clement of Alexandria, Grigen, and Basil: lint later the at titude of the Christian teachers became distinctly hostile. Especially is this true of the Latin fathers, as represented by Tertullian and Saint Augustine, thd• latter being for the edict of the Council of Carthage, which forbade the study of pagan literature by the bishops. The ascetic spirit was another valise of the oppo sition to learning and culture, since both were es sentially worldly, and hence evil. Vet to 1114masti eism (q.v.) is chiefly due the ],reservation of learn ing during the centuries known as the Dark Ages. The rules of Saint Benedict provide for the copy ing of manuscripts, and the reading or the hear ing of the Scriptures as a part of the daily rou tine of monastic life. Vet during some centuries many monasteries existed in which no reading or writing could lie done. 1/n the other hand. the monasteries sheltered some at all ages who had an abiding interest in literature and learn ing. During the earlier centuries of the diddle Ages this was especially so of those monasteries that transmitted the Grecian influence. Saint Basil, in opposition to the extreme asceticism of Egypt and the East. had introduced a more in tellectual element into Grecian monasticism; this was carried by Cassionus to southern France, and from there by Saint Patrick to Ireland. Celtic monasticism dominated the British Isles during the seventh and eighth centuries, and thence the intellectual interest was carried to France and the Continent by Aleuin in the eighth century, and by John Scotus Erigena in the ninth. Scotus marks the beginning of Scho lasticism (q.v.), though the scholastic movement can hardly be said to have been general before the twelfth century, and it enlminated in the thirteenth. Scholasticism was the first of the great intellectual revivals. unless the movement under Alcuin and Charlemagne can be considered a preliminary revival of interest in learn ing. organized now with the form if not the content of ancient times. (See ARTS. LIBERAL.) Scholasticism was distinctly an intellectual move ment. beginning with the discussion of the Pla tonic and Aristotelian problems of the nature of ideas. and ending with the systematization of all thought in the fd)rin of a theological philosophy. However, the intellectual interest was clothed in a theological form„ and partook of a logical rather than a rhetorical cha•aeter: in fact, its exponents sought rather to avoid literary form for severe and precise statement. Gut of the scholastic movement came the early universities. at least the one at Paris and its offshoots. In them intellectual interests were provided] with a home, and education obtained that institutional foundation which had been wanting since the de cline of Roman eulture and government. This conception of the formal character of the subject matter of education and the diseiplinary charae ter of its method prevailed both within and without the universities until the Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. At this time the world awoke to the fact that there were other interests in life besides the religious, and that there was a vast litera ture much more varied and complete than that upon which interest had been centred for many generations. Int vIlect nal interests were st jinn i:Heti. and the conception and purpose of edu cation was benadvuull by the activities of such men as Tetrarch. such teachers as Vittorino da Fultre. and finally by the influence of the univer sities. though had responded somewhat slow ly to the new influences.