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 478 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

everywhere a moral instrument. True, it does not follow the preferences of the child: it is z.\vi ays provided. But if it is pro- vided by the parent, it will reflect the parent's desire to fit his child for practical life, to equip him for success in the struggle for existence. If education is provided by a sect, it will reflect the zeal of the sect to fit for eternal life, to equip the soul for salvation. Finally, if it is provided by society, it will reflect the desire of society to fit for social life. While these dis- tinctions are real enough, the purposes may blend somewhat. The parent comes to prize good character as a means to getting on, while the state finds that one way to lessen law-breaking is to equip its children to earn a living. Moreover, the parent may be held responsible for the education he provides, as when he is commanded: "Thou shalt teach them [your children] the words of the law, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down and when thou risest up. And thou shaltwrite them upon the doorposts of thine house and upon thy gates " (Deut. 1 1 : 18-20). Or the sect may, as in the case of Magi, Brahmans, or Churchmen, become virtually a social organ. If we regard as undoubted engine of social control only that school education which is provided gra- tuitously for all children by some great social organ, then this engine has not always been set in motion. There are, indeed, several factors which condition the appearance of a free public education.

Stage of social development is one. When society is still patriarchal and the commonwealth reposes on families, educa- tion remains the appanage of the parent. Heads of families being the authors and mainstays of social order, moral education may, as in old Israel, Homeric Greece, early Rome, Persia, and China, be readily committed to their care. When, as in military Sparta, social existence is staked on the fidelity and prowess of the individual man, the state thrusts the parent to one side and imposes a discipline of its own. There seems, too, to be an inverse relation between force and education, between direct and indirect methods of control. Rome, strong in lictors and legions, ignored education. The Jews, backward in political organization