Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/498

 482 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

conscience was a barren mockery unless the people knew how to read.

The same century saw the rise of a secondary education, based on the Greek and Latin classics. Perfected by the Jesuits and imitated by the rest of the world, this classical training, which reigned until this century and has only slowly been dis- lodged from its seats, is a most interesting device of control over the middle and ruling classes. For a pyramidal society putting a severe strain on obedience the safest and best educa- tion is one that wears away the energy of youth in mental gym- nastics, directs the glance toward the past, cultivates the memory rather than the reason, gives polish rather than power, encourages acquiescence rather than inquiry, and teaches to versify rather than to think. It is natural that teachers in meet- ing such requirements should construct a system that favors the humanities rather than the sciences, literature and language rather than history, and the forms of literature rather than the substance.

The great democratic upheavals changed again the aim of education. The old preoccupation with the other life disap- peared before the political purpose. Thinkers flaming with gen- erous wrath at the parasitism of the upper orders demanded enlightenment as a means of arming the people against their despoilers. "No people in a state of civilization," said Jeffer- son, " can stay ignorant and free." Schools alone render the people " the safe, as they are the only legitimate, guardians of their liberty." This origin in revolt gave the public education of France and America that almost exclusively intellectual cast which it still retains. While latterly this political motive is dying away, the successful working of democratic government is making ever greater demands upon the intell igence of the common man, and the disposition to educate for citizenship at the public expense is ever more marked.'

' " So long as the direction of man's institutional life was in the hands of one or the few, the need for a wide diffusion of political intelligence was not strongly felt. The divine right of kings found its correlative in the diabolical ignorance of the masses. There was no educational ideal, resting upon a social and political neces- sity, that was broad enough to include the whole people. But the rapid widening of