Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/646

628 as related to the practical matter of teaching and learning. There is even a closer relation between general history and the history of education. This is seen in a moment if we consider again who is to receive the education. The ideas which man has entertained about himself have determined alike his history and his education. The profitable thing in considering our subject historically is exactly this detection of man's ideas of himself. We see these ideas shaped by varying circumstances, and in turn shaping man's activity in every direction. Education has had a wonderful unfolding and there is not a phase of its course which may not be traced to that idea of man's nature and destiny which prevailed at the time.

This close relation between general history and the history of education has led to the adoption of the same broad time-divisions in both subjects, as follows: Before Christ. From Christ to the Reformation. From the Reformation to Pestalozzi. From Pestalozzi to the present. This division is the one chosen by all authorities in the history of education, though special reference may here be made to Schmidt's "Geschichte der Pädagogik," a work of remarkable philosophic value, and one to which I am greatly indebted in the preparation of these articles.

Turning to the first division, we find that the nations having a history and corresponding systems of education are the Chinese, the Indians, the Persians, the Egyptians, the Hebrews, the Greeks, and the Romans. Nothing can be more interesting and profitable than to observe how directly and completely the education found among these peoples was shaped by the ideas which they respectively entertained about their own nature and destiny.

We have frequently been asked to consider the peculiar appearance which China presents in history. There is something here as sad as it is peculiar. Centuries before the nations of to-day had emerged from barbarism, China showed remarkable advancement in civilization. We should not think here chiefly of the public works constructed by this people, such as the wall of defense or the canal, or even of their knowledge in special directions, such as the use of gunpowder or the art of multiplying impressions from woodcuts, or the use of porcelain, the compass, and the bell. The fact above all others to be noted is, that in no country, without exception, has such direct and supreme value been placed upon education as in China. The educated man alone could hold office in this vast empire; riches and birth were of no avail if the man were uneducated. We may contrast this profitably, so far as the idea is concerned, with our American suffrage system, where the vote of bestial ignorance counts for more than that of trained intelligence, and where the qualification for office is