Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/649

Rh Among the remaining Oriental nations we find ideas respecting man that are equally narrow and ill-adapted for advancement. In Persia the national idea, in Egypt the priestly idea, among the Israelites the patriarchal idea, determined respectively all that was undertaken in the way of training. It is a singularly instructive fact that man, as an individual, first appears among the Greeks and Romans. Here lies the radical difference between the contributions to history offered by the Eastern peoples and that progressive movement commenced at Greece and Rome. The trite saying, "History began with the Greeks," finds its philosophy in the fact that here man entered on his career as an individual, a person. This idea of individuality, however, was by no means unlimited. It never exceeded the boundaries of Greece and Rome. A Grecian was a person, a Roman was a person; for them there were rights and opportunities. They could be educated. Man as man, however, was not yet known. Despite this serious limitation we must call the advance shown by these peoples great when compared with all that had preceded. To say I am an individual Grecian, an individual Roman, is far better than to say I am a child among millions of other children, or, I am a member of a caste. It has been frequently observed that education among the Greeks and Romans shaped itself in strict keeping with the root-difference between these peoples. For the Greeks, highest excellence was beauty, in body and mind; for the Romans, it was result, something brought to pass, whether physical or mental. Therefore the Greeks surpassed in art and philosophy, the Romans in war and law. It has been often remarked that our first theoretical treatment of education is furnished by the Greeks. Plato, in his "Republic" and "Book of the Laws," states the fundamental principles of education, and surrenders the individual to the state. Education is an affair of the state and for the state. Here is the limitation of individuality, a limitation not to be exceeded at this time by this people. The Romans, not demanding public education, left the child to home training for his earlier years, but placed him as a youth with some celebrated jurist for special instruction in law and state-craft. This Roman training was, from beginning to end, practical, and never lost such character even after the rhetoric and philosophy of Greece were added to the subject-matter of education.

Human history, and consequently education, were now to feel the impulse of a new movement. Christianity, whether true or false, appears with the announcement that "God hath made of one every nation of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." In this is contained a truth that gave Christianity power to supplant heathenism and to shape the course of education for centuries. The history of education for a long time after Christ would be a history of the Church. We need concern ourselves with this movement only so far as to find a thread of development that may lead from past times to