ndividual

This dominance of some external authority is characteristic of ariation sup- all Orientals. In India this authority is exerted through the ressed by xternal aucaste system; among the Hebrews, through the theocracy; 1ority in Egypt, through a combination of a priestly ruling class and a partially developed caste system; in China, through the system of Confucian education. Thus the Oriental is conscious of the past, as the primitive man is not; and he seeks to prevent any variation from it through individual initiative.

.esults of

is suppreson of indiiduality

'esults on

fe

The result of this dominance of external authority in their life and of the development of an appropriate educational scheme to carry it out is twofold. Society becomes stable, but remains stationary. Both materially and spiritually civilization is nonprogressive. Thus it happens that in such societies education most readily accomplishes the purpose assigned to it. It is true that this stability relates only to internal forces; but when a people is isolated, like the Chinese, such an education is effective for a long period. Neither individually nor socially, however, does this education give power of adjustment to new conditions.

On the side of the inner or subjective life, it is again the exterhe thought nal and prescriptive that controls. All that belongs to the free spirit the art, science, religion, education, of a Western people is wanting, or tends to be wanting. In this the Chinese education is again typical. Art becomes external decoration; literature an effusive formulation wherein merit is in style, not in thought; science becomes occultism, and discoveries are the result of accident; religion emphasizes mere formal worship, in which there is often little room for free personality; morals are governed by traditional forms; education has no room for self-activity. If to these characterizations, as in the ethics and religion of the Jews, there are marked exceptions, such exceptions at least indicate the all-prevailing tendency.

Thus it results that among most Oriental peoples there is to be found an educational system of merit, often of long standing and of most successful operation. Such systems show an

tems characteristic of

accurate correlation between purposes and results, and must be School sysranked high on such a basis of judgment. Comparison with more modern systems, however, must be instituted upon the basis of Oriental sothe purpose of education.

ciety

tem into a

The rapidity with which the Japanese have modified their Transformaancient social structure and assimilated the culture of Western tion of an Oriental syscivilization, chiefly through the adoption of Western education, indicates the extent to which the characteristics of Oriental society are due to the established education rather than to in- Japanese herent racial traits.

modern sys

tem by the

education of

Recapitula

tion

The Oriental type of education aims simply to recapitulate This is the the past, to sum up in the individual the life of the past, in order that he may not vary from it or advance beyond it. It aims to form habits of thought and action identical with those of the past, without developing any ability to modify or adjust habits to new conditions. So far as instruction is added to training, it is without any rational basis. It is not instruction in the sense of seeking to interpret to the individual the meaning of a social custom. At every point education consists (1) in indicating to the individual what to do, to feel, or to think; (2) the exact way the act is to be performed, or the emotional reaction expressed; and (3) in constant repetition until the habit is unalterably fixed. This is education as Recapitulation, which is the second stage in educational development.

SUMMARY

Transition from primitive society to the earlier stages of civilization is marked by the substitution of a political for a genetic organization of society and by the formation of a written language and a literature. The political organization of society indicates that individuality is now recognized and that the individual rather than the family or class is the social unit. The written language and literature indicate that society has now become conscious of the past and of established forms of conduct and has discovered means of preserving these accurately. Formal education with these early or Oriental types of civilization is directed (1) toward a mastery of these languages, technically difficult, (2) toward a mastery of the approved forms of conduct embodied in a sacred literature, and (3) toward the imposition

of such standards of conduct upon all the people. The last result is obtained by putting the control of society into the hands of the limited class which has mastered this language and literature and hence has a knowledge of the traditional and approved forms of conduct. To these customs the sanction of a religious significance is given. The class controlling society is the literary class, and usually forms the priesthood also. A system of schools results; with China a system very elaborate and long enduring. Definite curricula and methods of teaching are evolved. But the suppression of all individual variation becomes the conscious aim and the actual result. The general outcome is a social order which possesses stability, but lacks all progressiveness.

Opportunity

CHAPTER III

THE GREEKS. THE LIBERAL EDUCATION

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF GREEK EDUCATION.

for individual Characteristics. develop

I ment

-

- If the chief characteristic of Oriental education was the attempt to reproduce and preserve the past by suppression of individuality, the great significance of Greek education is found in the fact that here first was opportunity given for individual developruent. Consequently progress not Social prog- only resulted, but was welcomed and indeed striven for. Social

ress

progress was the result of the freedom that was allowed in their organization of society for the development of various aspects of personality of personal achievement and realization — and of the esteem in which every form of expression of individual worth was held. As a result of these characteristics, the Greeks first formulated that conception of education which we yet call liberal. This is the education that is worthy of a free man and education.... will render him capable of profiting by or using his freedom. More nearly than to any other people of the past, did the problem of education appear to the Greeks as it does to us in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There is no other period until the later eighteenth century that is so full of suggestion to the educator of the present.

The liberal

Concept of Personality. The Greek conception of manhood, of fully developed personality, was quite as broad as ours. It was the Greeks who first worked out the conception of political freedom in and through the state, and the idea that education was to fit for this citizenship. To the Greeks we owe the first attempt to secure the development of personality on the thought side. The love of knowledge for knowledge's sake found with