OUTLINES FROM THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 629 



bility. In China, the higher the office to be filled, the higher must be 

 the education. Such being the estimate placed upon education by this 

 people, we should not judge that stagnation would prevail in China 

 for over twenty-five hundred years and education become nothing but 

 pitiable mummery. We learn a valuable lesson here as to the way 

 in which one fundamental error can vitiate centuries of national 

 existence. China, as arrested development, has been aptly compared 

 to the feet of her women. 



In seeking the cause for such arrest of growth, we come upon the 

 idea which this people entertained of themselves : they were members 

 of a family nothing more ; the emperor was their father. This fam- 

 ily-idea, applied everywhere and never transcended, kept the people 

 children. With our modern feeling of individuality so fiercely 

 coursing in our veins, we find it almost impossible to realize that 

 in China there were no persons, no individuals. A human being fully 

 grown, and with what should have been the strength of manhood upon 

 him, was simply a son, a child. He did not belong to himself or to a 

 nation, but to a family. Absolute obedience to father and teacher 

 prevented all progress beyond the condition of father and teacher : 

 learning was ceaseless repetition. The Chinese had village schools, 

 town schools, and universities ; their highest reverence was for the 

 most learned, and their education found its supreme test in an act of 

 memory. 



Passing from China to India, we find that man's idea of himself is 

 somewhat enlarged. The people are divided into four castes : Brah- 

 mans, warriors, merchants, Sutras. Birth determines each man's con- 

 dition and duties ; to be a Brahman is to live and die a Brahman, to 

 be born a Sutra is to live and die a Sutra. No physical law is more in- 

 flexible than the law of caste in this far-off land. But these social 

 divisions show improvement over the condition in China. Man is 

 nearer himself as member of a caste than as member of an enormous 

 family. Further, man in India has been shaped by a most wonderful 

 religion. The special mental characteristic of the Indian, imagina- 

 tion, fancy, was constantly and powerfully influenced by the outside 

 world. Nature seemed to have produced one impression above all 

 others upon the Indian mind, the impression of universal necessity. 

 We find these elements at work determining the idea which man had 

 of himself and molding the education of India. The Sutras were so 

 low as to be beneath all education ; the other classes were trained for 

 their special duties the Brahmans in religion, the rulers and warriors 

 in government and war, the merchants in trading. As there might 

 be members of the higher castes in villages, provision was made for 

 their instruction by elementary schools. This instruction consisted 

 in reading, writing, and reckoning. A teacher, with staff in hand, 

 would take his place under a tree and teach the boys sitting around 

 him. In arithmetic only the rudiments were taught. Writing was 



