OUTLINES FROM THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION. 631 



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 Israel- 

 ites the patriarchal idea, determined respectively all that was under- 

 taken 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 com- 

 menced 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, how- 

 ever, was by no means unlimited. It never exceeded the boundaries 

 of Greece and Rome. A Grecian was a person, a Roman was a per- 

 son ; 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-dif- 

 ference 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 demand- 

 ing public education, left the child to home training for his earlier 

 years, but placed him as a youth with some celebrated jurist for spe- 

 cial 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-mat- 

 ter 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 na- 

 tion of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." In this is con- 

 tained 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 



