36 EDUCATION 



blew like a creative breath on the face of the people awakening to 

 self-consciousness. The meaning of earthly existence seemed to 

 grow deeper and more glorious. The past faded from view and the 

 future glowed like the sky of dawn. The marvels of material pro- 

 gress became a symbol and a promise of a coming race illumined by 

 science, strengthened by a higher faith, and purified by a diviner love. 

 As everything was investigated, the study of man could not be neg- 

 lected. The light which science threw upon his physical constitution 

 but made it plainer that his true being and world is the mind, that by 

 the soul alone can he be great and free and strong. Hence thinkers 

 were drawn to investigate the instrument of thought, to inquire into 

 the nature of mind, to analyze its faculties, and to determine the 

 order and method of their development. Anthropology became 

 psychology, the practical value of which was found to consist in its 

 application to pedagogy; and so the most subtle and the most ener- 

 getic spirits were compelled by the intellectual evolution of the age 

 to a more thorough study of the meaning and methods of education, 

 which became a vital concern of philosophers, theologians, poets, 

 statesmen, and philanthropists. 



Pedagogy is not a science or an art which the nineteenth century 

 created. The word is Greek, and the earliest thinkers understood 

 that man's educ ability is his most characteristic distinction. Peda- 

 gogical problems preoccupied Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, 

 Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Plutarch, and Quintilian. 

 They received consideration from Gerson and Vives; from Erasmus, 

 Montaigne, and Charron; from Descartes, Bacon, and Locke; from 

 Comenius, Leibnitz, and Lessing; from Thomas Reid, Dugald Stew- 

 art, and Rousseau. 



But in the nineteenth century education became a matter of 

 social interest, engaging the thought of statesmen as well as the 

 meditations of philosophers. Kant draws up a system of pedagogy, 

 and when Germany lay prostrate beneath the victorious armies of 

 Napoleon, Fichte proclaims in words of burning eloquence that, 

 if it is to rise again, recourse must be had to a more genuine and 

 thorough education of the people. From the enthusiasm and de- 

 votion of Pestalozzi modern popular education received a powerful 

 and enduring impulse. He breathed a new spirit into the school 

 and enlarged its scope. He believed and made many believe that 

 education is the chief means by which the masses may be redeemed 

 from degradation, misery, and vice. He insisted that all should be 

 educated; that the methods should be gentle and kindly; that the 

 affection, the conscience, and the will need cultivation not less than 

 the intellect; that the young should be taught not only to think 

 but to do, and that the school should be a workshop as well as a class- 

 room. He had a profound love for children, and held that to teach 



