represents this view representatives are found among the leaders of the later Re- Erasmus naissance. Erasmus, who lived to see and to combat this restrictive tendency, gives one of the clearest presentations of the position of the humanistic-realist in his System of Studies. His position may be summed up in a few words: "Knowledge seems to be of two kinds, that of things and that of words. That of words comes first, that of things is the more important." The views of Erasmus, however, are too broad to be classified through this one writing. The representative humanisticrealists are of at least a generation or even a century later. Rabelais th typical rep resentative tional writ Rabelais (1483-1553) is the better exponent of this view and the one usually selected as representative. The educational importance of Rabelais comes, not from any immediate and concrete influence on schools, but from the influence his ideas exerted upon Montaigne, Rousseau and Locke. Though a university man and scholar, Rabelais was a trenchant satirist on the humanistic tendencies and the learning of his time. His great work consisted in combating the formal, insincere, shallow life of the period, whether in state or Church or school. This satire, couched in most violent and exaggerated form, yet contains the Character of truth of most of the reformatory aspirations of the sixteenth his educacentury. Consequently, the dominant education of words, ings and instead of realities, meets his most forceful condemnation. In place of the old linguistic and formal literary education he advocated one including social, moral, religious and physical elements; one that would lead to freedom of thought and of action instead of the complacent dependence on authority, whether of schoolmen, classicists or churchmen. His training in medicine led him to give unusual emphasis to the developing sciences. It is true, according to his views, that almost all of education was to be gained through books; but it was through mastery of their contents and for practical service in life. Studies were to be made pleasant; games and sports were to be used for this purpose as well as for their usefulness in the physical views Extract giv ng a summary of Rabelais' educational views development of the child and for their practical bearing on his duties later in life; attractive rather than compulsory means were favored. In the closing part of a letter from the giant Garguantua to his son, the hero of the satire, concerning his education, the entire scope of his teachings can be given. "I intend, and will have it so, that thou learn the languages perfectly. First of all, the Greek, as Quintilian will have it; secondly, the Latin; and then the Hebrew, for the holy Scripture's sake. And then the Chaldee and Arabic likewise. And that thou frame thy style in Greek, in imitation of Plato; and for the Latin, after Cicero. Let there be no history which thou shalt not have ready in thy memory; and to help thee therein, the books of cosmography will be very conducible. Of the liberal arts of geometry, arithmetic, and music, I gave thee some taste when thou wert yet little, and not above five or six years old; proceed further in them and learn the remainder if thou canst. As for astronomy, study all the rules thereof; let pass nevertheless the divining and judicial astrology, and the art of Lullius, as being nothing else but plain cheats and vanities. As for the civil law, of that I would have thee to know the texts by heart, and then to compare them with philosophy. Now in matter of the knowledge of the works of nature, I would have thee to study that exactly; so that there be no sea, river, or fountain, of which thou dost not know the fishes; all the fowls of the air; all the several kinds of shrubs and trees, whether in forest or orchard; all the sorts of herbs and flowers that grow upon the ground; all the various metals that are hid within the bowels of the earth; together with all the diversity of precious stones that are to be seen in the Orient and south parts of the world; let nothing of all these be hidden from thee. Then fail not most carefully to peruse the books of the great Arabian and Latin physicians; not despising the Talmudists and Cabalists; and by frequent anatomies get thee the perfect knowledge of the microcosm, which is man. And at some hours of the day apply thy mind to the study of the holy Scriptures: first in Greek, the New Testament with the Epistles of the Apostles; and then the Old Testament, in Hebrew. In brief, let me see thee an abyss and bottomless pit of knowledge: for from henceforward, as thou growest great and becomest a man, thou must part from this tranquillity and rest of study; thou must learn chivalry, warfare, and the exercise of the field, the better thereby to defend our house and our friends and to succour and protect them at all their needs against the invasion and assaults of evil-doers. Furthermore I will that very shortly thou try how much thou hast profited, which thou canst not better do than by maintaining publicly theses and conclusions in all arts, against all persons whatsoever, and by haunting the company of learned men, both at Paris and elsewhere." Tractate on Education humanistic realism John Milton (1608-1674), the poet, published in 1644 a Milton's brief Tractate on Education which remains one of the best expressions of the views of the humanistic-realists. His first represents objection to the dominant education was that against the method of approaching the subject through formal grammar and no less formal exercises in composition. Secondly, granting that this evil should be removed, he held that a greater one existed in the custom of directing the entire attention of the student to the mastery of the formal side of the language, without any attention to the literary or content side. Again, granting an improvement in this respect, his final objection was that all of education was not contained in the languages and literature of the Greeks and Romans. There follows a truly marvelous analysis of the work of the school that is to provide for the boy's education from twelve to twenty-one. For the first year the boy was to receive the usual training in Latin grammar, together with arithmetic, geometry and moral training. Then followed the study of agriculture through Cato, Columella, Varro; of physiology through Aristotle and Theophrastus; of architecture through Vitruvius; of natural philosophy through Seneca and Pliny; of geography through Mela and Solinus; of medicine through Celsus. This study of the natural and mathematical sciences was to be supplemented by reading the poets who treated of cognate subjects. This list included such as Orpheus, Hesiod, Theocritus, Aratus, Nicander, Oppian, Dionysius, Lucretius, Manilius, Virgil and others. Thus the Greek and Latin languages were to be learned incidentally to the mastery of the content of the literature. In the following stages, ethics, economics, politics, history, theology, Church history, logic, rhetoric, composition, oratory, were to be mastered through the appropriate authors. In this manner, the political orations and treatises, the tragedies, the Course of study recom mended by Milton Milton's definition of education Effect of humanisticrealism found in work of superior teachers. It was not characteristic of particular schools histories, the poetry of the Greeks and Romans, were given place in this capacious programme. And not in the Greek and Latin only, for all of this necessitated the command of Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac and Italian, the last acquired " at any odd hour." The prodigious scope of school work which Rabelais suggested in jest or for the race was incorporated by Milton into the programme of a school. One permanent contribution made by Milton to education is found in the notable definition which he formulated. While the form is that of the seventeenth century, the spirit is that of all times. "I call therefore," he says, "a complete and generous Education that which fits a man to perform, justly, skillfully and magnanimously all the offices both private and public of Peace and War." THE EFFECT OF HUMANISTIC-REALISM ON SCHOOL WORK is necessarily a thing which cannot be estimated or traced. It was not characterized by any great external difference from the dominant humanism either in content or method; certainly not by any difference in organization or administration. Its direct influence on schools was only that exerted by individual teachers and individual programmes. Rare teachers and infrequent schools kept alive these traditions; but the dominant classicism overshadowed all other tendencies in school work. Naturally, since with the higher stages the formal language was at least mastered, the realistic spirit flourished more in the universities than in the lower schools. Yet the dominant character of the work of these higher institutions was, as has been previously noted, formal, artificial, and more or less perfunctory and traditional. The chief importance of humanistic realism is that it led directly to the sense-realism that soon found a place in organized educational work. § 2. SOCIAL-REALISM THE EDUCATIONAL CONCEPT. - This term socialrealism is adopted to indicate a view of education held by cation for life in the world; usually an eduthe gentry cation of of travel and various educators in previous centuries, but more generally Social-realaccepted during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and ism was edu then also most clearly expressed in theory. Its advocates practical looked upon the humanistic culture at its best as an inadequate preparation for the life of the gentleman. Its great representative, Montaigne, said in this connection: "If the mind be not better disposed by education, if the judgment be not better settled, I had much rather my scholar had spent his time at tennis. ... Do but observe him when he comes back from school, after fifteen or sixteen years that he has been there; there is nothing so awkward and maladroit, so unfit for company and employment; and all that you shall find he has got is, that his Latin and Greek have only made him a greater and more conceited coxcomb than when he went from home.” Education should shape the judgment and the disposition Importance so as to secure for the youth a successful and pleasurable career direct conin life. This view regarded education, in the frankest and most utilitarian manner, as the direct preparation for the life of the man of the world." Holding a view as far as possible from a high idealism, or a rigid asceticism, or a fervid emotionalism, these educators looked with unconcealed skepticism upon the ordinary routine of the school and the accepted opinion of humanistic studies. To them, education should be a frank preparation for a practical, serviceable, successful, happy career of a man of affairs in a civilization formal enough in its pretenses, but not over rigid in its standard of conduct. To them the more important fact of education was a period of travel for the sake of acquiring experience and familiarity with men and customs. Through travel one would acquire practical knowledge and the culture which comes from actual contact with places and people made familiar through literary study. ་ tact with society MONTAIGNE VS. ASCHAM CONCERNING REALISTIC This custom of education SOCIAL EDUCATION. With many writers throughout the through course of the history of education, one finds an acceptance of the travel, of view that a period of travel and the consequent broadening of standing long . |