CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF EDUCATIONAL Development DURING THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES Frederick Buffon Yale College founded. both sexes in Saxony. 1712-1778 1746. Princeton founded. 1747. First real schule (in Rousseau's 1688-1744 1707-1788 Emile 1762 Berlin). 1713-1740 Richardson Linnæus Johann Basedow Frederick the 1689-1761 1707-1778 1723-1790 1748. First Lehrerseminar De Foe Franklin Salzmann 1751. Academy of Philadelphia 1744-1811 founded. Great 1707-1757 East India Gray 1736-1819 Pestalozzi's Lavoisier Leonard and 1716-1771 1743-1794 Jonathan Priestley Edwards 1733-1804 1703-1758 Adam John Smith Wesley 1723-1790 College founded. 1746-1827 1764. Gertrude. 1781 Knox, Liberal Education 1781 Edgeworth, Practical Expulsion of Jesuits from France. 1763. Special training required Philanthropinum. Education 1798 1783. Sunday-schools founded. Jean Paul Richter 1784 University of State of 1763-1825 New York. Land endowments for public schools in United States. 1759-1824 1785. Webster's Speller. 1724-1804 Bell's Experi- 1794. All Prussian teachers declared State officials. Education, 1798 1793. Decree of Rev. Convention Diderot 1744-1829 1713-1784 Werner Helvétius 1750-1817 Frederick 1785. 1715-1771 Kant Condillac 1715-1780 Herschel ment in Burns 1738-1832 1759-1796 Schleier Lancaster's Schiller macher Monitorial on education. 1794. National Normal School System 1798 in France. 1795. Primary education 1753-1832 established in France. Laplace Joseph Lancaster 1795. Lindley Murray's English 1778-1838 grammar. Humboldt Noah Webster 1798. Monitorial System 1758-1843 established. CHAPTER X THE NATURALISTIC TENDENCY IN EDUCATION: ROUSSEAU ism was a negation of sance RELATION TO PREVIOUS MOVEMENTS AND TO THE "Natural TIMES. - The naturalistic movement in education was a revolution in thought and practice no less important and influential the Renaisthan that of the Renaissance. It was the overthrow of that conception, developed by the Renaissance, that education consists of a mastery of books and of forms. But the naturalistic movement in thought was far more general than the educational aspect of it. And the educational aspect can only be understood through a comprehension of broader intellectual and social conditions. During the latter part of the seventeenth and most of the eighteenth century a lifeless formalism prevailed in religion and morals. Against this there had sprung up in England, Puritanism; in Germany, Pietism; in France, Jansenism. But even these movements, because they asserted ideals too high for realization, had themselves degenerated into formalism. A tone of cant was introduced into literature and social intercourse; and underneath this, frivolity and licentiousness soon developed. In France the established Church retained all its former power and exerted a most oppressive influence over thought and action. The reigning monarchs made amends for their licentiousness by persecution and inquisitorial torturing of those who dared. question the authority of the Church, and the aristocracy purchased a similar indulgence by a most intense loyalty to formal orthodoxy. "Ceremonial display and outward magnificence merely veiled moral meanness and inward depravity; punctilious attention to the rites of the Church, and a blind or feigned ortho Was a revolt against the formalism of the eight eenth cen tury and especially agains ciality of the artifi French re life Position of France during the eighteenth cen tury Revolt against the prevalent absolutism The new formalism of the Enlightenment doxy, only favored the spread of hypocrisy and of a secret and cynical skepticism." During the seventeenth century France had been the first nation of the world, and during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries had passed through a period comparable to the Periclean or Augustan ages of ancient civilizations. But the brilliancy of Paris had been purchased at the expense of the provinces. The power of the king had been bought with the slavery of his people; his success in war with the impoverishment of the country; the extravagance of aristocratic society with the sordid lives of the common people. The supremacy of the orthodox Church had been brought about by the suppression of all right of individual judgment. The support of the nobility for the Church and state had been secured by unjust privileges and corrupt lives. There prevailed an absolutism in politics, in religion, in thought and in action, that could persist only so long as no one arose to lead a revolt. During the eighteenth century leaders were found. The first revolt was that of the intellect against repression, and is usually called the Illumination or the Enlightenment. The second was the revolt of the masses for the rights of the common man, and constitutes the Naturalistic Movement. On the thought side these two movements had much in commor and are often included together. Yet in certain fundamentals, such as formalism and aristocracy, there was a radical divergence between them. They will be briefly noticed as distinct from each other. THE ILLUMINATION OR ENLIGHTENMENT, though most notable step in the development of human freedom was in its outcome but a new type of formalism. This eighteenth-century formalism was materialistic as the former had been pietistic; skeptical and rationalistic as the former had been religious and ceremonial; aristocratic as that had been democratic. According to the prevailing standards of the eighteenth century, morality consisted in the observance of Flint, History of the Philosophy of History in France, p. 236. form and the preservation of proper outward appearance. Consequently, as is evidenced by the literature of the times, tion of life results of it permitted the grossest immorality. Rejecting the practices Rationalistic of Puritanism and Pietism as hypocrisy and revealed religion interpretaas superstition, it became openly atheistic or skeptical. Hume and Gibbon in England and Voltaire and the encyclopedists in France interpreted life from that position. In its origin the Enlightenment was a reaction against the existing formalism in thought and in belief, and against the absolutism of the Church. It rebelled against hierarchy and despotism in Church, state and society; against superstition and ignorance in thought; against hypocrisy in morals. As often, the Evil as well price of freedom was anarchism in social order, atheism and as good skepticism in thought, and license in morals. Establishing this intellecas its fundamental principle a complete reliance upon human tual freedom understanding and reason, the early movement opposed all ancient abuses, and along with these all forms of tyranny, whether in thought, in government or in morals. Finally, it attacked the very foundations of all the institutions, especially of state and Church, through which such authority was exercised. Thus it tended to eliminate for the time being much that was woven into the very texture of a stable society and is ever essential to it. Through human reason alone was any true estimate of life now to be formulated and human happiness attained. The aims of the Enlight enment The aim of the Enlightenment was to liberate the mind from the dominance of supernatural terrorism; to establish the moral personality of the individual, independent of ecclesiastical and social forms; to demonstrate the intellectual freedom and sufficiency of man; to destroy the terrorisms over the feelings, the absolutism over thought, the tyranny over Its character. action, exercised especially by the Church, and, as supplement- ings ing the Church, the monarchy. The Enlightenment asserted a supreme faith in the reason of the individual, in justice in the state, in toleration in religious beliefs, in liberty in political istic teach 1 Essential ideas of the reform of the eighteenth century The Enlight enment was aristocratic, indifferent to the needs Was artifi cial and formal in its results action, and in the rights of man. The entire period was con trolled by a profound belief in the prerogative of the individual, his right to individual judgment, and to the determination of every question uninfluenced by the beliefs and superstitions of the Church and the traditions of society Freedom of thought, liberty of conscience, sufficiency of reason for the conduct of life, were thus the watchwords and the keys of interpretation of this eighteenth-century movement. However, there was another side to the Enlightenment: Voltaire and his co-workers of the early half of the century were no less aristocrats than those aristocrats of privilege whom they opposed. They held that the lower classes were not amenable to reason, that they were incapable of being educated, that they were but little above the savages, and consequently that for them religion had a legitimate function. The thought-movement of the early part of the century was aristocratic, because it was rationalistic. It aimed to secure the culture of the few, the overthrow of narrow tradition and dogmatism in the lives of those who controlled society, and the control of reason among the educated class. It would substitute a new aristocracy of intelligence and wealth for the old aristocracy of family, of position and of the Church. It possessed a cleverness, a wit, a brilliancy, that contrasted favorably with the narrowness and dullness of the old. But it was for the chosen few, and had no regard for the masses, sunk in degradation and overwhelmed by wrongs and tyranny. While the illuminati opposed tyranny and oppression in human thought, they yet aspired to profit by participation in the social and political privileges of the few. There was a selfishness and inconsistency about it all, that but made more glaring the injustice to the many who must support the privileges of the few. Hence this early intellectual movement inevitably degenerated into selfish indifference, into skepticism and into the stilted formalism of a polished but artificial society. All |