chemistry in the form of alchemy. But their special function was to perpetuate a learned priesthood in the interest of religion as religion, and in the interests of the state as a moral institution constantly in danger of corruption by ambition. It was this very corruption that finally doomed the Persian Empire to an early and disgraceful fall. Estimate. The merits of the Persian system cannot be denied. Here was perfect fitness of curriculum and form as means to end. The self-representation of the Persians as a social whole in the form of the king's cabinet is startlingly suggestive of modern social evolution. The serious side to the Persian system was the deliberate neglect of the means of popular intelligence, namely reading and writing. As a result, Persia contributed almost nothing to literature and science, and her only imitable art is palace architecture. From the fate of Persia we learn the great truth that religion and morals lose their power over a people weak in intellectual culture, and that other now almost selfevident truth that even physical culture not intellectualized is only of a lower order. To these verdicts must be added this other, that the slavish subjection of woman, by hindering the moral function of the home, helped very materially to bring about the moral and political fall of Persia. REFERENCES 1. Myers' "General History." 2. Lord's "Beacon Lights of History." 3. Sanderson's "World History and Its Makers." 4. Davidson's "History of Education." 5. Monroe's "Cyclopedia of Education." QUESTIONS 1. Who were the ancient Persians? Why were they a race of warriors? 2. What was the great ambition of the Persian kings? Explain the course of empire-building. 3. What was the function of the king's cabinet? How carefully was this function guarded? 4. What were the religious beliefs of the Persians at their best? What was magism? How did Mazdeism serve the highest interests of Persia? 5. Describe the Avesta and the later Zend-Avesta? Who was Zoroaster? Compare him with Moses and other great teachers. 6. What was the final purpose of Persian education? Into what intermediate purposes can you analyze the final purpose? 7. Describe the education of the Persian masses, accounting for the whole curriculum, its institutional character, the employment of teachers, etc. 8. Describe the higher education of Persian priests and princes, accounting especially for the curriculum and the teachers. 9. What were the best things and the worst things in Persian education, judging from the standpoints of logical fitness, social evolution, contributions to after-ages, and the fate of empires. CHAPTER V EDUCATION OF THE ANCIENT SHEMITES THE SHEMITES "In the Semitic spirit there appear two opposite elements, an irresistible tendency toward self-assertion ... and the most intense subjectivity, coupled with a wealth of dreamy emotionality, which often flames up into the loftiest enthusiasm." It is with these words that a great German, Doctor Schmidt, in his "History of Pedagogy," sums up the conspicuous qualities of the race, and at the same time furnishes the explanation of their contributions to civilization. It was not until Turanian culture had attained to considerable heights in the regions of Sumer and Accad that semisavage Shemites from the Arabian desert came and took possession. After much fighting they became masters of all Mesopotamia. Their first fixed habitat was Chaldea. Here "they built themselves towns in the midst of the Sumerians and Accadians, gradually adopting their higher civilization, and with it their system of writing, their religious literature, and their gods, and finally combining into a great Chaldeo-Semitic kingdom, with its centre at Babil (Babylon). Later on, they spread northward from Chaldea and founded the powerful empire of Assyria, with its centre first at Ashur, later at Nineveh. From about 2000 B. C. to 606 B. C., Assyria was the more powerful state, extending its sway over the whole of western Asia, but after the latter date Babylonia once more rose to eminence, only to succumb in less than a century to the Persian Empire of Cyrus the Great, 538 B. C." The same fate which overtook imperial Rome when she had conquered Greece overtook these empire-building Assyrio-Babylonians-they were conquered themselves. The priestly Turanian civilization into which they had come as masters at length mastered them. ASSYRIO-BABYLONIAN EDUCATION In accordance with the facts just stated, we may define their system as priestly education. Ends in View.-There was only one great end in view, and that was education for the priest by the priest, but the priest was the scholar in other spheres as well as in his own, and this fact enlarged the curriculum very considerably. Curriculum. We know almost nothing about primary education in the Tigris-Euphrates valley, except that there must have been such a thing, preparing at least for the higher education of the priests. The range of subjects was strikingly wide, including reading, writing, arithmetic, astronomy, music, literature, philology, architecture, painting, sculpture, etc. In his superb summing up of the whole matter Doctor Davidson shows that most of these studies, together with others, were carried to surprising perfection. Method. Higher education was given in regular schools or colleges in connection with the temples and libraries. Their language, like that of Egypt, was ide* Davidson's "History of Education," p. 50. ographic. The writing process consisted of cuneiform or wedge-shaped impressions made upon soft clay tablets. The lessons in reading and writing must have taxed memory and patience to the utmost. Many tablets with school exercises on them have been found in Babylon. It is thought that such advances as the Assyrio-Babylonians made in astronomy must have required telescopes. The complete appropriation of Babylonian literature by the Assyrians was accomplished by the help of grammar and lexicons, or dictionaries. Estimate.-Remnants of architecture, art, and literature in the great museums of the world speak eloquently of the power and luxury and culture to which the Assyrio-Babylonians attained. Their literature in particular, "consisting chiefly of epic and lyric poetry of a religious character, was marked by sublimity, and must have exerted a powerful influence." Unhappily, however, sin was not considered as something wrong in itself, but rather as an offense against some unseen avenging power. In this way craven fear rather than moral freedom became the ethical motive. The results were, of course, disastrous, not only to the AssyrioBabylonians but to early Europe, where these false impressions were carried. REFERENCES 1. Myers' "General History." 2. Graves' "History of Education Before the Middle Ages." 3. Davidson's "History of Education." QUESTIONS I. Who were the ancient Shemites? What conspicuous race qualities help to explain their contributions to civilization? |