The History of Education / Educational Practice and Progress Considered as a Phase of the Development and Spread of Western Civilization

by Ellwood Patterson Cubberley

1. HUMANISTIC REALISM

A NEW AIM IN INSTRUCTION. Humanistic realism represents the beginning of the reaction against form and style and in favor of ideas and content. The humanistic realists were in agreement with the classical humanists that the old classical literatures and the Bible contained all that was important in the education of youth. The ancient literatures, they held, presented "not only the widest product of human intelligence, but practically all that was worthy of man's attention." The two groups differed, however, in that the classical humanists conceived the aim of education to be the mastery of the vocabulary and style of Cicero, and the production of a new race of Roman youths for a revived Latin scholarly world, while the new humanistic realists wanted to use the old literatures as a means to a new end—that of teaching knowledge that would be useful in the world in which they lived. Monroe has so well expressed the humanistic-realist attitude that a passage from his History is worth quoting here. He says:

Not only did ancient philosophy contain the true philosophy of this life, but languages were the key to the real understanding of the Christian religion. Not only did mastery of these languages give power of speech, and hence influence over one's fellows; but, if military science was to be studied, it could in no place be better searched for than in Caesar and in Xenophon; was agriculture to be practiced, no better guide was to be found than Virgil or Columella; was architecture to be mastered, no better way existed than through Vitruvius; was geography to be considered, it must be through Mela or Solinus; was medicine to be understood, no better means than Celsus existed; was natural history to be appreciated, there was no more adequate source of information than Pliny and Seneca. Aristotle furnished the basis of all the sciences, Plato of all philosophy, Cicero of all institutional life, and the Church Fathers and the Scriptures of all religion.

EXPONENTS OF HUMANISTIC REALISM. The Dutch international scholar Erasmus (1467?-1536) (p. 274), the Frenchman Rabelais (1483-1553), and the English poet Milton (1608-74) stand as the clearest representatives of this new humanistic realism.

Erasmus had clearly distinguished between the education of words and the education of things, had pointed out the ease with which real truth is learned and retained, and had urged the study of the content rather than the form of the ancient authors. In his System of Studies he said:

From these very authors (Latin and Greek), whom we read for the sake of improving our language, incidentally, in no small degree is a knowledge of things gathered.

In his Ciceronian he had ridiculed those who mistook the form for the spirit of the ancients.

The French non-conforming monk, curé, physician, and university scholar, François Rabelais, in his satirical Life of Gargantua (1535) and The Heroic Deeds of Pantagruel (1533) had set forth, even more clearly, the idea of obtaining from a study of the ancient authors (R. 210) knowledge that would be useful. Writing largely in the character of a clown and a fool, because such was a safer method, he protested against the formal, shallow, and insincere life of his age. He made as vigorous a protest against medievalism and formalism as he dared, for he lived in a time when new ideas were dangerous commodities for one to carry about or to try to express. He ridiculed the old scholastic learning, set forth the idea of using the old classics for realistic as well as humanistic ends, and also advocated physical, moral, social, and religious education in the spirit of the best writers and teachers of the Italian Renaissance. His book was extensively read and had some influence in shaping thinking, though Rabelais's importance in the history of education lies rather in his influence on later educational thinkers than on the life of his time.

[Illustration: FIG. 121. FRANÇOIS RABELAIS (1483-1553)]

Perhaps the clearest example of humanistic realism is found in the writings of the English poet and humanitarian, John Milton. His Tractate on Education (1644) was extensively read, and was influential in shaping educational practice in the non-conformist secondary academies which arose a little later in England. Still later his ideas indirectly somewhat influenced American development.

Milton first gives us an excellent statement of the new religious-civic aim of post-Reformation education (R. 211), and then points out the defects of the existing education, whereby boys "spend seven or eight years merely in scraping together so much miserable Latine and Greek, as might be learnt otherwise easily and delightfully in one year." He then presents his plan for "a compleat and generous Education" for "noble and gentle youths," and tells "how all this may be done between twelve and one and twenty, less time than is now bestowed in pure trifling at Grammar and Sophistry." The course of study he outlines (R. 212) is enormous. The first year, that is beginning at twelve, the boy is to learn Latin grammar, arithmetic, and geometry, and to read simple Latin and Greek. During the next three or four years the pupil is to master Greek, and to study agriculture, geography, natural philosophy, physiology, mathematics, fortification, engineering, architecture, and natural history, all by reading the chief writings of the ancients, in prose and poetry, on these subjects. During the remaining years to twenty-one the pupil, similarly, is to obtain ethical instruction from the Greeks and the Bible; learn Hebrew, Greek, Roman, and Saxon law; learn Italian and Hebrew; and study economics, politics, history, logic, rhetoric, and poetry by reading selected ancient authors. What Rabelais suggested in jest for his giant, Milton adopted as a program for the school. In addition, in thoroughly characteristic modern English fashion, he makes careful provision for daily exercise and play. Aside, though, from its impossibility of accomplishment except by a superior few, Milton's plan is thoroughly representative of the new humanistic-realistic point of view-that is, that education should impart useful information, though the information as Milton conceived it was to be drawn almost entirely from the books of the ancients.

[Illustration: FIG. 122. JOHN MILTON (1608-74)]

EDUCATIONAL RESULTS OF HUMANISTIC REALISM. The importance of humanistic realism in the history of education lies largely in that it was the first of a series of reactions that led later to sense-realism—that is, to the study of science and the application of scientific method in the schools.

In England it possesses still larger importance. Milton had called his institution an "Academy." [1] After the restoration of the Stuarts (Charles II, 1660), some two thousand non-conforming clergymen were "dispossessed" by the Act of Conformity (1662; R. 166), and soon after this the children of Non-Conformists were excluded from the grammar schools and universities. Many of these clergymen now turned to teaching as a means of earning a livelihood and serving their people, and the ideas of the non-conformist Milton were influential in turning the schools thus established even further toward the study of useful subjects. Many of the new schools offered instruction in the modern languages, logic, rhetoric, ethics, geography, astronomy, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, surveying, navigation, history, oratory, economics, and natural and moral philosophy, as well as the old classical subjects. All teaching, too, was done in English, and the study of English language and literature was emphasized. This made these non-conformist academies in many respects superior to the older Latin grammar schools. After the enactment of the Toleration Act, in 1689, these schools were allowed to incorporate and were gradually absorbed into the existing Latin grammar-school system of England, but unfortunately without producing much change in the character of these older institutions.

The idea of offering instruction in these new studies was in time carried to America, where better results were obtained. At first a few of the subjects, such as the mathematical studies, surveying, navigation, and English, were introduced into the existing Latin grammar or other schools of secondary grade. Especially was this true in the colonies south of New England. After 1751, and especially after about 1780, distinct Academies arose in the United States (chapter XVIII), whose purpose was to offer instruction in all these new subjects of study. From these our modern high schools have been derived.