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

by Ellwood Patterson Cubberley

[Illustration: FIG. 211. THE PROGRESS OF LITERACY IN EUROPE BY THE CLOSE
OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY]

The map reproduced here, showing the progress of general education by the close of the nineteenth century, as measured by the spread of the ability to read and write, reveals at a glance the high degree of literacy of the northern Teutonic and mixed Teutonic nations. It was among these nations that the Protestant Reformation ideas made the deepest impression; it was in these northern States that the Protestant elementary vernacular school, to teach reading and religion, attained its earliest start; it was there that the school was taken over from the Church and erected into an effective national instrument at an early date; and it was these nations which had been most successful, by the close of the nineteenth century, in extending the elements of education to all and thus producing literate populations.

THE STATE-CONTROL IDEA IN THE SOUTH AND EAST OF EUROPE. As we pass to the south and east of Europe we pass not only to lands which remained loyal to the Roman Church, or are adherents of the Greek Church, and hence did not experience the Reformation fervor with its accompanying zeal for education, but also to lands untouched by the French-Revolution movement and where democratic ideas have only recently begun to make any progress. Greece alone forms an exception to this statement, a constitutional government having been established there in 1843. Removed from the main stream of European civilization, these nations have been influenced less by modern forces; the hold of the Church on the education of the young has there been longest retained; and the taking-over of education by the State has there been longest deferred. In consequence, the schools provided have for long been inadequate both in number and scope, and the progress of literacy and democratic ideas among the people has been slow.

Despite the beginnings made by Maria Theresa (p. 475) in the late eighteenth century, Austria dropped backward to a low place in matters of education during the period of reaction following the Napoleonic wars, and the real beginnings of state elementary-schools there date from the law of 1867. The beginnings in Hungary date from 1868. The beginnings of other state elementary school systems are: Greece, 1823; Portugal, 1844; Spain, 1857; Roumania, 1859; Bulgaria, 1881; and Serbia, 1882. In many of these States, despite early beginnings, but little real progress has even yet been made in developing systems of national education that will provide gratuitous elementary-school training for all and inculcate the national spirit. In many of these States the illiteracy of the people is still high, [1] the people are poor, the nations are economically backward, the military and clerical classes still dominate, and intelligent and interested governments have not as yet been evolved.

In Russia, though Catherine II and her successors made earnest efforts to begin a system of state education, the period following Napoleon was one of extreme repressive reaction. The military class and the clergy of the Greek Church joined hands in a government interested in keeping the people submissive and devout. In consequence, at the time of the emancipation of the serfs, in 1861, it was estimated that not one per cent of the total population of Russia was then under instruction, and the ratio of illiteracy by the close of the nineteenth century was the highest in Europe outside of Spain, Portugal, and the Balkan States.

THE STATE-CONTROL IDEA IN THE ENGLISH SELF-GOVERNING DOMINIONS. The English and French settlers in Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritime Provinces of Canada brought the English and French parochial-school ideas from their home-lands with them, but these home conceptions were materially modified, at an early date, by settlers from the northern States of the American Union. These introduced the New England idea of state control and public responsibility for education. In part copying precedents recently established in the new American States, as an outcome of the struggles there to establish free, tax-supported, and state-controlled schools, both Ontario and Quebec early began the establishment of state systems of education for their people. A superintendent of education was appointed in Ontario in 1844, and the Common School Act of 1846 laid the foundation of the state school system of the Province. In the law of 1871 a system of uniform, free, compulsory, and state-inspected schools was definitely provided for. Quebec, in 1845, made the ecclesiastical parish the unit for school administration; in 1852 appointed government inspectors for the church schools; and in 1859 provided for a Council of Public Instruction to control all schools in the Province. The Dominion Act of 1867 left education, as in the United States, to the several Provinces to control, and state systems of education, though with large liberty in religious instruction, or the incorporation of the religious schools into the state school systems, have since been erected in all the Canadian Provinces. Following American precedents, too, a thoroughly democratic educational ladder has almost everywhere been created, substantially like that shown in the Figure on page 708.

In Australia and New Zealand education has similarly been left to the different States to handle, but a state centralized control has been provided there which is more akin to French practice than to English ideas. In each State, primary education has been made free, compulsory, secular, and state-supported. The laws making such provision in the different States date from 1872, in Victoria; 1875, in Queensland; 1878, in South Australia, West Australia, and New Zealand; and 1880, in New South Wales. Secondary education has not as yet been made free, and many excellent privately endowed or fee-supported secondary schools, after the English plan, are found in the different States.

In the new Union of South Africa all university education has been taken over by the Union, while the existing school systems of the different States are rapidly being taken over and expanded by the state governments, and transformed into constructive instruments of the States.

THE STATE-CONTROL IDEA IN THE SOUTH AMERICAN STATES. As we have seen in Chapter XX, the spirit of nationality awakened by the French Revolution spread to South America, and between 1815 and 1821 all of Spain's South American colonies revolted, declared their independence from the mother country, and set up constitutional republics. Brazil, in 1822, in a similar manner severed its connections from Portugal. The United States, through the Monroe Doctrine (1823), helped these new States to maintain their independence. For approximately half a century these States, isolated as they were and engaged in a long and difficult struggle to evolve stable forms of government, left such education as was provided to private individuals and societies and to the missionaries and teaching orders of the Roman Church. After the middle of the nineteenth century, the new forces stirring in the modern world began to be felt in South America as well, and, after about 1870, a well-defined movement to establish state school systems began to be in evidence.

The Argentine constitution of 1853 had directed the establishment of primary schools by the State, but nothing of importance was done until after the election of Dr. Sarmiento as President, in 1868. Under his influence an American-type normal school was established, teachers were imported from the United States, and liberal appropriations for education were begun. In 1873 a general system of national aid for primary education was established, and in 1884 a new law laid the basis of the present state school system. Though some earlier beginnings had been made in some of the other South American nations, Argentine is regarded as the leader in education among them. This is largely due to the democratic nature of the government which, in connection with the deep interest in education of President Sarmiento, [2] found educational expression in the creation of an American-type educational ladder, as the accompanying diagram shows. Large emphasis has been placed on scientific and practical studies in the secondary colegios. The normal school has been given large importance, and made a parallel and connecting link in the educational ladder between the primary schools and the universities. The Argentine school system, probably due to American influences acting through President Sarmiento, forms an exception to the usual South American state school system, as nearly all the other States have followed the French model and created a European two-class school system.