Shortly after the Revolution, owing in part to the After the Revolution the prevailing type of secondary education. inability or unwillingness of the towns to maintain grammar schools, and in part to the wider appeal and greater usefulness of the academies, the latter institutions quite eclipsed the former, and became for about half a century the prevailing type of secondary school in the United States. They were usually endowed institutions managed by a close corporation, but were often largely supported by subscriptions from the neighborhood, and sometimes subsidized by the state. Located Support, location, and functions. in small towns or villages, they served a wide constituency and made provision for boarding, as well as day pupils. Unlike the grammar schools, they were not originally intended to prepare for the learned professions exclusively, but, as time passed, they tended more and more to become preparatory schools for the colleges, instead of finishing schools for the middle classes of society. The academies were also the first institutions of secondary education to offer opportunities to women. Many of them were co-educational, and others, frequently burdened with the name of ‘female seminary,’ were for girls exclusively. Academies for some time likewise furnished the only means of training teachers for the elementary schools, and have generally played an important part in education in the United States.
SUPPLEMENTARY READING
Graves, During the Transition (Macmillan, 1910), chap. XVII; and Great Educators of Three Centuries (Macmillan, 1912), chaps. I and V; Monroe, Text-book (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 442-460. An excellent edition of Milton’s Tractate of Education is that by Morris, E. E. (Macmillan, 1895); of Montaigne’s Education of Children that by Rector, L. E. (Appleton, 1899); of Locke’s Thoughts concerning Education, and of Mulcaster’s Positions, those by Quick, R. H. (Cambridge University Press, 1895, and Longmans, 1888, respectively); and of Rabelais’ Gargantua, that by Besant, W. (Lippincott, Foreign Classics for English Readers). The works of Castiglione, Elyot, Peacham, Brathwaite, etc., are also extant. For an account of the Ritterakademien, see Nohle, E., History of the German School System (Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1897-98), pp. 41 f., and Paulsen, F., German Education (Scribner, 1908), pp. 112-116; and of the academies, Brown, E. E., The Making of Our Middle Schools (Longmans, Green, 1902), chaps. VIII and IX.
CHAPTER XV
SENSE REALISM AND THE EARLY SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT
OUTLINE
In the seventeenth century scientific investigation developed rapidly, and led theorists to introduce science into the curriculum and to advocate a study of ‘real things.’
Bacon undertook to formulate induction, and while he did not understand the importance of an hypothesis, he did much to rid the times of a priori reasoning.
On the basis of sense realism, Ratich anticipated many principles of modern pedagogy, but he was unsuccessful in applying his ideas.
Comenius (1) produced texts for teaching Latin objectively, (2) crystallized his educational principles in the Great Didactic, and (3) attempted an encyclopædic organization of knowledge. He wished to make this knowledge part of the course at every stage of education, and, while he was not consistently inductive, he made a great advance in the use of this method.
Through sense realism, rudimentary science was introduced into the elementary schools; the Ritterakademien and the pietist schools stressed the subject; and professorships of science were founded in the universities.
The Development of the Sciences and Realism.—The realistic tendency did not pause with reviving the ideas represented by the words nor with the endeavor to bring Earlier realism a transition to sense realism. the pupil into touch with the life he was to lead. The earlier realism seems to have been simply a stage in the process of transition from the narrow and formal humanism to a realism obtained through the senses, which may be regarded as the beginning of the modern movement to develop the natural sciences. Science had started to develop as early as the time of the schoolman, Roger Bacon (1214-1294), but for three centuries it was not kindly received. Even during the Renaissance the Church had Opposition to the sciences. continued to oppose it bitterly, because it tended to conflict with religious dogma, although this age did not object to the revival of the classics. Accordingly, the latter subject became strongly intrenched in educational tradition, and its advocates offered the most obstinate opposition to the sciences. Its numerous representatives struggled hard to keep the sciences out of education.
However, concomitant with the growth of reason and the partial removal of the theological ban, there was developed a remarkable scientific movement, with a variety of discoveries and inventions. For more than a Development of physics and astronomy in the seventeenth century. millennium the Greek developments in astronomy and physics had been accepted as final, but toward the close of the sixteenth and during the seventeenth century these dicta were completely upset. The hypothesis of a solar system, which replaced the Ptolemaic interpretation, was published by Copernicus (1473-1543); Kepler (1571-1630) explained the motion of the planets by three simple laws; and, through the construction of a telescope, Galileo (1564-1642) revealed new celestial phenomena. Galileo also demonstrated that all bodies, allowing for the resistance of the air, fall at the same rate; by means of the barometer, Torricelli (1608-1647) and Boyle (1627-1691) proved the existing theories of a vacuum incorrect, and formulated important laws concerning the pressure of gases; and Guericke (1602-1686), inspired by their discoveries, succeeded in constructing an air-pump. Investigations of this kind paved the way for the formulation of the law of universal gravitation and the laws of motion by Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), which united the universe into a single comprehensive system and completed the foundations for modern mechanics.
Development of anatomy and physiology.