The History Of Education, Ellwood P. Cubberley [motivational novels .TXT] 📗

earlier government of the Church had developed and grown strong, the kingly power had everywhere been consolidated, Church and State were in close working alliance, and the new spirit of nationality—in government, foreign policy, languages, literature, and culture—was being energetically developed by those responsible for the welfare of the States. Everywhere, almost, on the continent of Europe, the theory of the divine right of kings to rule and the divine duty of subjects to obey seemed to have become fixed, and this theory of government the Church now most assiduously supported. Unlike in England and the American Colonies, the people of the larger countries of continental Europe had not as yet advanced far enough in personal liberty or political thinking to make any demand of consequence for the right to govern themselves. The new spirit of nationality abroad in Europe, though, as well as the new humanitarian ideas beginning to stir thinking men, alike tended to awaken a new interest on the part of many rulers in the welfare of the people they governed. In consequence, during the eighteenth century, we find a number of nations in which the rulers, putting themselves in harmony with the new spirit of the time, made earnest attempts to improve the condition of their peoples as a means of advancing the national welfare. We shall here mention the four nations in which the most conspicuous reform work was attempted.

 

THE RULERS OF PRUSSIA. Three kings, to whom the nineteenth-century greatness of Prussia was largely due, ruled the country during nearly the whole of the eighteenth century. They were fully as despotic as the kings of France, but, unlike the French kings, they were keenly alive to the needs of the people, anxious to advance the welfare of the State, tolerant in religion, and in sympathy with the new scientific studies. The first, Frederick William I (1713-40), labored earnestly to develop the resources of the country, trained a large army, ordered elementary education made compulsory, and made the beginnings in the royal provinces of the transformation of the schools from the control of the Church to the control of the State. His son, known to history as Frederick the Great, ruled from 1740 to 1786. During his long reign he labored continually to curtail ancient privileges, abolish old abuses, and improve the condition of his people. During the first week of his reign he abolished torture in trials, made the administration of law more equitable, instituted a limited freedom for the press, [2] and extended religious toleration. [3]

He also partially abolished serfdom on the royal domains, and tried to uplift the peasantry and citizen classes, but in this he met with bitter opposition from the nobles of his realm. He built roads, canals, and bridges, encouraged skilled artisans to settle in his dominions, developed agriculture and industry, encouraged scientific workers, extended an asylum to thousands of Huguenots fleeing from religious persecution in France, [4] and did more than any previous ruler to provide common schools throughout his kingdom. By the general regulation of education in his kingdom (chapter xxii) he laid the foundations upon which the nineteenth-century Prussian school system was later built.

 

[Illustration: Fig 145 FREDERICK THE GREAT]

 

His rule, though, was thoroughly autocratic. “Every thing for the people, but nothing by the people”, was the keynote of his policies. He had no confidence in the ability of the people to rule, and gave them no opportunity to learn the art. He employed the strong army his father built up to wage wars of conquest, seize territory that did not belong to him, and in consequence made himself a great German hero. [5] He may be said to have laid the foundations of modern militarized, socialized, obediently educated, and subject Germany, and also to have begun the “grand-larceny”

and “scrap-of-paper” policy which has characterized Prussian international relationships ever since. Frederick William II, who reigned from 1786 to 1797, continued in large measure the enlightened policies of his uncle, reformed the tax system, lightened the burdens of his people, encouraged trade, emphasized the German tongue, quickened the national spirit, actively encouraged schools and universities, and began that centralization of authority over the developing educational system which resulted in the creation in Prussia of the first modern state school system in Europe. The educational work of these three Prussian kings was indeed important, and we shall study it more in detail in a later chapter (Chapter XXII).

 

THE AUSTRIAN REFORMERS. Two notably benevolent rulers occupied the Austrian throne for half a century, and did much to improve the condition of the Austrian people. A very remarkable woman, Maria Theresa, came to the throne in 1740, and was followed by her son, Joseph II, in 1780. He ruled until 1790. To Maria Theresa the Austria of the nineteenth century owed most of its development and power. She worked with seemingly tireless energy for the advancement of the welfare of her subjects, and toward the close of her reign laid, as we shall see in a later chapter, the beginnings of Austrian school reform.

 

Joseph II carried still further his mother’s benevolent work, and strove to introduce “enlightenment and reason” into the administration of his realm. A student of the writings of the eighteenth-century reform philosophers, and deeply imbued with the reform spirit of his time, he attempted to abolish ancient privileges, establish a uniform code of justice, encourage education, free the serfs, abolish feudal tenure, grant religious toleration, curb the power of the Pope and the Church, break the power of the local Diets, centralize the State, and “introduce a uniform level of democratic simplicity under his own absolute sway.” He attempted to alter the organization of the Church, abolished six hundred monasteries, [6] and reduced the number of monastic persons in his dominion from 63,000 to 27,000. Attempting too much, he brought down upon his head the wrath of both priest and noble and died a disappointed man.

The abolition of feudal tenure and serfdom on the distinctively Austrian lands, of all his attempted reforms, alone was permanent. His work stands as an interesting commentary on the temporary character of the results which follow attempts rapidly to improve the conditions surrounding the lives of people, without at the same time educating the people to improve themselves.

 

THE SPANISH REFORMERS. A very similar result attended the reform efforts of a succession of benevolent rulers thrust upon Spain, during the eighteenth century, by the complications of foreign politics. Over a period of nearly ninety years, extending from the accession of Philip V

(1700) to the death of Charles III (1788), remarkable political progress was imposed by a succession of able ministers and with the consent of the kings. [7] The power of the Church, always the crying evil of Spain, was restricted in many ways; the Inquisition was curbed; the Jesuits were driven from the kingdom; the burning of heretics was stopped; prosecution for heresy was reduced and discouraged; the monastic orders were taught to fear the law and curb their passions; evils in public administration were removed; national grievances were redressed; the civil service was improved; science and literature were encouraged, in place of barren theological speculations; and an earnest effort was made to regenerate the national life and improve the lot of the common people.

 

All these reforms, though, were imposed from above, and no attempt was made to introduce schools or to educate the people in the arts of self-government. The result was that the reforms never went beneath the surface, and the national life of the people remained largely untouched.

Within five years of the death of Charles III all had been lost. Under a native Spanish king, thoroughly orthodox, devout, and lacking in any broad national outlook, the Church easily restored itself to power, the priests resumed their earlier importance, the nobles again began to exact their full toll, free discussion was forbidden, scientific studies were abandoned, the universities were ordered to discontinue the study of moral philosophy, and the political and social reforms which had required three generations to build up were lost in half a decade. Not meeting any well-expressed need of the people, and with no schools provided to show to the people the desirable nature of the reforms introduced, it was easy to sweep them aside. In this relapse to mediaevalism, the chance for Spain—

a country rich in possibilities and natural resources—to evolve early into a progressive modern nation was lost. So Spain has remained ever since, and only in the last quarter of a century has reform from within begun to be evident in this until recently priest-ridden and benighted land.

 

THE INTELLIGENT DESPOTS OF RUSSIA. The greatest of these were Peter the Great, who ruled from 1689 to 1725, and Catherine II, who ruled from 1762

to 1796. Catching something of the new eighteenth-century western spirit, these rulers tried to introduce some western enlightenment into their as yet almost barbarous land. Each tried earnestly to lift their people to a higher level of living, and to start them on the road toward civilization and learning. By a series of edicts, despotically enforced, Peter tried to introduce the civilization of the western world into his country. He brought in numbers of skilled artisans, doctors, merchants, teachers, printers, and soldiers; introduced many western skills and trades; and made the beginnings of western secondary education for the governing classes by the establishment in the cities of a number of German-type gymnasia. [8] Later Catherine II had the French philosopher Diderot (p.

482) draw up a plan for her for the organization of a state system of higher schools, but the plan was never put into effect. The beginnings of Russian higher civilization really date from this eighteenth-century work.

The power of the formidable Greek or Eastern Church remained, however, untouched, and this continued, until after the Russian revolution of 1917, as one of the most serious obstacles to Russian intellectual and educational progress. The serfs, too, remained serfs—tied to the land, ignorant, superstitious, and obedient.

 

By the close of the eighteenth century Russia, largely under Prussian training, had become a very formidable military power, and by the close of the nineteenth century was beginning to make some progress of importance in the arts of peace. Just at present Russia is going through a stage of national evolution quite comparable to that which took place in France a century and a quarter ago, and the educational importance of this great people, as we shall point out further on, lies in their future evolution rather than in any contribution they have as yet made to western development.

 

II. THE UNSATISFIED DEMAND FOR REFORM IN FRANCE

 

THE SETTING OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE. Eighteenth-century France, on the contrary, developed no benevolent despot to mitigate abuses, reform the laws, abolish privileges, temper the rule of the Church, [9] (R. 247), curb the monastic orders, develop the natural resources, begin the establishment of schools, and alleviate the hard lot of the serf and the peasant. There, instead, absolute monarchy in Europe reached its most complete triumph during the long reigns of Louis XIV (1643-1715) and Louis XV (1715-74), and the splendor of the court life of France captivated all Europe and served to hide the misery which made the splendor possible.

There the power of the nobles had been completely broken, and the power of the parliaments completely destroyed. “I am the State,” exclaimed Louis XIV, and the almost unlimited despotism of the King and his ministers and favorites fully supported the statement. Local liberties had been suppressed, and the lot of the common people—ignorant, hard-working, downtrodden, but intensely patriotic—was wretched in the extreme.

Approximately 140,000 nobles [10] and 130,000 monks, nuns, and clergy owned two fifths of the landed property of France, and controlled the destinies of a nation of approximately 25,000,000 people. Agriculture was the great industry of the time, but