History of Education

V

Education in Ancient Rome

While the Greeks were developing their civilization in the areas surrounding the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the Romans were gaining control of the Italian peninsula and areas of the western Mediterranean. The Greeks’ education focused on the study of philosophy. The Romans, on the other hand, were preoccupied with war, conquest, politics, and civil administration. As in Greece, only a minority of Romans attended school. Schooling was for those who had the money to pay tuition and the time to attend classes. While girls from wealthy families occasionally learned to read and write at home, boys attended a primary school, called aludus. In secondary schools boys studied Latin and Greek grammar taught by Greek slaves, called pedagogues.

After primary and secondary school, wealthy young men often attended schools of rhetoric or oratory that prepared them to be leaders in government and administration. Cicero, a 1st century bc Roman senator, combined Greek and Roman ideas on how to educate orators in his book De Oratore. Like Isocrates, Cicero believed orators should be educated in liberal arts subjects such as grammar, rhetoric, logic, mathematics, and astronomy. He also asserted that they should study ethics, military science, natural science, geography, history, and law.

Quintilian, an influential Roman educator who lived in the 1st century ad, wrote that education should be based on the stages of individual development from childhood to adulthood. Quintilian devised specific lessons for each stage. He also advised teachers to make their lessons suited to the student’s readiness and ability to learn new material. He urged teachers to motivate students by making learning interesting and attractive.

VI

Ancient Jewish Education

Education among the Jewish people also had a profound influence on Western learning. The ancient Jews had great respect for the printed word and believed that God revealed truth to them in the Bible. Most information on ancient Jewish goals and methods of education comes from the Bible and the Talmud, a book of religious and civil law. Jewish religious leaders, known as rabbis, advised parents to teach their children religious beliefs, law, ethical practices, and vocational skills. Both boys and girls were introduced to religion by studying the Torah, the most sacred document of Judaism. Rabbis taught in schools within synagogues, places of worship and religious study.

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VII

Medieval Education

During the Middle Ages, or the medieval period, which lasted roughly from the 5th to the 15th century, Western society and education were heavily shaped by Christianity, particularly the Roman Catholic Church. The Church operated parish, chapel, and monastery schools at the elementary level. Schools in monasteries and cathedrals offered secondary education. Much of the teaching in these schools was directed at learning Latin, the old Roman language used by the church in its ceremonies and teachings. The church provided some limited opportunities for the education of women in religious communities or convents. Convents had libraries and schools to help prepare nuns to follow the religious rules of their communities. Merchant and craft guilds also maintained some schools that provided basic education and training in specific crafts. Knights received training in military tactics and the code of chivalry.

As in the Greek and Roman eras, only a minority of people went to school during the medieval period. Schools were attended primarily by persons planning to enter religious life such as priests, monks, or nuns. The vast majority of people were serfs who served as agricultural workers on the estates of feudal lords. The serfs, who did not attend school, were generally illiterate (see Serfdom).

In the 10th and early 11th centuries, Arabic learning had a pronounced influence on Western education. From contact with Arab scholars in North Africa and Spain, Western educators learned new ways of thinking about mathematics, natural science, medicine, and philosophy. The Arabic number system was especially important, and became the foundation of Western arithmetic. Arab scholars also preserved and translated into Arabic the works of such influential Greek scholars as Aristotle, Euclid, Galen, and Ptolemy. Because many of these works had disappeared from Europe by the Middle Ages, they might have been lost forever if Arab scholars such as Avicenna and Averroës had not preserved them.

In the 11th century medieval scholars developed Scholasticism, a philosophical and educational movement that used both human reason and revelations from the Bible. Upon encountering the works of Aristotle and other Greek philosophers from Arab scholars, the Scholastics attempted to reconcile Christian theology with Greek philosophy. Scholasticism reached its high point in the Summa Theologiae of Saint Thomas Aquinas, a 13th century Dominican theologian who taught at the University of Paris. Aquinas reconciled the authority of religious faith, represented by the Scriptures, with Greek reason, represented by Aristotle. Aquinas described the teacher’s vocation as one that combines faith, love, and learning.

The work of Aquinas and other Scholastics took place in the medieval institutions of higher education, the universities. The famous European universities of Paris, Salerno, Bologna, Oxford, Cambridge, and Padua grew out of the Scholastics-led intellectual revival of the 12th and 13th centuries. The name university comes from the Latin word universitas, or associations, in reference to the associations that students and teachers organized to discuss academic issues. Medieval universities offered degrees in the liberal arts and in professional studies such as theology, law, and medicine.

VIII

Education During the Renaissance

The Renaissance, or rebirth of learning, began in Europe in the 14th century and reached its height in the 15th century. Scholars became more interested in the humanist features—that is, the secular or worldly rather than the religious aspects—of the Greek and Latin classics. Humanist educators found their models of literary style in the classics. The Renaissance was a particularly powerful force in Italy, most notably in art, literature, and architecture. In literature, the works of such Italian writers as Dante Aleghieri, Petrarch, and Giovanni Boccaccio became especially important.

Humanist educators designed teaching methods to prepare well-rounded, liberally educated persons. Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus was particularly influential. Erasmus believed that understanding and conversing about the meaning of literature was more important than memorizing it, as had been required at many of the medieval religious schools. He advised teachers to study such fields as archaeology, astronomy, mythology, history, and Scripture.

The invention of the printing press in the mid-15th century made books more widely available and increased literacy rates (see Printing). But school attendance did not increase greatly during the Renaissance. Elementary schools educated middle-class children while lower-class children received little, if any, formal schooling. Children of the nobility and upper classes attended humanist secondary schools.

Educational opportunities for women improved slightly during the Renaissance, especially for the upper classes. Some girls from wealthy families attended schools of the royal court or received private lessons at home. The curriculum studied by young women was still based on the belief that only certain subjects, such as art, music, needlework, dancing, and poetry, were suited for females. For working-class girls, especially rural peasants, education was still limited to training in household duties such as cooking and sewing.

IX

Education During the Protestant Reformation

The religious Reformation of the 16th century marked a decline in the authority of the Catholic Church and contributed to the emergence of the middle classes in Europe. Protestant religious reformers, such as John Calvin, Martin Luther, and Huldreich Zwingli, rejected the authority of the Catholic pope and created reformed Christian, or Protestant, churches. In their ardent determination to instruct followers to read the Bible in their native language, reformers extended literacy to the masses. They established vernacular primary schools that offered a basic curriculum of reading, writing, arithmetic, and religion for children in their own language. Vernacular schools in England, for example, used English to teach their pupils. As they argued with each other and with the Roman Catholics on religious matters, Protestant educators wrote catechisms—primary books that summarized their religious doctrine—in a question and answer format.

While the vernacular schools educated both boys and girls at the primary level, upper-class boys attended preparatory and secondary schools that continued to emphasize Latin and Greek. The gymnasium in Germany, the Latin grammar school in England, and the lycee in France were preparatory schools that taught young men the classical languages of Latin and Greek required to enter universities.

Martin Luther believed the state, family, and school, along with the church, were leaders of the Reformation. Since the family shaped children’s character, Luther encouraged parents to teach their children reading and religion. Each family should pray together, read the Bible, study the catechism, and practice a useful trade. Luther believed that government should assist schools in educating literate, productive, and religious citizens. One of Luther’s colleagues, German religious reformer Melanchthon, wrote the school code for the German region of Württemberg, which became a model for other regions of Germany and influenced education throughout Europe. According to this code, the government was responsible for supervising schools and licensing teachers.

The Protestant reformers retained the dual-class school system that had developed in the Renaissance. Vernacular schools provided primary instruction for the lower classes, and the various classical humanist and Latin grammar schools prepared upper-class males for higher education.

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