EDUCATION (Lat. educare, to bring up, to
instruct), the development and cultivation of the
various physical, intellectual, and moral faculties. In a general sense, it comprehends all the means which contribute to this result in an individual from infancy through manhood—the agencies by which the faculties of the mind are drawn out, its powers disciplined, and knowledge acquired; embracing the arrangements and contrivances for the better nursing, training, and rearing of children, their physical and mental development, their nourishment, cradles, nurseries, gardens, games, and amusements; schools of every grade, from the kindergarten to the university, including special, technical, and professional schools, together with school architecture and all apparatus, means, and methods of instruction, and institutions for the instruction of every class of society, the blind, deaf and dumb, insane, idiotic, vicious, criminal, &c.; besides the instruction afforded through literature, the pulpit, and educational societies. “Education,” says Paley, “in the most extensive sense of the word, may comprehend every preparation that is made in our youth for the sequel of our lives.” Without treating the subject in its broadest sense, or in its strictly metaphysical relations, and without dwelling upon the various theories and speculations that have been advanced concerning education by philosophers and educators, the aim of this article will be to treat generally of the system and condition of education in the principal countries of the world, as represented by their public schools and other institutions for instruction. Details and statistics will be found in the articles devoted to the separate countries, states, and institutions of learning, as
well as separate articles on the various subjects
comprised under the general head of education, such as , , , , , , , , , , and .—In the earliest ages the entire education and culture of the people were in the hands of priests, who were the first founders of institutions, the first savants, statesmen, judges, physicians, astronomers, and architects; and science has been separated from religion, and teaching has been a distinct profession, only in the most highly civilized communities. Even in these, learning and schools have often been to a greater or less extent, more or less directly, under the patronage and care of religious bodies, since religion has been esteemed by all nations the highest interest of society. Historians usually account the inhabitants of India the most highly educated of the ancient nations of the East. Yet Hindoo learning and science have always been almost exclusively in the hands of the caste of Brahmans, who are allowed to explain the Vedas or sacred books only to the two castes next in rank. The early culture of the Egyptians was such, that the Greeks derived from them their first lessons in science and philosophy. In Egypt, too, the Israelites obtained the knowledge which enabled them to measure and “divide the land.” Public education existed only in the castes of priests and warriors, until it became more general after the rise of the Persian and Greek dominion. While the mass of the people were trained to the mechanical arts, a few only were instructed in the mathematical sciences, and in the doctrines of morality and religion.—The theocratic constitution of the Hebrew nation, and the founding of its politics and ethics on religion, produced a mental cultivation as manifested in its literature very unlike that found among any other oriental people. The schools of the prophets are the only schools which are mentioned, but children were generally instructed by their parents in the law of Moses and the history of the nation. The obedience of children to the commands of their parents is a frequent injunction in the Scriptures. Girls were taught to sing, to play upon musical instruments, and to dance on solemn occasions; and many female poets and learned women figure in the history of the ancient Jews. After the exile the rabbis established schools to which children were sent from their 5th or 6th year, and in which, besides the teaching of the Scriptures, the commentaries and traditions, the Mishnah and Gemara, were taught and committed to memory. The instruction was oral, no student ever taking notes, and the Mishnah had long been transmitted from master to pupil before it was committed to writing. The most celebrated of the early rabbinical schools were those of Jamnia (long under the direction of Gamaliel, and at which Saint Paul studied), Tiberias,