Christian Education in America

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Excerpt from Christian Education in America: A Lecture Rome inherited the theories of Sparta and Athens, and while in the successive stages of her civilization we can discern at first the stern drill of the former and then the more liberal culture of the latter, still Rome held throughout to the idea dominant in both - that civilization means fitness for the duties of citizenship, and that education must have this for its almost exclusive aim. Thence followed two great consequences, which may be regarded as the chief characteristics of the ancient civiliza tions. The first was the heathen estimate of man. The in dividual was absorbed in the State, was considered to exist only for the State, had worth or dignity only through his re lation with the State. The Roman citizen could everywhere boast of the dignity that invested him, but it was not the dignity of personal worth, but of the great empire to whichhe belonged. This estimate of man's nature and end is the real foundation of the heathen civilizations. The second consequence was that education was restricted to the governing classes only. They alone had the rights of citizenship, and education was only to fit for citizenship. All other classes of the community had only to Obey the govern ing Classes and to work for them. They were held as serfs or slaves. Education was withheld from them, because, it was said, it would be useless to them, nay, it would even be dangerous to the State, since education would naturally in Spire them with higher aspirations. Thus the great mass of the people were systematically cut off from education and kept in ignorance, as Shown by the fact that in the palmy days of Athens the citizens are said to have numbered and the serfs who toiled for them 4oo, ooo. If here and there we remark that Slaves were used by their masters as school teachers or even produced literary works of note, these were only rare and singular exceptions, serving but to prove the rule. And the rule was that human worth was made identi cal with citizenship, and that the ideal of politics and educa tion among the ancients was a handful of strong and cultured men ruling a world of ignorant beings, who live only for their masters' aggrandizement and who are ready even to slay one another for their masters' pastime. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.