The History Of Education | Page 8

guides our conduct, and this
influence is even yet extending to other lands and other peoples. We are
also indebted to Rome for many practical skills and for important
engineering knowledge, which was saved and passed on to Western
Europe through the medium of the monks. On the other side of the
picture, the recent great World War, with all its awful destruction of
life and property, and injury to the orderly progress of civilization, may
be traced directly to the Roman idea of world empire and the sway of
one imperial government, imposing its rule and its culture on the rest of
mankind.

Into this Roman Empire, united and made one by Roman arms and
government, came the first of the modern forces in the ancient
world--that of Christianity--the third great foundation element in our
western civilization. Embracing in its early development many Greek
philosophical ideas, building securely on the Roman governmental
organization, and with its new message for a decaying world,
Christianity forms the connecting link between the ancient and modern
civilizations. Taking the conception of one God which the Jewish tribes
of the East had developed, Christianity changed and expanded this in
such a way as to make it a dominant idea in the world. Exalting the
teachings of the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, the future
life, and the need for preparation for a hereafter, Christianity introduced
a new type of religion and offered a new hope to the poor and
oppressed of the ancient world. In so doing a new ethical force of first
importance was added to the effective energies of mankind, and a basis
for the education of all was laid, for the first time, in the history of the
world.
Christianity came at just the right time not only to impart new energy
and hopefulness to a decadent ancient civilization, but also to meet,
conquer, and in time civilize the barbarian hordes from the North which
overwhelmed the Roman Empire. A new and youthful race of German
barbarians now appeared upon the scene, with resulting ravage and
destruction, and anarchy and ignorance, and long centuries ensued
during which ancient civilization fell prey to savage violence and
superstition. Progress ceased in the ancient world. The creative power
of antiquity seemed exhausted. The digestive and assimilative powers
of the old world seemed gone. Greek was forgotten. Latin was
corrupted. Knowledge of the arts and sciences was lost. Schools
disappeared. Only the Christian Church remained to save civilization
from the wreck, and it, too, was almost submerged in the barbaric flood.
It took ten centuries partially to civilize, educate, and mould into
homogeneous units this heterogeneous horde of new peoples. During
this long period it required the strongest energies of the few who
understood to preserve the civilization of the past for the enjoyment
and use of a modern world.
Yet these barbarian Germans, great as was the havoc they wrought at
first, in time contributed much to the stream of our modern civilization.

They brought new conceptions of individual worth and freedom into a
world thoroughly impregnated with the ancient idea of the dominance
of the State over the individual. The popular assembly, an elective king,
and an independent and developing system of law were contributions of
first importance which these peoples brought. The individual man and
not the State was, with them, the important unit in society. In the hands
of the Angles and Saxons, particularly, but also among the Celts,
Franks, Helvetii, and Belgae, this idea of individual freedom and of the
subordination of the State to the individual has borne large fruit in
modern times in the self-governing States of France, Switzerland,
Belgium, England and the English self-governing dominions, and in the
United States of America. After much experimenting it now seems
certain that the Anglo- Saxon type of self-government, as developed
first in England and further expanded in the United States, seems
destined to be the type of government in future to rule the world.
It took Europe almost ten centuries to recover from the effects of the
invasion of barbarism which the last two centuries of the Roman
Empire witnessed, to save itself a little later from Mohammedan
conquest, and to pick up the lost threads of the ancient life and begin
again the work of civilization. Finally, however, this was accomplished,
largely as a result of the labor of monks and missionaries. The
barbarians were in time induced to settle down to an agricultural life, to
accept Christianity in name at least, and to yield a more or less
grudging obedience to monk and priest that they might thereby escape
the torments of a world to come. Slowly the monasteries and the
churches, aided here and there by far- sighted kings, worked at the
restoration of books and