Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ... chapter I. eetrospective--the origins of existing educational institutions. Education is a subject of perennial interest. As long as there are children to be educated, the ways and means of educating them will always demand forethought and study on the part of parents and community. In that sense there is always, and always will be, an "Education question ." But this question presents different aspects from time to time--now one, now another side of it becomes prominent. In one decade the great problem is how the State is to introduce itself into the domain of Education; in the succeeding one, how school fees may be got rid of; a later period finds the nation divided into hostile camps because parties cannot agree as to the relation of the Church to the School. Politics, sociology, religion, besides many other subjects, border on the sphere of Education, and even enter into it. Questions of this kind, whatever their origin, soon become highly controversial; they lie in great part outside Education as it is understood by the philosophic educationist. It is true that no theory of Education laying claim to any sort of completeness can ignore, say, the relation of the School to the Church and to the State. But these problems, abstractly discussed, do not introduce questions of party and sect, as they invariably do when they become matters of discussion on the public platform. Two inferences may be drawn from this. First, it bears testimony to the importance of Education itself. By common consent the national welfare is inseparably bound up with the interests of the school. The influence exerted by the school is so great that it is worth the while of great parties and great religious denominations to contend vigorously for the control of it....
