The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Meaning of Infancy, by John Fiske

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Title: The Meaning of Infancy

Author: John Fiske

Release Date: May 15, 2004 [EBook #12359]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MEANING OF INFANCY ***

Produced by Al Haines

Riverside Educational Monographs

EDITED BY HENRY SUZZALLO

PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

THE MEANING OF INFANCY

BY

JOHN FISKE

1883

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

I. THE MEANING OF INFANCY
From "Excursions of an Evolutionist"

II. THE PART PLAYED BY INFANCY IN THE EVOLUTION OF MAN
From "A Century of Science"

OUTLINE

INTRODUCTION

The new significance of education

The last century has witnessed an unprecedented development in the
significance of education. One direct consequence has been an
increased reverence for childhood. In this movement which has
increased the dignity of children and schools, two large forces
have been at work,--one social and the other scientific. The
growth of the democratic spirit among men and institutions has made
the education of children a public necessity, and lifted the school
to a position of high social importance. The application of the
theory of evolution to man and his life has revealed human infancy
as one of the largest factors making for the superiority of man in
the struggle for existence, and given to childhood a vast
biological importance. The necessities of democracy and the truths
of science, acting more or less independently of each other, have
given to education a breadth of meaning which it did not possess
before. They have shown that infancy is the largest opportunity
and education the most powerful instrument for the conscious
adjustment of man to the physical and social world in which he
lives.

_Democracy changes the function of schools_

It was the attempt of democracy to educate all of its children
which was the initial and important event that provoked large
changes in our notions of the social function of education. As
long as the school was for the few, and such it was in the less
liberal perio