ent to the great _systems_ of education which have held
their own for centuries and examine their aims. The Jesuits, the
Humanists, and the Natural Scientists all claimed to be liberal,
culture-giving, and preparatory to great things; yet we only need to
quote from the histories of education to show their narrowness and
incompleteness. The training of the Jesuits was linguistic and
rhetorical, and almost entirely apart from our present notion of human
development. The Humanists or Classicists who for so many centuries
constituted the educational elite, belonged to the past with its
glories rather than to the age in which they really lived. Though
standing in a modern age, they were almost blind to the great problems
and opportunities it offered. They stood in bold contrast to the
growth of the modern spirit in history, literature, and natural
science. But in spite of their predominating influence over education
for centuries, there has never been the shadow of a chance for making
the classics of antiquity the basis of common, popular education. The
modern school of Natural Scientists is just as one-sided as the
Humanists in supposing that human nature is narrow enough to be
compressed within the bounds of natural science studies, however broad
their field may be.

But the systems of education in vogue have always lagged behind the
clear views of educational _reformers_. Two hundred fifty years ago
Comenius projected a plan of education for every boy and girl of the
common people. His aim was to teach all men all things from the
highest truths of religion to the commonest things of daily experience.
Being a man of simple and profound religious faith, religion and
morality were at the foundation of his system. But even the principles
of intellectual training so clearly advocated by Comenius have not yet
found a ready hearing among teachers, to say nothing of his great
moral-religious purpose. Among later writers, Locke, Rousseau, and
Pestalozzi have set up ideals of education that have had much
influence. But Locke's "gentleman" can never be the ideal of all
because it is intrinsically aristocratic and education has become with
us broadly democratic. After all, Locke's "gentleman" is a noble ideal
and should powerfully impress teachers. The perfect human animal that
Rousseau dreamed of in the Emile, is best illustrated in the noble
savage, but we are not in danger in America of adopting this ideal. In
spit