the steadying forces which education alone gives. The greater the political freedom of a nation the more important education becomes. In the American democracy education is of primary importance for a further reason. The governing forces of this democracy are constantly and greatly enlarged by accessions from peoples who are neither American in origin nor accustomed to democratic institutions. Education is the most comprehensive and most potent force for the conversion of the vast and the diverse European populations, who are entering the United States, into American citizens.

The history of education in the democracy of the United States embodies several distinct elements. The education itself represents many diverse types. It represents a collection of educational units. The largest unit is the state. It embodies distinctively the political doctrine of state rights. The organization and progress of education, however, are proved to manifest a vast variety of beginnings and of methods of growth. Yet, in this diversity will be found an increasing unity. Changes which are made in one commonwealth are usually found not to be possessed by that common

wealth alone. The newspaper, educational conventions, and many educational associations make common property of educational ideals and ideas.

In this history of forty years of education, as in advancing civilization itself, three conceptions are found prevailing: (1) the idea of liberty and consequent enlargement of the field and function of education; (2) the idea of increasing force devoted to education, and a consequent increasing value of results secured through education; and (3) the idea of enrichment, with the effect of the consequent improvement of the quality of the education, which the state directly or indirectly gives to the people. Liberty, force, enrichment of life and education are the three conceptions which receive illustration in this history. Out of these conceptions, and to be measured by them, is this history written.

The history is primarily related to the forty and more years which have passed since the end of the great war. The reasons of this limitation, aside from the necessary conditions of time and space, are that these two score years represent a distinct educational revival. The intellectual movement of society in the

last forty years in America has been a movement educational. It has created new educational forces; it has raised educational ideals; it has improved educational methods; its progress has influenced institutions elementary and higher. This movement is akin to the educational revival of the fourth decade of the same century, and also, if the leap in time and place be not too long or too abrupt, it is not unlike the great English renaissance of the thirteenth century, in which many students moved from Paris to Oxford, and in which were founded on the Isis the colleges of Balliol and Merton.

The causes of this movement are manifold. The first, a permanent cause, or rather condition, is found in the idealism of the American character. Judged superficially America is materialistic; judged fundamentally it is idealistic. Idealism is structural in the American character. In his superficial relations no man of the race is more devoted than the American to what can be seen, weighed, touched, and measured, but the fundamental element of imagination that is in him is of primary significance. Even his commercial success has its chief organization in his imagination. The

Puritan was primarily a moral idealist; and it is the Puritan element of the nineteenth century which has dominated New England, as New England has dominated, as an ethical force, the nation. But the idealism was a permanent condition. It alone, however, would fail to explain the awakening of the American people to their educational concerns.

A further cause of the renaissance of the last forty years lies in the great Civil War itself. War always quickens a nation, if it does not thoroughly decimate its population. To people fighting for what they are pleased to regard as a moral or religious principle, war is often a new baptism of force. One cause of the unique and splendid efflorescence of the age of Pericles lay in the triumph of Greece over Persia. One never forgets that the foundation of the University of Leyden represents not simply the endowment of the University by William of Orange, but also the interest of the people in education while they were still suffering from the horrors of war. Neither can one fail to recall the founding of the University of Berlin at a time when it was doubtful whether there would be a Prussia at all to support a national school.

In America one also likes to remember that in the year 1862 was passed the Morrill Act, introducing higher education in many states and enlarging it in all. War summons a people to the discrimination of the values which help and constitute human character and national life. It moves the will, as well as quickens passions. It represents concert of action. It stirs up latent energy; it usually serves to assure a nation of its having resources and capacities of which it had never dreamed. In such a revival of mind and heart, all the people are easily attracted towards the institutions and methods of education.

Furthermore, for a generation previous to the year 1861, the intelligence and the moral idealism of the American people of the North had been directed to the preservation of the political union of the several states and to the freeing of the slave. In the South during the same period, the interests of the people had been directed toward the preservation of the integrity of the individual commonwealth. The questions thus involved were decided by the sword. The permanent idealism of the American people requires that some question of large relations shall be under discussion.