The History of Education

Early civilization

3100 BCE

The method of learning was memorization, and the motivation was the fear of harsh physical discipline. On an ancient Egyptian clay tablet discovered by archaeologists, a child had written: "Thou didst beat me and knowledge entered my head." At age 13, brighter boys could continue their studies as disciples of a rabbi, the "master" or "teacher."

19th-Century United States

1820 BCE

America came into its own educationally with the movement toward state-supported, secular free schools for all children with the common (elementary) school.
One of Mann's many reforms was the improvement of the quality of teaching by the establishment of the first public normal (teacher-training) schools in the United States.

19th-Century Europe

1800 BCE

The spirit of nationalism grew strong in Europe and, with it, the belief in the power of education to shape the future of nations as well as individuals. Other European countries followed Prussia's example and eventually established national school systems. France had one by the 1880s, and by the 1890s the primary schools in England were free and compulsory.

18th-Century United States

1751 BCE

Franklin's academy
continued to offer the humanist-religious curriculum, but it also brought education closer to the needs of everyday life by teaching such courses as history, geography, merchant accounts, geometry, algebra, surveying, modern languages, navigation, and astronomy. By the mid-19th century this new diversification in the curriculum characterized virtually all American secondary education.

Colonial America

1636 BCE

Most of the books used in the elementary and secondary schools were also used in Europe: Bibles, psalters, Latin and Greek texts, Comenius' 'Orbis Pictus', and the hornbook, which was widely used
in England at the end of the 16th century. Not really a book at all, the hornbook was a paddleshaped board. A piece of parchment (and, later, paper) with the lesson written on it was attached to the board and covered with a transparent sheet of horn to keep it clean.

Colonial America

1636 BCE

Most of the books used in the elementary and secondary schools were also used in Europe: Bibles, psalters, Latin and Greek texts, Comenius' 'Orbis Pictus', and the hornbook, which was widely used
in England at the end of the 16th century. Not really a book at all, the hornbook was a paddleshaped board. A piece of parchment (and, later, paper) with the lesson written on it was attached to the board and covered with a transparent sheet of horn to keep it clean.

The Reformation

1500 BCE

The religious conflict that dominated men's thoughts also dominated the "humanistic" curriculum of the Protestant secondary schools. The Protestants' need to defend their new religion resulted in the further sacrifice of "pagan" content and more emphasis on drill in the mechanics of the Greek and Latin languages. In actual practice, then, the humanistic ideal deteriorated into the narrowness and otherworldliness that the original humanists had opposed.

The Renaissance

1301 BCE

The essence of the Renaissance, which began in Italy in the 14th century and spread to northern European countries in the 15th and 16th centuries, was a revolt against the narrowness and otherworldliness of the Middle Ages. For inspiration the early Renaissance humanists turned to the ideals expressed in the literature of ancient Greece. Like the Greeks, they wanted education to develop man's intellectual, spiritual, and physical powers for the enrichment of life.

The Middle Ages

801 BCE

Students learned mathematics, calculating religious festivals, and practiced singing as a church services. At age of 7 years old, became an integral part of the adult world. Like the Romans scholars took over the content of Greek education. Education of woman was no longer ignore. it had a rise of universities, teaching grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.The middle age was influenced by the church.

Ancient Greece

800 BCE

Sparta. The boys of Sparta were obliged to leave home at the age of 7 to join sternly disciplined groups under the supervision of a hierarchy of officers. From age 7 to 18, they underwent an increasingly severe course of training. At 18, Spartan boys became military cadets and learned the arts of war. At 20, they joined the state militia.

Ancient Rome

756 BCE

The military conquest of Greece by Rome in 146 BC resulted in the cultural conquest of Rome by Greece.
When they were 6 or 7 years old, boys (and sometimes girls) of all classes could be sent by their parents to the ludus publicus.
At age 12 or 13, the boys of the upper classes attended a "grammar" school.
At age 16, the boys who wanted training for public service went on to study public speaking at the rhetoric schools.