The great event which carried men over from savagery to barbarism was what we may call the desecration of fire the stealing of it from heaven, as the Greeks said. Through this men were enabled to do three things: (1) to cook their food, (2) to smelt metals and shape tools of them, (3) with these tools to engage in many arts previously impossible-to quarry and dress stone, and with it to build houses and towns;* to turn up the soil and engage in agriculture; to improve their weapons of offence and defence; or, in one word, they were enabled to pass from nomadic to settled life. The new arts called for a division of labor unknown before, and for a new education. Thus men came to be divided into trades or gilds, each of which gave special instruction in its own art. The earliest form of conscious instruction was gild-instruction, of which apprenticeship is a modern survival.

If in savagery human desire was articulated into but few needs, and these capable of direct satisfaction, in barbarism this articulation was enormously increased, and life became greatly complicated. There now supervenes division of labor, which weakens the blood-tie by bringing into close relations persons having a common. • occupation, and by establishing a professional tie, to which is soon added a local one. Miners, smiths, carpenters, etc., form associations and dwell in the same localities. In agricultural districts the very soil forms a social bond. Among the earliest social distinctions is that between those that occupy themselves with the

*Town (A-S. tûn, Ger. Zaun) means, properly, enclosure. Towns were originally mere places of refuge, or castles. It was only when increase of culture brought increase of danger that they became towns, in

our sense.

seen and those that occupy themselves with the unseen -between laity and priests, as we should say. Then comes, in the laity, the distinction between those who, by their labor, supply the necessities of life, and those who devote themselves to defence, or between the industrial and military classes. Thus there arise the three social castes-priests, soldiers, producers. In each. of these again there are subdivisions. The priests divide into propitiators or sacrificers* and soothsayers or prophets; the soldiers into privates and officers, the chief of whom is king; the producers into as many professions as there are useful arts. No sooner are these three classes fairly distinguished than there springs up between them a rivalry for power. In the ensuing conflict the third class generally succumbs, sinking into a position of inferiority, and even of servility, while the conflict goes on between the other two. Three results are possible. The victory may rest either (1) with thepriests, who will rule by superstitious fear, as in India,‡ or (2) with the soldiers, who will rule by force, as in Assyria,§ or (3) with the two combined, as in Egypt.|| Each class now receives a distinct education, suited to its functions, and always through gilds. As yet there is no education for manhood or citizenship. Man, being still a means, a mere limb of the social body,

*Sacrifice, from being a tribal meal, intended to strengthen the bloodtie, gradually becomes a means of satisfying or propitiating the invisible members of the tribe, and, later on, of other demons and gods. See p. 21, note, and cf. Robertson Smith, Relig. of the Semites, pp. 196 seq.; Davidson, Education of the Greek People, p. 33.

+ See Wellhausen, Reste arab. Heidenthums, pp. 128 seq.

See Frazer, Lit. Hist. of India, pp. 148-69.

§ See Rawlinson, Ancient Monarchies, Vol. I., pp. 241 seq. I See Sayce, Egypt of the Hebrews, pp. 53 seq.

is educated for subordination and function, not for freedom.

Perhaps the most important result of the division of society into professional castes is the rise of a leisured class the priests, who, as mediators of the unseen, are the founders of all the "liberal" arts and sciences. As their power is due mainly to their success in convincing the other classes of the influence of the unseen upon human affairs, they are compelled, with a view to forecasting the future, to observe the course of these and to keep a record of their past experiences. Thus they come to study astronomy and meteorology, and to invent writing. Having discovered the influence of the sun, moon, and stars upon the seasons, they often extend this influence to other things, and so give rise to the pseudo-science of astrology. Nevertheless, with

recorded observation the basis of science is laid.

Next to the discovery of fire, the invention of writing was the most important event in barbarian culture. The one made the arts, the other the sciences, possible. At first, all writing was pictorial, representing, not sounds, but things. It was by a very slow process, lasting for thousands of years, that it became phonetic. Picture-writing, being necessarily cumbersome and, at best, requiring an interpreter, called into existence gilds of professional scribes-Schriftgelehrte, as the Germans say who not only wrote, but likewise kept alive the meaning of old writings. These gilds, which were closely connected with the priesthood, kept records, on stone or burnt clay,* not only of astronomical and

*On stone (later on papyrus) in Egypt, on clay in the nations of the Euphrates Valley. On the earliest writing see Fr. Delitzsch, Die Entstehung des aeltesten Schriftsystems.

meteorological, but also of historical, occurrences, and, after a time, began to write down incantations, prayers, laws, and poems. All such records were carefully preserved in libraries connected with the temples, and were read by the scribes on solemn occasions.* Reading was by no means yet a popular accomplishment. Thus it came to pass that the priests were the depositaries of . all learning, and the temples the schools. It naturally followed that all education was theological, concerning itself with the essences or spirits underlying phenomena. This involved a serious drawback, the cause of much superstition. The barbarian mind was not content with defining the essences by their known acts, but endowed them with all sorts of human attributes, passions, capricious will, etc., whereby they were turned into arbitrary beings, requiring to be flattered and propitiated. This may be said to be the distinguishing mark of barbarian culture, which, however, it long survived. Several ancient nations may be taken as representing barbarian culture. We shall confine ourselves to six: (1) Sumir and Akkad, (2) Egypt, (3) China, (4) Babylonia and Assyria, (5) India, (6) Media and Persia. Modern ethnologists and philologists divide the peoples that have risen above savagery into three families: (1) the Turanian, (2) the Semitic, (3) the Aryan, which appeared upon the stage of history successively in this order.§ Adopting this division, we may say that Sumir,

*See 2 Kings XXII., XXIII.; Nehemiah VIII.

+ In Muslim lands, even at the present day, schools and universities are nearly always in mosques. Cf. Matth. XXVI. 55; Acts V. 25,

etc.

See the prayer of Chryses, Homer, Iliad., I., 37-42, and mark its mercenary implications.

§ See Max Müller, Lect. on the Science of Language, First Ser.

Akkad, Egypt,* and China are Turanian; Babylonia and Assyria, Semitic; and India, Media, and Persia, Âryan. These three families on the whole represent three different stages of culture within barbarism itself. So far as we know, the Turanians were the founders of barbarian culture, the first astronomers, the inventors of writing.

(A) ANCIENT TURANIAN EDUCATION

While there is a very striking similarity between all tribes and races at the savage stage of culture, there is a growing differentiation as we progress in the barbarian stage. Nevertheless, in all the forms of Turanian culture there are many notable resemblances. Most remarkable is the fact that it seems to be already old, before we know anything about it. Alike in Akkad, Egypt, and Etruria, men seem to be earnest, gloomy, reflective, weary of this life, and strongly inclined to brood on another-a sure sign of decadence. Their abodes, or rather their places of refuge, remind us of caves, being towers built of masses of brick or huge blocks of undressed stone. They worship in caves mostly; their temples are tombs, and their tombs temples. Their religion is marked by mystery and gloom; their worship by bloody rites, magic, and incantation. Their gods are deities of the dark, rather than of the light, inspiring fear, rather than joy. They honor

*The ethnology of the Egyptians is ill-understood, but at present they may conveniently be classed as Turanians. It is probable that Hittite and Etruscan (Tyrrhenian, Pelasgian) culture was Turanian, but the subject is obscure. I am aware that this view of the three races meets opposition in many respectable quarters; but I state what seems to me the truth.