Education in Europe - Greek Education, Roman Education, Education Of Women In Greece And Rome, Medieval Education, From The Renaissance To The Enlightenment
literary european educational ancient
European pre-university education began its long odyssey with Homer. The social and literary values expressed in his poetry informed Greek education, which became the basis of Roman education. The Renaissance revived ancient literary texts and educational programs, which were modified and adapted in subsequent centuries. European humanities education still embraces in part ancient Greco-Roman educational ideals and goals.
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The highest level of Roman education began at about the age of sixteen and focused on rhetoric. As in Greek education, the goal was to learn to speak and write effectively as needed in public life and the law courts. If anything, the emphasis on oratory in Roman schools was stronger than in Greek schools because other parts of the Greek curriculum, such as music and athletics, were eliminated, and…
The Roman educational system disintegrated as the empire declined in the fifth and sixth centuries. Church institutions of the early Middle Ages (c. 400–c. 1000) were forced to establish schools to train future churchmen. Bishops established schools attached to their cathedrals to train priests for their dioceses. Religious orders organized schools in their monasteries to educate young memb…
The Renaissance humanistic curriculum promised more than learning to read and write like the ancients. Italian and northern European humanists argued in a series of pedagogical treatises that reading the classics would teach boys, and a few girls, wisdom as well as eloquence. The classics would inspire readers to live honorably and well. If well instructed, they would do what was morally right and…
Despite their many differences, both Protestants and Catholics taught the new Renaissance humanistic curriculum in their Latin schools at the pre-university level. Each simply added religious instruction to the classical curriculum. Indeed, from about 1550 until the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789, the most important pre-university schools in Europe were schools with strong connections …
In the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries, national governments introduced much change into the schools. Governments across western Europe decreed that all children, boys and girls, must go to school to a certain age, which was gradually raised. The schooling was not extensive; the elementary curriculum consisted of reading, writing, arithmetic, and, outside France, religion.…
Humanist Educational Treatises. Edited and translated by Craig W. Kallendorf. Cambridge, Mass., and London; Harvard University Press, 2002. Quintilian. The Institutio oratoria of Quintilian. With an English translation by H. E. Butler. 4 vols. 1920. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, and London: Heinemann, 1958–1960. Blackburn, Gilmer W. Education in the Third Reich: A Study of Rac…
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12 months ago
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