THE HISTORY OF FEDERAL AND STATE AID TO HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES. CHAPTER I. THE DEVELOPMENT OF STATE EDUCATION IN THE EARLY COLONIAL EDUCATION. There is no finer vista of political progress in the development of the American republic than that afforded by the changing views of education sustained by the people, and constantly modified by marked political tendencies. There is no better example of the influence of politics upon culture and learning than that presented by a historical perspective of the ideas which have developed our great educational system. The colonists held learning as a sacred trust which they had brought from the Old World to be preserved and transmitted to posterity. They held it alike sacred to the best interests of the church and the society of a new community. But in this early period a decided political tendency in education was wanting; that is, a tendency toward that which educates the individual as a sovereign citizen and prepares him for the duties of the State. The relations of the church and the Government were very close in colonial days, and the control of the individual was frequently effected by the direct influences of both institutions. His duties in society were exactly and minutely specified, although it had not yet dawned upon the local communities that they were to become the component parts of a great republic, and consequently the political dangers of uneducated masses were not fully ap prehended until the rising of the national spirit. Almost without exception the colonial governments, either through chartered rights and privileges or by means of self-government, made provisions for educa tion by granting privileges and charters to private schools, or by estab lishing schools and colleges by legislative enactment to be supported in part by taxation. However, it required the united efforts of the colonists, through the church, the Government, and private benevolence, to keep learning from being "buried in the grave" of their forefathers. |