Published in World Studies in Education 3 # 1 & 2, 2002: 53-68
Val D. Rust
University of California, Los Angeles
It is a pleasure to share some comments with you at the regional meeting of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES). I shall address some issues related to CIES, for I feel all too little attention is given to the meanings of the labels “comparative” and “international” in our society. CIES was originally known as the Comparative Education Society and in 1972 during his tenure as president Stewart Fraser was successful in adding the term “International.” I do not plan to draw a firm distinction between the two spheres, though it might be helpful to suggest that “comparative education” is generally regarded as the more academic or scientific aspect of the field, while international education is related to “cooperation, understanding, and exchange” elements of the field (Fraser and Brickman 1968). I work actively in both spheres, in that I consider my research and theoretical work to be related to comparative education, while my service as director of the UCLA Education Abroad Program to be related to international education.
Today, I would like to concentrate on the term “comparative” as used in comparative education. In some respects the term comparative studies has been unfortunate, because most knowledge is comparative in nature. In terms of education, R. Murray Thomas (1998: 1) reminds us that “in its most inclusive sense, comparative education refers to inspecting two or more educational entities or events in order to discover how and why they are alike and different.” Thomas points out that comparative education is generally defined in practice in a more restricted sense. That is, it refers to the “study of educational likenesses and differences between regions of the world or between two or more nations….” Stewart Fraser and William Brickman (1968: 1) would agree with Thomas in their own definition of the field: “Comparative Education is…the analysis of educational systems and problems in two or more national environments in terms of socio-political, economic, cultural, ideological, and other contexts.” Such definitions are similar to those in other social science comparative fields. Comparative Sociology, for example, has been defined as any specifically cross-cultural or cross-societal … comparison of similarities and differences between social phenomena… (Jary and Jary 1991: 103).
My task in this essay is to consider the term “comparative” in its more restricted sense, in the way the term is used in various comparative fields of study. It is somewhat curious that scholars in our field of comparative education have never attempted to sort out the various meanings of the term “comparative.” We likely accept uncritically the notion that many fields have their comparative subfield and make the assumption that all comparative fields have so much in common that it is not necessary for us to dwell on the specific meanings of the term. Some comparativists are content to quote the famous statement of Rudyard Kipling in The English Flag: “what know they of England, who only England know!” or the statement of Johann Wolfgang Goethe, in his Sprüche in Prosa: “He who knows nothing of foreign languages, knows nothing about his own.”
Comparative studies in both the life sciences and the social sciences have much in common, but there are also crucial differences in the way comparative studies are used and I would like to elaborate on these similarities and differences. In other words, I plan to engage in a comparative analysis of comparative studies. Such an exercise is difficult, because every field is continually changing; however, most fields are based on traditions that have lasting characteristics, and I wish to concentrate on the broad brush strokes of comparative portraits of several comparative fields.
Origins of Comparative Studies
Comparative studies emerged at a crucial time in the world’s history. Europeans were discovering the rest of the world and attempting to explain its many variations. Rational explanations were being sought for the true nature of human institutions. A belief in natural law required making assessments of how governments, family, and civil society were organized. These developments contributed to the rise of comparative studies. Science was particularly important in the development of comparative studies, and early comparative scholars uniformly identified their field as one which relied on the use of “scientific methodology.” In the more general scientific sense, comparative scholars tested hypotheses about causal relations between phenomena. However, from the beginning comparative scholars also restricted their scientific research in two ways. First, they examined similarities and differences between phenomena or classes of phenomena. Second, whereas science was generally committed to experimentation as a way of making classifications and testing theory, the comparative scholar relied almost entirely on studying variations in the natural setting.
Comparative studies initially emerged in the life sciences, as subfields of anatomy, paleontology, and embryology. These life sciences established the main form that comparative studies would take by emphasizing hierarchical classification. To classify is to arrange items or data into groups, and the classification scheme of comparative life sciences was based on the assumption of a hierarchy of life forms. Comparative anatomy, for example, assumed that animal life consisted of a so-called “scale of being,” or a “ladder of creation” and animal groups occupied different rungs or steps on that ladder. The comparative anatomist compared organs and organ systems in order to determine the variations to be found in God’s creation. With the emergence of the theory of evolution, comparative anatomy was revolutionized in that the various animal archetypes on this ladder of creation were seen as progressive steps in the evolutionary process. Life forms were thought to move along a number of evolutionary lines from the simple to the complex.
Embryologists, who studied embryos and fetuses, also engaged in comparative analysis and with the emergence of evolutionary theories they developed the notion that ontogeny recapitulates phylogony. That is, they claimed there was evidence that the embryo and fetus of each animal travels through its own family tree. Paleontology focused mainly on the origins or life through the study of fossils with the intention of reconstructing the dead forms of life, their basic shape and structure, their evolution, and their taxonomic relationships.
In the nineteenth century all of these fields were based on a common assumption that there is a hierarchy of life forms, with human beings constituting the highest life form.
Comparative Studies in the Social Sciences
One can see the carry-over of comparative studies in the life sciences to major early trends in the social sciences. We recall, that Auguste Comte (1998: 132-37), the father of sociology, who first labeled the field comparative sociology, gave credit to physiology for much of his thinking, and his notion of society corresponds strikingly with the “ladder of being” in anatomical studies. That is, he believed societies evolved through a series of set stages, with Europe at the pinnacle of this process. Social evolution consisted of three primary stages: the theological (religious), then the metaphysical (philosophical), and finally the positive (scientific) stage. In his theory he distinguished between “statics” and “dynamics.” His statics would be echoed by those stressing the social order and functionalism, while his dynamics would be emphasized by those interested in changes taking place in society and the forces that would contribute to these changes. According to Comte, the major work of sociologists would be to investigate societies and place them in their appropriate evolutionary stage of development.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, sociology developed into a recognized discipline, and its founders developed a paradigm that followed Compte’s conceptual frame in that societies were seen to progress through several stages, including the primitive stage, the traditional stage and finally the modern stage. The final two stages represented a dichotomous social construct, the modern world forming one ideal extreme of the construct and the traditional forming the other. This framework echoes Herbert Spencer’s homogeneity and differentiation, Max Weber’s traditionalism and rationalism, Emile Durkheim’s organic to mechanical organization , and Ferdinand Tönnies’ community and society. This dichotomous framework suggests a linear movement between two extremes. A nation is believed to modernize when it looses its traditional characteristics and takes on modern characteristics. It is important to note that not all of the scholars mentioned above saw the modern as an advance over the traditional. Durkheim (1893), for example, saw the shift from an organic to a mechanical social life to be a step backward in social organization .
A basic assumption of the comparative sociologists has been that a hierarchy of social forms exists and the task of the comparativist is to classify the various societies and place them in their appropriate hierarchical station.
A substantial amount of research in comparative education has been based on a similar assumption that there is a developmental hierarchy of social and educational structures. This was the pervasive paradigm in the social sciences at the time comparative education became a legitimate subfield in education in the years following World War II. One reason the field of comparative education took off was the central role accorded to education in national development, foreign aid, and economic investment. And according to scholars such as Philip Altbach (1991), modernization theory remains today one of the defining features of comparative education, though in recent years it has been somewhat discredited. For example, Samuel Huntington (1971: 294) complained that the modern ideal is set forth, “then everything which is not modern is labeled traditional.” The greatest challenges to modernization have come from the so-called conflict oriented social scientists. One of the more popular theories in this paradigm, for example, has been world systems theory, which is based on the notion that the world is controlled and ruled by capitalism, located in core nations, and ruled by those who profit from the capitalist system. The rest of the world is located in the so-called semi-periphery or periphery countries, which are seen to be largely exploited and victimized by the core nations. And even more recently, the notion of globalization has become a dominant theme in international work. Though it incorporates political and cultural globalism, it remains mainly centered on the notion of a global capitalist system that defines our lives (Wallerstein 1991). We often forget that much of this recent work stems conceptually from Karl Marx, who also saw societies forming a clear hierarchy and historical movement through various stages. World systems and globalization theories are conceptual constructs based as much on interpretation as on historical fact, but they play a powerful role in the thinking of comparative educators. Even though the hierarchical developmental paradigm outlined above continues to loom large in the field of comparative education, alternative notions are also found.
Alternative Notions of Comparative Studies
While there appears to be a pervasive comparative studies framework in the social sciences and comparative education, there are a number of other comparative frameworks. I shall outline three alternatives: ahistorical system typologies, historical studies in cross cultural perspective, and studies of influences across national borders.
Ahistorical System Typologies
One of the main variations in classification work among comparativists is the attempt to classify social systems and structures that do not suggest evolutionary or hierarchical arrangements. Comparative politics is particularly known for its ahistorical attempts to develop categories representing the contemporary political world. Even though it has also given some attention to modernization and political development, its primary comparative politics legacy, is its interest in classifying the types of regimes that exist, finding language equivalents in different political systems, and classifying their respective functions. We are all familiar with the following ways of ruling: the rule of the one (monarchy), the rule of the few (aristocracy), and the rule of the many (democracy). There is no suggestion in the scheme that one form of rule evolved from another form, or that one is even better than another. In fact, each type has its shadow side in that a monarchy can degenerate into a tyranny or despotism, an aristocracy can become an oligarchy, and a democracy can become a mob or chaotic form of ruling.
Similarly, specialists in comparative law are interested in the normative content of various legal systems. They attempt to define families of legal systems such as Roman law, common law, or socialist law, and identify the norms and ways of thinking that take place within these legal families.
Whereas ahistorical typologies dominate certain comparative fields, comparative education has given little attention to national typologies. This appears to be so foundational that a comparative field is almost unable to exist in any meaningful sense unless the objects of study have been classified in some rigorous manner so that research is cumulative. Comparative educators have relied on typologies drawn from other fields, but have done little to extend and enhance the form of educational typologies. It is true that Marc Antoine Jullien, seen by many as the father of comparative education, was one of the first modern scholars to establish a classification design that would facilitate collecting and cataloguing data about different school systems. This scheme has been retained until this day (Holmes 1981: 89). Some early work was done by Pedro Rosello, and followed by scholars such as Franz Hilker (1962) and George Bereday (1964), who assumed that before juxtaposition could take place in the comparative process, classification would clearly be necessary. However, it has typically fallen on international agencies and organizations to classify international education data, mainly because groups like the International Bureau of Education, Unesco, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the Council of Europe, which began collecting information about education in various national settings, recognized the necessity of using a standard set of categories. The basic focus of most schemes was on levels and types of education, and it has long been apparent that the nomenclature and flexibility of the schemes were only approximately appropriate to most countries.
In spite of the efforts of international organizations, little cumulative work has come from their initial appeals for systematic classification efforts. In addition, comparative education scholars have had little to do with most schemes, in certain respects because they have taken little interest in contributing to the process. Of course there have been exceptions, including Brian Holmes (1981: Ch. 5) or Philip Coombs (1968). Some of my own work has involved classification of schooling (Rust 1977; Dalin and Rust 1998). At UCLA I and my students have recently engaged in a survey of works published in comparative education journals in the late 1980s and 1990s. The authors, who had published in comparative education journals, rarely indicated that classification was a part of their research agenda.
Historical Approaches in Comparative Studies
Certain humanistic comparative fields pay strong attention to the origins and history if their subject matter. Comparative philology is a good case in point. Philologists generally feel it is inappropriate to suggest that languages evolved in the conventional sense of the term, because evolution generally implies the notion of progressive change or improvements, and comparative philologists have rarely been guilty of suggesting that one language form is superior to another. Rather, the philologist is content to trace the changes that occur in sounds, in words, in spelling, in grammar, etc., and joins the socio-linguist in studying the contextual forces connected with these language changes.
Franz Bopp, the founder of comparative philology, was mainly interested in the genesis of linguistic forms at least as they pertained to Indo-European languages (Delbrück 1882). Those comparative philologists who followed Bopp believed the historical roots of language could only be reached through comparison (Sayce 1892). They have attempted to piece together the history of the human species by engaging in a scientific study of the history of language. Contemporary comparative philology, now usually called comparative linguistics, has continued to focus on the reconstruction of earlier forms of language and the changes that have taken place in these languages.
The study of history played a significant role as the field of comparative education was being defined. Many early pioneers of the field were themselves historians, including Robert Ulich, Isaac Kandel, Harold Benjamin and William W. Brickman. Those who wrote the early textbooks, including Isaac Kandel (1933) as well as I. N. Thut and Don Adams (1964), took a historical approach to their country studies. However, their work deviated markedly from that of the comparative philologists. First, whereas philology has maintained a focus on language origins, little attention is given in comparative education to the origins of any aspect of education. Rather, history of education is usually outlined in order to provide a sense of context and the social setting in which a particular educational problem is situated. Second, there has generally been a methodological flaw in the historical accounts of comparative educators. Because early comparative education was global in nature, the historical studies these pioneers of the field produced were based almost exclusively based on secondary sources. In fact, Auguste Comte (1988) argued that it was appropriate to rely on secondary sources when studying the history of a society.
However, that tradition has not led to great credibility in their historical works. While historical studies play some role in contemporary comparative education, it is not significant. In our survey work at UCLA, mentioned above, we have found only slight attention now being given to historiography; only 10.3 percent of the authors reviewed were judged to include history as part of their research publications (Rust and Others, 1999). I turn now to the next category of comparison: influences across cultures.
Influences across Cultures
Some comparative fields focus mainly on influences within and across cultures. Comparative literature is a primary example of this type orientation in that these comparative scholars attempt to unravel interrelationships between individuals, schools of thought, or national literatures across time and space. In terms of time, comparative literature specialists wish to chart how German Catholic literature influenced German classicism and how classicism, in turn, influenced romanticism; how Shakespeare changed English literature; how modern European literature is in debt to Greek and Latin literature. In terms of space, the comparative literature scholar wishes to trace the movement of themes and genres from place to place, how religious themes in Switzerland migrated to the Netherlands, then to America; how Tolstoi, Emerson and Thoreau influenced Indian writers in South Asia; how Africa incorporates European writing styles; how the Don Juan archetype moves from culture to culture (e.g., Samuel and Shanmugham 1980; Weisstein 1968; Weisbuch 1989; Highet 1992).
Some important work has been done in comparative education related to tracing influences in educational change and reform. Harry Armytage, for example, has written four books tracing the influence of America, France, Germany, and Russia on English education (1967; 1968; 1969a; 1969b). Frederick Schneider (1943) devoted most of his period of exile in Nazi Germany tracing the influences of German education on other countries. Some of my own work has focused on the reciprocal influences on education between Germans and Americans (1967;1968;1997). One of the interesting stories I usually tell in my classes is how the report of the French scholar, Victor Cousin, on Prussian education in 1831 led to the establishment of the American common school. In 1834 Sarah Austin translated Cousin’s report into English and copies of this English translation fell into American hands and was a trumpet call for a general exodus of educators and statesmen to Prussia, including Calvin E. Stowe (1910), Alexander Dallas Bache (1839), Horace Mann (1844), and Henry Barnard (1854). Consequently, the American common school was almost an exact copy of the Prussian Volksschule.
Curiously, these American reformers often retained the French terms used by Cousin. Consequently, the American normal school is a replica of the German teacher training seminar, though the term we use comes from the French (école normale).
I would conclude that though the tracing of influences can be found in comparative education studies they do not constitute any systematic research agenda of those in the field. Whereas comparative literature has developed a systematic framework to chart a cumulative literature on influences, comparative education work regarding influences remains sporadic and non-cumulative.
Discussion
With this all too superficial review, it has been possible to characterize various comparative fields. I have noted, for example, that comparative anatomy has a hierarchical comparative classification; comparative politics has a somewhat different orientation related to ahistorical typologies, while comparative philology traces the comparative development of languages, and comparative literature traces cultural influences across cultures. The question remains, are we able to characterize our own field of comparative education in some specific way. Certainly, developmental and ahistorical system typologies, and cultural influences have played some role in our field; however, I am inclined to characterize our work as relying mainly on hierarchical developmental classification.
In certain respects the many comparative approaches we see in our field is unfortunate, because we are a relatively small field, one that is fragmented in its diverse connections with various social science disciplines, and our work is diluted by our lack of identification with a specific comparative orientation. I do not wish to suggest that our comparative work be as narrowly defined as in some fields. For example, the single intention of comparative mysticism is to study the mystical experience, in order to determine “whether all such experiences are reducible to one pattern” (Zaehner 1957: 31). However, becoming a bit more focused in our comparative research agenda might help us make more progress in terms of our scientific contributions.
Even though our field is weakened by its methodological diversity, I believe we face a more serious challenge. In the past we have relied on developmental paradigms taken from the life and social sciences. Models such as modernization, world systems theory, and globalization, all have a deterministic edge to them. Karl Popper (1962) has labeled such orientations as historicism, because they rely on the predictive style and methodology of the natural sciences. All too often we have been guilty of historicist tendencies in comparative education and our work has suffered as a consequence. Recent trends in our field are significant, because they have been shifting our attention away from this positivist orientation toward broader considerations of knowledge production. The anti-positivistic trends in our field are refreshing but at the same time they are challenging.
Apologists for the more conventional science-oriented comparative approaches claim this new orientation, which I identify here as postmodernism, ought to be rejected, because it places the very foundations of comparative studies in jeopardy, ostensibly obliterating any notion of comparable categories. Defenders of science claim science allows us to establish fixed referents and general thought systems that are necessary for comparative studies to exist. Postmodernsists agree that science-oriented scholars rely on global frames of reference, but they criticize positivist assumptions, because fixed referents lock civilization into totalitarian and logocentric thought systems. Jean-François Lyotard (1984) and Michel Foucault (1980) associate science with "totalitarian theories" and "terroristic universals."
Postmodern scholars describe the world as one which is decentered, constantly changing, without the chains and conventions of modern society. Its proponents believe the stories of pluralistic contemporary societies are being written by a number of narratives and reject philosophical systems of thought, which propose some universal standard, as reflected in the orientations of scholars such as Adam Smith, Freud, Hegel, Compte, and Marx. But other scholars defending such conventional paradigms claim that postmoderns are throwing the baby out with the bath. Their postmodern epistemology would reject the possibility of establishing comparable categories.
Those defending the conventional paradigm claim postmoderns are destroying the possibility of satisfying the criteria necessary for comparison. This argument is important, and I have elsewhere cautioned against rejecting certain metanarratives, because I have worried about our becoming trapped into localized frameworks that have no general validity, that disallow comparison, and deny the integration of cultures and harmonizing values (Rust 1991). Legitimate metanarratives give access to knowledge of individuals, systems, and societies, providing forms of analysis that express and articulate differences, that encourage critical thinking without closing off thought and avenues for constructive action. My stance may be seen as faint hearted, because I wish to remain supportive of science while challenging the narrowness of past scientific work. I must confess I have great regard for science and its potential, and I agree with John Horgan (1996: 5), that scientists generally want to learn about reality, and I laud them for their interest in knowing more, in discovering truth. However, their tendency to disregard non-scientific ways of knowing is self-defeating. Is there a way to support science while recognizing the value of other ways of knowing?
One course of action we comparative educators might take is to reconsider our strong commitment to hierarchical developmental classification. It clearly has favored Eurocentrism and unequal power relations. I find the other comparative approaches discussed in this essay to be less hegemonic than hierarchical developmental classification, and our field might stave off the threat of anti-positivists by moving toward these more even-handed approaches.
At the same time, I feel we must reject the hegemonic claims of science. We recall, for example, that Comte believed society traversed through various stages, from religion, to philosophy, then to science. His mistake, from my vantage point, was to place these ways of knowing in a hierarchical framework, which makes philosophy a second-rate means of knowing, and religion a third-rate means of knowing. My own orientation is to place them parallel with each other. There is a place for the spiritual, a place for the philosophical, and a place for the scientific, and any attempt to place one exclusively over the other is inappropriate.
30/10/10
THE HISTORICAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE EDUCATION
By Nicholas Hans, London
Comparative Education as an academic discipline is just on the border line between humanities and sciences and thus resembles philosophy which is the foundation of both. On its social and statistical side Comparative Education has to apply the methods of sociology and mathematical statistics, in its psychological application the methods of science, and in its historical background the methods of historical research. The first question to be answered is whether the historical approach has to use methods different from the scientific approach. The differences between analysis and synthesis, between induction and deduction, or between the assumption of dogmatic axioms and working hypotheses, do not mark the frontiers of history and science. Both groups of Wissenschaflen use all these methods in equal measure and both may attain the same degree of certainty, which is liable to correction with the progress of research. In this respect history is no less 'scientific' than chemistry or biology. It is only in English usage that 'science' has a limited sense and excludes history; the German Wissenschafl covers both. What, then, is the difference ? In general terms it can be stated that the historical approach tends to ascertain individual facts, whereas the scientific approach tends to discover universal laws governing these facts. No sooner does history attempt to define the laws of human evolution than it becomes sociology; as soon as science describes individual discoveries it becomes the history of science. Neither history nor science can avoid this overlapping and any individual work of research inavoidably encroaches on the fields of the other. Pure historical description of individual facts is as devoid of meaning as pure scientific research without any reference to space and time and the individual scientist. Nevertheless, the logical difference between the two approaches remains valid, although in practice it is seldom followed in all its rigidity. In its development, history always had some universal assumption which 'interpreted' individual facts. Either it was the divine revelation of the Bible, the Koran or other sacred books which gave the religious-philosophical foundation to historical narrative; or it was philosophy, whether in its idealistic form as in Hegelianism, or materialistic form as in Marxism; or it was the biological hypothesis of evolution and human progress which supplied the 'meaning' to the skeleton of history. In this interpretation, history unavoidably has to use teleological ideas and to employ final causes side by side with physical, scientific causes. Certainly, the sciences, in their interpretation, also use both teleology and causation, but history tends to interpret human behaviour by assuming conscious purposes, whilst science tends to limit its interpretation to the principles of causation. Comparative education, as a border study at once static and dynamic, has to use both principles. By its title 'Comparative' it has to interpret facts, as without interpretation no comparison is possible. The interpretation may be descriptive or functional. In a recent letter to the author, Professor Pedro Rossell6 defined these two methods of interpretation and pointed out that his work in the I.B.E. was limited to the interpretation of recent trends as seen from statistical information and annual reports of national ministries of education, whereas my interpretation was functional, being based on historical background. It would seem that the difference is more formal than essential. No sooner do you take the 'time-factor' into consideration than you enter the field of history, and comparisons of statistical data of a pre-war period with post-war tendencies are a part of the recent history of education. On the other hand, functional interpretation of the connections of national traditions, 'national character' and religious attitudes with present-day educational systems has to consider the social structure, the statistical division into occupational groups, the present systems of administration and organisation of schools and the statistical 'availability' of different stages of education to different groups of the population, whether racial, linguistic, religious or national. Again we see the overlapping of the two methods of interpretation, although the difference of approach is real. Some years ago a kind of "gentlemen's agreement" was reached between Unesco and the I.B.E. and the Yearbook of Education, wherein Unesco would undertake the compilation of comparative statistics, the I.B.E. the comparative interpretation of recent trends, and the Yearbook would deal with Comparative Education from a functional point of view. As the latter inevitably reflects the author's point of view and may discriminate between various groups or nations, the Yearbook of Education as an independent, unofficial publication is better suited for that purpose. Yet this division of labour, so valuable for the comprehensive efficiency of comparative research, can hardly be sustained in academic courses of Comparative Education, which have to combine all three to present to the students a three-dimensional picture.
These preliminary remarks lead us to two conclusions: first, that historical background is indispensable to any interpretation of comparative data and secondly that it has to be complemented by other approaches. To be able to understand clearly the importance of a historical approach to comparisons of various national systems of education, a few examples would seem appropriate.
As the first example we select the relations between 'society' and 'state'. Most sociologists distinguish national society from a national state. National society is the creator of national culture, including language, literature, fine arts and religious beliefs. A national state, on the other hand, is the creator of the legal cohesion of the same individuals who form the national society. Here we have a logical distinction between an external community of citizens based on law, enforced by legal government, and the internal community in creative work and beliefs, based on voluntary consent and efforts of individuals and social groups. The two fields of social activities often overlap and the state may encroach on voluntary associations of individual citizens. For instance, the state may prohibit pornographic books and indecent behaviour, may enforce its laws by police and punish the offender. But it is hardly possible to prohibit indecent anecdotes among small groups of club members or immoral conduct in secret between consenting adults. Concerning religious beliefs, history provides us with a definite answer. The principle of cuius regio eius religio could not be enforced even by the most cruel legal enactments. Heretics or non-conformists of all kinds elaborated intricate ways of verbal conformity with mental reservations and only under torture would they confess their guilt. Modern legislation prohibits torture and there are no other means of enforcing a 'thought control' when thoughts are not expressed in overt actions. To enact a law which cannot be enforced and which is opposed by public opinion is not only futile, but leads to contrary results. The area of applications of state laws is thus limited not only by logical definitions but by practical results. Yet as the two fields of social activity overlap, the frontiers of legal state action and independence of voluntary association remain rather vague and many countries have adopted different interpretations with variations of application in their educational policy. Here the logical analysis of the present situation is inadequate and only historical research can give an answer to the difference of educational policies. Thus the frontiers between society and state in each country must be explained by historical national traditions and not by logical analysis of the terms themselves. Let us examine educational legislation in some selected countries.
In England the distinction between society and state is a national tradition upheld by English philosophy and public opinion. All attempts at establishing a monopoly of religious beliefs enforced by laws of the state were countered by obstruction on the part of religious minorities and were eventually condemned by public opinion coming from the majority itself. State legislation was looked upon as a lesser evil and had to be confined to the most obvious measures necessary to maintain order. State intervention in education was rigorously opposed, since the attempts of the Presbyterians during the Commonwealth and of Anglicans during the Restoration at state monopoly were unsuccessful. Locke openly preferred private initiative to state maintained institutions and the whole controversy was between the adherents of large boarding schools (independent or 'Public') and small private schools or private tutors. When the vicar of Newcastle, John Brown, raised his voice in the sixties of the 18 th century, advocating state control in education, he was attacked by Joseph Priestley in a separate publication. When again Robert Owen, Jeremy Bentham and the utilitarians demanded state intervention in education they found few adherents in intellectual circles. When, in 1833, state intervention became a fact, it was smuggled through in an almost empty House and amounted to a negligible subsidy to voluntary societies. In this atmosphere, hostile to state intervention, the right of parents to choose the kind of education approved by them, was never challenged and even the introduction of compulsory school attendance exempted parents who could afford home education. At present, education is legally recognised as a national service, but its administration is entrusted to local authorities and voluntary associations. The most striking example of this division between society and state is presented in the fields of science and adult education. All the societies enjoying the title 'Royal', headed by the Royal Society (Academy of Science) are voluntary associations independent of any state control or interference. English universities, although in fact largely maintained by the state, are independent institutions and the Ministry of Education has no right of intervention. These features of English legislation are the sequence of historical tradition and can hardly be explained otherwise.
In France we have a different historical situation. There were many attacks of French 'society' on the monopoly of the state in order to win independence from state control. But all their attempts were met by the centralising legislation of the king, who embodied the state: l'dtat c'est moi. The Huguenots were suppressed by Louis XIV, the Jansenists shared their fate and even the Catholic Church was subordinated to the royal power (Gallicanism). The Revolution continued the same tradition, suppressed all congregations and prohibited regional dialects and local traditions in schools. Napoleon, by establishing the monopole universitaire, only expressed the same principle in a codified form. It is significant that the Academy of Sciences, which started as a voluntary society simultaneously with the Royal Society in England, was soon taken over by the state and became a public institution maintained and controlled by the government. Throughout the 19th century we see the struggle of society against the encroaching legislation of the state. It is interesting to observe how the champions of the 'liberty' of associations and individuals changed sides during the last two hundred years. Before the Revolution 'liberty' was defended by Protestants, Jansenists, philosophers and minorities of all kinds. The state identified with the church denied independence from state control to all voluntary associations. During the Revolution the tables were turned. The state represented by the Jacobins enforced secular monopoly and the Catholics became the defenders of the 'liberty' of voluntary initiative. After several revolutions and counterrevolutions conditions were stabilised under the Third Republic, when the public school system was centralised under state control, whilst Catholic schools, called I~coles Libres, were pushed outside the national system. As a result, voluntary associations are allowed by state legislation within strict limits and there is a perpetual 'cold war' between the secularist state and the Catholic society. Whereas in England the state and society combined their forces to promote national unity and English culture, in France they split the nation and national education in two opposing camps. Of course, this simplified comparison does not do justice to all factors of English or French national life, but is given here merely as an example of an historical approach to the differences on the two sides of the Channel.
Russia presents a third case which throws additional light on relations between state and society. Soviet legislation does not recognise 'society' as an independent factor of national life. They speak of 'proletarian society' or 'workers' associations' led and controlled by the Communist Party. As the latter is identified with the Soviet state, there is neither opposition nor division of functions between state and society. The state is all-embracing. It would be wrong, however, to explain this monopoly entirely from the doctrine of dialectical materialism. As is well known, Lenin taught the gradual disappearance of state powers and a total emancipation of a 'classless society'. The present state monopoly is not a theoretical limitation of voluntary initiative, but an historical tradition of Russia. Whereas in Western Europe educational systems developed from the voluntary associations of the Church and craftsmen guilds of the towns, in Russia the national system of schools was from the very start a state enterprise controlled and maintained by the Tsarist government. Since Peter the Great it was secular, utilitarian and centralised. The autocratic, enlightened Emperors (and Catherine II), during periods of reforms, recognised 'Russian society' as a separate factor and appealed for its support, but only in so far as the 'society' backed their enlightened ideas. As soon as 'society' showed signs of independence, all concessions were withdrawn and the Tsar (i.e. the state) asserted his monopoly of decisions. During reactionary periods 'society' in semi-legal liberal and illegal revolutionary groups and associations bitterly opposed the state as personified by the autocratic Tsar and developed anarchist tendencies. This partially explains why Lenin, as a revolutionary, attacked the state and why the Soviet government, following the historical supremacy of the Russian state, does not recognise 'society' as a separate factor. In consequence private schools are prohibited by law, religious instruction is tolerated only within the churches and theological academies are allowed for the training of priests only under state control. Any ideological deviation by teachers - civil servants - is out of question and leads to dismissals. Thus the relations of society and state in three selected countries are the results of historical traditions.
As a second example of the historical approach, I shall take the ideal of equality and its influence on the educational systems of England, the U.S.A. and France. The ideal of equality was inherited by Europeans from Stoic philosophy and Christian teaching. Having at first a spiritual, moral implication, it gradually acquired a political and social meaning. In England the revolution and the civil war were inspired by the ideal of liberty and not equality. The sanctity of private property and inherited privileges were accepted in the past as a matter of course and the difference between a gentleman and a common man influenced the whole conception of education and the structure of the school system. The ideal of a gentleman has undergone a gradual transformation and at present has a moral and cultural meaning and not a birth right. Nevertheless it is still important in social life and those schools which traditionally educated gentlemen have even now a privileged social position. In spite of the insistence of the Labour Party on the social equality of all Englishmen, the idea of an 61ite, whether social or cultural, is accepted by most educationists. The introduction of the three A 8 (age, ability, and aptitude) by the 1944 Act as deciding factors in education has not abolished the
prevalent notion of an 61ite but turned the scale more in favour of intelligence, whilst upholding all the other features of a gentleman. The accepted inequality of status is legally recognised in a differentiation of salaries between men and women teachers, between honours and general degrees in school appointments, or in the establishment of A, B, and C streams in schools. In spite of the general demand for "secondary education for all," the social inequality of 'public' schools, grammar schools and secondary modern schools remains a deciding factor for the majority of pupils. In fact, this historical tradition is giving way to the idea of social equality and to demands for 'comprehensive' schools, for equal salaries for all teachers irrespective of schools or sex, and for the doors of higher education to be opened to larger groups. This is the result of the changing social order, but the change itself is conditioned by the historical past.
In America the English tradition has undergone a transformation. The emergence of a new nation after the War of Independence was a revolution directed against privilege and inequality of status. The ideal of the equality of all Americans was accepted as the foundation stone of the new democracy. Although Jefferson was still influenced by the old English notion of an elite, the Jacksonian democracy definitely proclaimed the equality of all Americans irrespective of origin or education. The school system had to be adapted to the new situation. The growth of national wealth and subsequent rapid industrialisation accelerated the change from training the 6lite to mass education. High schools became available to all young people, abandoning any principles of selection, and high school curricula were adapted to all possible variations of abilities and aptitudes. The standards had to be lowered, but the necessity of general culture for all American citizens led to the foundation of Junior Colleges to make cultural equality as real as political or social equality. The professional training in the universities had to follow suit, cater for all possible careers and introduce new courses, some of which have dubious academic value and would be condemned by European universities.
In France the situation is again different from the two English speaking countries. Here, since the time of Descartes, logical thinking was accepted as a necessary qualification for any white collar profession. The intellectual 61ite was trained in Jesuit Colleges, where the doctrine of formal discipline was the basis of education. During the period of diHusion de la lumi~re in the 18 TM century, reason was proclaimed supreme and all other sources of knowledge, including that of divine revelation, were subordinated to rational thought. The French Revolution proclaimed a potential equality of all citizens in so far as all men were rational beings. But as intelligence is not inherited in equal measure, there was a necessity of intellectual selection for further training and state appointments. The famous report of Condorcet was based on the principle of intellectual selection. Napoleon said: 'la carri~re est ouverte au talent' and in his time anybody could rise to the highest level, provided he had the required intelligence and knowledge. The resultant selection was achieved by a complex system of state certifications and competitive examinations. French examinations are universally acknowledged as the most severe tests applied anywhere in the world (the mandarin examinations in old China excepted). As such they lead to a great amount of wastage (scholastic mortality) and create a large group of ddclassds, who are wanted neither in industry nor in the civil service. Thus in France the ideal of social equality is defeated no less than in the English speaking countries, but for different reasons, which depend on national historical traditions.
Yet it is evident that the historical approach by itself is unable to solve the inherent contradiction in the ideal of equality. A philosophical analysis of the term is as much needed as sociological results of its application in education.
Historical research is necessary not only in the realm of ideas but in factual situations as well. As a striking example of historical traditions in education we can point out the problem of bilingualism and the medium of instruction. The use of Latin in Western Europe, of Arabic in Moslem countries or classical Chinese in China was not prompted by utilitarian or pedagogical reasons, but by tradition and the dominance of religion in national life. The strength of that tradition is clearly seen in two hundred years of struggle of modern education with classicism and in many features of present day curricula and methods of instruction. In countries like Belgium, Eire or Canada in the West, or Pakistan, India and Ceylon in the East, the problem of the language is in the forefront of school politics and all arguments for and against a particular medium of instruction are neglected in favour of the long forgotten, historical past, which the adherents of local nationalisms champion. Even the use of a specific alphabet is decided on historical grounds rather than its phonetic suitability. We do not suggest that the historical approach leads to the best solutions of all school problems, but only state the fact that the influence of the past is often decisive even in our ultra-modem times.
As the last example of the historical approach we will take a purely material basis of education - school buildings. It is obvious that in the variety of climatic and geographical conditions school buildings should be adapted to temperatures, changes of seasons and available local material. But the style of the building, its internal arrangement and decoration and its external architecture were determined in the past and even at present not exactly by utilitarian considerations and demands of hygiene and economics. National traditions in architecture will reflect a different outlook in the school buildings of Western Europe compared with those of India or Japan. Buildings inherited from the past still embody contemporary ideas on education. Some old buildings resemble monasteries with their cloisters and austere atmosphere of dedication to spiritual ends. They represent the period when schools were controlled by religious congregations and most teachers were monks. Other old buildings resemble prisons with a gloomy, unattractive interior reflecting the view of corrective discipline necessary for the eradication of their pupils' original sin. The necessity of overall autocratic supervision prompted Jeremy Bentham to invent his Panopticon building, suitable both to schools and prisons. On the other hand, old Napoleonic lycees resemble military barracks and no wonder, since pupils of his schools wore military uniform and marched to the sounds of drums. But tempora mutantur and modern schools resemble hospitals more than anything else, again reflecting modern views on education. These changes in the style of school buildings, reflecting changes in educational ideas - we may call it Marxism in reverse - can find their explanation only in history.
Conclusion. The general conclusions which can be drawn from these arguments and examples are few, but important for the study of Comparative Education. Whereas philosophy, sociology, and economics, by comparing education in different countries, attempt to find general principles underlying the evolution of educational theory and practice, the historical approach tries to investigate the past causes of individual and group variations among religious or national communities. The differences of denominational attitudes, of national aspirations or of so-called 'national character' go deep into the past and sometimes subconsciously determine the present. Only historical investigation can bring them to the surface, illuminate their potency in the cultural lives of nations and make Comparative Education really educative.
Comparative Education as an academic discipline is just on the border line between humanities and sciences and thus resembles philosophy which is the foundation of both. On its social and statistical side Comparative Education has to apply the methods of sociology and mathematical statistics, in its psychological application the methods of science, and in its historical background the methods of historical research. The first question to be answered is whether the historical approach has to use methods different from the scientific approach. The differences between analysis and synthesis, between induction and deduction, or between the assumption of dogmatic axioms and working hypotheses, do not mark the frontiers of history and science. Both groups of Wissenschaflen use all these methods in equal measure and both may attain the same degree of certainty, which is liable to correction with the progress of research. In this respect history is no less 'scientific' than chemistry or biology. It is only in English usage that 'science' has a limited sense and excludes history; the German Wissenschafl covers both. What, then, is the difference ? In general terms it can be stated that the historical approach tends to ascertain individual facts, whereas the scientific approach tends to discover universal laws governing these facts. No sooner does history attempt to define the laws of human evolution than it becomes sociology; as soon as science describes individual discoveries it becomes the history of science. Neither history nor science can avoid this overlapping and any individual work of research inavoidably encroaches on the fields of the other. Pure historical description of individual facts is as devoid of meaning as pure scientific research without any reference to space and time and the individual scientist. Nevertheless, the logical difference between the two approaches remains valid, although in practice it is seldom followed in all its rigidity. In its development, history always had some universal assumption which 'interpreted' individual facts. Either it was the divine revelation of the Bible, the Koran or other sacred books which gave the religious-philosophical foundation to historical narrative; or it was philosophy, whether in its idealistic form as in Hegelianism, or materialistic form as in Marxism; or it was the biological hypothesis of evolution and human progress which supplied the 'meaning' to the skeleton of history. In this interpretation, history unavoidably has to use teleological ideas and to employ final causes side by side with physical, scientific causes. Certainly, the sciences, in their interpretation, also use both teleology and causation, but history tends to interpret human behaviour by assuming conscious purposes, whilst science tends to limit its interpretation to the principles of causation. Comparative education, as a border study at once static and dynamic, has to use both principles. By its title 'Comparative' it has to interpret facts, as without interpretation no comparison is possible. The interpretation may be descriptive or functional. In a recent letter to the author, Professor Pedro Rossell6 defined these two methods of interpretation and pointed out that his work in the I.B.E. was limited to the interpretation of recent trends as seen from statistical information and annual reports of national ministries of education, whereas my interpretation was functional, being based on historical background. It would seem that the difference is more formal than essential. No sooner do you take the 'time-factor' into consideration than you enter the field of history, and comparisons of statistical data of a pre-war period with post-war tendencies are a part of the recent history of education. On the other hand, functional interpretation of the connections of national traditions, 'national character' and religious attitudes with present-day educational systems has to consider the social structure, the statistical division into occupational groups, the present systems of administration and organisation of schools and the statistical 'availability' of different stages of education to different groups of the population, whether racial, linguistic, religious or national. Again we see the overlapping of the two methods of interpretation, although the difference of approach is real. Some years ago a kind of "gentlemen's agreement" was reached between Unesco and the I.B.E. and the Yearbook of Education, wherein Unesco would undertake the compilation of comparative statistics, the I.B.E. the comparative interpretation of recent trends, and the Yearbook would deal with Comparative Education from a functional point of view. As the latter inevitably reflects the author's point of view and may discriminate between various groups or nations, the Yearbook of Education as an independent, unofficial publication is better suited for that purpose. Yet this division of labour, so valuable for the comprehensive efficiency of comparative research, can hardly be sustained in academic courses of Comparative Education, which have to combine all three to present to the students a three-dimensional picture.
These preliminary remarks lead us to two conclusions: first, that historical background is indispensable to any interpretation of comparative data and secondly that it has to be complemented by other approaches. To be able to understand clearly the importance of a historical approach to comparisons of various national systems of education, a few examples would seem appropriate.
As the first example we select the relations between 'society' and 'state'. Most sociologists distinguish national society from a national state. National society is the creator of national culture, including language, literature, fine arts and religious beliefs. A national state, on the other hand, is the creator of the legal cohesion of the same individuals who form the national society. Here we have a logical distinction between an external community of citizens based on law, enforced by legal government, and the internal community in creative work and beliefs, based on voluntary consent and efforts of individuals and social groups. The two fields of social activities often overlap and the state may encroach on voluntary associations of individual citizens. For instance, the state may prohibit pornographic books and indecent behaviour, may enforce its laws by police and punish the offender. But it is hardly possible to prohibit indecent anecdotes among small groups of club members or immoral conduct in secret between consenting adults. Concerning religious beliefs, history provides us with a definite answer. The principle of cuius regio eius religio could not be enforced even by the most cruel legal enactments. Heretics or non-conformists of all kinds elaborated intricate ways of verbal conformity with mental reservations and only under torture would they confess their guilt. Modern legislation prohibits torture and there are no other means of enforcing a 'thought control' when thoughts are not expressed in overt actions. To enact a law which cannot be enforced and which is opposed by public opinion is not only futile, but leads to contrary results. The area of applications of state laws is thus limited not only by logical definitions but by practical results. Yet as the two fields of social activity overlap, the frontiers of legal state action and independence of voluntary association remain rather vague and many countries have adopted different interpretations with variations of application in their educational policy. Here the logical analysis of the present situation is inadequate and only historical research can give an answer to the difference of educational policies. Thus the frontiers between society and state in each country must be explained by historical national traditions and not by logical analysis of the terms themselves. Let us examine educational legislation in some selected countries.
In England the distinction between society and state is a national tradition upheld by English philosophy and public opinion. All attempts at establishing a monopoly of religious beliefs enforced by laws of the state were countered by obstruction on the part of religious minorities and were eventually condemned by public opinion coming from the majority itself. State legislation was looked upon as a lesser evil and had to be confined to the most obvious measures necessary to maintain order. State intervention in education was rigorously opposed, since the attempts of the Presbyterians during the Commonwealth and of Anglicans during the Restoration at state monopoly were unsuccessful. Locke openly preferred private initiative to state maintained institutions and the whole controversy was between the adherents of large boarding schools (independent or 'Public') and small private schools or private tutors. When the vicar of Newcastle, John Brown, raised his voice in the sixties of the 18 th century, advocating state control in education, he was attacked by Joseph Priestley in a separate publication. When again Robert Owen, Jeremy Bentham and the utilitarians demanded state intervention in education they found few adherents in intellectual circles. When, in 1833, state intervention became a fact, it was smuggled through in an almost empty House and amounted to a negligible subsidy to voluntary societies. In this atmosphere, hostile to state intervention, the right of parents to choose the kind of education approved by them, was never challenged and even the introduction of compulsory school attendance exempted parents who could afford home education. At present, education is legally recognised as a national service, but its administration is entrusted to local authorities and voluntary associations. The most striking example of this division between society and state is presented in the fields of science and adult education. All the societies enjoying the title 'Royal', headed by the Royal Society (Academy of Science) are voluntary associations independent of any state control or interference. English universities, although in fact largely maintained by the state, are independent institutions and the Ministry of Education has no right of intervention. These features of English legislation are the sequence of historical tradition and can hardly be explained otherwise.
In France we have a different historical situation. There were many attacks of French 'society' on the monopoly of the state in order to win independence from state control. But all their attempts were met by the centralising legislation of the king, who embodied the state: l'dtat c'est moi. The Huguenots were suppressed by Louis XIV, the Jansenists shared their fate and even the Catholic Church was subordinated to the royal power (Gallicanism). The Revolution continued the same tradition, suppressed all congregations and prohibited regional dialects and local traditions in schools. Napoleon, by establishing the monopole universitaire, only expressed the same principle in a codified form. It is significant that the Academy of Sciences, which started as a voluntary society simultaneously with the Royal Society in England, was soon taken over by the state and became a public institution maintained and controlled by the government. Throughout the 19th century we see the struggle of society against the encroaching legislation of the state. It is interesting to observe how the champions of the 'liberty' of associations and individuals changed sides during the last two hundred years. Before the Revolution 'liberty' was defended by Protestants, Jansenists, philosophers and minorities of all kinds. The state identified with the church denied independence from state control to all voluntary associations. During the Revolution the tables were turned. The state represented by the Jacobins enforced secular monopoly and the Catholics became the defenders of the 'liberty' of voluntary initiative. After several revolutions and counterrevolutions conditions were stabilised under the Third Republic, when the public school system was centralised under state control, whilst Catholic schools, called I~coles Libres, were pushed outside the national system. As a result, voluntary associations are allowed by state legislation within strict limits and there is a perpetual 'cold war' between the secularist state and the Catholic society. Whereas in England the state and society combined their forces to promote national unity and English culture, in France they split the nation and national education in two opposing camps. Of course, this simplified comparison does not do justice to all factors of English or French national life, but is given here merely as an example of an historical approach to the differences on the two sides of the Channel.
Russia presents a third case which throws additional light on relations between state and society. Soviet legislation does not recognise 'society' as an independent factor of national life. They speak of 'proletarian society' or 'workers' associations' led and controlled by the Communist Party. As the latter is identified with the Soviet state, there is neither opposition nor division of functions between state and society. The state is all-embracing. It would be wrong, however, to explain this monopoly entirely from the doctrine of dialectical materialism. As is well known, Lenin taught the gradual disappearance of state powers and a total emancipation of a 'classless society'. The present state monopoly is not a theoretical limitation of voluntary initiative, but an historical tradition of Russia. Whereas in Western Europe educational systems developed from the voluntary associations of the Church and craftsmen guilds of the towns, in Russia the national system of schools was from the very start a state enterprise controlled and maintained by the Tsarist government. Since Peter the Great it was secular, utilitarian and centralised. The autocratic, enlightened Emperors (and Catherine II), during periods of reforms, recognised 'Russian society' as a separate factor and appealed for its support, but only in so far as the 'society' backed their enlightened ideas. As soon as 'society' showed signs of independence, all concessions were withdrawn and the Tsar (i.e. the state) asserted his monopoly of decisions. During reactionary periods 'society' in semi-legal liberal and illegal revolutionary groups and associations bitterly opposed the state as personified by the autocratic Tsar and developed anarchist tendencies. This partially explains why Lenin, as a revolutionary, attacked the state and why the Soviet government, following the historical supremacy of the Russian state, does not recognise 'society' as a separate factor. In consequence private schools are prohibited by law, religious instruction is tolerated only within the churches and theological academies are allowed for the training of priests only under state control. Any ideological deviation by teachers - civil servants - is out of question and leads to dismissals. Thus the relations of society and state in three selected countries are the results of historical traditions.
As a second example of the historical approach, I shall take the ideal of equality and its influence on the educational systems of England, the U.S.A. and France. The ideal of equality was inherited by Europeans from Stoic philosophy and Christian teaching. Having at first a spiritual, moral implication, it gradually acquired a political and social meaning. In England the revolution and the civil war were inspired by the ideal of liberty and not equality. The sanctity of private property and inherited privileges were accepted in the past as a matter of course and the difference between a gentleman and a common man influenced the whole conception of education and the structure of the school system. The ideal of a gentleman has undergone a gradual transformation and at present has a moral and cultural meaning and not a birth right. Nevertheless it is still important in social life and those schools which traditionally educated gentlemen have even now a privileged social position. In spite of the insistence of the Labour Party on the social equality of all Englishmen, the idea of an 61ite, whether social or cultural, is accepted by most educationists. The introduction of the three A 8 (age, ability, and aptitude) by the 1944 Act as deciding factors in education has not abolished the
prevalent notion of an 61ite but turned the scale more in favour of intelligence, whilst upholding all the other features of a gentleman. The accepted inequality of status is legally recognised in a differentiation of salaries between men and women teachers, between honours and general degrees in school appointments, or in the establishment of A, B, and C streams in schools. In spite of the general demand for "secondary education for all," the social inequality of 'public' schools, grammar schools and secondary modern schools remains a deciding factor for the majority of pupils. In fact, this historical tradition is giving way to the idea of social equality and to demands for 'comprehensive' schools, for equal salaries for all teachers irrespective of schools or sex, and for the doors of higher education to be opened to larger groups. This is the result of the changing social order, but the change itself is conditioned by the historical past.
In America the English tradition has undergone a transformation. The emergence of a new nation after the War of Independence was a revolution directed against privilege and inequality of status. The ideal of the equality of all Americans was accepted as the foundation stone of the new democracy. Although Jefferson was still influenced by the old English notion of an elite, the Jacksonian democracy definitely proclaimed the equality of all Americans irrespective of origin or education. The school system had to be adapted to the new situation. The growth of national wealth and subsequent rapid industrialisation accelerated the change from training the 6lite to mass education. High schools became available to all young people, abandoning any principles of selection, and high school curricula were adapted to all possible variations of abilities and aptitudes. The standards had to be lowered, but the necessity of general culture for all American citizens led to the foundation of Junior Colleges to make cultural equality as real as political or social equality. The professional training in the universities had to follow suit, cater for all possible careers and introduce new courses, some of which have dubious academic value and would be condemned by European universities.
In France the situation is again different from the two English speaking countries. Here, since the time of Descartes, logical thinking was accepted as a necessary qualification for any white collar profession. The intellectual 61ite was trained in Jesuit Colleges, where the doctrine of formal discipline was the basis of education. During the period of diHusion de la lumi~re in the 18 TM century, reason was proclaimed supreme and all other sources of knowledge, including that of divine revelation, were subordinated to rational thought. The French Revolution proclaimed a potential equality of all citizens in so far as all men were rational beings. But as intelligence is not inherited in equal measure, there was a necessity of intellectual selection for further training and state appointments. The famous report of Condorcet was based on the principle of intellectual selection. Napoleon said: 'la carri~re est ouverte au talent' and in his time anybody could rise to the highest level, provided he had the required intelligence and knowledge. The resultant selection was achieved by a complex system of state certifications and competitive examinations. French examinations are universally acknowledged as the most severe tests applied anywhere in the world (the mandarin examinations in old China excepted). As such they lead to a great amount of wastage (scholastic mortality) and create a large group of ddclassds, who are wanted neither in industry nor in the civil service. Thus in France the ideal of social equality is defeated no less than in the English speaking countries, but for different reasons, which depend on national historical traditions.
Yet it is evident that the historical approach by itself is unable to solve the inherent contradiction in the ideal of equality. A philosophical analysis of the term is as much needed as sociological results of its application in education.
Historical research is necessary not only in the realm of ideas but in factual situations as well. As a striking example of historical traditions in education we can point out the problem of bilingualism and the medium of instruction. The use of Latin in Western Europe, of Arabic in Moslem countries or classical Chinese in China was not prompted by utilitarian or pedagogical reasons, but by tradition and the dominance of religion in national life. The strength of that tradition is clearly seen in two hundred years of struggle of modern education with classicism and in many features of present day curricula and methods of instruction. In countries like Belgium, Eire or Canada in the West, or Pakistan, India and Ceylon in the East, the problem of the language is in the forefront of school politics and all arguments for and against a particular medium of instruction are neglected in favour of the long forgotten, historical past, which the adherents of local nationalisms champion. Even the use of a specific alphabet is decided on historical grounds rather than its phonetic suitability. We do not suggest that the historical approach leads to the best solutions of all school problems, but only state the fact that the influence of the past is often decisive even in our ultra-modem times.
As the last example of the historical approach we will take a purely material basis of education - school buildings. It is obvious that in the variety of climatic and geographical conditions school buildings should be adapted to temperatures, changes of seasons and available local material. But the style of the building, its internal arrangement and decoration and its external architecture were determined in the past and even at present not exactly by utilitarian considerations and demands of hygiene and economics. National traditions in architecture will reflect a different outlook in the school buildings of Western Europe compared with those of India or Japan. Buildings inherited from the past still embody contemporary ideas on education. Some old buildings resemble monasteries with their cloisters and austere atmosphere of dedication to spiritual ends. They represent the period when schools were controlled by religious congregations and most teachers were monks. Other old buildings resemble prisons with a gloomy, unattractive interior reflecting the view of corrective discipline necessary for the eradication of their pupils' original sin. The necessity of overall autocratic supervision prompted Jeremy Bentham to invent his Panopticon building, suitable both to schools and prisons. On the other hand, old Napoleonic lycees resemble military barracks and no wonder, since pupils of his schools wore military uniform and marched to the sounds of drums. But tempora mutantur and modern schools resemble hospitals more than anything else, again reflecting modern views on education. These changes in the style of school buildings, reflecting changes in educational ideas - we may call it Marxism in reverse - can find their explanation only in history.
Conclusion. The general conclusions which can be drawn from these arguments and examples are few, but important for the study of Comparative Education. Whereas philosophy, sociology, and economics, by comparing education in different countries, attempt to find general principles underlying the evolution of educational theory and practice, the historical approach tries to investigate the past causes of individual and group variations among religious or national communities. The differences of denominational attitudes, of national aspirations or of so-called 'national character' go deep into the past and sometimes subconsciously determine the present. Only historical investigation can bring them to the surface, illuminate their potency in the cultural lives of nations and make Comparative Education really educative.
THE METHODOLOGY OF COMPARATIVE EDUCATION
By I. L. Kandel, Westport, Connecticut
The development of the study of comparative education furnishes an example of the dangers that accompany the proliferation of intellectual disciplinesl). The interest in foreign school systems was motivated originally by a desire to advance reforms in the educational system of the country of the students making the investigation. It was realized early that systems of education could not be transferred from one country to another without being found unsuited to the new environment. Nevertheless the study of comparative education was found to be of value in contributing ideas and principles which could be woven into the prevailing philosophy of national education. This discovery was, indeed, not new, for the process of cross-fertilization of ideas in education is as old as the history of education.
A third stage is reached, however, when the original purposes of a study are forgotten and it becomes an independent field of study – a new subject, in fact, with its own methods and content separate from the original discipline from which it proliferated. Something like this happened in the development of the history of education, which tended to become a specialized subject whose contribution to the professional needs which it was supposed to serve became slighter and slighter as time Wellt on. The proliferation of a branch of psychology, which became educational psychology, went through the same process. There was, therefore, some basis for the definition of psychology which appeared nearly half a century ago in A Joysome History o[ Education (New York 1909). The definition read as follows: "That branch of learning by which a man so profoundly contemplates the internal workings of a clock that he is able to construct another like it, - which won't go." Another example that may be cited is the development of courses in the administration of education in the United States in which more attention is paid to administration than to education.
It is an over-sophistication of a discipline to subject it to such an analysis that the parts never really fit together again. The discipline cannot be predictive or helpful because those who frame educational policies are concerned primarily "to achieve certain positive objectives". In the case of the detailed analyses which the study of comparative education has tended to undertake in recent years, there seems to be a failure to realize the distinction between the influences that enter into the organization, aims, and practices of formal education and the effects of the multitudinous variety of forces in the environment that contribute to the informal education of an individual. As one reads some discussions of what should constitute the study of comparative education, the impression cannot be avoided that the writers appear to forget that the formal systems of education are planned, discussed in a legislative assembly, sometimes presented in advance for consideration by the public and the profession, and generally subjected to comments in the press. If all the forces listed by some students of comparative education were to be taken into account, educational systems would die at birth. The enthusiasts of the subtler forms of social analysis, influenced by the work and methods of cultural anthropologists, do not seem to remember that the work of the cultural anthropologists is directed to an analysis of a society as a whole and not of one of its institutions - education - alone. If this approach is continued and extended, the result that may be expected will be a mass of facts, details, and forces that may affect the nature and form of an educational system but not a picture of the system as a whole.
The methodology of comparative education is determined by the purpose that the study is to fulfil. If the aim is to learn something about an educational system, a description without explanation would be sufficient. The picture could be completed with references to the laws and regulations governing the system, the administrative organization, the method of financing, the number and types of schools, their articulation or lack of it, the number and size of classes, the curricula and methods of instruction and time-schedules, the standards and examinations, and the preparation, salaries, and status of teachers. An account of an educational
system of this type may serve for information and description that one would expect to find in an encyclopedia. From the point of view of comparative education such an account is limited, but is an essential first step in the process of study.
The student of comparative education, however, needs more than information about an educational system. If the discipline is worth pursuing, it is essential that the student search for information into the educational system or systems that he is studying. His task is to learn what forces determine the character of a system, what accounts for differences or similarities between two or more systems, how one system proceeds to solve problems that it has in common with other systems, and so on. He will not find answers to these and many other questions from information about the fabric of the system that he studies. Nor will he garner what should be the finest product of comparative study - ability to analyze his own system of education and add something to the philosophy underlying it.
As an introduction to a consideration of the methodology of comparative education designed to discover the forces that determine the nature and form of an educational system, it may be relevant, before discussing the theoretical foundations, to present a list of the factors that were considered by the Langevin Commission, appointed to plan the post-war reform of education in France. "The educational structure," wrote the Commission in the preamble of its report, "should be adapted to the social structure. The educational structure has not been seriously modified for half a century. On the other hand, the social structure has undergone a rapid evolution and fundamental changes. Mechanization, the use of new sources of energy, the development of means of transportation and communication, industrial concentration, the increase of production, the entrance of women into economic life, the spread of elementary education have profoundly changed the conditions of life and social organization. The rapidity and extent of economic progress, which in 1880 made the diffusion of elementary education necessary among the working masses, to-day poses the problem of recruiting an ever-increasing number of personnel as managers and technicians. The middle class, hereditarily called to hold positions of direction and responsibility, will not be able in the future to do it alone. The needs of modern economy impose the necessity of a reorganization of our educational system, which in its present form is no longer suited to the social and economic conditions". Formidable as this list of conditions is that a reform of the French educational system would have to meet, there were still others which were not considered at the time, such as the questions of religious instruction and parochial schools and the status of private schools. Others again may arise because of the recent constitutional changes.
The Commission's analysis of the needs of a country that should be taken into account when preparing the bases for the reform of an educational system emphasized the study of the sociological, economic, and technological factors, the status of women, and the changing social class stratification. Although the Commission must have had them in mind, there should have been included explicitly such factors as the political and cultural patterns, both traditional and contemporary. The issue of equality of educational opportunity did not have to be mentioned in a country which since World War I has had before it the idea of l'dcole unique; the issue is implicit in the reference to the changing status of the working and middle classes. The industrial concentration which means urbanization is mentioned, but there is no reference to what has been in France the predominance of the agricultural economy. Finally, the Commission failed to mention the ideals that would animate French education or the revived national consciousness which would serve to bind the French people together again after the disastrous cleavages
brought about by the early Nazi victory and occupation.
The quotation from the Langevin Commission's report is cited as a case study because it has a lesson in brief in the methodology of comparative education. It defines the factors and influences in the changing culture of the French people which must be considered in studying the educational system of any country in order to understand its meaning and the forces that give it its particular form and character. At the same time it suggests the kind of background required in order to be able to study any educational system - our own or that of another nation. Thestudy of comparative education is an interdisciplinary study and like the history of education may, in fact, lay greater emphasis on the ancillary studies than on education itself. And so far as methodology is concerned, comparative education may be considered a continuation of the study of the history of education into the present. Since we live to-day in a world which has been shaken by two wars and is passing through a variety of revolutions - political, economic, and technological - with their consequent effects on social and cultural patterns, the period is one in which the serious student can notice the changes that are going on at first hand. Further, he can watch the effects of these influences under different conditions - in countries which are in the van of technological advances and their application to industry; in countries which are shifting from a predominantly agricultural economy to an industrial economy; in countries where the state is everything and the individual a pawn manipulated in its own interest, or where the character of the state dependsupon the intelligence, understanding, and educated freedom of the
individual citizen. At still another level there are the nations which have recently gained their independence and are starting virtually from scratch in politics, in industry and agriculture, and in culture - all of which will be in the making for many decades, even to the extent of developing a literate language - oral and written.
The specialist in comparative education should have a knowledge of varying political theories, especially as they bear on the relations of the state and the individual. He should know from the history of education how political ideologies and aims have affected the course of education since the days of Plato and Aristotle. Both philosophers early enunciated the principle which was later expressed in the phrase "as is the state, so is the school" or "what you want in the state, you must put into the school". This principle was clearly at work in Germany, for example, as the Weimar Republic succeeded the monarchy, was in turn displaced by the Nazi Revolution, and, now widely separated by the war of ideas, is in each part seeking to establish an educational system in accordance with its prevalent political ideology. Such changes are easy enough to analyze after a revolution: Italy under Fascism, Russia and China under Communism, and the satellites of the new Soviet imperialism. Other changes may take place and may be as spectacular without being completely radical as in those countries in which the ideal of democracy has become more real, more vitalized, and more enriched, and which at the same time have been affected by many of the changes noted in the quotation from the Langevin Commission.
There is, however, another force under which all the other forces mentioned can be subsumed; that is the concept of the nation or nationalism, by which for over a century and a half the creation of systems of education has been inspired. The sixteenth century principle on which the religious conflicts were settled was cuius regio, eius religio and education in each area was dedicated to indoctrination in its chosen religion. The principle was broadened and, in the nineteenth century and increasingly since then, became cuius regio, eius natio, a principle which received international sanction as the principle of national self-determination. Each nation claims the right to determine its own political institutions, the right to control its own territory, the right to perpetuate its own cultural pattern, and the right to develop its own economic interests for the welfare of its own citizens. These claims have been made by the more advanced countries, although economic self-sufficiency is impossible; they are claims put forward by the new nations which have hitherto been dependent. Nevertheless these claims affect educational systems - the language or languages to be accepted as vehicles of illstruction, the literature and songs to be taught, the history and geography to be mastered, the "way of life" to be preserved and transmitted.
The changes that have been in process for the past generation are clear; what is not so clear is a knowledge of the time that it takes for such changes to have an impact on education. The Communist Party in Soviet Russia may dictate a change overnight; the educational system may be overhauled because a Khrushchev has so decided. In the United States where "adaptation to change" has become a slogan, proposals to introduce changes receive the chief emphases in education and are put forward when any new need becomes apparent. They are readily accepted in a culture where everything new is regarded as progress. But even in the United States the leaders of progressive education frequently deplored the fact that the teachers and the public were unwilling or slow in accepting the new theory and practice. In England, on the other hand, changes have taken place in education since the beginning of the century, and they are still continuing as a "Silent Social Revolution," the subject of a book by G. A. N. Lowndes published twenty years ago. The slow empo of change in France is mentioned in the quotation from the Langevin Commission report.
It is important to enquire, in studying educational systems, into the reasons for the differences in the rate of change. They may be found in the absence of agencies of criticism, in bureaucratic control which induces to public apathy and reluctance to depart from routine; or, on the economic side, they may be looked for in systems of early apprenticeship for training craftsmen, fear of an educated manpower where systems akin to peonage prevail, and in the exploitation of child labor. The influence of bureaucratic control of education is usually discussed when the effects of centralization and local administration are investigated. But the issues are not so simple; there are conditions under which centralized control may be desirable and examples could be cited to show that local administration may be just as bureaucratic as a centralized system is charged with being. To study this problem requires a background not only of political theory and economic conditions of a nation but also of a knowledge of popular attitudes to participation in the framing of policies and the opportunities provided for teachers to recommend needed reforms and contribute from their daily experiences in the classrooms. The issues suggested were pertinently discussed in W. Lester Smith's book, To Whom Do Schools Belong ?
It has long been recognized that a system of education cannot be transferred from one nation to another because the cultural differences between any two nations are too great. This has been amply proved by the futile efforts to transport the system of a suzerain country to its dependencies. The obverse of this principle is that each nation has or should have the educational system that it desires and finds most suitable to it. This principle was illustrated recently, not without some humor for those who knew how futile the quest would be. The panic, created in the United States about the soundness of the American educational system when the Soviet government launched the Sputnik, aroused widespread interest in Soviet education and propelled American educators in groups or as individuals to Russia to discover how the Russian authorities were able to achieve such success in space through their educational provisions. The Americans returned with the message that the Soviet system of education would not suit American purposes. That should have been known before the excursions were undertaken, and it might have been recalled that for nearly four decades graduates of most European secondary schools were two years in advance of American high school graduates. But the influences that made for higher standards in European schools were not due to the fact that better prepared teachers were employed, or that the school year was longer, or that more time was devoted to a limited number of subjects. There were factors (and in Soviet Russia they are still more potent) outside the school that had the effect of enforcing serious attention to intellectual work.
What these forces are and the extent to which they can still operate when equality of educational opportunity is provided it is important to consider along with another question that is becoming paramount – a thorough exploration of the implication of equality of educational opportunity in terms of individual abilities and of national needs and welfare. The changes in the Soviet system of education proposed last year by Khrushchev would provide an interesting topic for study to discover the reasons outside the school that motivated the proposal. Here is an illustration, if one were still needed, of the fact that education has become an instrument of the state, used to promote its stability, well-being and advancement. The fact stands out most clearly in a society controlled by a dictatorial government. It can be found, but perhaps more subtly and impalpably, in democratic societies, as may be seen in the current emphasis, stimulated by government funds, on science and technology, not without serious effects on the place of the humanities
and social sciences.
The student of comparative education thus inevitably becomes aware of the fact that education is provided primarily in the national interest. The concept of nationalism becomes all-inclusive, even when the state is monolithic or pluralistic. The primary aim of education is to-day, as it has always been, to reproduce the type, but the type depends on the particular character or way of life that a nation considers essential to its security and stability. Education, in other words, seeks to put a particular stamp on children while still in school so that they may be prepared to live in "the house of thought which men have made that their minds may dwell there together," to use Sir Ernest Barker's definition of education. Beyond the aim of reproducing the type, more extensive provision is being made for educating beyond the type - common education comes first and specialization follows. It is this emphasis on the common type that affects the attitudes of many persons in most countries to private schools conducted for social or religious reasons, or both.
National characters or national ways of thinking and behaving, or the national ethos, are not permanently fixed, but have in them a core of common features left by national history and the changing circumstances that have played to produce them. There appears to be a tendency to-day to prefer the use of the terms "culture patterns" or "normative standards" or "value systems" for national characters but the distinction is one without any difference, and the effect is the same on behavior and thinking, whatever name is used. As Bertrand Russell amusingly pointed out, even in as objective a discipline as science the results of research are marked by the national way of thinking and behaving. "One may say broadly," according to Russe11, "that all the animals that have been carefully observed have behaved so as to confirm the philosophy in which the observer believed before his observations began. Nay more, they have all displayed the national characteristics of the observer. Animals studied by Americans rush about frantically, with an incredible
display of bustle and pep, and at last achieve the desired result by chance. nAnimals observed by Germans sit still and think and at last evolve the solution out of their inner consciousness". Professor J. D. Bernal has made the same point but rather more seriously.
It will be interesting to observe how the nations that have recently acquired their independence develop their own culture patterns and in turn adapt their educational systems to them. For the present it seems to be clear that the predominant principles, especially of secondary education, of the nations from which they separated, are not still effective and are militating against the creation of new forms more suited to the national culture. Efforts are being made, however, to develop those elements that bind members of a nation together - common language, common literature, common history, common objects of allegiance - even though they have not previously existed and have to be developed and even though the ancient customs may be incompatible with the modernization that is being sought. The conflict between the old and the new is cogently brought out in the work of a young Turkish teacher when he endeavored to implement the ideals of Ataturk in a Turkish village1).
Little more can be added in this article on other aspects of the study of comparative education that require a background of other information that has already been given, such as methods of raising and distributing funds for education, the national economy and its dependence on education and consequently the types of schools to be provided, and so on. In general, it must be assumed that the student has a mastery of one or more languages than his own. Finally, consideration should be given to opportunities of travel and the length of time required to study into rather than about a foreign educational system.
The organization of courses in comparative education would require an article of its own. The issue here involved is again dependent upon the aim that is sought. If the aim is to learn something about a large number of educational systems, a certain superficiality may result. But if the aim is to train students in analyzing the forces that determine the character and form of an educational system, what Professor Schneider has called the Triebkrdfle der Pddagogik, a few countries, including the students' own, will be chosen, after an intensive analysis of one country, with sufficient contrasts to show the different effects and ramifications of these forces. Only by the second method is the student likely to broaden and enrich his own philosophy of education, and this should after all be the primary objective of the discipline.
The development of the study of comparative education furnishes an example of the dangers that accompany the proliferation of intellectual disciplinesl). The interest in foreign school systems was motivated originally by a desire to advance reforms in the educational system of the country of the students making the investigation. It was realized early that systems of education could not be transferred from one country to another without being found unsuited to the new environment. Nevertheless the study of comparative education was found to be of value in contributing ideas and principles which could be woven into the prevailing philosophy of national education. This discovery was, indeed, not new, for the process of cross-fertilization of ideas in education is as old as the history of education.
A third stage is reached, however, when the original purposes of a study are forgotten and it becomes an independent field of study – a new subject, in fact, with its own methods and content separate from the original discipline from which it proliferated. Something like this happened in the development of the history of education, which tended to become a specialized subject whose contribution to the professional needs which it was supposed to serve became slighter and slighter as time Wellt on. The proliferation of a branch of psychology, which became educational psychology, went through the same process. There was, therefore, some basis for the definition of psychology which appeared nearly half a century ago in A Joysome History o[ Education (New York 1909). The definition read as follows: "That branch of learning by which a man so profoundly contemplates the internal workings of a clock that he is able to construct another like it, - which won't go." Another example that may be cited is the development of courses in the administration of education in the United States in which more attention is paid to administration than to education.
It is an over-sophistication of a discipline to subject it to such an analysis that the parts never really fit together again. The discipline cannot be predictive or helpful because those who frame educational policies are concerned primarily "to achieve certain positive objectives". In the case of the detailed analyses which the study of comparative education has tended to undertake in recent years, there seems to be a failure to realize the distinction between the influences that enter into the organization, aims, and practices of formal education and the effects of the multitudinous variety of forces in the environment that contribute to the informal education of an individual. As one reads some discussions of what should constitute the study of comparative education, the impression cannot be avoided that the writers appear to forget that the formal systems of education are planned, discussed in a legislative assembly, sometimes presented in advance for consideration by the public and the profession, and generally subjected to comments in the press. If all the forces listed by some students of comparative education were to be taken into account, educational systems would die at birth. The enthusiasts of the subtler forms of social analysis, influenced by the work and methods of cultural anthropologists, do not seem to remember that the work of the cultural anthropologists is directed to an analysis of a society as a whole and not of one of its institutions - education - alone. If this approach is continued and extended, the result that may be expected will be a mass of facts, details, and forces that may affect the nature and form of an educational system but not a picture of the system as a whole.
The methodology of comparative education is determined by the purpose that the study is to fulfil. If the aim is to learn something about an educational system, a description without explanation would be sufficient. The picture could be completed with references to the laws and regulations governing the system, the administrative organization, the method of financing, the number and types of schools, their articulation or lack of it, the number and size of classes, the curricula and methods of instruction and time-schedules, the standards and examinations, and the preparation, salaries, and status of teachers. An account of an educational
system of this type may serve for information and description that one would expect to find in an encyclopedia. From the point of view of comparative education such an account is limited, but is an essential first step in the process of study.
The student of comparative education, however, needs more than information about an educational system. If the discipline is worth pursuing, it is essential that the student search for information into the educational system or systems that he is studying. His task is to learn what forces determine the character of a system, what accounts for differences or similarities between two or more systems, how one system proceeds to solve problems that it has in common with other systems, and so on. He will not find answers to these and many other questions from information about the fabric of the system that he studies. Nor will he garner what should be the finest product of comparative study - ability to analyze his own system of education and add something to the philosophy underlying it.
As an introduction to a consideration of the methodology of comparative education designed to discover the forces that determine the nature and form of an educational system, it may be relevant, before discussing the theoretical foundations, to present a list of the factors that were considered by the Langevin Commission, appointed to plan the post-war reform of education in France. "The educational structure," wrote the Commission in the preamble of its report, "should be adapted to the social structure. The educational structure has not been seriously modified for half a century. On the other hand, the social structure has undergone a rapid evolution and fundamental changes. Mechanization, the use of new sources of energy, the development of means of transportation and communication, industrial concentration, the increase of production, the entrance of women into economic life, the spread of elementary education have profoundly changed the conditions of life and social organization. The rapidity and extent of economic progress, which in 1880 made the diffusion of elementary education necessary among the working masses, to-day poses the problem of recruiting an ever-increasing number of personnel as managers and technicians. The middle class, hereditarily called to hold positions of direction and responsibility, will not be able in the future to do it alone. The needs of modern economy impose the necessity of a reorganization of our educational system, which in its present form is no longer suited to the social and economic conditions". Formidable as this list of conditions is that a reform of the French educational system would have to meet, there were still others which were not considered at the time, such as the questions of religious instruction and parochial schools and the status of private schools. Others again may arise because of the recent constitutional changes.
The Commission's analysis of the needs of a country that should be taken into account when preparing the bases for the reform of an educational system emphasized the study of the sociological, economic, and technological factors, the status of women, and the changing social class stratification. Although the Commission must have had them in mind, there should have been included explicitly such factors as the political and cultural patterns, both traditional and contemporary. The issue of equality of educational opportunity did not have to be mentioned in a country which since World War I has had before it the idea of l'dcole unique; the issue is implicit in the reference to the changing status of the working and middle classes. The industrial concentration which means urbanization is mentioned, but there is no reference to what has been in France the predominance of the agricultural economy. Finally, the Commission failed to mention the ideals that would animate French education or the revived national consciousness which would serve to bind the French people together again after the disastrous cleavages
brought about by the early Nazi victory and occupation.
The quotation from the Langevin Commission's report is cited as a case study because it has a lesson in brief in the methodology of comparative education. It defines the factors and influences in the changing culture of the French people which must be considered in studying the educational system of any country in order to understand its meaning and the forces that give it its particular form and character. At the same time it suggests the kind of background required in order to be able to study any educational system - our own or that of another nation. Thestudy of comparative education is an interdisciplinary study and like the history of education may, in fact, lay greater emphasis on the ancillary studies than on education itself. And so far as methodology is concerned, comparative education may be considered a continuation of the study of the history of education into the present. Since we live to-day in a world which has been shaken by two wars and is passing through a variety of revolutions - political, economic, and technological - with their consequent effects on social and cultural patterns, the period is one in which the serious student can notice the changes that are going on at first hand. Further, he can watch the effects of these influences under different conditions - in countries which are in the van of technological advances and their application to industry; in countries which are shifting from a predominantly agricultural economy to an industrial economy; in countries where the state is everything and the individual a pawn manipulated in its own interest, or where the character of the state dependsupon the intelligence, understanding, and educated freedom of the
individual citizen. At still another level there are the nations which have recently gained their independence and are starting virtually from scratch in politics, in industry and agriculture, and in culture - all of which will be in the making for many decades, even to the extent of developing a literate language - oral and written.
The specialist in comparative education should have a knowledge of varying political theories, especially as they bear on the relations of the state and the individual. He should know from the history of education how political ideologies and aims have affected the course of education since the days of Plato and Aristotle. Both philosophers early enunciated the principle which was later expressed in the phrase "as is the state, so is the school" or "what you want in the state, you must put into the school". This principle was clearly at work in Germany, for example, as the Weimar Republic succeeded the monarchy, was in turn displaced by the Nazi Revolution, and, now widely separated by the war of ideas, is in each part seeking to establish an educational system in accordance with its prevalent political ideology. Such changes are easy enough to analyze after a revolution: Italy under Fascism, Russia and China under Communism, and the satellites of the new Soviet imperialism. Other changes may take place and may be as spectacular without being completely radical as in those countries in which the ideal of democracy has become more real, more vitalized, and more enriched, and which at the same time have been affected by many of the changes noted in the quotation from the Langevin Commission.
There is, however, another force under which all the other forces mentioned can be subsumed; that is the concept of the nation or nationalism, by which for over a century and a half the creation of systems of education has been inspired. The sixteenth century principle on which the religious conflicts were settled was cuius regio, eius religio and education in each area was dedicated to indoctrination in its chosen religion. The principle was broadened and, in the nineteenth century and increasingly since then, became cuius regio, eius natio, a principle which received international sanction as the principle of national self-determination. Each nation claims the right to determine its own political institutions, the right to control its own territory, the right to perpetuate its own cultural pattern, and the right to develop its own economic interests for the welfare of its own citizens. These claims have been made by the more advanced countries, although economic self-sufficiency is impossible; they are claims put forward by the new nations which have hitherto been dependent. Nevertheless these claims affect educational systems - the language or languages to be accepted as vehicles of illstruction, the literature and songs to be taught, the history and geography to be mastered, the "way of life" to be preserved and transmitted.
The changes that have been in process for the past generation are clear; what is not so clear is a knowledge of the time that it takes for such changes to have an impact on education. The Communist Party in Soviet Russia may dictate a change overnight; the educational system may be overhauled because a Khrushchev has so decided. In the United States where "adaptation to change" has become a slogan, proposals to introduce changes receive the chief emphases in education and are put forward when any new need becomes apparent. They are readily accepted in a culture where everything new is regarded as progress. But even in the United States the leaders of progressive education frequently deplored the fact that the teachers and the public were unwilling or slow in accepting the new theory and practice. In England, on the other hand, changes have taken place in education since the beginning of the century, and they are still continuing as a "Silent Social Revolution," the subject of a book by G. A. N. Lowndes published twenty years ago. The slow empo of change in France is mentioned in the quotation from the Langevin Commission report.
It is important to enquire, in studying educational systems, into the reasons for the differences in the rate of change. They may be found in the absence of agencies of criticism, in bureaucratic control which induces to public apathy and reluctance to depart from routine; or, on the economic side, they may be looked for in systems of early apprenticeship for training craftsmen, fear of an educated manpower where systems akin to peonage prevail, and in the exploitation of child labor. The influence of bureaucratic control of education is usually discussed when the effects of centralization and local administration are investigated. But the issues are not so simple; there are conditions under which centralized control may be desirable and examples could be cited to show that local administration may be just as bureaucratic as a centralized system is charged with being. To study this problem requires a background not only of political theory and economic conditions of a nation but also of a knowledge of popular attitudes to participation in the framing of policies and the opportunities provided for teachers to recommend needed reforms and contribute from their daily experiences in the classrooms. The issues suggested were pertinently discussed in W. Lester Smith's book, To Whom Do Schools Belong ?
It has long been recognized that a system of education cannot be transferred from one nation to another because the cultural differences between any two nations are too great. This has been amply proved by the futile efforts to transport the system of a suzerain country to its dependencies. The obverse of this principle is that each nation has or should have the educational system that it desires and finds most suitable to it. This principle was illustrated recently, not without some humor for those who knew how futile the quest would be. The panic, created in the United States about the soundness of the American educational system when the Soviet government launched the Sputnik, aroused widespread interest in Soviet education and propelled American educators in groups or as individuals to Russia to discover how the Russian authorities were able to achieve such success in space through their educational provisions. The Americans returned with the message that the Soviet system of education would not suit American purposes. That should have been known before the excursions were undertaken, and it might have been recalled that for nearly four decades graduates of most European secondary schools were two years in advance of American high school graduates. But the influences that made for higher standards in European schools were not due to the fact that better prepared teachers were employed, or that the school year was longer, or that more time was devoted to a limited number of subjects. There were factors (and in Soviet Russia they are still more potent) outside the school that had the effect of enforcing serious attention to intellectual work.
What these forces are and the extent to which they can still operate when equality of educational opportunity is provided it is important to consider along with another question that is becoming paramount – a thorough exploration of the implication of equality of educational opportunity in terms of individual abilities and of national needs and welfare. The changes in the Soviet system of education proposed last year by Khrushchev would provide an interesting topic for study to discover the reasons outside the school that motivated the proposal. Here is an illustration, if one were still needed, of the fact that education has become an instrument of the state, used to promote its stability, well-being and advancement. The fact stands out most clearly in a society controlled by a dictatorial government. It can be found, but perhaps more subtly and impalpably, in democratic societies, as may be seen in the current emphasis, stimulated by government funds, on science and technology, not without serious effects on the place of the humanities
and social sciences.
The student of comparative education thus inevitably becomes aware of the fact that education is provided primarily in the national interest. The concept of nationalism becomes all-inclusive, even when the state is monolithic or pluralistic. The primary aim of education is to-day, as it has always been, to reproduce the type, but the type depends on the particular character or way of life that a nation considers essential to its security and stability. Education, in other words, seeks to put a particular stamp on children while still in school so that they may be prepared to live in "the house of thought which men have made that their minds may dwell there together," to use Sir Ernest Barker's definition of education. Beyond the aim of reproducing the type, more extensive provision is being made for educating beyond the type - common education comes first and specialization follows. It is this emphasis on the common type that affects the attitudes of many persons in most countries to private schools conducted for social or religious reasons, or both.
National characters or national ways of thinking and behaving, or the national ethos, are not permanently fixed, but have in them a core of common features left by national history and the changing circumstances that have played to produce them. There appears to be a tendency to-day to prefer the use of the terms "culture patterns" or "normative standards" or "value systems" for national characters but the distinction is one without any difference, and the effect is the same on behavior and thinking, whatever name is used. As Bertrand Russell amusingly pointed out, even in as objective a discipline as science the results of research are marked by the national way of thinking and behaving. "One may say broadly," according to Russe11, "that all the animals that have been carefully observed have behaved so as to confirm the philosophy in which the observer believed before his observations began. Nay more, they have all displayed the national characteristics of the observer. Animals studied by Americans rush about frantically, with an incredible
display of bustle and pep, and at last achieve the desired result by chance. nAnimals observed by Germans sit still and think and at last evolve the solution out of their inner consciousness". Professor J. D. Bernal has made the same point but rather more seriously.
It will be interesting to observe how the nations that have recently acquired their independence develop their own culture patterns and in turn adapt their educational systems to them. For the present it seems to be clear that the predominant principles, especially of secondary education, of the nations from which they separated, are not still effective and are militating against the creation of new forms more suited to the national culture. Efforts are being made, however, to develop those elements that bind members of a nation together - common language, common literature, common history, common objects of allegiance - even though they have not previously existed and have to be developed and even though the ancient customs may be incompatible with the modernization that is being sought. The conflict between the old and the new is cogently brought out in the work of a young Turkish teacher when he endeavored to implement the ideals of Ataturk in a Turkish village1).
Little more can be added in this article on other aspects of the study of comparative education that require a background of other information that has already been given, such as methods of raising and distributing funds for education, the national economy and its dependence on education and consequently the types of schools to be provided, and so on. In general, it must be assumed that the student has a mastery of one or more languages than his own. Finally, consideration should be given to opportunities of travel and the length of time required to study into rather than about a foreign educational system.
The organization of courses in comparative education would require an article of its own. The issue here involved is again dependent upon the aim that is sought. If the aim is to learn something about a large number of educational systems, a certain superficiality may result. But if the aim is to train students in analyzing the forces that determine the character and form of an educational system, what Professor Schneider has called the Triebkrdfle der Pddagogik, a few countries, including the students' own, will be chosen, after an intensive analysis of one country, with sufficient contrasts to show the different effects and ramifications of these forces. Only by the second method is the student likely to broaden and enrich his own philosophy of education, and this should after all be the primary objective of the discipline.
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