EDUCATION, HISTORY OF: EDUCATION IN ASIAN CIVILIZATIONS

Education in Asian civilizations: c. 700 to the eve of Western influence India During its medieval period, India was ruled by dynasties of Muslim culture and religion. Muslims from Arabia first appeared in the country in the 8th century, but the foundation of their rule was laid much later by Muhammad Ghuri, who established his power at Delhi in 1192. The original Muslim rule was replaced successively by that of the Muslim Pashtuns and Mughals. The foundations of Muslim education Muslim educational institutions were of two typesa maktab, or elementary school, and a madrasah, or institution of higher learning. The content of education imparted in these schools was not the same throughout the country. It was, however, necessary for every Muslim boy at least to attend a maktab and to learn the necessary portions of the Qur'an required for daily prayers. The curriculum in the madrasah comprised Hadith (the study of Muslim traditions), jurisprudence, literature, logic and philosophy, and prosody. Later on, the scope of the curriculum was widened, and such subjects as history, economics, mathematics, astronomy, and even medicine and agriculture were added. Generally, all the subjects were not taught in every institution. Selected madrasahs imparted postgraduate instruction, and a number of townsAgra, Badaun, Bidar, Gulbarga, Delhi, Jaunpur, and a few othersdeveloped into university centres to which students flocked for study under renowned scholars. The sultans and amirs of Delhi and the Muslim rulers and nobles in the provinces also extended patronage to Persian scholars who came from other parts of Asia under the pressure of Mongol inroads. Delhi vied with Baghdad and Crdoba as an important centre of Islamic culture. Indian languages also received some attention. The Muslim rulers of Bengal, for example, engaged scholars to translate the Hindu classics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, into Bengali. Under the Pathan Lodis, a dynasty of Afghan foreigners (14511526), the education of the Hindus was not only neglected but was often adversely affected in newly conquered territories. The rulers generally tolerated Sanskrit and vernacular schools already in existence but did not help the existing ones with money or build new ones. At early stages, the maktabs and madrasahs were attended by Muslims only. Later, when Hindus were allowed into high administrative positions, Hindu children began to receive Persian education in Muslim schools. Education in Persian, Byzantine, early Russian, and Islamic civilizations Ancient Persia The ancient Persian empire began when Cyrus II the Great initiated his conquests in 559 BC, and it ended when it was overrun by the Muslims in AD 651. Three elements dominated this ancient Persian civilization: (1) a rigorous and challenging physical environment, (2) the activist and positive Zoroastrian religion and ethics, and (3) a militant, expansionist people. These elements developed in the Persians an adventurous personality mingled with intense national feelings. In the early period (559330 BC), known as the Achaemenid period for the dynastic name of Cyrus and his successors, education, sustained by Zoroastrian ethics and the requirements of a military society, aimed at serving the needs of four social classespriests, warriors, tillers of the soil, and merchants. Three principles sustained Zoroastrian ethics: the development of good thoughts, of good words, and of good actions. Achaemenid-Zoroastrian education stressed strong family ties and community feelings, acceptance of imperial authority, religious indoctrination, and military discipline. Education was a private enterprise. Formative education was carried on in the home and continued after the age of seven in court schools for children of the upper classes. Secondary and higher education included training in law to prepare for government service, as well as medicine, arithmetic, geography, music, and astronomy. There were also special military schools. In 330 BC Persia was conquered by Alexander the Great, and native Persian or Zoroastrian education was largely eclipsed by Hellenistic. Greek practices continued during the Parthian empire (247 BCAD 224), founded by seminomadic conquerors from the Caspian steppes. And, thus, truly Persian influences were not restored until the appearance of a new, more sophisticated and reform-minded dynasty, the Sasanians, in the 3rd century AD. In what has been called the neo-Persian empire of the Sasanians (AD 224651), the Achaemenid social structure and education were revived and further developed and modified. Zoroastrian ethics, though more advanced than during the Achaemenid period, emphasized similar moral principles but with new stress upon the necessity for labour (particularly agriculture), upon the sanctity of marriage and family devotion, and upon the cultivation of respect for law and of intellectualismall giving to education a strong moral, social, and national foundation. The subject matter of basic education included physical and military exercises, reading (Pahlavi alphabet), writing (on wooden tablets), arithmetic, and the fine arts. The greatest achievement of Sasanian education was in higher education, particularly as it developed in the Academy of Gondeshapur. Here, Zoroastrian culture, Indian and Greek sciences, Alexandrian-Syrian thought, medical training, theology, philosophy, and other disciplines developed to a high degree, making Gondeshapur the most advanced academic centre of learning in the later period of Sasanian civilization. The academy, to which came students from various parts of the world, advanced, among other subjects, Zoroastrian, Greek, and Indian philosophies; Persian, Hellenic, and Indian astronomy; Zoroastrian ethics, theology, and religion; law, government, and finance; and various branches of medicine. It was partly through the Academy of Gondeshapur that important elements of classical Greek and Roman learning reached the Muslims during the 8th and 9th centuries AD and through them, in Latin translations of Arabic works, the Schoolmen of western Europe during the 12th and 13th centuries. Mehdi K. Nakosteen The Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire was a continuation of the Roman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean area after the loss of the western provinces to Germanic kingdoms in the 5th century. Although it lost some of its eastern lands to the Muslims in the 7th century, the empire lasted until Constantinoplethe new capital founded by the Roman emperor Constantine the Great in 330fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. The empire was seriously weakened in 1204 when, as a result of the Fourth Crusade, its lands were partitioned and Constantinople captured; but until then it remained a powerful centralized state, with a common Christian faith, an efficient administration, and a shared Greek culture. This culture, already Christianized in the 4th and 5th centuries, was maintained and transmitted by an educational system that was inherited from the Greco-Roman past and based on the study and imitation of classical Greek literature. Education in the 20th century Social and historical background International wars, together with an intensification of internal stresses and conflicts among social, racial, and ideological groups, have characterized the 20th century and have had profound effects on education. Rapidly spreading prosperity but widening gaps between rich and poor, immense increases in world population but a declining birth rate in Western countries, the growth of large-scale industry and its dependence on science and technological advancement, the increasing power of both organized labour and international business, and the enormous influence of both technical and sociopsychological advances in communication, especially as utilized in mass media, are changes that have had far-reaching effects. Challenges to accepted values, including those supported by religion; changes in social relations, especially toward versions of group and individual equality; and an explosion of knowledge affecting paradigms as well as particular information mark a century of social and political swings, always toward a more dynamic and less categorical resolution. The institutional means of handling this uncertain world have been to accept more diversity while maintaining basic forms and to rely on management efficiency to ensure practical outcomes. The two world wars weakened the military and political might of the larger European powers. Their replacement by superpowers whose influence did not depend directly on territorial acquisition and whose ideologies were essentially equalitarian helped to liquidate colonialism. As new independent nations emerged in Africa and Asia and the needs and powers of a third world caused a shift in international thinking, education was seen to be both an instrument of national development and a means of crossing national and cultural barriers. One consequence of this has been a great increase in the quantity of education provided. Attempts have been made to eradicate illiteracy, and colleges and schools have been built everywhere. The growing affluence of masses of the population in high-income areas in North America and Europe has brought about, particularly since World War II, a tremendous demand for secondary and higher education. Most children stay at school until 16, 17, or even 18 years of age, and a substantial fraction spend at least two years at college. The number of universities in many countries doubled or trebled between 1950 and 1970, and the elaboration of the tertiary level continues. This growth is sustained partly by the industrial requirements of modern scientific technology. New methods, processes, and machines are continually introduced. Old skills become irrelevant; new industries spring up. In addition, the amount of scientific, as distinct from merely technical, knowledge grows continually. More and more researchers, skilled workers, and high-level professionals are called for. The processing of information has undergone revolutionary change. The educational response has mainly been to develop technical colleges, to promote adult education at all levels, to turn attention to part-time and evening courses, and to provide more training and education within the industrial enterprises themselves. The adoption of modern methods of food production has diminished the need for agricultural workers, who have headed for the cities. Urbanization, however, brings problems: city centres decay, and there is a trend toward violence. The poorest remain in these centres, and it becomes difficult to provide adequate education. The radical change to large numbers of disrupted families, where the norm is a single working parent, affects the urban poor extensively but in all cases raises an expectation of additional school services. Differences in family background, together with the cultural mix partly occasioned by change of immigration patterns, requires teaching behaviour and content appropriate to a more heterogeneous school population. Major intellectual movements Influence of psychology and other fields on education The attempt to apply scientific method to the study of education dates back to the German philosopher Johann Friedrich Herbart, who called for the application of psychology to the art of teaching. But not until the end of the 19th century, when the German psychologist Wilhelm Max Wundt established the first psychological laboratory at the University of Leipzig in 1879, were serious efforts made to separate psychology from philosophy. Wundt's monumental Principles of Physiological Psychology (1874) had significant effects on education in the 20th century. William James, often considered the father of American psychology of education, began about 1874 to lay the groundwork for his psychophysiological laboratory, which was founded officially at Harvard in 1891. In 1878 he established the first course in psychology in the United States and in 1890 published his famous The Principles of Psychology, in which he argued that the purpose of education is to organize the child's powers of conduct so as to fit him to his social and physical environment. Interests must be awakened and broadened as the natural starting points of instruction. James's Principles and Talks to Teachers on Psychology cast aside the older notions of psychology in favour of an essentially behaviourist outlook; they asked the teacher to help educate heroic individuals who would project daring visions of the future and work courageously to realize them. James's student Edward L. Thorndike is credited with the introduction of modern educational psychology, with the publication of Educational Psychology in 1903. Thorndike attempted to apply the methods of exact science to the practice of psychology. James and Thorndike, together with the American philosopher John Dewey, helped to clear away many of the fantastic notions once held about the successive steps involved in the development of mental functions from birth to maturity. Interest in the work of Sigmund Freud and the psychoanalytic image of the child in the 1920s, as well as attempts to apply psychology to national training and education tasks in the 1940s and '50s, stimulated the development of educational psychology, and the field has become recognized as a major source for educational theory. Eminent researchers in the field have advanced knowledge of behaviour modification, child development, and motivation. They have studied learning theories ranging from classical and instrumental conditioning and technical models to social theories and open humanistic varieties. Besides the specific applications of measurement, counseling, and clinical psychology, psychology has contributed to education through studies of cognition, information processing, the technology of instruction, and learning styles. After much controversy about nature versus nurture and about qualitative versus quantitative methods, Jungian, phenomenological, and ethnographic methods have taken their place alongside psychobiological explanations to help educationists understand the place of heredity, general environment, and school in development and learning. The relationship between educational theory and other fields of study has become increasingly close. Social science may be used to study interactions and speech to discover what is actually happening in a classroom. Philosophy of science has led educational theorists to attempt to understand paradigmatic shifts in knowledge. The critical literature of the 1960s and '70s attacked all institutions as conveyors of the motives and economic interests of the dominant class. Both social philosophy and critical sociology have continued to elaborate the themes of social control and oppression as embedded in educational institutions. In a world of social as well as intellectual change, there are necessarily new ethical questions, such as those dealing with abortion, biological experimentation, and child rights, which place new demands on education and require new methods of teaching. European education in the 17th and 18th centuries The social and historical setting The Renaissance had been the beginning of a new era in history, which culminated in the 17th and 18th centuries in the development of the absolutist state everywhere but in England and Holland (and even in these states the issue was for some time in doubt). France, the Habsburg empire, England, and Russia became the leading powers in Europe. The absolutist state extended its control beyond the political and into the religious (with the creation of the established church) and into almost all other aspects of human life. Although the High and later Middle Ages had witnessed the growth of middle-class forces, the pattern of society still clearly bore the stamp of court life. The concentration of power determined this life, and the citizen and his possessions were more and more at the disposal of the aristocracy. The citizen was subject. Even in an absolutist state, however, education cannot be the sole privilege of the rich or the ruling classes, because an efficient absolutist state requires capable subjects, albeit bound to their social position. Elementary education for the middle classes thus developed in the 17th and 18th centuries, and more and more the state saw as its task the responsibility for establishing and maintaining schools. This tendency toward general education did not stem only from considerations of political expediency; it stemmed also from the desire to improve the world through educationmaking all areas of life orderly and subordinate to rational leadership. There was not only an inclination toward encyclopaedism and systemization of the sciences but also, in similar fashion, a tendency to set education aright by extensive school regulations. In general, this distinction can be made between the 17th and the 18th centuries: in the 17th century the aim of education was conceived as a religious and rationalistic one, whereas in the 18th century the ideas of secularism and progress began to prevail. The 18th century is especially remembered for three leading reforms: teaching in the mother language grew in importance, rivaling Latin; the exact sciences were brought into the curriculum; and the correct methods of teaching became a pedagogic question. The new scientism and rationalism These social and pedagogic changes were bound up with new tendencies in philosophy. Sir Francis Bacon of England was one who criticized the teachers of his day, saying that they offered nothing but words and that their schools were narrow in thought. He believed that the use of inductive and empirical methods would bring the knowledge that would give man strength and make possible a reorganization of society. Therefore, he demanded that schools should be scientific workplaces in the service of life and that they should put the exact sciences before logic and rhetoric. Another 17th-century critic of medievalism was Ren Descartes, but he did not proceed from empirical experience, as did Bacon; for him the only permanence and certainty lay in human reason or thinking (cogito ergo sum, I think; therefore, I am). The ability to think makes doubt and critical evaluation of the environment possible. A science based only on empiricism fails to achieve any vital, natural explanations but only mathematical, mechanistic ones of doubtful living use. Only what reason (ratio) recognizes can be called truth. Thus, education must be concerned with the development of critical rationality. Like Descartes, Benedict de Spinoza and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz also outlined rationalistic philosophic systems. Decisive for educational theory was their statement that knowledge and experience originate in thinking (not in sense impressions, which can provide only examples and individual facts) and that formal thinking categories should form the substance of education. They believed that the aim of education should be the mastery of thinking and judgment rather than the mere assimilation of facts. European Renaissance and Reformation The channels of development in Renaissance education The Muslim influence Western civilization was profoundly influenced by the rapid rise and expansion of Islam from the 7th until the 15th century. By 732, 100 years after the death of Muhammad, Islam had expanded from western Asia throughout all of northern Africa, across the straits of Gibraltar into Spain, and into France, reaching Tours, halfway from the Pyrenees to Paris. Muslim Spain rapidly became one of the most advanced civilizations of the period, where much of the learning of the pastOriental, Greek, and Romanwas preserved and further developed. In particular, Greek and Latin scholarship was collected in great libraries in the splendid cities of Crdoba, Seville, Granada, and Toledo, which became major centres of advanced scholarship, especially in the practical arts of medicine and architecture. Inevitably, scholarship in the adjacent Frankish, and subsequent French, kingdom was influenced, leading to a revitalization of western Christian scholarship, which had long been dormant as a result of the barbarian migrations. The doctrines of Aristotle, which had been assiduously cultivated by the Muslims, were especially influential for their emphasis on the role of reason in human affairs and on the importance of the study of humankind in the present, as distinct from the earlier Christian preoccupation with the cultivation of faith as essential for the future life. Thus, Muslim learning helped to usher in the new phase in education known as humanism, which first took definite form in the 12th century. The secular influence The word humanism comes from studia humanitatis (studies of humanity). Toward the end of the Middle Ages there was a renewed interest in those studies that stressed the importance of man, his faculties, affairs, worldly aspirations, and well-being. The primacy of theology and otherworldliness was over; the reductio artium ad theologiam (freely, reducing everything to theological argument) was rejected since it no longer expressed the reality of the new situation that was developing in Europe, particularly in Italy. Society had been profoundly transformed, commerce had expanded, and life in the cities had evolved. Economic and political power, previously in the hands of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the feudal lords, was beginning to be taken over by the city burghers. Use of the vernacular languages was becoming widespread. The new society needed another kind of education and different educational structures; the burghers required new instruments with which to express themselves and found the old medieval universities inadequate. The educational institutions of humanism had their origin in the schools set up in the free cities in the late 13th and the 14th centuriesschools designed to answer to the needs of the new urban population that was beginning to have greater economic importance in society. The pedagogical thought of the humanists took these transformations of society into account and worked out new theories that often went back to the classical Greek and Latin traditions; it was not, however, a servile imitation of the pedagogical thought and institutions of the classical world. The Renaissance of the classical world and the educational movements it gave rise to were variously expressed in different parts of Europe and at various times from the 14th to the 17th century; there was a connecting thread, but there were also many differences. What the citizens of the Florentine republic needed was different from what was required by princes in the Renaissance courts of Italy or in other parts of Europe. Common to both, however, was the rejection of the medieval tradition that did not belong in the new society they were creating. Yet the search for a new methodology and a new relation with the ancient world was bitterly opposed by the traditionalists, who did not want renewal that would bring about a profound transformation of society; and, in fact, the educational revolution did not completely abolish existing traditions. The humanists, for example, were not concerned with extending education to the masses but turned their attention to the sons of princes and rich burghers. The humanists had the important and original conception that education was neither completed at school nor limited to the years of one's youth but that it was a continuous process making use of varied instruments: companionship, games, and pleasure were part of education. Rather than suggesting new themes, they wanted to discover the method by which the ancient texts should be studied. For them knowledge of the classical languages meant the possibility of penetrating the thought of the past; grammar and rhetoric were being transformed into philological studies not for the sake of pedantic research but in order to acquire a new historical and critical consciousness. They reconstructed the past in order better to understand themselves and their own time. Patterns of education in non-Western or developing nations Southeast Asia Indigenous culture, colonialism, and the post-World War II era of political independence influenced the forms of education in the nations of Southeast AsiaMyanmar (Burma), Kampuchea (Cambodia), Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Before AD 1500, education throughout the region consisted chiefly of the transmission of cultural values through family and community living, supplemented by some formal teaching of each locality's dominant religionanimism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, or Islam. Religious schools typically were attended by boys living in humble quarters at the residence of a pundit who guided their study of the scriptures for an indeterminate period of time. With the advent of Western colonization after 1500, and particularly from the early 19th to mid-20th century, Western schooling with its dominantly secular curriculum, sequence of grades, examinations, set calendar, and diplomas began to make strong inroads on the region's traditional educational practices. For the indigenous peoples, Western schooling had the appeal of leading to employment in the colonial government and in business and trading firms. After World War II, as all sectors of Southeast Asia gained political independence, each newly formed nation attempted to achieve planned developmentto furnish primary schooling for everyone, extend the amount and quality of postprimary education, and shift the emphasis in secondary and tertiary education from liberal, general studies to scientific and technical education. Although indigenous culture was still learned through family living and traditional religion continued to be important in people's lives, most formal schooling throughout Southeast Asia had become predominantly of a Western, secular variety. Schooling in all of these countries was organized in three main levels, primary, secondary, and higher. In addition, nursery schools and kindergartens, operated chiefly by private groups, were gradually gaining popularity. The typical length of primary schooling was six years. Secondary education was usually divided into two three-year levels. A wide variety of postsecondary institutions offered academic and vocational specializations. Beginning in the 1950s, nonformal education to extend literacy and vocational skills among the adult population expanded dramatically throughout the region. Most of the nations were committed to compulsory basic education, typically for six years but up to nine years in Vietnam. However, by the close of the 1980s, the inability of governments to furnish enough schools for their growing populations prevented most from fully realizing the goal of universal basic schooling. In each nation a central ministry of education set schooling structures and curriculum requirements, with some responsibilities for school supervision, curriculum, and finance often delegated to provincial and local educational authorities. Government-sponsored educational research and development bureaus had been established since the 1950s in an effort to make the countries more self-reliant in fashioning education to their needs. Regional cooperation in attacking educational problems was furthered by membership in such alliances as the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Problems which most Southeast Asian education systems continued to face were those of reducing school dropout and grade-repeater rates, providing enough school buildings and teachers to serve rapidly expanding numbers of children, furnishing educational opportunities to rural areas, and organizing curricula and the access to education in ways that suited the cultural and geographical conditions of multiethnic populations. Myanmar (formerly Burma) The indigenous system of education in Myanmar consisted mainly of Buddhist monastic schools of both primary and higher levels. They were based on (1) the moral code of Buddhism, (2) the divine authority of the kings, (3) the institution of myothugyi (township headmen), and (4) widespread male literacy. The Western system was established after the British occupation in 1886. The new system recognized women's right to formal education in public schools, and women began to play an increasingly important role as teachers. The Government College at Rangoon and the Judson College established in the 19th century were incorporated as the University of Rangoon under the University Act of 1920. Following independence in 1948, the country experienced more than a decade of political instability until a coup d'tat in 1962 brought a strongly centralized socialist government to power. Subsequently, marked improvements in education occurred. Science was emphasized along with general academic subjects, civic education, and practical arts. Primary-school attendance for children ages five through nine became free where available. From 1965 to 1985 enrollments increased in primary schools from two to five million, in secondary schools from 503,000 to 1.25 million, and in higher education from 21,000 to 189,000. Patterns of education in non-Western or developing nations Japan Education at the beginning of the century Between 1894 and 1905 Japan experienced two conflicts, the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars, which increased nationalistic feelings; it also experienced accelerated modernization and industrialization. In accord with the government's new nationalism and efforts to modernize the country, educational reform was sought. The Japanese education system took as its model the western European educational systems, especially that of Germany. But the basic ideology of education remained the traditional one outlined in 1890 in the Imperial Rescript on Education (Kyoiku Chokugo). In 1900 the period of ordinary elementary schooling was set at four years, and schooling was made compulsory for all children. At the same time, the cost of compulsory education was subsidized from the national treasury. In 1907 the period of compulsory education was extended from four to six years. As the educational system gradually improved and as modernization progressed and the standard of living increased, school enrollments soared. The percentage of elementary-age children in school rose from 49 in 1890 to 98 in 1910. In those days, boys and girls in primary school studied under the same roof, though in separate classrooms. In secondary education, however, there were entirely separate schools for boys and girlsthe chugakko, or middle school, for boys and the jogakko, or girls' high school, both aiming at providing a general education. Other than these, there was the jitsugyogakko, or vocational school, which was designed to afford vocational or industrial education for both boys and girls. All three secondary schools were for students who had completed the six- or four-year course of primary education. As for the elementary and secondary curriculum, the Imperial Rescript on Education made it clear that traditional Confucian and Shinto values were to serve as the basis of moral education. This emphasis was implemented by courses on national moral education (shushin), which served as the core of the curriculum. In 1903 a system of national textbooks was enacted, giving the Ministry of Education the authority to alter texts in accordance with political currents. To meet the demand for an expansion of education, a new system for training primary-school teachers was established under the Normal School Order of 1886 and subsequently developed under the strong control of the government. All the normal schools were run by the prefectures, and none was private. At first only the graduates of the higher primary schools were qualified for the normal school, but in 1907 a new course was introduced for graduates of the middle schools and the girls' high schools. For training secondary-school teachers, there was after 1886 the koto Shihangakko, or higher normal school for women. Additionally, temporary teachers' training institutes were established after 1902. These were all state-run. There were also state-run institutes for training vocational-school teachers. For higher education, there were academies for the study of Confucianism, but a university of the European variety did not appear in Japan until 1877. In that year the University of Tokyo was founded, with four facultieslaw, physical sciences, literature, and medicine. In the early years, research and education were dominated by foreigners: most programs were taught in the English language by English and American teachers or, in the medical faculty, in the German language by German instructors. In 1886 the University of Tokyo was renamed the Imperial University by imperial order and, as a state institution, was assigned to engage exclusively in research and instruction of such sciences and technology as were considered useful to the state. Modern Western sciences formed the core of this research and instruction, though some traditional Japanese learning was revived. Engineering and agricultural science were added to the four established faculties. Tokyo Imperial University borrowed much of the style and mode of the German universities and served as the model for the imperial universities established thereafter. Meanwhile, the higher middle schools established in 1886 were remodeled into the koto-gakko, or higher schools, in 1894; and in the 20th century these higher schools developed as preparatory schools for the universities. Higher education was advanced in another area by the College Order of 1903, which enabled certain upper-level private schools to be approved as semmongakko, or colleges, and to receive the same treatment as state-run universities. Until then the private colleges had not been given a clear legal status and had been treated as rather inferior. Education to 1940 The events of World War I and its aftermath tremendously influenced Japanese society. In the postwar days, Japan experienced the panic and social confusion that was sweeping many nations of the world. Moreover, the intensified leftist movement and the terrible Kanto earthquake of 1923 caused uncertainty and confusion among the Japanese. Nevertheless, the period was one that earned the name of the Taisho democracy era, which featured the dissemination of democratic and liberal ideas. It was also a period that marked Japan's real advancement on the world scene and the expansion of its capitalistic economy, all conducive to the flourishing of nationalism. It was quite natural that these social and economic changes should greatly influence education. The Special Council for Education, established in 1917, was charged with making recommendations for school reforms that would adapt the nationalistic education system to the rapid economic growth. Their recommendations involved modifying the existing educational organizations rather than creating new ones. The reform emphasized higher education, though secondary education also grew remarkably. As for elementary education, the target of the reform was to improve the content and methods of education and to establish the financial foundation of compulsory education. After World War I, the new educational movements generally called progressive in the West were introduced into Japan and came to thrive there. Many private schools advocating this new education were established, and the curricula of many state and public schools were also refashioned. The method of new education was gradually introduced into the state textbooks. Preschool education was also encouraged; a state-run kindergarten attached to Tokyo Girls' Normal School had been first established in 1876, and later many public and private kindergartens emerged, particularly after issuance of the Kindergarten Order in 1926. Government aid for compulsory education was gradually put forward, and by 1940 this developed into a system whereby the government financed half the teachers' salaries and the prefectural governments the other half. Elementary education thus further expanded. Between 1910 and 1940 the number of elementary teachers and pupils almost doubled. In the latter year there were 287,000 teachers and 12,335,000 pupils. Secondary education continued to be provided by the middle schools for boys, the girls' high schools, and the vocational schools. These schools increased remarkably both in numbers of institutions and in enrollments after World War I, reflecting the social demand. As a result, the secondary schools assumed more of a popular and less of an elitist character than they had evidenced in the Meiji era. In 1931 two courses were provided for the middle-school system; one was for those who advanced on to higher schools, and the other course was for those who went directly on to a vocation. Enrollments of all kinds leaped: whereas in 1910 the enrollments in middle schools, girls' high schools, and vocational schools had been 122,000 pupils, 56,200 pupils, and 64,700 pupils, respectively, the respective figures in 1940 were 432,000 pupils, 555,000 pupils, and 625,000 pupils. A drastic reform of higher education was instituted in 1918, when the University Order and the Higher School Order were issued on the recommendation of the Special Council for Education. Before that, there had been only the imperial universities, which were state-run. The order approved the founding of private universities and colleges. As a consequence, the old influential private colleges, or semmongakko, rich in tradition, were approved as formal universities or colleges, resulting eventually in such famous universities as Keio and Waseda. National colleges of commerce, manufacturing, medicine, and so on were also opened. In general, universities and colleges multiplied, numbering in 1930 as many as 46 (17 state, five public, and 24 private). College-preparatory education concurrently enlarged through the establishment of public and private higher schools under the Higher School Order. The higher schools were remodeled after the German Gymnasium and the French lyce and offered a seven-year course. The schools could not keep pace with the mounting demand for education. The ratio of applicants to the total number of seats being offered at higher schools, for example, rose from 4.3 in 1910 to 6.9 in 1920 and 10.5 in 1926. Because pupils could not proceed from elementary to secondary schools, and from there to colleges or universities, unless they passed a competitive entrance examination at each stage, the importance and severity of the examinations grew with the number of applicants. Despite efforts by the Ministry of Education to revise and deemphasize the examination system, which was established in the Meiji era, its importance continues to the present day. After World War I, social education, or education offered outside the formal school system, gained greater recognition in Japan. During the Meiji era, social education, then called popular education, had been promoted by the Ministry of Education to encourage school enrollment, but by 1890 it had taken the form of adult education, attempting to enlighten middle- and working-class adults with public lectures and library resources. By 1929 social education had again become important as a result of the Ministry of Education's emphasis on youth organizations, supplementary vocational education, youth training, and adult education. The jitsugyo hoshugakko, or supplementary vocational schools, which had been built after 1893 as part-time educational institutions for working students, reached enrollments exceeding 1,277,000 by 1930. In 1935 seinengakko, or youth schools, were newly established, uniting these supplementary vocational schools with the seinen kunrenjo, or youth-training centres, that had earlier been set up to provide military training for youth. Patterns of education in non-Western or developing nations The Middle East Modern education was introduced into the Middle East in the early 19th century through several channels. Rulers in both Egypt and the Ottoman Empire (13001922) established new military and civilian schools to teach people the skills required to build modern states. In Iran, too, rulers opened new schools, though on a much smaller scale. Many missionary and foreign schools were also established, especially in the Levant. These modern institutions affected only a small percentage o