Southern Illinois University - Obelisk Yearbook (Carbondale, IL)

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Erasmus Erasmus was perhaps the greatest intel- lectual figure of the Renaissance. At a time when Europe was struggling from the grasp of a narrow Scholasticism, he stood for the revival of the classics as a means to a broader Humanism. Further, he was the first great champion of uni- versal education, and the first of the edu- cators to insist that the quality and amount of education should depend upon ability and not upon wealth, birth, or sex. The Humanism of Erasmus was broad-so in- clusive in fact, that we of the twentieth century, in spite of our increasing disre- gard of the classics, still accept his point of view in regard to the true relationship of life and learning.

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Aristotle Aristotle, in a modification of Plato's dualism, concluded that the greatest of all Virtues exists in man's capabilities of re- conciling impulses and sensuous experi- ence with the rational phase of his nature. In order to create a person of such virtue Aristotle laid out a course of study that amounts to what we would call a lib- eral education. According to his plan, formal training would continue between the ages of seven and twenty-one. The Hnal end of this training would not be utilitariang rather it was intended to re- fine and to enlarge the nature of the in- dividual. Aristotle's plan is neither over-ideal- istic nor archaic. Modern educational theorists only conirm Aristotle in their own definitions of a liberal education.

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Rousseau In Rousseau's time the artiiiciality of the ancien. regime was as much apparent in education as in government or society. In Emile Rousseau attacked the artificial formality of education and demanded a reform-a reform that was consistent with his ideal of getting back to nature. Although present-day educators would hardly sanction any such radically nat- ural elementary education as that pre- scribed for the hero of Emile, yet they are at one with Rousseau in their scorn for the archaic pedagogical practice of requir- ing irksome and valueless memorization of unrelated facts and in their belief in object lessons as a means of knowledge. The theories of Rousseau have been the foun- dation of all liberalizing reforms in educa- tion since his time.