Lincoln High School - Flambeau Yearbook (Manitowoc, WI)

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EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS The history of educational progress closely parallels the progress of civilization. In the beginning, man's educational facilities and needs were as crude and limited as the pre-historic man himself. As the records of man are now being uncovered in the excavations of the Far East, we can definitely identify the early alphabet or picture writing. We can identify crude counting systems which indicate the development of number concepts and the invention and use of calculating devices. Educational offerings have reached comparatively advanced stages only to be lost and largely destroyed with the decline of particular eras of marked achievements of people in differ- ent parts of the world. Notable among these are the Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Mayas, and Aztecs. Excavations of today show that these people had developed extensive and highly specialized needs and that educational advancement paralleled these needs. There was high achievement in art, architecture, government, language, philospohy, and mathematics. Ancient Egypt had weavers, potters, glass workers, jewelers, shoe-makers, cabinet makers, stone masons, carpenters, and ship builders, indicating that the education of the people of ancient times included training for skilled trades. Throughout all the history of man there is this marked difference in the education of the people of the past and that of today. The education, including trades training, applied only to a comparatively few people. There were always great masses of illiterates who were scarcely little more than beasts of burden, working either in the fields or in gangs supplying the power to move the great stones into place in the temples and pyramids. With the passing of these civilizations any advance in education was lost. Sometimes fragments were saved and passed on in a meager form for centuries to gradually find development with the evolution of another civilization in a nearby state. The discovery of the printing press by john Gutenberg in 1456 changed a largely illiterate world into a literate world, This was a change that was to revolutionize thinking and exalt the masses of people. As the general level of living was raised for the people generally, new demands for educa- tion were placed upon the community and sfate. It is rather astounding to note at this point that as late as the seventeenth century there was still little formal education for the public at large and that prejudices and personal selfishness opposed public education. In 1671 the com- mission on plantations of England sent the following inquiry to the royal Governor of Virginia, Sir William Berkeley: What course is taken about instructing the people within your govern- ment in the Christian religion? fThis theme was the center for any education in England at this timej Governor Berkeley replied, The same course that is taken in England, every man according to his ability instructing his children, but I thank God there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have these hundred years, for leaming has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world and printing has divulged them and libels against the best government. God keep us from both. This education in the home when based upon several good books made a tremendous difference in the literacy of the people. Despite the opposition of prejudice and tradition pro- voked jealousy, public education was the natural resultant of printing and the distribution of books. Today we are experiencing an elaborate development in the literacy of the people around the world. Out of this mass enrichment has sprung an age of invention and building eclipsing all predictions of the dreamiest of our fathers. It has demanded of government the education of all the people in schools of the state. This marks our age as significantly different from all civilization trends of the past and may represent one of the factors that will serve to preserve it. Education today may have much to do with not only its own progress but the progress of civili- zation since it includes within its benefits every citizen of a modem state. It will be marked by sudden changes from time to time as it strives to meet the rapidly changing conditions of living. This is education's major task and society's hope. -Hugh S. Bonar.

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EARL VITS Vice President 1926-193 2 CARL BERG 1929-1932 FRANCIS RUGOWSK1 1930-1932 SCHOOL BOARD SAMUEL RANDOLPH President 1924-1932 CHARLES O. DRUMM 1929-1932 jOSEPH NEMETZ 1930-1932 OTTO DREWS 1931-1932

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