=Its Treatment in This Book.=--And this is all that will be undertaken here. For, while valuable as a liberal study, the History of Education finds its justification chiefly in the degree to which it functions in the professional training of a teacher, and it will be necessary in a brief treatise to omit or pass over hastily much that might be of interest and value in a more complete account of the development of civilization. Therefore, the amount of space and the perspective afforded the various peoples, epochs, and leaders must here be determined in large measure by the part they have played in the evolution of educational institutions and practices, and by the light their history sheds upon the aim, organization, content, and method of education to-day. At times, too, the history of a single epoch, state, or educational leader will be selected as a type, to the exclusion of others equally important, and treated with considerable intensiveness, instead of describing all sides of the subject with encyclopædic monotony. Now the first historical epoch to leave a real impress upon modern practice is that of Athens at its height. Hence a mere statement of the salient features of education preceding that period is all that can be afforded in this brief survey. A detailed account of the educational processes used by savage tribes, Oriental nations, and even Judæa may prove interesting and important in other connections, but it must here be largely curtailed. [Sidenote: Training through elders and medicine-men ties the savage to the present.] =Primitive Education.=--There is little to be noted in the training of the young among primitive peoples, save that it is intended largely for the satisfaction of immediate wants--food, clothing, and shelter. Naturally no such actual institution as a school has yet been evolved, but the training is transmitted informally by the parents. The method used is simply that of example and imitation, or, more specifically, ‘trial and success.’ But a more conscious and formal education is given at puberty through the ‘initiatory ceremonies’ (Fig. 1). In these rites the youths are definitely instructed by the older men about their relation to the spirits and the totem animals, subordination to the elders, the relations of the sexes, the sacredness of the clansman’s obligations, and other traditional usages. Strict silence is enjoined upon them concerning this information, and to impress it upon their minds, and test their endurance, they are required to fast for several days and are often tortured and mutilated. As the savage does not clearly distinguish between himself and the tribe to which he belongs, there is practically no development of individuality, and since the race has not yet learned to treasure its experience in writing, he has no record of past experience and is virtually tied to the present. [Sidenote: Vocational training and class divisions of the Orient.]