=The Revolt from Absolutism.=--The ideal of universality and of state control in the education of America and other countries was greatly assisted by the climax to the general revolt against absolutism and ecclesiasticism that appeared in the eighteenth century. During this period of time most strenuous efforts were made to interpret life from a more reasonable and natural point of view and to overthrow all customs and institutions that did not square with these tests. This century marked the climax of the rebellion against authority and against the enslavement of the individual that had been manifesting itself in one form or another from the close of the Middle Ages. One revival after another--the Renaissance, the Reformation, realism, Puritanism, Pietism--had burst forth only to fade away or harden into a new formalism and authoritative standard. Yet with each effort something was really accomplished for freedom and progress, and the way was paved for the seemingly abrupt break from tradition that appears to mark the period roughly included in the eighteenth century. At this point despotism and ecclesiasticism were becoming thoroughly intolerable, and the individual tended more and more to assert his right to be an end in himself. At times all institutional barriers were swept aside, and in the French Revolution destruction went to an extreme. The logical consequence of these movements would have been complete social disintegration, had not the nineteenth century happily made conscious efforts to justify the eighteenth, and bring out the positions that were only implied in the negations of the latter. Thus the revolutionary tendencies and destruction of absolutism in the eighteenth century led to evolutionary movements and the construction of democracy in the nineteenth. [Sidenote: The revolt against repression (1) of intellect and (2) of political rights.]