These efforts to improve social conditions by means of philanthropic education encountered various sorts of opposition. Often the upper classes held that the masses should be kept in their place, and feared that any education at all would make them discontented and cause an uprising. The poor themselves, in turn, were often suspicious of any schooling that tended to elevate them, and were unwilling to stamp themselves as paupers. Moreover, the sectarian color that sometimes appeared in the religious training not infrequently repelled people of other creeds or kept the schools from receiving their children. [Sidenote: Paved the way for national and public education.] However, this philanthropic education may, in general, be considered a fortunate movement, although its greatest service consisted in paving the way for better things. In contrast to the negative phase of ‘naturalism,’ it represented a positive factor in the educational activities of the century. Instead of attempting to destroy existing society utterly, it sought rather to reform it, and when the work of destruction gave opportunity for new ideals, it suggested and even furnished a reconstruction along higher lines. Hence philanthropy in education exercised an important influence in the direction of universal, national, and public training for citizenship. It was in many of its forms merged in such a system in several countries, and in succeeding chapters references to the S. P. C. K., S. P. G., Sunday, monitorial, and infant schools will naturally appear. SUPPLEMENTARY READING Graves, _In Modern Times_ (Macmillan, 1913), chap. III; and _Great Educators_ (Macmillan, 1912), chap. XII; Parker, _Modern Elementary Education_ (Ginn, 1912), pp. 101-107. Allen, W. O. B. and McClure, E., have presented _The History of the S. P. C. K._ (Christian Knowledge Society, London, 1901), and Pascoe, C. F., _Two Hundred Years of the S. P. G._ (Christian Knowledge Society, London, 1898), while Kemp, W. W., gives a detailed history of _The Support of Schools in Colonial New York by the S. P. G._ (Columbia University, Teachers College Contributions, no. 56, 1913), and Weber, S. E., of _The Charity School Movement in Pennsylvania_ (Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania). Harris, J., furnishes a good description of _Robert Raikes; the Man and His Work_ (Dutton, New York, 1899); Salmon, D., of _Joseph Lancaster_ (Longmans, Green, 1904); Meiklejohn, J. M. D., of _An Old Educational Reformer, Dr. Andrew Bell_ (Bardeen, Syracuse); and Salmon, D., and Hindshaw, W., of _Infant Schools, Their History and Theory_ (Longmans, Green, 1904). CHAPTER XXI THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION IN AMERICAN EDUCATION OUTLINE Between the ‘transplantation’ period and that of the purely American conception of education was a distinctive stage in American education,--the ‘period of transition.’