GENERAL VIEW OF THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES =Literature.=--_Dyer_, Modern Europe; _Duruy_, The French Revolution; _Yonge_, Three Centuries of Modern History; _Andrews_, Institutes of General History; _Lord_, Beacon Lights; _Taylor_, History of Germany; _Guizot_, History of Civilization; _Draper_, Conflict between Religion and Science; _Schwickerath_, Jesuit Education. The history of the world since the seventeenth century has been crowded with events, and characterized by movements of greatest moment to mankind. It is not the purpose of this work to discuss political movements, to chronicle wars, or to study the great upheavals of society except in so far as they have a direct bearing upon educational questions.[121] The political chains that fettered the nations of the world have gradually been broken until greater liberty has been secured, a more perfect acknowledgment of the rights of the individual brought about, and a more tolerant religious spirit fostered in every civilized land. These things have exerted a tremendous force in the intellectual emancipation of man. At last the long struggle of the centuries begins to bear legitimate fruit, and the supreme educational purpose of Christianity, that of asserting and maintaining the importance of the individual, seems destined to complete realization. The noble truths of brotherly love, equality before God, and human rights were obscured during the long centuries,--obscured sometimes by the very institution whose chief aim is to scatter light and give gladness to men. It has remained for modern education to rediscover the educational principles which the Great Teacher promulgated, and which through the struggle of centuries failed of recognition, and bore indifferent fruit. Among the many social and political changes that have taken place during the last two centuries, we may mention a few that have a direct influence upon education. Preceding centuries had prepared the way,--had broken the ground and sown the seed, and now the world was ready to reap an abundant harvest. The great political events of this period may be briefly summarized as follows:-- 1. _The abolition of human slavery._--Great Britain, Spain, France, Russia, and finally our own country have forever removed the shackles of the slave within their borders. Perhaps the greatest of all emancipation acts was that of Russia, which, in 1861, without bloodshed and without serious disturbance, by royal decree, set free forty million serfs. The abolition of slavery in nearly all civilized countries is the greatest political triumph of Christian civilization. Without this there could never have come that higher intellectual emancipation which is the aim sought in all education.