To this end I have tried to hold to the main lines of the story, and have in consequence omitted reference to many theorists and reformers and events and schools which doubtless were important in their land and time, but the influence of which on the main current of educational progress was, after all, but small. For such omission I have no apology to make. In their place I have introduced a record of world events and forces, not included in the usual history of education, which to me seem important as having contributed materially to the shaping and directing of intellectual and educational progress. While in the treatment major emphasis has been given to modern times, I have nevertheless tried to show how all modern education has been after all a development, a culmination, a flowering-out of forces and impulses which go far back in history for their origin. In a civilization such as we of to-day enjoy, with roots so deeply embedded in the past as is ours, any adequate understanding of world practices and of present-day world problems in education calls for some tracing of development to give proper background and perspective. The rise of modern state school systems, the variations in types found to-day in different lands, the new conceptions of the educational purpose, the rise of science study, the new functions which the school has recently assumed, the world- wide sweep of modern educational ideas, the rise of many entirely new types of schools and training within the past century--these and many other features of modern educational practice in progressive nations are better understood if viewed in the light of their proper historical setting. Standing as we are to-day on the threshold of a new era, and with a strong tendency manifest to look only to the future and to ignore the past, the need for sound educational perspective on the part of the leaders in both school and state is given new emphasis.