The best we can do, then, is to follow the chronological order and to study in turn the educators of antiquity, those of the middle ages, of the Renaissance, and of modern times. We shall interrogate in succession those who have become eminent as teachers and educators, and ask of each how he has solved for himself the various portions of the problems of education. Besides being more simple and more natural, this order has the advantage of showing us the progress of education as it has gradually risen from instinct to reflection, from nature to art, and after long periods of groping and many halts, ascending from humble beginnings to a complete and definite organization. This plan also exhibits to us the beautiful spectacle of a humanity in a state of ceaseless growth. At first, instruction comprised but few subjects, at the same time that only a select few participated in it. Then there was a simultaneous though gradual extension of the domain of knowledge which must be acquired, of the moral qualities demanded by the struggle for existence, and of the number of men who are called to be instructed and educated,--the ideal being, as Comenius has said, that all may learn and that everything may be taught. UTILITY OF THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.--The history of pedagogy is henceforth to form a part of the course of study for the primary normal schools of France. It has been included in the prescribed list of subjects for the third year, under this title: _History of Pedagogy,--Principal educators and their doctrines; Analysis of the most important works._[3] Is argument necessary to justify the place which has been assigned to this study? In the first place, the history of pedagogy possesses great interest from the fact that it is closely connected with the general history of thought and also with the philosophic explication of human actions. Certainly, pedagogical doctrines are neither fortuitous opinions nor events without significance. On the one hand, they have their causes and their principles in moral, religious, and political beliefs, of which they are the faithful image; on the other, they are instrumental in the training of mind and in the formation of manners. Back of the _Ratio Studiorum_ of the Jesuits, back of the _Émile_ of Rousseau, there distinctly appears a complete religion, a complete philosophy. In the classical studies organized by the humanists of the Renaissance we see the dawn of that literary brilliancy which distinguished the century of Louis XIV., and so in the scientific studies preached a hundred years ago by Diderot and by Condorcet there was a preparation for the positive spirit of our time. The education of the people is at once the consequence of all that it believes and the source of all that it is destined to be.