lture in
Europe and in the United States, there has been a succession of not
very clearly defined stages. In point of government, for example,
there has been the savage, nomad, patriarch, kingdom, constitutional
monarchy, democracy, republic, federal republic. There have been great
epochs of political convulsion in the conflicts with external powers
and in civil struggles and revolutions. In the growth of handicrafts,
arts, manufactures, and inventions, there has been a series of advances
from the time when men first began to cultivate the ground, to reduce
the metals, and to bring the forces of nature into service. In the
development of human society, therefore, and in the progress of arts
and human knowledge, there are certain typical stages whose proper use
may help us to solve some of the difficult problems in educating the
young. All nations have passed through some of these important epochs.
The United States, for example, since the first settlements upon the
east coast, have gone rapidly through many of the characteristic epochs
of the world's history, in politics, commerce, and industry; in social
life, education, and religion.

The importance of the culture epochs for schools lies in the theory,
accepted by many great writers, that children in their growth from
infancy to maturity, pass through a series of steps which correspond
broadly to the historical epochs of mankind. A child's life up to the
age of twenty, is a sort of epitome of the world's history. Our
present state of culture is a result of growth, and if a child is to
appreciate society as it now is, he must grow into it out of the past,
by having traveled through the same stages it has traced. But this is
only a very superficial way of viewing the relation between child and
world history. The periods of child life are so similar to the epochs
of history, that a child finds its _proper mental food_ in the study of
the materials furnished by these epochs. Let us test this. A child
eight years old cares nothing about reciprocity or free silver, or
university extension. Robinson Crusoe, however, who typifies mankind's
early struggle with the forces of nature, claims his undivided
attention. A boy of ten will take more delight in the story of King
Alfred or William Tell than in twenty Gladstones or Bismarcks. Not
that Gladstone's work is less important or interesting to the right
person, but the boy does not live and have his being in the Gl