E CULTURE EPOCHS.

The problem that confronts us at the outset, when preparing a plan of
concentration, is _how to select_ the best historical (moral educative)
materials, which are to serve as the central series of the course. The
_culture epochs_ (cultur-historische Stufen) are, according to the
Herbartians, the key to the situation. (This subject was briefly
discussed under _Interest_.)

According to the theory of the _culture epochs_, the child, in its
growth from infancy to maturity, is an epitome of the world's history
and growth in a profoundly significant sense for the purpose of
education. From the earliest history of society and of arts, from the
first simple family and tribal relations, and from the time of the
primitive industries, there has been a series of upward steps toward
our present state of culture (social, political, and economic life).
Some of the periods of progress have been typical for different nations
or for the whole race; for example, the stone age, the age of
barbarism, the age of primitive industries, the age of nomads, the
heroic age, the age of chivalry, the age of despotism, the age of
conquest, wars of freedom, the age of revolution, the commercial age,
the age of democracy, the age of discovery, etc. What relation the
leading epochs of progress in the race bear to the steps of change and
growth in children, has become a matter of great interest in education.
The assumption of the _culture epochs_ is that the growth of moral and
secular ideas in the race, represented at its best, is similar to their
growth in children, and that children may find in the representative
historical periods select materials for moral and intellectual nurture
and a natural access to an understanding of our present condition of
society. The culture epochs are those representative periods in
history which are supposed to embody the elements of culture suited to
train the young upon in their successive periods of growth. Goethe
says, "Childhood must always begin again at the first and pass through
the epochs of the world's culture." Herbart says, "The whole of the
past survives in each of us," and again, "The receptivity (of the
child) changes continually with progress in years. It is the function
of the teacher to see to it that these modifications advance steadily
in agreement with these changes (in the world's history)." Ziller has
attempted more fully to "justify this culture-historical course of