Politically the older education was conservative, in that it accepted the existing order of society and called upon the child to assert himself within its framework—which was largely that of nineteenth-century individualism. But it was also democratic in that it did not commonly assume, much less rejoice in the idea, that large numbers, from any class in society, were necessarily incapable by native endowment of entering with some degree of hope into the world of academic competition, mastery of subject matter, and discipline of mind and character.
