Note 72 — Chapter V · THE RENAISSANCE AND THE THEORIES OF EDUCATION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

The contrast between the general system of education that culminated with the Reformation, and the system that had its rise at the same period, is so marked that there is an historical propriety in calling the first the old education, and the second, or later, the new education. Recollecting the tendency of the human mind to pass from one extreme to an opposite extreme, we may suspect that the final state of educational thought and practice will represent a mean between these two contrasted systems: it is inconceivable that the old was wholly wrong, or that the new is wholly right. (P.)