only by entrusting it to a selected body. This experience, or knowledge,
is at first mainly of a religious character, and is possessed and
handed on by a body of men forming a priesthood. Such priestly bodies,
or colleges, may be considered the earliest special organizations
devoted to the office of teaching. As civilization gradually advanced, a
mass of valuable practical knowledge relative to man's environment was
secured and added to the more theoretic forms. As this practical
knowledge became more complex, there was felt a greater need that the
child should be made acquainted with it in some systematic manner during
his early years. Thus developed the conception of the school as an
instrument by which such educative work might be carried on more
effectively. On account of the constant increase of practical knowledge
and its added importance in directing the political and economic life of
the people, the civil authorities began in time to assume control of
secular education. Thus the government of the school as an institution
gradually passed to the state, the teacher taking the place of the
priest as the controlling agent in the education of the young.


OTHER EDUCATIVE AGENTS

=The Church.=--But notwithstanding the organization of the present
school as a civic institution, it is to be noticed that the church still
continues to act as an educative agent. In many communities, in fact,
the church is still found to retain a large control of education even of
a secular type. Even in communities where the church no longer exercises
control over the school, she still does much, though in a more indirect
way, to mould the thought and character of the community life; and is
still the chief educational agent concerned in the direct attempt to
enrich the religious experiences of the race.