History and progress of education Author:Linus Pierpont Brockett Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. The Japanese.—Their scientific discoveries.—Education of prostitutes. —Ancient Babylonians and Assyrians.—Evidence of their educational condition... more » afforded by recent discoveries.—Ancient Persians. —Parsees or Firo Worshipers.—Magi.—Their position.—Xeno- phon's account of education in the time of Cyrus.—The four classes. —This education confined to those possessing some property.—Female degradation.—Little accomplished for education by Zartiisht or Zoroaster. -, The Japanese seem to have had a system of education superior to the Chinese, pursuing a wider and more liberal course of scientific studies, and acquiring the languages of some other nations. Their academies of science, as well as their professional schools, were quite respectable. From Commodore Perry's narrative, it appears that they understand the preparation of a kind of stereotype plates, from which their books are printed; that they adopted, centuries ago, a decimal system of weights and measures, and that in many of the arts and sciences, requiring no inconsiderable chemical skill, they are proficient. Females receive some education, and those who are destined to an abandoned life, of whom there are vast numbers, are usually well taught in the literature and poetry of the country, that they may thus be rendered more attractive. Of the early inhabitants of the plain of Shinar and the land lying between the Euphrates and Tigris, the Mesopotamia of the Scriptures, and the vast empires of Babylon and Assyria, our information is scanty, derived mainly from the Scripture record and the recent explorations of Layard, Rawlinson, Taylor, Loftus, and others. That they had attained, at a period seven or eight centuries after the flood, to a high degree of civilization, is evident from the remains which e...« less