This document provides an overview of the historical development of comparative education. It discusses some key figures and developments: 1) Marc-Antoine Jullien de Paris is considered the "father of comparative education", developing one of the first comprehensive schemes for comparative study in 1817. 2) In the 19th century, many reports compared foreign education systems but did not truly analyze differences. Figures like John Griscom, Victor Cousin, and Horace Mann published influential comparative works. 3) I.L. Kandel emphasized the importance of a historical approach and studying determining national factors that influence education systems. Comparative education aims to discover differences in systems and underlying principles.

1. Historical Development of
Comparative Education
Presented By
Tahira Rafiq

2. 1.1 Introduction:
Marc-Antoine Jullien de Paris In the history of comparative education Marc-Antoine Jullien de
Paris is com- monly referred to as the "father of Comparative Education".
It is only quite recently that Comparative Education has been admitted as a subject of
academic studies. It is generally recognized now that intending teachers and educational
administrators should have some knowledge of foreign educational systems and their comparative
merits. In some Universities Comparative Education is even included in the requirements for
Teacher's
Diploma qualifications. However, there is no general agreement as to what Comparative
Education comprises or exactly what methods should be used in its study. The first comprehensive
scheme of comparative study of educational systems was devised by Marc Antoine Jullien de Paris
in 1817.
In his L'Esquisse etvues préliminaires d'un ouvrage Éducation Comparêe, Jullien quite
clearly formulated the purposes and methods of comparative study of education. He envisaged an
"analytical" study of education in all countries with a view to perfecting national systems with
modifications and changes "which the circumstances and local conditions would demand." He
said Education, as other sciences, is based on facts and observations, which should be ranged in
analytical tables, easily compared, in order to deduce principles and definite rules.
1.2 Importance of historical development of comparative education
Education should become a positive science instead of being ruled by narrow and limited
opinions, by whims and arbitrary decisions of administrators to be turned away from the direct
line which it should follow, either by the prejudice of a blind routine or by the spirit of some
system and innovation. However, his detailed scheme of comparative enquiry remained unknown
and was rediscovered only in the twentieth century.1 historically the beginnings of Comparative
Education were not even comparative and were confined to description and information on
education in foreign countries. Reports on foreign schools and school methods abounded in the

3. nineteenth century. Perhaps the first study of that kind was the two volumes of Professor John
Griscom, of New York City, who after his return from Europe issued the results of his observa-
Names of Comparatives (Before 19th Century & 20th Century onwards)
The 19th (nineteenth) century was a century that began on January 1, 1801, and ended on
December 31, 1900. It is often used interchangeably with the 1800s, though the start and end dates
differ by a year.
The 19th century saw large amounts of social change; slavery was abolished, and
the First and Second Industrial Revolutions (which also overlap with the 18th and 20th centuries,
respectively) led to massive urbanization and much higher levels of productivity, profit and
prosperity. The Islamic gunpowder empires were formally dissolved and
European imperialism brought much of South Asia and almost all of Africa under colonial rule.
 Nations on educational institutions in Great Britain, France, Switzerland, Italy and Holland
under the title of A Year in Europe, published in 1818-19. It had great influence on the
development of American education. In 1831 Victor Cousin, Professor of Philosophy, by
direction of the French Minister of Public Instruction visited Prussia and published his
famous Report on the State of Public Instruction in Prussia. It was translated into English
an influenced education not only in France, but in both England and America. But it was a
straightforward description of the Prussian system and any conclusions on the comparative
value of the system had to be made by the reader himself by comparing it with that of his
own country.
 The pioneer of the American Common School revival, Horace Mann, after a six months'
visit to Europe embodied his observations in his Seventh Report, 1843and in it compared
education in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany and Holland, and incidentally
put England at the list. This report, perhaps, was the first attempt at assessing educational
values, but it was almost entirely devoted to comparison of school organisation and
methods of instruction.

4.  In this country the pioneer of Comparative Education was The comparison of the
educational systems of several countries lends itself to a variety of methods of treatment,
depending somewhat on its purpose. One method of approach might be statistical . . . from
this point of view there would be compared the total national expenditures for education,
the cost, size and character of school buildings, per capita costs for different items of
expenditure in educational systems, the enrolment, average attendance and retention of
pupils through the different levels of educational ladder.
1.3 Evaluation of Historical Methods
"Comparative Study of European Education" (1936), and "Comparative Study of Education in
Latin America and Countries of Islam" (1937) emphasised still more the historical approach and
dealt with education in each country as the result of cultural and national background. The next
study, "Educational Traditions in the English-Speaking Countries" (1938), by
its very title laid stress on a historical approach. Among the German-speaking pioneers of
Comparative The comparison of educational values by psychologists in applying various tests to
pupils and students in different countries is still in its initial stage. This method may in future bring
valuable results and lead to the establishment of internationally recognised quotients. At present
this method can be used only within certain limitations as the standardised tests are fully applicable
in the country for which they were devised. In the Soviet Union, for instance, the authorities
discontinued the application of psychological tests devised in Russia to the pupils in the Central
Asiatic Republics, as the Uzbeks, Tadzhiks and Turkmens were invariably below the Russian
children in their I.Q,., which did not correspond to real conditions in the majority of cases. Testing
Indian or African children by European tests usually leads to quite wrong conclusions. It appears
that at present at any rate neither the purely statistical nor the psychological method of approach
can furnish Comparative Education
with a firm foundation on which to build.
To place in context subsequent remarks about the contemporary nature of the field and the extent
to which it has become globalised, it is useful to sketch some dimensions of its history and
evolution. It is commonly asserted (see, for example, Epstein, 1994; Van Daele, 1994) that the
origins of comparative education as a clearly defined scholarly activity lie in nineteenth-century
France. Specifically, Marc-Antoine Jullien, who in 1817 wrote a work entitled Esquisse et Vues

5. Préliminaires d’un Ouvrage sur l’Éducation Comparée, has been widely described as the ‘Father
of Comparative Education’ (see, for example, Berrio, 1997; Leclerq, 1999). The field is then
commonly considered to have spread to other parts of Europe and to the USA, before reaching
other region of the world. An alternative view might be that the field had multiple origins (Halls,
1990; Zhang & Wang, 1997; Bray & Gui, 2001); but it is undeniable that significant work was
developed in Europe and the USA. Further notable landmarks include the first university-level
course in 1899, taught at Teachers College, Columbia, USA (Bereday, 1964a), and a famous
1900 speech by Sir Michael Sadler in the United Kingdom (UK) (Sadler, 1900). During the
twentieth century, the field gathered momentum and spread. Nakajima (1916) published a book
in Japanese entitled Comparative Study of National Education in Germany, France, Britain and
the USA, which was translated into Chinese with some adaptation by Yu (1917). Further early
works include Sandiford (1918) and Kandel (1935).
1.4 DEFINITION AND SCOPE OF COMPARATIVE EDUCATION
The problems and purposes of education haven general become somewhat similar in most
countries; the solutions are influenced by differences of tradition and culture of each. The resent
volume seeks accordingly to serve as a contribution to th philosophy of education in the light both
of theory and practice in six of the leading educational laboratories of the world—England, France,
Germany, Italy, Russia and the United States. Accordingly Kandel paid special attention to
nationalism and national character as a historical background to actual con ditions. He did not,
however, analyse these factors in detail, But he quite clearly formulated the necessity of a historica
approach and the study of determining factors. The chief value of a comparative approach to
educational problem [says he in his textbook] lies in an analysis of the causes which have produced
them, in a comparison of the differences between the various systems and the reasons underlying
them, and finally, in a study of the solutions attempted. In other words, the comparative approach
demands first an appreciation of the intangible, impalpable spiritual and cultural forces which
underlie an educational system; the factors and forces outside the school matter even more than
what goes inside it. In his monograph "Comparative Education," published in 1936 in the
American Review of Educational Research, Kandel expressed the same idea still more succinctly:
"The purpose of Comparative Education, as of comparative law, comparative literature or

6. comparative anatomy, is to discover the differences in the forces and causes that produce
differences in educationasystems." And we should add here "to discover the underlying
principles which govern the development of all national systems of education," which is certainly
implied in Kandel's definition. The present writer's contributions to the Year Book of Education:
1.5 Use in Curriculum
Educational Transfer in the Literature of Comparative Education Interpretations of the process of
educational transfer can be traced back to the early nineteenth century, when Jullien de Paris (1775-
1848) started with efforts to create a ‘science’ of education. Although the theme of transfer was
mostly implicit in his writings, it was one of the major concerns within Jullien’s work. From
Jullien’s point of view, education was an independent ‘aspect’ of social reality that could be
analysed separately from its socio-historical contexts. For example, when establishing his ‘series
of questions on comparative education’ (Fraser, 1964, p. 50), no explicit consideration was given
to the socio-historical context of education. Since education – in Jullien’s view – was independent
from its context, then educational ‘improvements [were] capable of being transported from one
country to another’ (Fraser, 1964, p. 37). Jullien saw educational transfer as a desirable process,
and this was the ultimate goal of his Plan. He believed that educational comparisons would ‘give
birth to the idea of borrowing from one another what ... is good and useful’ (Fraser, 1964, p. 46).
Educational Transfer in Comparative Education 3 Consequently, Jullien interpreted the ‘faithful
imitations’ of the Ecole Polytechnique of Paris in Russia and Austria, and the propagation of the
English method of elementary teaching as being positive signs (Fraser, 1964, p. 36). Furthermore,
Jullien thought that general educational principles could be deduced and applied to improve
education in most contexts (Fraser, 1964, p. 37). He saw the ‘regeneration and perfection of public
education’ as a ‘universal tendency towards a similar goal’ (Fraser, 1964, p. 36). He believed that
once a universal ideal of education was established from a series of ‘comparative tables’, it was
possible to use this model to ‘judge with ease’ the educational deficiencies of each country, and
then to deduce the improvements that could be transferred from other countries to ‘solve’ these
deviations from the ideal model (Fraser, 1964, p. 37). Finally, as has been mentioned, Jullien
wished to create a science of (comparative) education. The new science would have a practical
aim: ‘to procure prompt and sure means for regenerating and improving private and public
education, in all conditions of society’ (Fraser, 1964, p. 37). The science of education needed to

7. be based on facts and observations that would permit the deduction of ‘certain principles,
determined rules, so that education might become almost nearly a positive science’ (Fraser, 1964,
p. 40). Thus, Jullien envisaged comparative education as a practical, positive science. Jullien
operated within the logic of the Enlightenment – in the sense of a ‘unitary idea of history and of
the subject’ (Lyotard, 1984, p. 72), and so did Victor Cousin some years later. However, rather
than trying to establish a set of general educational principles that could be applied in most contexts
to improve education – as in Jullien’s work – Cousin was concerned with using foreign examples
for the development and ‘improvement’ of the system of education in France. In this, Cousin
represented the spirit of his times more than Jullien (whose search for general educational
principles would only be resumed with the creation of international agencies). The aim of
improving national educational systems dominated comparative studies and educational transfer
during the nineteenth century, as exemplified by the works of administrators such as Horace Mann,
John Griscom and William T. Harris from the USA, Matthew Arnold and J.P. Kay-Shuttleworth
from England, and Leo N. Tolstoy from Russia, amongst many others (Noah & Eckstein, 1969).
These men (sic) were in most cases appointed by their governments to develop their own systems
of education (Holmes, 1981). Following linear notions of progress, these travellers and reformers
believed in the evolution of educational systems. Thus, they believed that by borrowing from
abroad they could avoid some of the ‘mistakes’ made by other countries in their linear progress
towards an ideal educational system. For example, after his tour through some selected European
countries, Horace Mann, in his Report to the Board of Education of the State of Massachusetts,
noted: if we are wise enough to learn from the experience of others, rather than await the infliction
consequent upon our own errors, we may yet escape ... those calamities under which some other
communities are now suffering. On the other hand, ... there are many things abroad which we, at
home, should do well to imitate; things, some of which are here, as yet, mere matters of speculation
and theory, but which, there have long been in operation, and are now producing a harvest of rich
and abundant blessings. (Cited in Noah & Eckstein, 1969, pp. 17-18) The belief in the linear
progress of educational systems was also clear in the work of French statistician P.E. Levasseur.
One of his contributions to comparative education in the 1880s consisted of a series of comparative
statistical tables which allowed him to rank countries according to certain educational criteria
(Noah & Eckstein, 1969). His conclusion was that although individual countries had made
‘considerable advances’, the positions in the ranking had remained almost unchanged during two

8. decades: ‘it is certain that the Scandinavian states are at the head, that Germany and Switzerland
follow closely; and that the Low Countries, France and Belgium come in third place’ (Levasseur,
cited in Noah & Eckstein, 1969, p. 44). A similar analysis was offered by Kay-Shuttleworth who,
after taking charge of elementary education in England, travelled widely throughout Europe and
argued that, with the exception of England, Protestant countries were more advanced in their
provision of education than Catholic countries (Spolton, 1968). Much of the work of these men
was used in their own countries for educational reform. Cousin’s Report on the State of Public
Instruction in Prussia, for example, ended with a plea for educational transfer to take place: ‘Such
are the most general causes of the prosperity of primary Jason Beech 4 instruction in Prussia …
May causes so simple and so prolific be speedily naturalized in our beloved country, and bring
forth the same fruits!’ (Cousin, 1836, p. 327).
1.6 Useful for learners
For Holmes, local factors were only important as far as they could help to predict the outcomes of
a given policy. Consequently, not all ‘factors’ had to be considered. Holmes suggested the need
for a method for ‘weighing’ the different factors, which ultimately, and ideally, would be
‘expressed mathematically’ (Holmes, 1965, p. 42). It was the ‘problem’ (which the social scientist
was trying to solve) that should define the ‘relative weight given to political, economic, religious,
and social forces’ (Holmes, 1965, p. 93). The aim of applying such an approach was to ‘predict
and compare cross-culturally the educational consequences of a reform’ (Holmes, 1965, p. 44); in
other words, to predict whether an educational transfer would be successful or not. Thus, the
assumption was that successful educational transfer was possible. It was the task of comparative
education to discern – using the Problem Approach – under which circumstances this could be
done. In Holmes’s view comparative education was a practical science, a ‘practical instrument of
reform’, that should be aimed at predicting for planning. The Problem Approach attempted to make
the ‘study [of comparative education] scientific’, a science in which ‘understanding comes, largely,
through processes of prediction and verification’ (Holmes, 1965, p. 92). Therefore, the context of
education was important, but only to predict the consequences of transfer; so that the solution that
was being transferred could be adapted to avoid negative consequences. Holmes was not alone in
his preoccupation with giving scientific legitimation to the field of comparative education. The
question of scientific method had already been posed by Bereday (1957) in the first issue of

9. Comparative Education Review: ‘The discussion of methods of comparative education is perhaps
the most urgent task which those who research and teach comparative education must face’ (p.
13). Bereday himself took up the challenge with his book Comparative Method in Education
(1964), and so did Noah & Eckstein with Toward a Science of Comparative Education (1969).
1.7 Conclusion
Marc-Antoine Jullien de Paris In the history of comparative education Marc-Antoine Jullien de
Paris is com- monly referred to as the "father of Comparative Education".
It is only quite recently that Comparative Education has been admitted as a subject of
academic studies. It is generally recognized now that intending teachers and educational
administrators should have some knowledge of foreign educational systems and their comparative
merits. In some Universities Comparative Education is even included in the requirements for
Teacher's
The 19th century saw large amounts of social change; slavery was abolished, and
the First and Second Industrial Revolutions (which also overlap with the 18th and 20th centuries,
respectively) led to massive urbanization and much higher levels of productivity, profit and
prosperity. The Islamic gunpowder empires were formally dissolved and
European imperialism brought much of South Asia and almost all of Africa under colonial rule.
Comparative Study of European Education" (1936), and "Comparative Study of Education in Latin
America and Countries of Islam" (1937) emphasised still more the historical approach and dealt
with education in each country as the result of cultural and national background. The next study,
"Educational Traditions in the English-Speaking Countries" (1938), by
The problems and purposes of education haven general become somewhat similar in most
countries; the solutions are influenced by differences of tradition and culture of each. The resent
volume seeks accordingly to serve as a contribution to th philosophy of education in the light both
of theory and practice in six of the leading educational laboratories of the world—England, France,
Germany, Italy, Russia and the United States.

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