Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2022 July 29

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July 29

Who first established universal education?

Who first came up with the idea that all members of the population (or of one gender) should be educated? Who first brought it into practice, even if only within a small area? What person, or what society, first decided that people should have access to education even if they can't pay for it themselves? I would assume that in many places where this was suggested, people would ask, "Why should I pay for the education of other people's children?"; in fact, this might be the default response. I also know that education might mean different things, so I'm curious both about any form of teaching all members of the population (even if designed to indoctrinate), and about universal education for the purposes of literacy. 2601:640:4000:3170:0:0:0:A469 (talk) 03:22, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Sunday school once a week.
Sleigh (talk) 05:22, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Have you read Literacy? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:26, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

According to Jewish education and my own reading, the goal of universal literacy education of all young males of that socioreligious group goes back 1800 years or more. Cullen328 (talk) 05:29, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Australian Aboriginal society, and I'm sure many other earlier cultures, had very strictly defined structures whereby, upon reaching puberty, all boys and girls began to live lives apart from each and learned important traditions and rules about their society. HiLo48 (talk) 07:22, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Education is a very broad term, and, as HiLo48 indicates, universal education arguably predates market-oriented societies and even the concept of money. But if you talk about modern, formalised schooling, the German article de:Schulpflicht names the county of Palatine Zweibrücken, which introduced compulsive schooling for both boys and girls in 1592 under John I, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:50, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

2601:640:4000:3170:0:0:0:A469 -- In the United States, Horace Mann was extremely influential in the establishment of widespread public education in the northern states (though it couldn't be said that he invented the concept). AnonMoos (talk) 09:20, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

See the overview at [1]. Our article "Literacy", linked above, implies an organised education system. See Compulsory education#History. 2A00:23C5:E148:1D01:60BA:9C7A:1CC9:B7E (talk) 10:31, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Regardless of the idealism of some proponents of public eduction, "American public schools began in the 1820s, when a docile, obedient workforce was needed to fill the Industrial Revolution's factories."^[2]  --Lambiam 13:11, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

That book by Steve Hilton is neither about history nor education research/policy. In the section you link it talks about the history of education in one and a half paragraphs, in which it uses a quote from the 1890s to characterize schools in the 1820s to criticize schools in 2014. SamuelRiv (talk) 13:34, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

That does not mean it is not true.  --Lambiam 18:48, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

William Torrey Harris was the next great figure after Mann, probably did more than anyone to universalize education in the USA. W. E. B. Du Bois's history of Reconstruction notes that a bit earlier, Reconstruction saw the beginnings of widespread schooling in the South, not just for the former slaves, but for (poor) whites; which of course died with Reconstruction. Overall, no nation is more identified with the concept than the USA. While Harris worked somewhat from German models, education became a bigger, more widespread thing, earlier, in the USA than almost anywhere else.John Z (talk) 00:55, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Compulsory education has a long history, but the article is sugar-coated, as all of the early examples are reserved for the upper or priestly classes (in Judea, Greece, Mexico, Europe through the Early Modern period, parts of Asia into the 20th century, and still today wherever you have bound labor), who typically make up a small fraction of the population. The point at which people of all classes, including the peasants, can get an education can really only happen when several factors converge, including urbanization, strong government, and probably most importantly, excess wealth as that drives social mobility, economic incentive, long-term investment, and many other things. It's probably not a coincidence that universal public education is often only enforceable with widespread industrialization (see the modernization of China, for example). (I'm not finding online sources that go in depth in 20th century China's education history -- everyone talking about China's economic miracle connects it to industrialization + education + urbanization, and there are regional studies on education available (some controversial), but a nice summary is eluding me, so I suppose take the latter half of my comment with whatever skepticism you feel is appropriate.) SamuelRiv (talk) 14:10, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Based on that article, it seems that Prussia was the first to have universal, compulsory, tax-funded education for both sexes, in Volksschulen ("people's schools") following a decree of 1763. See Prussian education system. Alansplodge (talk) 18:19, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Are the Meenas a Proto Dravidian people?

Meena Itiyas -- Karsan Chanda (talk) 11:15, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

No. Proto-Dravidian is a theoretical root language from millennia ago. Nobody alive today speaks it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:26, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Cleopatra

On the Wikipedia App, there is a section Top read which (if I understand correctly) notes the pages which have the highest readership that day. It is usually populated by subjects of topical interest, such as the late, great Bernard Cribbins who died on yesterday and is top of the list today. However, I have noticed recently, over several weeks, that Cleopatra has been a recurring visitor to the list. A fascinating lady, no doubt, but I do not know of any reason for her to be topical. What is drawing people to her page in such numbers? -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 12:58, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

The same question was asked a few months back, see Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2021 November 9. I believe the consensus answer was somewhere along the lines of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ --Jayron32 13:06, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Well I never. Perhaps she's determined to haunt us until we start a wikipedia in proper hieroglyphics. Thank you. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 13:17, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

I was thinking "maybe a link to the Cleopatra article is a default setting in some popular software?" and this article seems to confirm that looking up Cleopatra is a suggestion made by Google Assistant on Android phones.

Here's the daily pageview stats, by the way, for anyone who was curious.  Card Zero  (talk) 14:45, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Holy cow! I guess that is the answer. Never knew that. --Jayron32 17:44, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Riddle me this: On the monthly stats for 2021, Cleopatra is usually in the top ten, and never lower than 15th (April). Why, then, does she not appear in the annual top one hundred for 2021? Disqualified for receiving outside assistance? Integer overflow? -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 20:40, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, the first one: Some pages listed may be false positives. 6 pages have been automatically excluded from Topviews. One of the six pages is Cleopatra. I don't know why the blacklist is different for yearly, monthly and daily. I just went through the reporting procedure for Cleopatra on the monthly view (which returned a fatal error the first time) and the daily view (which wasn't an option until I unchecked Cleopatra and started over). Maybe the reporting procedure doesn't work properly, not sure where to report that.  Card Zero  (talk) 20:51, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

It talks about checking the mobile pageviews percentage, but it uses figures for pages with 0.01% (#78 index.html) and 99.55% (#79 Tasuku Honjo). Would Cleopatra really be outside that range? She only ranked third before being excluded, so the total wasn't excessive. (Am I allowed to refer to a page as 'she'? It's not a ship!) Perhaps visits from people experimenting with Google Assistant produce weird enough visitor profiles (eg direct link to page, far fewer onward links thereafter?) to count as a false positive. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 22:27, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Calvin Coolidge's presidential sequence number

He was the 30th President. But some old sources say he was the 29th. Who are they leaving out?? (Please look at Talk:Calvin Coolidge; the section labelled "video", for information. Note when the section was written; I don't know if the article itself still has the video.) Georgia guy (talk) 17:57, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

As with all problems in American History, the first question we should ask is: can we blame this on Cleveland? I actually love Cleveland, OH. Grover too. SamuelRiv (talk) 18:32, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

This list for example, only lists Grover Cleveland only once, while the conventional system counts him as both the 22nd and 24th presidents (to clarify the rather cryptic answer above). So Coolidge was the 29th person to have held the office, but the 30th presidency. Alansplodge (talk) 18:45, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Was it the 30th presidency, though? Constitutionally, a term is a term; there is no distinction between succeeding yourself immediately and succeeding yourself with a gap. If we count Cleveland twice, maybe we should also count (for example) Grant twice. --Trovatore (talk) 19:45, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

The Constitution doesn't define the numbering of terms. The way presidents are numbered is a matter of common usage, not constitutionality. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:17, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Enumerating by presidential term (similar to Congress) would handle nonconsecutive terms better, but when a president ascends through succession (like the VP when the prez dies), it becomes messier. William Henry Harrison became president in the 14th presidential term, as did John Tyler -- of course one left office sooner than the other. SamuelRiv (talk) 23:44, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

You could count oaths of office. --Trovatore (talk) 07:44, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Here's a related question, which I realized I don't know the answer to for sure. Suppose you're re-elected to a second term as prez, and you want to keep the same person as Secretary of Agriculture or some other cabinet-level position. My assumption is that you still have to re-nominate that person, and have him or her confirmed by the new Senate. But I'm not super-confident on that point. If I'm right about that, it would support the idea that the new term is a new "presidency".

Bonus points, what if you're veep and the prez dies? Do you still have to re-confirm your cabinet, even if you want to keep the same people? --Trovatore (talk) 07:50, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

They don't have to be re-confirmed. As you can see in List of secretaries of state of the United States, there's only one vote for each. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:14, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Yup… it’s the Grover Cleveland problem… as the only President (so far) to hold the office two times non-sequentially… do you count him once or twice? Blueboar (talk) 23:18, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

For some time it has said in the World Almanac that "According to a State Dept. ruling, Grover Cleveland should be counted as both the 22nd and the 24th president because his two terms were not consecutive." I have the 2014 edition at home and in it those words are on page 503, and you can confirm it in the 2021 edition using Google Books. However, the ruling itself does not seem to have been put online as far as I can tell. --174.95.81.219 (talk) 03:18, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps that could be added to our "List of presidents", maybe in the unreferenced footnote that explains the numbering. Alansplodge (talk) 14:24, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

• Presidential number is an arbitrary convention without import or use; unlike the numbering of Congresses, which is necessary because of the way legislation is codified in American law, see Act of Congress where the enacted laws are labeled with the number of the Congress so enacting them; there is no functional use for the numbers of the Presidents. Giving Grover Cleveland two numbers was an ad-hoc thing that kinda got carried through, and after everyone started following that numbering system, it just "stuck". It really doesn't matter whether or not someone finds it illogical or not, or has any kind of reason or argument why it should or should not be, it is a thing that just is and we roll with it. Cleveland got two numbers, and other Presidents since have been numbered accordingly, and that's all there is to it. There's no use trying to find a reason why this shouldn't be, when it just is. It doesn't stop being a thing because we have reasons for it not to be. --Jayron32 15:52, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon

For some reason I get conflicting publication years for Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon. Our article says 1657, French wikiarticle states 1655, Britannica writes 1656, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy says 1687. Why such a mess? Brandmeister^talk 20:03, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

The text of the French article says publié par son ami Henry Le Bret, deux ans après sa mort survenue le 28 juillet 1655., where the date refers to Cyrano's death, and says the book was published two years after that, i.e. 1657. The info box says 1655, of course, but that seems to have been an error, which I took the liberty to correct. The 1657 edition is here. --Wrongfilter (talk) 20:20, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

(EC) French article says 1657 (i.e. two years after Cyrano's death in 1655), and there's a link at the bottom of that article's page to the original edition on Gallica (website of the Bibliothèque nationale de France which had 1657 (in Roman numbers) on the title page [3]. So 1657 it is. Not sure about Britannica's date, but the one from the Encyclopedia of science fiction clearly seems to be a typo. Xuxl (talk) 20:23, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Britannica may have it right. The following mentions a (pre-?) publication possibly unallowed in 1650, an other (attested) in 1656: Oeuvres, Publisher's acknowledgments, X. Then 1659, 1661, 1662, etc, etc. Our publisher seems to be missing the viewable edition you've been mentioning however. --Askedonty (talk) 21:00, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

• The 1858 publisher (Adolphe Delahays, 1858, see Cyrano_de_Bergerac#Critical editions ), as well as The Encyclopedia Britannica, have their solid reference in Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire des hommes illustres dans la république des lettres. Avec un catalogue raisonné de leurs ouvrages : Tome XXXVI, p.234, work by P. Nicéron, Barnabite, 1736. Delahays mentions the heavy work of eradication of supposed heretical works by conspiracy - by freelance branches of a Sacra Congregatio Indicis - which cost lexicography many losses such as manuscripts by Moliere, which would explain to us the unavailability of a 1656 edition to the Bibliothèque nationale de France ( still not Adolphe Delahays not mentioning the 1657 edition the BNF have in display ) --Askedonty (talk) 23:15, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

• Interesting, thanks. Did the 1656 edition survive anywhere in physical form? Brandmeister^talk 08:52, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

To add some data from the online 4th Edition (2021) of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction:

• The first part of the overall work, Histoire comique, par Monsieur de Cyrano Bergerac, Contenant les Estats et Empires de la Lune was edited (with cuts and commentary) by Henry Le Bret and published in Paris by Chez Charles de Sercy in 1657. It appeared in English as Selenarchia: Or, The Government of the World in the Moon: A Comical History translated by T St. Serf and "Printed for J Cottrel" in London in 1659. The crowdsourced Internet Speculative Fiction Database gives the title of this edition as Σεληναρχια: or, The Government of the World in the Moon: A Comical History?
• The second part, Fragment d'Histoire comique par Monsieur de Cyrano Bergerac, contenant les etats et empires du soleil, appeared in a collection titled in full Les Novvelles Oevvres de Monsieur de Cyrano Bergerac, Contenant L'Histoire Comique des Estats & Empires du Soleil, Plusieurs Lettres, et Autres Pieces Divertissantes, also published by Chez Charles de Sercy in 1662.
• The complete work appeared in a translation by A. Lovell titled The Comical History of the States and Empires of the Worlds of the Moon and Sun, "Printed for Henry Rhodes", in London in 1687 (hence presumably the Greenwood Encyclopedia date).

I don't suggest any of these are necessarily the true "first editions" (although The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction aims to list such), but they may explain some of the various dates quoted. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.201.73.20 (talk) 10:29, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

A great find! regarding English translations the first I was able to trace was an improbable 1923. @Brandmeister: A Legal deposit for the novel, for an edition attributed to Henry Le Bret, is asserted dated from December 23 1656, attributed for five years to Charles de Sercy [4], [5]: in forewords by Editions Modernes: Edition Le Bret, 1910, after a 1663 edition. It looks like the 1657 date found until now would be a date of print instead of one of deposit. Delahays states in his edition that a 1656 edition would be so rare that he knows only of one; this might be he knows about the one presented to the King's offices for obtaining the privilège (deposit). --Askedonty (talk) 12:51, 30 July 2022 (UTC)