Introduction

The period from 1870 to 1914 is an interesting one, both politically and in the field of education for the masses. The year 1870 marked 'the end of the great formative movements which created the German Empire, the Kingdom ofltaly, the Third Republic, and the "Dual Monarchy"' [of Austria-Hungary]. ¹ It was an era to which the term 'New Imperialism' is often attached, when

exclusive claims to territory by European powers and their attempts to assert effective control, as well as other forms of European intervention and influence overseas, proliferated more quickly than they had done since the eighteenth century and attracted an unusual degree of attention. ²