ABSTRACT
Revolution-minded statesmen and men of letters turned their attention to education as an ally in their cause. During the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, new currents of thought began circulating among the intelligentsia of Europe and the American colonies. The roots of Enlightenment thought reach far back across the centuries. In some respects, the scholastic debates that pitted advocates of logic against defenders of the faith and that stimulated the rise of universities in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries can be viewed as a precursor of the Enlightenment. Fundamental to Enlightenment ideology was the belief that Reason—with a capital R—was the only infallible guide to knowledge. A fundamental belief that emerged as a cornerstone of Enlightenment ideology was the conviction that progress was inevitable and that, in time, the perfect—or at least, near perfect—society would come into existence.
