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Public Education
New Advance

Public Education

Prerequisites

Requires:

  • Industrial Revolution
  • Human Rights

Statistics

Gives:

  • Public School
  • Statue of Liberty

Gameplay

Public Education is almost a requirement for a functioning representative government and a modern industrial economy. Establishing Public Schools boosts the science production in all your cities. Building the Statue of Liberty proclaims to all the world that your civilization values the worth and rights of all men, including that of an education provided by the government.

Historical

A classroom has been excavated from ancient Babylon, which contained 30 students, one teacher, and a stack of clay tablets with samples of writing practice on them. While this physically resembles the standard class in public schools of the late 19th and 20th centuries, the resemblance stops with the physical. The ancient schools were not public, and were for the most part only intended for the sons of the wealthy and the aristocratic classes. Basic education for all or most of the population had to wait on two discoveries. First, the printing press and widespread production of books made universal literacy almost a necessity as more and more critically useful information was printed rather than passed on by word-of-mouth. Second, the increasing percentage of people employed in factories operating massive, complicated machines required that increasing numbers of ordinary workers needed technical education just to get meaningful work at all. Consequently, as each nation began to industrialize they also started public schools to teach the basic skills required by their factories: reading, mathematics, and written communication. In fact, as society became more and more complex and technology more and more central to society, the late twentieth century saw almost the same percentage of the population attending colleges and university as attended basic primary schools a century earlier. Education to understand and work in society had become a basic survival skill, and one that people expected their government to provide or facilitate.