Education, the humanities and the arts

Technical and industrial progress raised the need for skilled workers and a literate population, so in developed countries primary education became compulsory and often free, and literacy grew. But children of poor families often had to leave school early, and in many places schooling differed by class and race; for example, in many US states black and white children attended separate schools. In Asia and the East, Western-type schools began to open. In the humanities philosophy, sociology and psychology developed: F. Nietzsche (1844–1900) raised the questions of human will and values, S. Freud (1856–1939) founded psychoanalysis and studied the influence of the unconscious, and O. Spengler held that each culture is distinct (The Decline of the West, 1918–1922). Ideas of racial superiority also spread in this period: for example, the British writer R. Kipling wrote the poem “The White Man’s Burden” in 1899, which presented colonial rule as “bringing civilisation”; such views were later strongly criticised. In music R. Strauss, G. Mahler, A. Scriabin and S. Rachmaninoff worked. In the visual arts Impressionism (C. Monet, A. Renoir, C. Pissarro, É. Manet) painted light and the impression of a moment; P. Cézanne, P. Gauguin and V. van Gogh then opened new paths; Rodin’s sculpture The Thinker is famous. In 1895 the Lumière brothers showed the first films.