The history of education is that branch of history which deals with the development of thought, practice, matériel, personnel, administration, and organization and other aspects and problems of schools and other agencies of society, such as religious organizations, which instruct the young and the mature. A more narrow and more functional interpretation of this term is the development of all matter pertaining to instruction in the family and in the school. This does not mean that the accounts of the history of educational institutions or ideas can ignore the other phases of society. Since there is an interaction and interrelationship between the school and the rest of society, the educational historian must take this fact into consideration when he constructs and presents his narrative. It is not accurate or safe to write about education without reference to the wider social and cultural context of which it is a part.