Part 2 — Chapter III. (These four articles abrogated by the four articles following them, 118-122.) Article 118. The Federal Constitution may at any time be amended. (continued 8)

A. Lang, Oxford, chapter 2.

"To mark off the Middle Age from the Modern Period of the University is certainly very difficult. Indeed the earlier times do not form a homogeneous whole, but appear perpetually shifting and preparing for a new state. The main transition however was undoubtedly about the middle of the fourteenth century; and the Reformation, a remarkable crisis, did but confirm what had been in progress for more than a century and a half: so that the Middle Age of the University contained the thirteenth century, and barely the former half of the fourteenth. … There is no question, that during this Middle Age the English Universities were distinguished far more than ever afterwards by energy and variety of intellect. Later times cannot produce a concentration of men eminent in all the learning and science of the age, such as Oxford and Cambridge then poured forth, mightily influencing the intellectual development of all Western Christendom. Their names indeed may warn us against an undiscriminating disparagement of the Monasteries, as 'hotbeds of ignorance and stupidity'; when so many of those worthies were monks of the Benedictine, Franciscan, Dominican, Carmelite, or reformed Augustinian order. But in consequence of this surpassing celebrity, Oxford became the focus of a prodigious congregation of students, to which nothing afterwards bore comparison. The same was probably true of Cambridge in relative proportion. … A tolerably well authenticated account, attacked of late by undue scepticism, fixes [the number of] those of Oxford at thirty thousand, in the middle of the thirteenth century. The want indeed of contemporary evidence must make us cautious of yielding absolute belief to this: in fact we have no document on this matter even as old as the Reformation. … Not only did the Church and the new orders of Monks draw great numbers thither, but the Universities themselves were vast High Schools, comprising boys and even children. It is not extravagant, if Cambridge was not yet in great repute, to imagine fifteen thousand students of all ages at Oxford, and as many more attendants. Nor was it at all difficult to accommodate them in the town, when Oxford contained three hundred Halls and Inns: and as several students dwelt in one room, and were not careful for luxury, each building on an average might easily hold one hundred persons. The style of Architecture was of the simplest and cheapest kind, and might have been easily run up on a sudden demand: and a rich flat country, with abundant water carriage, needed not to want provisions. That the numbers were vast, is implied by the highly respectable evidence which we have, that as many as three thousand migrated from Oxford on the riots of 1209; although the Chronicler expressly states that not all joined in the secession. In the reign of Henry III. the reduced numbers are reckoned at fifteen thousand. After the middle of the fourteenth century, they were still as many as from three to four thousand; and after the Reformation they mount again to five thousand. On the whole therefore the computation of thirty thousand, as the maximum, may seem, if not positively true, yet the nearest approximation which we can expect. Of Cambridge we know no more than that the numbers were much lower than at Oxford. … While in the general, there was a substantial identity between the scholastic learning of Oxford and of Paris, yet Oxford was more eager in following positive science:—and this, although such studies were disparaged by the Church, and therefore by the public. Indeed originally the Church had been on the opposite side; but the speculative tendency of the times had carried her over, so that speculation and theology went hand in hand. In the middle of the thirteenth century we may name Robert Grosseteste and John Basingstock, as cultivating physical science, and (more remarkable still) the Franciscan Roger Bacon: a man whom the vulgar held to be equal to Merlin and Michael Scott as a magician, and whom posterity ranks by the noblest spirits of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in all branches of positive science,—except theology. A biography of Roger Bacon should surely be written! Unfortunately, we know nothing as to the influence of these men on their times, nor can we even learn whether the University itself was at all interested in their studies. … We have … a strange testimony to the interest which in the beginning of the fourteenth century the mass of the students took in the speculation of their elders; for the street rows were carried on under the banners of Nominalists and Realists. … The coarse and ferocious manners prevalent in the Universities of the Middle Ages are every where in singular contrast to their intellectual pretensions: but the Universities of the Continent were peaceful, decorous, dignified,—compared with those of England. The storms which were elsewhere occasional, were at Oxford the permanent atmosphere. For nearly two centuries our 'Foster Mother' of Oxford lived in a din of uninterrupted furious warfare; nation against nation, school against school, faculty against faculty. Halls, and finally Colleges, came forward as combatants; and the University, as a whole, against the Town; or against the Bishop of Lincoln; or against the Archbishop of Canterbury. Nor was Cambridge much less pugnacious."

V. A. Huber, The English Universities, volume 1, chapter 3.

{701}

EDUCATION: Cambridge.

"Various facts and circumstances … lend probability to the belief that, long before the time when we have certain evidence of the existence of Cambridge as a university, the work of instruction was there going on. The Camboritum of the Roman period, the Grantebrycgr of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Grentebrige of Domesday, must always have been a place of some importance. It was the meeting-place of two great Roman roads,—Akeman Street, running east and west, and the Via Devana, traversing the north and the south. … Confined at first to the rising ground on the left bank of the river, it numbered at the time of the Norman Conquest as many as four hundred houses, of which twenty-seven were pulled down to make way for the castle erected by William the Conqueror. … Under the castle walls, with the view, it would seem, of making some atonement for many a deed of violence and wrong, the Norman sheriff, Picot by name, founded the Church of St. Giles, and instituted in connection with it a small body of secular canons. … The year 1112 was marked by the occurrence of an event of considerable importance in connection with the subsequent history of the university. The canons of St. Giles, attended by a large concourse of the clergy and laity, crossed the river, and took up their abode in a new and spacious priory at Barnwell. … The priory at Barnwell, which always ranked among the wealthiest of the Cambridge foundations, seems from the first to have been closely associated with the university; and the earliest university exhibitions were those founded by William de Kilkenny, bishop of Ely from 1254 to 1257, for two students of divinity, who were to receive annually the sum of two marks from the priory. In the year 1133 was founded the nunnery of St. Rhadegund, which, in the reign of Henry VII., was converted into Jesus College; and in 1135 a hospital of Augustinian canons, dedicated to St. John the Evangelist, was founded by Henry Frost, a burgess of the town. … It was … a very important foundation, inasmuch as it not only became by conversion in the sixteenth century the College of St. John the Evangelist, but was also … the foundation of which Peterhouse, the earliest Cambridge college, may be said to have been in a certain sense the offshoot. … In the year 1229 there broke out at Paris a feud of more than ordinary gravity between the students and the citizens. Large numbers of the former migrated to the English shores; and Cambridge, from its proximity to the eastern coast, and as the centre where Prince Louis, but a few years before, had raised the royal standard, seems to have attracted the great majority. … The university of Cambridge, like that of Oxford, was modelled mainly on the university of Paris. Its constitution was consequently oligarchic rather than democratic, the government being entirely in the hands of the teaching body, while the bachelors and undergraduates had no share in the passing of new laws and regulations."

J. B. Mullinger, A History of the University of Cambridge, chapters 1-2.

"The earliest existing college at Cambridge is St. Peter's, generally called Peterhouse, historically founded A. D. 1257, in the reign of Henry III. The Universities are known merely by their situation; as Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, St. Andrews'; but each college has a name, according to the taste of its founder or first members. These names may be divided into two classes, those named from the founder, as Pembroke, Clare, Gonville and Caius (this had two founders, the restorer being Dr. Kaye, who Latinized his name into Caius, always pronounced Keys), King's (from King Henry VI.),—Queens' (from the queens both of Henry VI. and Edward IV.), Sidney Sussex, and Downing;—and those named for beatified persons and objects of worship,—St. Peter's, St. John's, St. Catharine's, St. Mary Magdalene, Corpus Christi, Emmanuel, Jesus Christ's, Trinity and Trinity Hall. The apparent impiety of these names, which in one case of an ancient name now changed, was absolutely revolting, entirely passes off with a few days' use. St. Catharine's soon becomes Cats, and St. Mary Magdalene is always called Maudlin. You readily admit the superiority of Trinity over Corpus ale; go to see a friend who lives on Christ's piece; and hear with regret, that in the boat races Emmanuel has been bumped by Jesus; an epithet being probably prefixed to the last name. These names of course were given in monkish times,—Trinity by Henry VIII., but all the colleges except one were founded before the reign of James I. … The seventeen colleges … are distinct corporations. Their foundations, resources, buildings, governing authorities and students, are entirely separate from each other. Nor has any one college the least control in any other. The plan, however, is much the same in all. The presiding authority is in most cases called the Master, or speaking more generally, the Head; while the net proceeds of all the college funds—for the vast wealth supposed to belong to the University really is in the hands of the separate colleges—are distributed among certain of the graduates, called Fellows, who with the Head constitute the corporation. These corporations give board and lodging on various terms to such students as choose to enter the college and comply with its rules, in order to receive its assistance in obtaining the honors of the University; and each college offers its own peculiar inducements to students. … The whole body of the colleges, taken together, constitutes the University. All those who after residing seven years at some college, have taken the degree of Master of Arts, or a higher one, and keep their name on the college lists by a small payment, vote at the University elections for members of Parliament and all other officers, and manage its affairs. … The colleges, at certain intervals; present such students as comply with their conditions to University authorities for matriculation, for certain examinations, and for the reception of degrees; and until one receives the degree of Master of Arts, he must remain a member of some college, not necessarily one and the same, to hold any University privileges. After this stage, he may, under certain conditions, break up all his college connections, and yet remain in the University."

W. Everett, On the Cam., lecture 1.

{702}

EDUCATION: Spain and Portugal.

"Salamanca was founded in the 13th-century, and received its statutes in the year 1422, out of which was developed the following constitution. The rector, with eight 'consiliarii,' all students, who could appoint their successors, administered the university. The doctors render the oath of obedience to the rector. The 'domscholaster' is the proper judge of the school; but he swears obedience to the rector. A bachelor of law must have studied six years, and after five years more he could become licentiate. In filling a paid teachership, the doctor was chosen next in age of those holding the diploma, unless a great majority of the scholars objected, in which case the rector and council decided. This liberal constitution for the scholars is in harmony with the code of Alphonzo X., soon after 1250, in which the liberty of instruction was made a general principle of law. This constitution continued in Salamanca into the 17th century, for Retes speaks of a disputation which the rector held at that time under his presidency. Alcala university was established by cardinal Ximenes, in 1510, for the promotion of the study of theology and philosophy, for which reason it contained a faculty of canon, but not of civil law. The center of the university was the college of St. Ildefons, consisting of thirty-three prebendaries, who could be teachers or scholars, since for admission were required only poverty, the age of twenty, and the completion of the course of the preparatory colleges. These thirty-three members elected annually a rector and three councilors, who controlled the entire university. Salaried teachers were elected, not by the rector and council alone, but by all the students. It had wide reputation. When visited by Francis I., while a prisoner of Spain, he was welcomed by 11,000 students. The Coimbra university, in Portugal, received statutes in 1309, from king Dionysius, with a constitution similar to those just mentioned."

F. C. Savigny, The Universities of the Middle Ages (Barnard's American Journal of Education, volume 22, page 324).

EDUCATION: Renaissance.

"Modern education begins with the Renaissance. The educational methods that we then begin to discern will doubtless not be developed and perfected till a later period; the new doctrines will pass into practice only gradually, and with the general progress of the times. But from the sixteenth century education is in possession of its essential principles. … The men of the sixteenth century having renewed with classical antiquity an intercourse that had been too long interrupted, it was natural that they should propose to the young the study of the Greeks and the Romans. What is called secondary instruction really dates from the sixteenth century. The crude works of the Middle Age are succeeded by the elegant compositions of Athens and Rome, henceforth made accessible to all through the art of printing; and, with the reading of the ancient authors, there reappear through the fruitful effect of imitation, their qualities of correctness in thought, of literary taste, and of elegance in form. In France, as in Italy, the national tongues, moulded, and, as it were, consecrated by writers of genius, become the instruments of an intellectual propaganda. Artistic taste, revived by the rich products of a race of incomparable artists, gives an extension to the horizon of life, and creates a new class of emotions. Finally, the Protestant Reform develops individual thought and free inquiry, and at the same time, by its success, it imposes still greater efforts on the Catholic Church. This is not saying that everything is faultless in the educational efforts of the sixteenth century. First, as is natural for innovators, the thought of the teachers of this period is marked by enthusiasm rather than by precision. They are more zealous in pointing out the end to be attained, than exact in determining the means to be employed. Besides, some of them are content to emancipate the mind, but forget to give it proper direction. Finally, others make a wrong use of the ancients; they are too much preoccupied with the form and the purity of language; they fall into Ciceromania, and it is not their fault if a new superstition, that of rhetoric, does not succeed the old superstition, that of the Syllogism."

G. Compayré, The History of Pedagogy, chapter 5 (sections 92-93).

EDUCATION: Rabelais' Gargantua.

Rabelais' description of the imaginary education of Gargantua gives us the educational ideas of a man of genius in the 16th century: "Gargantua," he writes, "awaked, then, about four o'clock in the morning. Whilst they were rubbing him, there was read unto him some chapter of the Holy Scripture aloud and clearly, with a pronunciation fit for the matter, and hereunto was appointed a young page born in Basché, named Anagnostes. According to the purpose and argument of that lesson, he oftentimes gave himself to revere, adore, pray, and send up his supplications to that good God whose word did show His majesty and marvellous judgments. Then his master repeated what had been read, expounding unto him the most obscure and difficult points. They then considered the face of the sky, if it was such as they had observed it the night before, and into what signs the sun was entering, as also the moon for that day. This done, he was appareled, combed, curled, trimmed and perfumed, during which time they repeated to him the lessons of the day before. He himself said them by heart, and upon them grounded practical cases concerning the estate of man, which he would prosecute sometimes two or three hours, but ordinarily they ceased as soon as he was fully clothed. Then for three good hours there was reading. This done, they went forth, still conferring of the substance of the reading, and disported themselves at ball, tennis, or the 'pile trigone,' gallantly exercising their bodies, as before they had done their minds. All their play was but in liberty, for they left off when they pleased, and that was commonly when they did sweat, or were otherwise weary. Then were they very well dried and rubbed, shifted their shirts, and walking soberly, went to see if dinner was ready. Whilst they stayed for that, they did clearly and eloquently recite some sentences that they had retained of the lecture. In the mean time Master Appetite came, and then very orderly sat they down at table. At the beginning of the meal there was read some pleasant history of ancient prowess, until he had taken his wine. Then, if they thought good, they continued reading, or began to discourse merrily together; speaking first of the virtue, propriety, efficacy, and nature of all that was served in at that table; of bread, of wine, of water, of salt, of flesh, fish, fruits, herbs, roots, and of their dressing. By means whereof, he learned in a little time all the passages that on these subjects are to be found in Pliny, Athenæus, Dioscorides, Julius, Pollux, Galen, Porphyrius, Oppian, Polybius, Heliodorus, Aristotle, Œlian, and others. {703} Whilst they talked of these things, many times, to be the more certain, they caused the very books to be brought to the table, and so well and perfectly did he in his memory retain the things above said, that in that time there was not a physician that knew half so much as he did. Afterwards they conferred of the lessons read in the morning, and ending their repast with some conserve of quince, he washed his hands and eyes with fair fresh water, and gave thanks unto God in some fine canticle, made in praise of the divine bounty and munificence. This done, they brought in cards, not to play, but to learn a thousand pretty tricks and new inventions, which were all grounded upon arithmetic. By this means he fell in love with that numerical science, and every day after dinner and supper he passed his time in it as pleasantly as he was wont to do at cards and dice. … After this they recreated themselves with singing musically, in four or five parts, or upon a set theme, as it best pleased them. In matter of musical instruments, he learned to play the lute, the spinet, the harp, the German flute, the flute with nine holes, the violin, and the sackbut. This hour thus spent, he betook himself to his principal study for three hours together, or more, as well to repeat his matutinal lectures as to proceed in the book wherein he was, as also to write handsomely, to draw and form the antique and Roman letters. This being done, they went out of their house, and with them a young gentleman of Touraine, named Gymnast, who taught the art of riding. Changing then his clothes, he mounted on any kind of horse, which he made to bound in the air, to jump the ditch, to leap the palisade, and to turn short in a ring both to the right and left hand. … The time being thus bestowed, and himself rubbed, cleansed, and refreshed with other clothes, they returned fair and softly; and passing through certain meadows, or other grassy places, beheld the trees and plants: comparing them with what is written of them in the books of the ancients, such as Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Marinus, Pliny, Nicander, Macer, and Galen, and carried home to the house great handfuls of them, whereof a young page called Rhizotomos had charge—together with hoes, picks, spuds, pruning-knives, and other instruments requisite for herborising. Being come to their lodging, whilst supper was making ready, they repeated certain passages of that which had been read, and then sat down at table. … During that repast was continued the lesson read at dinner as long as they thought good: the rest was spent in good discourse, learned and profitable. After that they had given thanks, they set themselves to sing musically, and play upon harmonious instruments, or at those pretty sports made with cards, dice or cups,—thus made merry till it was time to go to bed; and sometimes they would go make visits unto learned men, or to such as had been travellers in strange countries. At full night they went into the most open place of the house to see the face of the sky, and there beheld the comets, if any were, as likewise the figures, situations, aspects, oppositions, and conjunctions of the stars. Then with his master did he briefly recapitulate, after the manner of the Pythagoreans, that which he had read, seen, learned, done, and understood in the whole course of that day. Then they prayed unto God the Creator, falling down before Him, and strengthening their faith towards Him, and glorifying Him for His boundless bounty; and, giving thanks unto Him for the time that was past, they recommended themselves to His divine clemency for the future. Which being done, they entered upon their repose."

W. Besant, Readings in Rabelais, pages 20-29.

EDUCATION: Germany.

"The schools of France and Italy owed little to the great modern movement of the Renaissance. In both these countries that movement operated, in both it produced mighty results; but of the official establishments for instruction it did not get hold. In Italy the mediæval routine in those establishments at first opposed a passive resistance to it; presently came the Catholic reaction, and sedulously shut it out from them. In France the Renaissance did not become a power in the State, and the routine of the schools sufficed to exclude the new influence till it took for itself other channels than the schools. But in Germany the Renaissance became a power in the State; allied with the Reformation, where the Reformation triumphed in German countries the Renaissance triumphed with it, and entered with it, into the public schools. Melancthon and Erasmus were not merely enemies and subverters of the dominion of the Church of Rome, they were eminent humanists; and with the great but single exception of Luther, the chief German reformers were all of them distinguished friends of the new classical learning, as well as of Protestantism. The Romish party was in German countries the ignorant party also, the party untouched by the humanities and by culture. Perhaps one reason why in England our schools have not had the life and growth of the schools of Germany and Holland is to be found in the separation, with us, of the power of the Reformation and the power of the Renaissance. With us, too, the Reformation triumphed and got possession of our schools; but our leading reformers were not at the same time, like those of Germany, the nation's leading spirits in intellect and culture. In Germany the best spirits of the nation were then the reformers; in England our best spirits,—Shakspeare, Bacon, Spenser,—were men of the Renaissance, not men of the Reformation, and our reformers were men of the second order. The Reformation, therefore, getting hold of the schools in England was a very different force, a force far inferior in light, resources, and prospects, to the Reformation getting hold of the schools in Germany. But in Germany, nevertheless, as Protestant orthodoxy grew petrified like Catholic orthodoxy, and as, in consequence, Protestantism flagged and lost the powerful impulse with which it started, the school flagged also, and in the middle of the last century the classical teaching of Germany, in spite of a few honourable names like Gesner's, Ernesti's, and Heyne's, seems to have lost all the spirit and power of the 16th century humanists, to have been sinking into a mere church appendage, and fast becoming torpid. A theological student, making his livelihood by teaching till he could get appointed to a parish, was the usual school-master. 'The schools will never be better,' said their great renovator, Friedrich August Wolf, the well-known critic of Homer, 'so long as the school-masters are theologians by profession. {704} A theological course in a university, with its smattering of classics, is about as good a preparation for a classical master as a course of feudal law would be.' Wolf's coming to Halle in 1783, invited by Von Zedlitz, the minister for public worship under Frederick the Great, a sovereign whose civil projects and labours were not less active and remarkable than his military, marks an era from which the classical schools of Germany, reviving the dormant spark planted in them by the Renaissance, awoke to a new life."

M. Arnold, Schools and Universities on the Continent, chapter 14.

It is surprising to learn "how much was left untaught, in the sixteenth century, in the schools. Geography and history were entirely omitted in every scheme of instruction, mathematics played but a subordinate part, while not a thought was bestowed either upon natural philosophy or natural history. Every moment and every effort were given to the classical languages, chiefly to the Latin. But we should be overhasty, should we conclude, without further inquiry, that these branches, thus neglected in the schools, were therefore every where untaught. Perhaps they were reserved for the university alone, and there, too, for the professors of the philosophical faculty, as is the case even at the present day with natural philosophy and natural history; nay, logic, which was a regular school study in the sixteenth century, is, in our day, widely cultivated at the university. We must, therefore, in order to form a just judgment upon the range of subjects taught in the sixteenth century, as well as upon the methods of instruction, first cast a glance at the state of the universities of that period, especially in the philosophical faculties. A prominent source of information on this point is to be found in the statutes of the University of Wittenberg, revised by Melancthon, in the year 1545. The theological faculty appears, by these statutes, to have consisted of four professors, who read lectures on the Old and New Testaments,—chiefly on the Psalms, Genesis, Isaiah, the Gospel of John, and the Epistle to the Romans. They also taught dogmatics, commenting upon the Nicene creed and Augustine's book, 'De spiritu et litera.' The Wittenberg lecture schedule for the year 1561, is to the same effect; only we have here, besides exegesis and dogmatics, catechetics likewise. According to the statutes, the philosophical faculty was composed of ten professors. The first was to read upon logic and rhetoric; the second, upon physics, and the second book of Pliny's natural history; the third, upon arithmetic and the 'Sphere' of John de Sacro Busto; the fourth, upon Euclid, the 'Theoriæ Planetarum' of Burbach, and Ptolemy's' Almagest'; the fifth and sixth, upon the Latin poets and Cicero; the seventh, who was the 'Pedagogus,' explained to the younger class, Latin Grammar, Linacer 'de emendata structura Latini sermonis,' Terence, and some of Plautus; the eighth, who was the 'Physicus,' explained Aristotle's 'Physics and Dioscorides'; the ninth gave instruction in Hebrew; and the tenth reviewed the Greek Grammar, read lectures on Greek Classics at intervals, also on one of St. Paul's Epistles, and, at the same time, on ethics. … Thus the philosophical faculty appears to have been the most fully represented at Wittenberg, as it included ten professors, while the theological had but four, the medical but three. … We have a … criterion by which to judge of the limited nature of the studies of that period, as compared with the wide field which they cover at the present day, in the then almost total lack of academical apparatus and equipments. The only exception was to be found in the case of libraries; but, how meager and insufficient all collections of books must have been at that time, when books were few in number and very costly, will appear from the fund, for example, which was assigned to the Wittenberg library; it yielded annually but one hundred gulden, (about $63,) with which, 'for the profit of the university and chiefly of the poorer students therein, the library may be adorned and enriched with books in all the faculties and in every art, as well in the Hebrew and Greek tongues.' Of other apparatus, such as collections in natural history, anatomical museums, botanical gardens, and the like, we find no mention; and the less, inasmuch as there was no need of them in elucidation of such lectures as the professors ordinarily gave. When Paul Eber, the theologian, read lectures upon anatomy, he made no use of dissection."

K. von Raumer, Universities in the Sixteenth Century (Barnard's American Journal of Education, volume 5, pages 535-540).

EDUCATION: Luther and the Schools.

"Luther … felt that, to strengthen the Reformation, it was requisite to work on the young, to improve the schools, and to propagate throughout Christendom the knowledge necessary for a profound study of the holy Scriptures. This, accordingly, was one of the objects of his life. He saw it in particular at the period which we have reached, and wrote to the councillors of all the cities of Germany, calling upon them to found Christian schools. 'Dear sirs,' said he, 'we annually expend so much money on arquebuses, roads, and dikes; why should we not spend a little to give one or two schoolmasters to our poor children? God stands at the door, and knocks; blessed are we if we open to him. Now the word of God abounds. O my dear Germans, buy, buy, while the market is open before your houses. … Busy yourselves with the children,' continues Luther, still addressing the magistrates; 'for many parents are like ostriches; they are hardened towards their little ones, and satisfied with having laid the egg, they care nothing for it afterwards. The prosperity of a city does not consist merely in heaping up great treasures, in building strong walls, in erecting splendid mansions, in possessing glittering arms. If madmen fall upon it, its ruin will only be the greater. The true wealth of a city, its safety, and its strength, is to have many learned, serious, worthy, well-educated citizens. And whom must we blame because there are so few at present, except you magistrates, who have allowed our youth to grow up like trees in a forest?' Luther particularly insisted on the necessity of studying literature and languages: 'What use is there, it may be asked, in learning Latin, Greek, and Hebrew? We can read the Bible very well in German. Without languages,' replies he, 'we could not have received the gospel. … Languages are the scabbard that contains the sword of the Spirit; they are the casket that guards the jewels; they are the vessel that holds the wine; and as the gospel says, they are the baskets in which the loaves and fishes are kept to feed the multitude. If we neglect the languages, we shall not only eventually lose the gospel, but be unable to speak or write in Latin or in German. {705} No sooner did men cease to cultivate them than Christendom declined, even until it fell under the power of the pope. But now that languages are again honored, they shed such light that all the world is astonished, and everyone is forced to acknowledge that our gospel is almost as pure as that of the apostles themselves. In former times the holy fathers were frequently mistaken, because they were ignorant of languages. … If the languages had not made me positive as to the meaning of the word, I might have been a pious monk, and quietly preached the truth in the obscurity of the cloister; but I should have left the pope, the sophists, and their antichristian empire still unshaken."

J. H. Merle d' Aubigné, History of the Reformation of the 16th Century, book 10, chapter 9 (volume 3).

Luther, in his appeal to the municipal magistrates of Germany, calls for the organization of common schools to be supported at public cost. "Finally, he gives his thought to the means of recruiting the teaching service. 'Since the greatest evil in every place is the lack of teachers, we must not wait till they come forward of themselves; we must take the trouble to educate them and prepare them.' To this end Luther keeps the best of the pupils, boys and girls, for a longer time in school; gives them special instructors, and opens libraries for their use. In his thought he never distinguishes women teachers from men teachers; he wants schools for girls as well as for boys. Only, not to burden parents and divert children from their daily labor, he requires but little time for school duties. … 'My opinion is [he says] that we must send the boys to school one or two hours a day, and have them learn a trade at home for the rest of the time. It is desirable that these two occupations march side by side.' … Luther gives the first place to the teaching of religion: 'Is it not reasonable that every Christian should know the Gospel at the age of nine or ten?' Then come the languages, not, as might be hoped, the mother tongue, but the learned languages, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Luther had not yet been sufficiently rid of the old spirit to comprehend that the language of the people ought to be the basis of universal instruction. He left to Comenius the glory of making the final separation of the primary school from the Latin school. … Physical exercises are not forgotten in Luther's pedagogical regulations. But he attaches an especial importance to singing. 'Unless a school-master know how to sing, I think him of no account.' 'Music,' he says again, 'is a half discipline which makes men more indulgent and more mild.' At the same time that he extends the programme of studies, Luther introduces a new spirit into methods. He wishes more liberty and more joy in the school. 'Solomon,' he says, 'is a truly royal schoolmaster. He does not, like the monks, forbid the young to go into the world and be happy. Even as Anselm said: "A young man turned aside from the world is like a young tree made to grow in a vase." The monks have imprisoned young men like birds in their cage. It is dangerous to isolate the young.' … Do not let ourselves imagine, however, that Luther at once exercised a decisive influence on the current education of his day. A few schools were founded, called writing schools; but the Thirty Years' War, and other events, interrupted the movement of which Luther has the honor of having been the originator. … In the first half of the seventeenth century, Ratich, a German, and Comenius, a Slave, were, with very different degrees of merit, the heirs of the educational thought of Luther. With something of the charlatan and the demagogue, Ratich devoted his life to propagating a novel art of teaching, which be called didactics, and to which he attributed marvels. He pretended, by his method of languages, to teach Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, in six months. But nevertheless, out of many strange performances and lofty promises, there issue some thoughts of practical value. The first merit of Ratich was to give the mother tongue, the German language, the precedence over the ancient languages."

G. Compayré, The History of Pedagogy, chapter 6 (sections 130-134).

EDUCATION: Netherlands.

"When learning began to revive after the long sleep of the Middle Ages, Italy experienced the first impulse. Next came Germany and the contiguous provinces of the Low Countries. The force of the movement in these regions is shown by an event of great importance, not always noticed by historians. In 1400, there was established at Deventer, in the northeastern province of the Netherlands, an association or brotherhood, usually called Brethren of the Life in Common [see BRETHREN OF THE COMMON LOT]. In their strict lives, partial community of goods, industry in manual labor, fervent devotion, and tendency to mysticism, they bore some resemblance to the modern Moravians. But they were strikingly distinguished from the members of this sect by their earnest cultivation of knowledge, which was encouraged among themselves and promoted among others by schools, both for primary and advanced education. In 1430, the Brethren had established forty-five branches, and by 1460 more than thrice that number. They were scattered through different parts of Germany and the Low Countries, each with its school subordinate to the head college at Deventer. It was in these schools, in the middle of the fifteenth century, that a few Germans and Netherlanders were, as Hallam says, roused to acquire that extensive knowledge of the ancient languages which Italy as yet exclusively possessed. Their names should never be omitted in any remembrance of the revival of letters; for great was their influence upon subsequent times. Chief among these men were Wessels, of Groningen, 'one of those who contributed most steadily to the purification of religion'; Hegius of Deventer, under whom Erasmus obtained his early education, and who probably was the first man to print Greek north of the Alps; Dringeberg, who founded a good school in Alsace; and Longius, who presided over one at Munster. Thanks to the influence of these pioneers in learning, education had made great progress among the Netherlanders by the middle of the sixteenth century. … We have the testimony of the Italian Guicciardini to the fact that before the outbreak of the war with Spain even the peasants in Holland could read and write well. As the war went on, the people showed their determination that in this matter there should be no retrogression. In the first Synod of Dort, held in 1574, the clergy expressed their opinion upon the subject by passing a resolution or ordinance which, among other things, directed 'the servants of the Church' to obtain from the magistrates in every locality a permission for the appointment of schoolmasters, and an order for their compensation as in the past. {706} Before many years had elapsed the civil authorities began to establish a general school system for the country. In 1582, the Estates of Friesland decreed that the inhabitants of towns and villages should, within the space of six weeks, provide good and able Reformed schoolmasters, and those who neglected so to do would be compelled to accept the instructors appointed for them. This seems to have been the beginning of the supervision of education by the State, a system which soon spread over the whole republic. In these schools, however, although they were fostered by the State, the teachers seem, in the main, to have been paid by their pupils. But as years went on, a change came about in this part of the system. It probably was aided by the noteworthy letter which John of Nassau, the oldest brother of William the Silent, the noble veteran who lived until 1606, wrote to his son Lewis William, Stadtholder of Friesland. In this letter, which is worthy of a place on the walls of every schoolhouse in America, the gallant young stadt-holder is instructed to urge on the States-General 'that they, according to the example of the pope and Jesuits, should establish free schools, where children of quality as well as of poor families, for a very small sum, could be well and christianly educated and brought up. This would be the greatest and most useful work, and the highest service that you could ever accomplish for God and Christianity, and especially for the Netherlands themselves. … In summa, one may jeer at this as popish trickery, and undervalue it as one will: there still remains in the work an inexpressible benefit. Soldiers and patriots thus educated, with a true knowledge of God and a Christian conscience, item, churches and schools, good libraries, books, and printing-presses, are better than all armies, arsenals, armories, munitions, alliances, and treaties that can be had or imagined in the world.' Such were the words in which the Patriarch of the Nassaus urged upon his countrymen a common-school system. In 1609, when the Pilgrim Fathers took up their residence in Leyden, the school had become the common property of the people, and was paid for among other municipal expenses. It was a land of schools supported by the State—a land, according to Motley, 'where every child went to school, where almost every individual inhabitant could write and read, where even the middle classes were proficient in mathematics and the classics, and could speak two or more modern languages.' Does any reader now ask whence the settlers of Plymouth, who came directly from Holland, and the other settlers of New England whose Puritan brethren were to be found in thousands throughout the Dutch Republic, derived their ideas of schools first directed, and then supported by the State."

EDUCATION: Leyden University.

To commemorate the deliverance of Leyden from the Spanish siege in 1574 (see NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1573-1574), "and as a reward for the heroism of the citizens, the Prince of Orange, with the consent of the Estates of the province, founded the University of Leyden. Still, the figment of allegiance remained; the people were only fighting for their constitutional rights, and so were doing their duty to the sovereign. Hence the charter of the university ran in the name of Philip, who was credited with its foundation, as a reward to his subjects for their rebellion against his evil counsellors and servants, 'especially in consideration of the differences of religion, and the great burdens and hardships borne by the citizens of our city of Leyden during the war with such faithfulness.' Motley calls this 'ponderous irony,' but the Hollanders were able lawyers and intended to build on a legal basis. This event marks an epoch in the intellectual history of Holland and of the world. … The new university was opened in 1575, and from the outset took the highest rank. Speaking, a few years ago, of its famous senate chamber, Niebuhr called it 'the most memorable room of Europe in the history of learning.' The first curator was John Van der Does, who had been military commandant of the city during the siege. He was of a distinguished family, but was still more distinguished for his learning, his poetical genius, and his valor. Endowed with ample funds, the university largely owed its marked pre-eminence to the intelligent foresight and wise munificence of its curators. They sought out and obtained the most distinguished scholars of all nations, and to this end spared neither pains nor expense. Diplomatic negotiation and even princely mediation were often called in for the acquisition of a professor. Hence it was said that it surpassed all the universities of Europe in the number of its scholars of renown. These scholars were treated with princely honors. … The 'mechanicals' of Holland, as Elizabeth called them, may not have paid the accustomed worship to rank, but to genius and learning they were always willing to do homage. Space would fail for even a brief account of the great men, foreign and native, who illuminated Leyden with their presence. … But it was not alone in scholarship and in scientific research that the University of Leyden gave an impetus to modern thought. Theological disputes were developed there at times, little tempests which threatened destruction to the institution, but they were of short duration. The right of conscience was always respected, and in the main the right of full and public discussion. … When it was settled that dissenters could not be educated in the English universities, they flocked to Leyden in great numbers, making that city, next to Edinburgh, their chief resort. Eleven years after the opening of the University of Leyden, the Estates of democratic Friesland, amid the din of war, founded the University of Franeker, an institution which was to become famous as the home of Arminius. … Both of these universities were perpetually endowed with the proceeds of the ecclesiastical property which had been confiscated during the progress of the war."

D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England, and America, chapters 2, 20, and 3.

EDUCATION: England.

"In contemplating the events of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in their influence on English civilisation, we are reminded once more of the futility of certain modern aspirations. No amount of University Commissions, nor of well-meant reforms, will change the nature of Englishmen. It is impossible, by distributions of University prizes and professorships, to attract into the career of letters that proportion of industry and ingenuity which, in Germany for example, is devoted to the scholastic life. {707} Politics, trade, law, sport, religion, will claim their own in England, just as they did at the Revival of Letters. The illustrious century which Italy employed in unburying, appropriating, and enjoying the treasures of Greek literature and art, our fathers gave, in England, to dynastic and constitutional squabbles, and to religious broils. The Renaissance in England, and chiefly in Oxford, was like a bitter and changeful spring. There was an hour of genial warmth, there breathed a wind from the south, in the lifetime of Chaucer; then came frosts and storms; again the brief sunshine of court favour shone on literature for a while, when Henry VIII. encouraged study, and Wolsey and Fox founded Christ Church and Corpus Christi College, once more the bad days of religious strife returned, and the promise of learning was destroyed. Thus the chief result of the awakening thought of the fourteenth century in England was not a lively delight in literature, but the appearance of the Lollards. The intensely practical genius of our race turned, not to letters, but to questions about the soul and its future, about property and its distribution. The Lollards were put down in Oxford; 'the tares were weeded out' by the House of Lancaster, and in the process the germs of free thought, of originality, and of a rational education, were destroyed. 'Wyclevism did domineer among us,' says Wood; and, in fact, the intellect of the University was absorbed, like the intellect of France during the heat of the Jansenist controversy, in defending or assailing '267 damned conclusions,' drawn from the books of Wyclife. The University 'lost many of her children through the profession of Wyclevism.'"

A. Lang, Oxford, chapter 3.

EDUCATION: Colet and St. Paul's School.

Dr. John Colet, appointed Dean of St. Paul's in 1505, "resolved, whilst living and in health, to devote his patrimony to the foundation of a school in St. Paul's Churchyard, wherein 153 children, without any restriction as to nation or country, who could already read and write, and were of 'good parts and capacities,' should receive a sound Christian education. The 'Latin adulterate, which ignorant blind fools brought into this world,' poisoning thereby 'the old Latin speech, and the very Roman tongue used in the time of Tully and Sallust, and Virgil and Terence, and learned by St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine,'—all that 'abusion which the later blind world brought in, and which may rather be called Blotterature than Literature,'—should be 'utterly abanished and excluded' out of this school. The children should be taught good literature, both Latin and Greek, 'such authors that have with wisdom joined pure chaste eloquence'—'specially Christian authors who wrote their wisdom in clean and chaste Latin, whether in prose or verse; for,' said Colet, 'my intent is by this school specially to increase knowledge, and worshipping of God and Our Lord Jesus Christ, and good Christian life and manners in the children.' … The building consisted of one large room, divided into an upper and lower school by a curtain, which could be drawn at pleasure; and the charge of the two schools devolved upon a high-master and a sub-master respectively. The forms were arranged so as each to seat sixteen boys, and were provided each with a raised desk, at which the head-boy sat as president. The building also embraced an entrance-porch and a little chapel for divine service. Dwelling-houses were erected, adjoining the school, for the residence of the two masters; and for their support, Colet obtained, in the spring of 1510, a royal license to transfer to the Wardens and Guild of Mercers in London, real property to the value of £53 per annum (equivalent to at least £530 of present money). Of this the head-master was to receive as his salary £35 (say £350) and the under-master £18 (say £180) per annum. Three or four years after, Colet made provision for a chaplain to conduct divine service in the chapel, and to instruct the children in the Catechism, the Articles of the faith, and the Ten Commandments,—in English; and ultimately, before his death, he appears to have increased the amount of the whole endowment to £122 (say £1,200) per annum. So that it, may be considered, roughly, that the whole endowment, including the buildings, cannot have represented a less sum than £30,000 or £40,000 of present money. And if Colet thus sacrificed so much of his private fortune to secure a liberal (and it must be conceded his was a liberal) provision for the remuneration of the masters who should educate his 153 boys, he must surely have had deeply at heart the welfare of the boys themselves. And, in truth, it was so. Colet was like a father to his schoolboys. … It was not to be expected that he should find the school-books of the old grammarians in any way adapted to his purpose. So at once he set his learned friends to work to provide him with new ones. The first thing wanted was a Latin Grammar for beginners. Linacre undertook to provide this want, and wrote with great pains and labour, a work in six books, which afterwards came into general use. But when Colet saw it, at the risk of displeasing his friend, he put it altogether aside. It was too long and too learned for his 'little beginners.' So he condensed within the compass of a few pages two little treatises, an 'Accidence' and a 'Syntax,' in the preface to the first of which occur the gentle words quoted above. These little books, after receiving additions from the hands of Erasmus, Lilly, and others, finally became generally adopted and known as Lilly's Grammar. This rejection of his Grammar seems to have been a sore point with Linacre, but Erasmus told Colet not to be too much concerned about it. … Erasmus, in the same letter in which he spoke of Linacre's rejected Grammar … put on paper his notions of what a schoolmaster ought to be, and the best method of teaching boys, which he fancied Colet might not altogether approve, as he was wont somewhat more to despise rhetoric than Erasmus did. He stated his opinion that—'In order that the teacher might be thoroughly up to his work, he should not merely be a master of one particular branch of study. He should himself have travelled through the whole circle of knowledge. In philosophy he should have studied Plato and Aristotle, Theophrastus and Plotinus; in Theology the Sacred Scriptures, and after them Origen, Chrysostom, and Basil among the Greek fathers, and Ambrose and Jerome among the Latin fathers; among the poets, Homer and Ovid; in geography, which is very important in the study of history, Pomponins Mela, Ptolemy, Pliny, Strabo. He should know what ancient names of rivers, mountains, countries, cities, answer to the modern ones; and the same of trees, animals, instruments, clothes, and, gems, with regard to which it is incredible how ignorant even educated men are. {708} He should take note of little facts about agriculture, architecture, military and culinary arts, mentioned by different authors. He should be able to trace the origin of words, their gradual corruption in the languages of Constantinople, Italy, Spain, and France. Nothing should be beneath his observation which can illustrate history or the meaning of the poets. But you will say what a load you are putting on the back of the poor teacher! It is so; but I burden the one to relieve the many. I want the teacher to have traversed the whole range of knowledge, that it may spare each of his scholars doing it. A diligent and thoroughly competent master might give boys a fair proficiency in both Latin and Greek, in a shorter time and with less labour than the common run of pedagogues take to teach their babble.' On receipt of this … Colet wrote to Erasmus: … '"What! I shall not approve!" So you say! What is there of Erasmus's that I do not approve?'"

F. Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers, chapter 6.

EDUCATION: Ascham and "The Scholemaster."

Roger Ascham, the friend of Lady Jane Grey and the tutor of Queen Elizabeth, was born in 1515, and died in 1568. "It was partly with the view to the instruction of his own children, that he commenced the 'Schole-master,' the work by which he is most and best known, to which he did not live to set the last hand. He communicated the design and import of the book in a letter to Sturmius, in which he states, that not being able to leave his sons a large fortune, he was resolved to provide them with a preceptor, not one to be hired for a great sum of money, but marked out at home with a homely pen. In the same letter he gives his reasons for employing the English language, the capabilities of which he clearly perceived and candidly acknowledged, a high virtue for a man of that age, who perhaps could have written Latin to his own satisfaction much more easily than his native tongue. But though the benefit of his own offspring might be his ultimate object, the immediate occasion of the work was a conversation at Cecil's, at which Sir Richard Sackville expressed great indignation at the severities practiced at Eton and other great schools, so that boys actually ran away for fear of merciless flagellation. This led to the general subject of school discipline, and the defects in the then established modes of tuition. Ascham coinciding with the sentiments of the company, and proceeding to explain his own views of improvement, Sackville requested him to commit his opinions to paper and the 'Schole-master' was the result. It was not published till 1670. … We … quote a few passages, which throw light upon the author's good sense and good nature. To all violent coercion, and extreme punishment, he was decidedly opposed:—'I do agree,' says he, 'with all good school-masters in all these points, to have children brought to good perfectness in learning, to all honesty in manners; to have all faults rightly amended, and every vice severely corrected, but for the order and way that leadeth rightly to these points, we somewhat differ.' 'Love is better than fear, gentleness than beating, to bring up a child rightly in learning.' 'I do assure you there is no such whetstone to sharpen a good wit, and encourage a will to learning, as is praise.'… 'The scholar is commonly beat for the making, when the master were more worthy to be beat for the mending, or rather marring, of the same; the master many times being as ignorant as the child what to say properly and fitly to the matter.' … This will I say, that even the wisest of your great beaters do as oft punish nature as they do correct faults. Yea many times the better nature is the sorer punished. For if one by quickness of wit take his lesson readily, another by hardness of wit taketh it not so speedily; the first is always commended, the other is commonly punished, when a wise school-master should rather discreetly consider the right disposition of both their natures, and not so much weigh what either of them is able to do, as what either of them is likely to do hereafter. For this I know, not only by reading of books in my study, but also by experience of life abroad in the world, that those which be commonly the wisest, the best learned, and best men also, when they be old, were never commonly the quickest of wit when they were young. Quick wits commonly be apt to take, unapt to keep. Some are more quick to enter speedily than be able to pierce far, even like unto oversharp tools, whose edges be very soon turned.'"

H. Coleridge, Biographia Borealis, pages 328-330.

EDUCATION: Jesuit Teaching and Schools.

"The education of youth is set forth in the Formula of Approval granted by Paul III. in 1540," to the plans of Ignatius Loyola for the foundation of the Society of Jesus, "as the first duty embraced by the new Institute. … Although the new religious were not at once able to begin the establishment of colleges, yet the plan of those afterwards founded, was gradually ripening in the sagacious mind of St. Ignatius, who looked to these institutions as calculated to oppose the surest bulwarks against the progress of heresy. The first regular college of the Society was that established at Gandia in 1546, through the zeal of St. Francis Borgia, third General of the Society; and the regulations by which it was governed, and which were embodied in the constitutions, were extended to all the Jesuit colleges afterwards founded. The studies were to include theology, both positive and scholastic, as well as grammar, poetry, rhetoric, and philosophy. The course of philosophy was to last three years, that of theology four; and the Professors of Philosophy were enjoined to treat their subject in such a way as to dispose the mind for the study of theology, instead of setting up faith and reason in opposition to one another. The theology of St. Thomas, and the philosophy of Aristotle, were to be followed, except on those points where the teaching of the latter was opposed to the Catholic faith."

A. T. Drane, Christian Schools and Scholars, page 708.

"As early as the middle of the sixteenth century … [the Society of Jesus] had several colleges in France, particularly those of Billom, Mauriac, Rodez, Tournon, and Pamiers. In 1561 it secured a footing in Paris, notwithstanding the resistance of the Parliament, of the university, and of the bishops themselves. A hundred years later it counted nearly fourteen thousand pupils in the province of Paris alone. The college of Clermont, in 1651, enrolled more than two thousand young men. The middle and higher classes assured to the colleges of the society an ever-increasing membership. {709} At the end of the seventeenth century, the Jesuits could inscribe on the roll of honor of their classes a hundred illustrious names, among others those of Condé and Luxembourg, Fléchier and Bossuet, Lamoignon and Séguier, Descartes, Comeille, and Moliere. In 1710 they controlled six hundred and twelve colleges and a large number of universities. They were the real masters of education, and they maintained this educational supremacy till the end of the eighteenth century. Voltaire said of these teachers: 'The Fathers taught me nothing but Latin and nonsense.' But from the seventeenth century, opinions are divided, and the encomiums of Bacon and Descartes must be offset by the severe judgment of Leibnitz. 'In the matter of education, says this great philosopher, 'the Jesuits have remained below mediocrity.' Directly to the contrary, Bacon had written: 'As to whatever relates to the instruction of the young, we must consult the schools of the Jesuits, for there can be nothing that is better done.' … A permanent and characteristic feature of the educational policy of the Jesuits is, that, during the whole course of their history, they have deliberately neglected and disdained primary instruction. The earth is covered with their Latin colleges; and wherever they have been able, they have put their hands on the institutions for university education; but in no instance have they founded a primary school. Even in their establishment for secondary instruction, they entrust the lower classes to teachers who do not belong to their order, and reserve to themselves the direction of the higher classes."

G. Compayré, History of Pedagogy, pages 141-143.

See, also, JESUITS: A. D. 1540-1556.

"The Jesuits owed their success partly to the very narrow task which they set themselves, little beyond the teaching of Latin style, and partly to the careful training which they gave their students, a training which often degenerated into mere mechanical exercise. But the mainspring of their influence was the manner in which they worked the dangerous force of emulation. Those pupils who were most distinguished at the end of each month received the rank of prætor, censor, and decurion. The class was divided into two parts, called Romans and Carthaginians, Greeks and Trojans. The students sat opposite each other, the master in the middle, the walls were hung with swords, spears and shields which the contending parties carried off in triumph as the prize of victory. These pupils' contests wasted a great deal of time. The Jesuits established public school festivals, at which the pupils might be exhibited, and the parents flattered. They made their own school books, in which the requirements of good teaching were not so important as the religious objects of the order. They preferred extracts to whole authors; if they could not prune the classics to their fancy they would not read them at all. What judgment are we to pass on the Jesuit teaching as a whole? It deserves praise on two accounts. First, it maintained the dignity of literature in an age which was too liable to be influenced by considerations of practical utility. It maintained the study of Greek in France at a higher level than the University, and resisted the assaults of ignorant parents on the fortress of Hellenism. Secondly, it seriously set itself to understand the nature and character of the individual pupil, and to suit the manner of education to the mind that was to receive it. Whatever may have been the motives of Jesuits in gaining the affections, and securing the devotion of the children under their charge; whether their desire was to develop the individuality which they probed, or to destroy it in its germ, and plant a new nature in its place; it must be admitted that the loving care which they spent upon their charge was a new departure in education, and has become a part of every reasonable system since their time. Here our praise must end. … They amused the mind instead of strengthening it. They occupied in frivolities such as Latin verses the years which they feared might otherwise be given to reasoning and the acquisition of solid knowledge. … Celebrated as the Jesuit schools have been, they have owed much more to the fashion which filled them with promising scholars, than to their own excellence in dealing with their material. … They have never stood the test of modern criticism. They have no place in a rational system of modern education."

O. Browning, Introduction to the History of Educational Theories, chapter 8.

EDUCATION: Modern: European Countries. Austria.

"The annual appropriations passed by Parliament allow the minister of public instruction $8,307,774 for all kinds of public educational institutions, elementary and secondary schools, universities, technical and art schools, museums, and philanthropic institutions. Generally, this principle is adhered to by the state, to subsidize the highest institutions of learning most liberally, to share the cost of maintaining secondary schools with church and community, and to leave the burden of maintaining elementary schools almost entirely to the local or communal authorities. … In the Austrian public schools no distinctions are made with the pupils as regards their religious confessions. The schools are open to all, and are therefore common schools in the sense in which that term is employed with us. In Prussia it is the policy of the Government to separate the pupils of different religious confessions in … elementary, but not to separate them in secondary schools. In Austria and Hungary, special teachers of religion for the elementary and secondary schools are employed; in Prussia this is done only in secondary schools, while religion is taught by the secular teachers in elementary schools. This is a very vital difference, and shows how much nearer the Austrian schools have come to our ideal of a common school."

United States Commissioner of Education, Report, 1889-90, pages 465-466.

EDUCATION: Modern: European Countries. Belgium.

"The treaty of Paris, of March 30, 1814, fixed the boundaries of the Netherlands, and united Holland and Belgium. In these new circumstances, the system of public instruction became the subject of much difficulty between the Calvinists of the northern provinces and the Catholics of the southern. The government therefore undertook itself to manage the organization of the system of instruction in its three grades. … William I. desired to free the Belgians from French influence, and with this object adopted the injudicious measure of attempting to force the Dutch language upon them. He also endeavored to familiarize them with Protestant ideas, and to this end determined to get the care of religious instruction exclusively into the hands of the state. But the clergy were energetic in asserting their rights; the boldness of the Belgian deputies to the States-General increased daily; and the project for a system of public and private instruction which was laid before the second chamber on the 26th November, 1829, was very unfavorably received by the Catholics. The government very honorably confessed its error by repealing the obnoxious ordinances of 1825. But it was too late, and the Belgian provinces were lost to Holland. On the 12th October, 1830, the provisory government repealed all laws restricting the freedom of instruction, and the present system, in which liberty of instruction and governmental aid and supervision are recognized, commenced."

Public Instruction in Belgium (Barnard's American Journal of Education, volume 8, pages 582-583).

{710}

EDUCATION: Modern: European Countries. Denmark.

"Denmark has long been noted for the excellence of her schools. … The perfection and extension of the system of popular instruction date from the beginning of the eighteenth century, when Bishop Thestrup, of Aalberg, caused 6 parish schools to be established in Copenhagen and when King Frederick IV. (1699-1730) had 240 school-houses built. … Christian VI. (17301746), … ordained in 1739 the establishment of common or parish schools in every town and in every larger village. The branches of instruction were to be religion, reading, writing, and arithmetic. No one was to be allowed to teach unless he had shown himself qualified to the satisfaction of the clergyman of the parish. …. Many difficulties, however (especially the objections of the landed proprietors, who had their own schools on their estates), hindered the free development of the common school system, and it was not until 1814 that a new and more favorable era was inaugurated by the law of July 29 of that year. According to this law the general control of the schools is in the hands of a minister of public instruction and subordinate superintendents for the several departments of the kingdom."

Education in Denmark (United States Bureau of Education, Circulars of Information, 1877, no. 2), pages 40-41.

"With a population in 1890 of 2,185,157, the pupils enrolled in city and rural schools in Denmark numbered 231,940, or about 10 per cent. of the population receiving the foundation of an education. In 1881 the illiterates to 100 recruits numbered 0.36; in Sweden at that date, the per cent. was 0.39."

United States Commissioner of Education, Report, 1889-90, page 523.

EDUCATION: Modern: European Countries. England: Oxford and Cambridge.

"Oxford and Cambridge, as establishments for education, consist of two parts—of the University proper, and of the Colleges. The former, original and essential, is founded, controlled, and privileged by public authority, for the advantage of the nation. The latter, accessory and contingent, are created, regulated, and endowed by private munificence, for the interest of certain favored individuals. Time was, when the Colleges did not exist, and the University was there; and were the Colleges again abolished, the University would remain entire. The former, founded solely for education, exists only as it accomplishes the end of its institution; the latter, founded principally for aliment and habitation, would still exist, were all education abandoned within their walls. The University, as a national establishment, is necessarily open to the lieges in general; the Colleges, as private institutions, might universally do, as some have actually done—close their gates upon all, except their foundation members. The Universities and Colleges are thus neither identical, nor vicarious of each other. If the University ceases to perform its functions, it ceases to exist; and the privileges accorded by the nation to the system of public education legally organized in the University, can not, without the consent of the nation—far less without the consent of the academical legislature—be lawfully transferred to the system of private education precariously organized in the Colleges, and over which neither the State nor the University have any control. They have, however, been unlawfully usurped. Through the suspension of the University, and the usurpation of its functions and privileges by the Collegial bodies, there has arisen the second of two systems, diametrically opposite to each other.—The one, in which the University was paramount, is ancient and statutory; the other, in which the Colleges have the ascendant, is recent and illegal.—In the former, all was subservient to public utility, and the interests of science; in the latter, all is sacrificed to private monopoly, and to the convenience of the teacher. … In the original constitution of Oxford, as in that of all the older Universities of the Parisian model, the business of instruction was not confided to a special body of privileged professors. The University was governed, the University was taught, by the graduates at large. Professor, Master, Doctor, were originally synonymous. Every graduate had an equal right of teaching publicly in the University the subjects competent to his faculty, and to the rank of his degree; nay, every graduate incurred the obligation of teaching publicly, for a certain period, the subjects of his faculty, for such was the condition involved in the grant of the degree itself."

Sir William Hamilton, Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, etc.: Education, chapter 4.

EDUCATION: Modern: European Countries. England: The "Great Public Schools."

What is a public school in England? "The question is one of considerable difficulty. To some extent, however, the answer has been furnished by the Royal Commission appointed in 1861 to inquire into the nature and application of the endowments and revenues, and into the administration and management of certain specified colleges and schools commonly known as the Public Schools Commission. Nine are named in the Queen's letter of appointment, viz., Eton, Winchester, Westminster, the Charterhouse, St. Paul's, Merchant Taylors', Harrow, Rugby, and Shrewsbury. The reasons probably which suggested this selection were, that the nine named foundations had in the course of centuries emerged from the mass of endowed grammar-schools, and had made for themselves a position which justified their being placed in a distinct category, and classed as 'public schools.' It will be seen as we proceed that all these nine have certain features in common, distinguishing them from the ordinary grammar-schools which exist in almost every country town in England. Many of these latter are now waking up to the requirements of the new time and following the example of their more illustrious sisters. The most notable examples of this revival are such schools as those at Sherborne, Giggleswick, and Tunbridge Wells, which, while remodelling themselves on the lines laid down by the Public Schools Commissioners, are to some extent providing a training more adapted to the means and requirements of our middle classes in the nineteenth century than can be found at any of the nine public schools. {711} But twenty years ago the movement which has since made such astonishing progress was scarcely felt in quiet country places like these, and the old endowments were allowed to run to waste in a fashion which is now scarcely credible. The same impulse which has put new life into the endowed grammar-schools throughout England has worked even more remarkably in another direction. The Victorian age bids fair to rival the Elizabethan in the number and importance of the new schools which it has founded and will hand on to the coming generation. Marlborough, Haileybury, Uppingham, Rossall, Clifton, Cheltenham, Radley, Malvern, and Wellington College, are nine schools which have taken their place in the first rank. … In order, then, to get clear ideas on the general question, we must keep these three classes of schools in mind—the nine old foundations recognized in the first instance by the Royal Commission of 1861; the old foundations which have remained local grammar-schools until within the last few years, but are now enlarging their bounds, conforming more or less to the public-school system, and becoming national institutions; and, lastly, the modern foundations which started from the first as public schools, professing to adapt themselves to the new circumstances and requirements of modern English life. The public schools of England fall under one or other of these categories. … We may now turn to the historic side of the question, dealing first, as is due to their importance, with the nine schools of our first category. The oldest, and in some respects most famous of these, is Winchester School, or, as it was named by its founder William of Wykeham, the College of St. Mary of Winchester, founded in 1382. Its constitution still retains much of the impress left on it by the great Bishop of the greatest Plantagenet King, five centuries ago. Toward the end of the fourteenth century Oxford was already the center of English education, but from the want of grammar-schools boys went up by hundreds untaught in the simplest rudiments of learning, and when there lived in private hostels or lodging-houses, in a vast throng, under no discipline, and exposed to many hardships and temptations. In view of this state of things, William of Wykeham founded his grammar-school at Winchester and his college at Oxford, binding the two together, so that the school might send up properly trained scholars to the university, where they would be received at New College, in a suitable academical home, which should in its turn furnish governors and masters for the school. … Next in date comes the royal foundation of Eton, or 'The College of the Blessed Mary of Eton, near Windsor.' It was founded by Henry VI., A. D. 1446, upon the model of Winchester, with a collegiate establishment of a provost, ten fellows (reduced to seven in the reign of Edward IV.), seventy scholars, and ten chaplains (now reduced to two; who are called 'conducts'), and a head and lower master, ten lay clerks, and twelve choristers. The provost and fellows are the governing body, who appoint the head master. … Around this center the great school, numbering now a thousand boys, has gathered, the college, however, still retaining its own separate organization and traditions. Besides the splendid buildings and playing-fields at Eton, the college holds real property of the yearly value of upward of £20,000, and forty' livings ranging from £100 to £1,200 of yearly value. … The school next in date stands out in sharp contrast to Winchester and Eton. It is St. Paul's School, founded by Dean Colet. … Shrewsbury School, which follows next in order of seniority, claims a royal foundation, but is in reality the true child of the town's folk. The dissolution of the monasteries destroyed also the seminaries attached to many of them, to the great injury of popular education. This was specially the case in Shropshire, so in 1551 the bailiffs, burgesses, and inhabitants of Shrewsbury and the neighborhood petitioned Edward VI. for a grant of some portion of the estates of the dissolved collegiate churches for the purpose of founding a free school. The King consented, and granted to the petitioners the appropriated tithes of several livings and a charter, but died before the school was organized. It was in abeyance during Mary's reign, but opened in the fourth year of Elizabeth, 1562, by Thomas Aston. … We have now reached the great group of Elizabethan schools, to which indeed Shrewsbury may also be said to belong, as it was not opened until the Queen had been three years on the throne. The two metropolitan schools of Westminster and Merchant Taylors' were in fact founded in 1560, two years before the opening of Shrewsbury. Westminster as a royal foundation must take precedence. It is a grammar-school attached by the Queen to the collegiate church of St. Peter, commonly called Westminster Abbey, and founded for the free education of forty scholars in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. The Queen, with characteristic thriftiness, provided no endowment for her school, leaving the cost of maintenance as a charge on the general revenues of the dean and chapter, which indeed were, then as now, fully competent to sustain the burden. … Merchant Taylors', the other metropolitan school founded in 1560, owes its origin to Sir Thomas White, a member of the Court of Assistants of the company, and founder of St. John's College, Oxford. It was probably his promise to connect the school with his college which induced the Company to undertake the task. … Sir Thomas White redeemed his promise by endowing the school with thirty-seven fellowships at St. John's College. … Rugby, or the free school of Lawrence Sheriff, follows next in order, having been founded in 1567 by Lawrence Sheriff, grocer, and citizen of London. His 'intent' (as the document expressing his wishes is called) declares that his lands in Rugby and Brownsover, and his 'third of a pasture-ground in Gray's Inn Fields, called Conduit Close,' shall be applied to maintain a free grammar school for the children of Rugby and Brownsover, and the places adjoining, and four poor almsmen of the same parishes. These estates, after providing a fair schoolhouse and residences for the master and almsmen, at first produced a rental of only £24 13s. 4d. In due time, however, Conduit Close became a part of central London, and Rugby School the owner of eight acres of houses in and about the present Lamb's Conduit Street. The income of the whole trust property amounts now to about £6,000, of which £255 is expended on the maintenance of the twelve almsmen. … Harrow School was founded in 1571, four years later than Rugby, by John Lyon, a yeoman of the parish. {712} He was owner of certain small estates in and about Harrow and Barnet, and of others at Paddington and Kilburn. All these he devoted to public purposes, but unfortunately gave the former for the perpetual education of the children and youth of the parish, and the latter for the maintenance and repair of the highways from Harrow and Edgeware to London. The present yearly revenue of the school estates is barely over £1,000, while that of the highway trust is nearly £4,000. But, though the poorest in endowments, Harrow, from its nearness to London, and consequent attractions for the classes who spend a large portion of their year in the metropolis either in attendance in Parliament, or for pleasure, has become the rival of Eton as a fashionable school. … Last on the list of the nine schools comes the Charterhouse (the Whitefriars of Thackeray's novels). It may be fairly classed with the Elizabethan schools, though actually founded in 1609, after the accession of James I. In that year a substantial yeoman, Thomas Sutton by name, purchased from Lord Suffolk the lately dissolved Charterhouse, by Smithfield, and obtained letters patent empowering him to found a hospital and school on the old site."

T. Hughes, The Public Schools of England (North American Review, April, 1879).

EDUCATION: England Fagging.

"In rougher days it was found, that in large schools the stronger and larger boys reduced the smaller and weaker to the condition of Helots. Here the authorities stepped in, and despairing of eradicating the evil, took the power which mere strength had won, and conferred it upon the seniors of the school—the members, that is, of the highest form or forms. As in those days, promotion was pretty much a matter of rotation, everyone who remained his full time at the school, was pretty sure to reach in time the dominant class, and the humblest fag looked forward to the day when he would join the ranks of the ruling aristocracy. Meantime he was no longer at the beck of any stronger or ruder classfellow. His 'master' was in theory, and often in practice, his best protector: he imposed upon him very likely what may be called menial offices—made him carry home his 'Musæ'—field for him at cricket—brush his coat; if we are to believe school myths and traditions, black his shoes, and even take the chill off his sheets. The boy, how-ever, saw the son of a Howard or a Percy similarly employed by his side, and in cheerfully submitting to an ancient custom, he was but following out the tendencies of the age and class to which he belonged. … The mere abolition of the right of fagging, vague and undefined as were the duties attached to it, would have been a loss rather than a gain to the oppressed as a class. It would merely have substituted for the existing law, imperfect and anomalous as that law might be, the licence of brute force and the dominion of boyish truculence. … Such was, more or less, the state of things when he to whom English education owes so incalculable a debt, was placed at the head of Rugby School. … It was hoped that he who braved the anger of his order by his pamphlet on Church Reform—at whose bold and uncompromising language bishops stood aghast and courtly nobles remonstrated in vain—would make short work of ancient saws and mediæval traditions—that a revolution in school life was at hand. And they were not mistaken. … What he did was to seize on the really valuable part of the existing system—to inspire it with that new life, and those loftier purposes, without which mere institutions, great or small, must, sooner or later, wither away and perish. His first step was to effect an important change in the actual machinery of the school—one which, in itself, amounted to a revolution. The highest form in the school was no longer open to all whom a routine promotion might raise in course of time to its level. Industry and talent as tested by careful examinations (in the additional labour of which he himself bore the heaviest burden), were the only qualifications recognised. The new-modelled 'sixth form' were told, that the privileges and powers which their predecessors had enjoyed for ages were not to be wrested from them; but that they were to be held for the common good, as the badges and instruments of duties and responsibilities, such as anyone with less confidence in those whom he addressed would have hesitated to impose. They were told plainly that without their co-operation there was no hope of keeping in check the evils inherent in a society of boys. Tyranny, falsehood, drinking, party-spirit, coarseness, selfishness—the evil spirits that infest schools—these they heard Sunday after Sunday put in their true light by a majestic voice and a manly presence, with words, accents, and manner which would live in their memory for years; but they were warned that, to exercise such spirits, something more was needed than the watchfulness of masters and the energy of their chief. They themselves must use their large powers, entrusted to them in recognition of the principle, or rather of the fact, that in a large society of boys some must of necessity hold sway, to keep down, in themselves and those about them, principles and practices which are ever ready, like hideous weeds, to choke the growth of all that is fair and noble in such institutions. Dr. Arnold persevered in spite of opposition, obloquy, and misrepresentation. … But he firmly established his system, and his successors, men differing in training and temperament from himself and from each other, have agreed in cordially sustaining it. His pupils and theirs, men in very different walks of life, filling honourable posts at the universities and public schools, or ruling the millions of India, or working among the blind and toiling multitudes of our great towns, feel daily how much of their usefulness and power they owe to the sense of high trust and high duty which they imbibed at school."

Our Public Schools—Their Discipline and Instruction (Fraser's Magazine, volume 1, pages 407-409).

EDUCATION: England: A. D. 1699-1870. The rise of Elementary Schools.

"The recognition by the English State of its paramount duty in aiding the work of national education is scarcely more than a generation old. The recognition of the further and far more extensive work of supplementing by State aid, or by State agency, all deficiencies in the supply of schools, dates only thirteen years back [to 1870]; while the equally pressing duty of enforcing, by a universal law, the use of the opportunities of education thus supplied, is a matter almost of yesterday. The State has only slowly stepped into its proper place; more slowly in the case of England than in the case of any other of the leading European nations. … In 1699 the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge was founded, and by it various schools were established throughout the country. {713} In 1782 Robert Raikes established his first Sunday school, and in a few years the Union, of which he was the founder, had under its control schools scattered all over the country. But the most extensive efforts made for popular education were those of Andrew Bell and Joseph Lancaster towards the close of the eighteenth century. … They misconceived and misjudged the extent of the work that had to be accomplished. They became slaves to their system—that which was called the Monitorial system … and by elevating it to undue importance they did much to discredit the very work in which they were engaged. … Amongst the Nonconformist followers of Lancaster there arose the British and Foreign School Society; while by those of Bell there was established, on the side representing the Church, the National Society. The former became the recognised agency of the Dissenters, the latter of the Church; and through one or other of these channels State aid, when it first began to flow, was obliged to take its course. … In 1802 the first Sir Robert Peel passed a Bill which restricted children's labour in factories, and required that reading, writing, and arithmetic should be taught to them during a part of each day. This was the beginning of the factory legislation. … In 1807 Mr. Whitebread introduced a Bill for the establishment of parochial schools through the agency of local vestries, who were empowered to draw on the rates for the purpose. The House of Commons accepted the Bill, but it was thrown out in the House of Lords. … The movement for a State recognition of education was pressed more vigorously when the fears and troubles of European war were clearing away. It was in 1816 that Brougham obtained his Select Committee for Inquiring into the Education of the Poor in the Metropolis. … In 1820 Brougham introduced, on the basis of his previous inquiries, an Education Bill. … By this Bill the issue between the contending parties in the State, which was henceforward destined to be the chief stumbling-block in the way of a State education, was placed on a clear and well-defined basis. … The Church was alarmed at anything which seemed to trench upon what she naturally thought to be her appointed task. The Dissenters dreaded what might add to the impregnability of the Church's strongholds. … When the beginning was actually made it came … as an almost unnoticed proposal of the Executive. In 1832 the sum of £20,000 for public education was placed in the estimates; it was passed by the Committee of Supply; and the first step was taken on that course from which the State has never since drawn back. No legislation was necessary. … The next great step was taken in 1839, when the annual vote was increased from £20,000 to £30,000, and when a special department was created to supervise the work. Hitherto grants had been administered by the Treasury to meet a certain amount of local exertion, and in general reliance upon vague assurances as to maintenance of the schools by local promoters. … The conditions which were soon found to be necessary as securities, either for continuance or for efficiency, were not yet insisted upon. To do this it was necessary to have a Department specially devoted to this work; and the means adopted for creating such a Department was one which had the advantage of requiring no Act of Parliament. By an order in Council a Special Committee of the Privy Council was established, and, in connection with this Committee, a special staff of officers was engaged. The same year saw the appointment of the first inspectors of schools. It was thus that the Education Department was constituted. The plan which the advisers of the Government in this new attempt had most at heart was that of a Normal Training College for teachers. … But it was surrounded with so much matter for dispute, gathered during a generation of contention, that the proposal all but wrecked the Government of Lord Melbourne. The Church objected to the scheme. … In the year 1844, after five years of the new administration, it was possible to form some estimate, not only of the solid work accomplished, but of the prospects of the immediate future. … Between 1839 and 1844, under the action of the Committee of Council, £170,000 of Imperial funds had been distributed to meet £430,000 from local resources. In all, therefore, about one million had been spent in little more than ten years. What solid good had this accomplished? … According to a careful and elaborate report in the year 1845, only about one in six, even of the children at school, was found able to read the Scriptures with any ease. Even for these the power of reading often left them when they tried a secular book. Of reading with intelligence there was hardly any; and about one-half of the children who came to school left, it was calculated, unable to read. Only about one child in four had mastered, even in the most mechanical way, the art of writing. As regards arithmetic, not two per cent. of the children had advanced as far as the rule of three. … The teaching of the schools was in the hands of men who had scarcely any training, and who had often turned to the work because all other work had turned away from them. Under them it was conducted upon that monitorial system which was the inheritance from Dr. Bell, the rival of Lancaster. The pupils were set to teach one another. … The inquiries of the Committee of Council thus gave the death-blow, in public estimation, to the once highly-vaunted monitorial system. But how was it to be replaced? The model of a better state of things was found in the Dutch schools. There a selected number of the older pupils, who intended to enter upon the profession of teachers, were apprenticed, when they had reached the age of thirteen, to the teacher. … After their apprenticeship they passed to a Training College. … Accordingly, a new and important start was made by the Department on the 25th of August 1846. … In 1851 twenty-five Training Colleges had been established; and these had a sure supply of qualified recruits in the 6,000 pupil teachers who were by that time being trained to the work. … The ten years between 1842 and 1852 saw the Parliamentary grant raised from £40,000 to £160,000 a year, with the certainty of a still further increase as the augmentation grants to teachers and the stipends to pupil teachers grew in number. Nearly 3,800 schools had been built with Parliamentary aid, providing accommodation for no less than 540,000 children. The State had contributed towards this more than £400,000; and a total expenditure had been incurred in providing schools of more than £1,000,000. … But the system was as yet only tentative; and a mass of thorny religious questions had to be faced before a really national system could be established. {714} … All parties became convinced that the first step was to inquire into the merits and defects of the existing system, and on the basis of sound information to plan some method of advance. Under this impression it was that the Commission on Public Education, of which the Duke of Newcastle was chairman, was appointed in 1858." The result of the Commission of 1858 was a revision of the educational Code which the Committee of the Privy Council had formulated. The New Code proved unsatisfactory in its working, and every year showed more plainly the necessity of a fully organized system of national education. "Out of the discussions there arose two societies, which fairly expressed two different views. … The first of these was the Education League, started at Birmingham in 1869. … Its basis, shortly stated, was that of a compulsory system of school provision, by local authorities through means of local rates; the schools so provided to be at once free and unsectarian. … In this programme the point which raised most opposition was the unsectarian teaching. It was chiefly to counteract this part of the League's objects that there was formed the Education Union, which urged a universal system based upon the old lines. … By common consent the time for a settlement was now come. Some guarantee must be taken that the whole edifice should not crumble to pieces; that for local agencies there should be substituted local authorities; and that the State should be supplied with some machinery whereby the gaps in the work might be supplied. It was in this position of opinion that Mr. Forster, as Vice-President, introduced his Education Bill in 1870. … The measure passed the House of Lords without any material alteration; and finally became Law on the 9th of August 1870."