EDUCATION DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
=Literature.=--_Taylor_, History of Germany; _Guizot_, History of
Civilization; _Schiller_, The Thirty Years' War; _Dyer_, Modern Europe;
_Lewis_, History of Germany; _Macaulay_, History of England.
=Political and Historical Conditions.=--The seventeenth century was
remarkable for the wars for religious supremacy. The Reformation had
challenged the authority of the Church, aroused a questioning spirit,
and instilled into men's minds a love for religious liberty. During the
latter half of the sixteenth century, Europe had swayed back and forth
between Protestantism and Catholicism, according as success in arms had
favored one side or the other. The spirit of Protestantism had taken
possession more especially of the common people, who formed the bone and
sinew of the armies. Bitter animosities existed between the adherents of
the papal church and the reformers, which found expression in bloodshed,
rapine, and destruction of property.
England was torn asunder by civil war, which resulted in the death of
Charles I. and the establishment of the Commonwealth under
Cromwell,--the struggle between _Cavalier_ and _Roundhead_, between
established church and Puritan, ending finally in the revolution of
1688. The country was in a religious ferment during the greater part of
this century, caused by a growing jealousy for the maintenance of the
principle of the right to worship God according to the dictates of one's
own conscience. Nor was the struggle less virulent or disastrous in
continental Europe. The religious upheaval of the previous century
culminated in the terrible conflict known as the Thirty Years' War; this
lasted from 1618 till 1648, when the Peace of Westphalia secured
religious liberty to all men. Northern Germany, Austria, France,
Holland, Denmark, and Sweden, as well as minor countries, were involved
in this great war.
Let Bayard Taylor paint the result of this fearful struggle. "Thirty
years of war! The slaughters of Rome's worst emperors, the persecution
of the Christians under Nero and Diocletian, the invasions of the Huns
and Magyars, the long struggle of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, left no
such desolation behind them. At the beginning of the century, the
population of the German Empire was about 30,000,000; when the Peace of
Westphalia was declared, it was scarcely more than 12,000,000! Electoral
Saxony, alone, lost 900,000 lives in two years.... The city of Berlin
contained but 300 citizens, the whole of the Palatinate of the Rhine but
200 farmers. In Hesse-Cassel, 17 cities, 47 castles, and 300 villages
were entirely destroyed by fire; thousands of villages, in all parts of
the country, had but four or five families left out of hundreds, and
landed property sank to about one twentieth of its former value.... The
horses, cattle, and sheep were exterminated in many districts, the
supplies of grain were at an end, even for sowing, and large cultivated
tracts had relapsed into a wilderness. Even orchards and vineyards had
been wantonly destroyed wherever armies had passed. So terrible was the
ravage that, in a great many localities, the same amount of population,
cattle, acres of cultivated land, and general prosperity was not
restored until the year 1848, two centuries afterward!
"This statement of the losses of Germany, however, was but a small part
of the suffering endured.... During the last ten or twelve years of the
war, both Protestants and Catholics vied with each other in deeds of
barbarity; the soldiers were nothing but highway robbers, who maimed and
tortured the country people to make them give up their last remaining
property.... In the year 1637, when Ferdinand II. died, the want was so
great that men devoured each other, and even hunted down human beings
like deer or hares, in order to feed upon them.
"In character, in intelligence, and in morality, the German people were
set back two hundred years. All branches of industry had declined,
commerce had almost entirely ceased, literature and the arts were
suppressed, and except the astronomical discoveries of Copernicus and
Kepler, there was no contribution to human knowledge. Even the modern
High German language, which Luther had made the classic tongue of the
land, seemed to be on the point of perishing. Spaniards and Italians on
the Catholic, Swedes and French on the Protestant side, flooded the
country with foreign words and expressions, the use of which soon became
an affectation with the nobility, who did their best to destroy their
native tongue.
"Politically, the change was no less disastrous. The ambition of the
house of Hapsburg, it is true, had brought its own punishment; the
imperial dignity was secured to it, but henceforth the head of the 'Holy
Roman Empire' was not much more than a shadow.... As for the mass of the
people, their spirit was broken; for a time they gave up even the
longing for the rights which they had lost, and taught their children
abject obedience in order that they might simply live."[84]
=The Educational Situation.=--These political conditions had a marked
influence upon education. Schools were abandoned, colleges gave up their
charters, and people were content to allow their children to grow up in
ignorance. Indeed, it was not to be expected that, in the midst of their
poverty and sorrow, parents should care for education. And yet, some
most important and wise school laws were enacted and put into force,
which form the basis of the present German school system, as well as the
school systems of many other countries. In 1619 the Duke of Weimar
decreed that all children, girls as well as boys, should be kept in
school for at least six years,--from six to twelve. This is the first
efficient compulsory education law on record intended for all classes of
children.
Besides Weimar, Wuertemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt, Mecklenburg, Holstein,
Hesse-Cassel, and other provinces were active in school work. They
organized schools, appointed teachers, and formulated school
regulations. In 1642, Duke Ernst of Gotha adopted a new school
regulation which was a century in advance of the time, and this action
was taken when the Thirty Years' War was at its height and in a
territory sadly devastated by contending armies.
This law required every child to enter school at the beginning of his
sixth year, and to remain in school until he could read his mother
tongue, had mastered Luther's catechism, and was well grounded in
arithmetic, writing, and church songs. A course of study was marked out,
the schools were graded, and methods of instruction were outlined. The
greatest defect in the system was the lack of competent teachers.
Discharged soldiers, worthless students, and degraded craftsmen who
could read and write, and who possessed a little knowledge of music,
continued for many years to be employed as schoolmasters. But little
progress could be made under these adverse circumstances; and the only
reason for encouragement was the fact that the duty of parents to keep
their children at school was everywhere recognized.
=The Innovators.=--We must here mention also the Innovators or
Reformers, whose period of educational activity falls chiefly within the
seventeenth century. Among these appear the names of Francis Bacon,
Ratke, Milton, Comenius, Rollin, Fenelon, and Locke. These men started
movements which revolutionized education and laid the foundation of
modern methods. The demands of the Reformers are summed up by Quick as
follows: "First, that the study of _things_ should precede, or be united
with, the study of _words_; second, that knowledge should be
communicated, where possible, by appeal to the senses; third, that all
linguistic study should begin with that of the mother tongue; fourth,
that Latin and Greek should be taught to such boys only as would be
likely to complete a learned education; fifth, that physical education
should be attended to in all classes of society for the sake of health,
not simply with a view to gentlemanly accomplishments; sixth, that a new
method of teaching should be adopted, framed 'According to nature.'"[85]
In another chapter we shall study the life and work of some of these
men.
FOOTNOTES:
[84] "History of Germany," p. 409.
[85] Quick, "Educational Reformers," p. 50.