THE GERMAN REVOLT. The crisis came over the sale of indulgences for sins

by the papal agent, Tetzel, who began the practice in the neighborhood of

Wittenberg, where Luther was a Professor of Theology, in 1516. There is

little doubt but that Tetzel, in his zeal to raise money for the

rebuilding of the church of Saint Peter's at Rome, a great undertaking

then under way, exceeded his instructions and made claims as to the nature

and efficacy of indulgences which were not warranted by church doctrines.

Such would be only human. The sale, however, irritated Luther, and he

appealed to the Archbishop of Magdeburg to prohibit it. Failing to obtain

any satisfaction, he followed the old university custom, made out ninety-

five theses, or reasons, why he did not believe the practice justifiable,

detailed the abuses, set forth what he conceived to be the true Christian

doctrine in the matter, and challenged all comers to a debate on the

theses (R. 151). Following true university custom, also, these theses were

made out in Latin, and in October, 1517, Luther followed still another

university custom and nailed them to the church door in Wittenberg. Luther

was probably as much surprised as any one to find that these were at once

translated into German, printed, and in two weeks had been scattered all

over Germany. Within a month they were known in all the important centers

of the Western Christian world. They had been carried everywhere on the

currents of discontent. Luther at first intended no revolt from the

Church, but only a protest against its practices. From one step to

another, though, he was gradually led into open rebellion, and finally, in

1520, was excommunicated from the Church. He then expressed his defiance

by publicly burning the bull of excommunication, together with a volume of

the canon law. This was open rebellion, and such heresy (R. 152) must

needs be stamped out. Luther took his stand on the authority of the

Scriptures, and the battle was now joined between the forces representing

the authority of the Church _versus_ the authority of the Bible, and

salvation through the Church _versus_ salvation through personal faith and

works. [9] Luther also forced the issue for freedom of thought in

religious matters. It was, to be sure, some three centuries before freedom

in religious thinking and worship became clearly recognized, but what the

early university masters and scholars had stood for in intellectual

matters, Luther now asserted in religious affairs as well.

[Illustration: FIG. 88. SHOWING THE RESULTS OF THE PROTESTANT REVOLTS]

We do not need to follow the details of the conflict. Suffice it to know

that great portions of northern and western Germany followed Luther, as is

shown in Figure 88, and that the Western Church, which had remained one

for so many centuries and been the one great unifying force in western

Europe, was permanently split by the Protestant Revolt. The large success

of Luther is easily explained by the new life which now permeated western

Europe. The world was rapidly becoming modern, while the Church, with a

perversity almost unexplainable, insisted upon remaining mediaeval and

tried to force others to remain mediaeval with it. Adams expresses the

situation well when he says: [10]

A revolution had been wrought in the intellectual world in the century

between Huss and Luther. At the death of Huss the world had only just

begun the study of Greek. Since that date, the great body of classical

literature had been recovered, and the sciences of philology and

historical criticism thoroughly established. As a result Luther had at

his command a well-developed method ... impossible to any earlier

reformer.... The world also had become familiar with independent

investigation, and with the proclamation of new views and the

upsetting of old ones. By no means the least of the great services of

Erasmus to civilization had been to hold up before all the world so

conspicuous an example of the scholar following, as his inalienable

right, the truth as he found it and wherever it appeared to lead him,

and honest in his public utterances as to the results of his

studies.... His was the crowning work of a century which had produced

in the general public a greatly changed attitude of mind toward

intellectual independence since the days of Huss. The printing press

was of itself almost enough to account for Luther's success as

compared with his predecessors. Wycliffe made almost as direct and

vigorous an appeal to the public at large, and with "an amazing

industry he issued tract after tract in the tongue of the people," but

Luther had the advantage in the rapid multiplication of copies and in

their cheapness, and he covered Europe with the issues of his

press.... Luther spoke to a very different public from that which

Wycliffe or Huss had addressed,--a public European in extent, and one

not merely familiar with the assertion of new ideas, but tolerant, in

a certain way, of the innovator, and expectant of great things in the

future.

A revolution it undoubtedly was, but a revolution in thinking much more

than a political revolution. It was but a further manifestation of the

inquiring and questioning tendency awakened by the Revival of Learning. It

might in a sense be dated from Wycliffe and Huss, as well as from Erasmus

and Luther. Luther did not create the Reformation. He rather popularized

the work of preceding protesters, giving the impress of his powerful

personality to the movement, and directing and moulding its form.

[Illustration: FIG. 89. HULDREICH ZWINGLI (1487-1531)]

REVOLTS IN OTHER LANDS. The outbreak in Germany soon spread to other

lands. Lutheranism made rapid headway in Denmark, where the German

grievances against Italian rule were equally familiar, and in 1537 the

Danish Diet severed all connection with Rome and established Lutheranism

as the religion of the country. Norway, being then a part of Denmark, was

carried for Lutheranism also. In Sweden the Church was shorn of some of

its powers and property in 1527, and in 1592 Lutheranism was definitely

adopted as the religion for the nation. This included Finland, then a part

of Sweden. An independent reform movement, closely akin to Lutheranism in

its aims, made considerable headway in German Switzerland

contemporaneously with the reform work of Luther in Germany. This was

under the leadership of a popular humanist preacher in Zurich by the name

of Huldreich Zwingli. In 1519 he began a series of sermons on real

religion, as he had learned it from a study of the New Testament writings.

Zwingli, being supported by the people, made many changes in church

practices and worship, eventually even abolishing the mass. Many other

towns took up this reform movement, and civil war was the result. Zwingli

was killed in battle between Swiss partisans of the old regime and

reformers, in 1531, but his work though checked persisted, and German

Switzerland became mixed Catholic and Protestant. [11]

In England the struggle came nominally over the divorce (1533) of Henry

VIII from Catherine of Aragon, though the independence of the English

Church had been asserted from time to time for two centuries, and a free

National Church had for long been a growing ideal with English statesmen.

In 1534 Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy (R. 153) which severed

England from Rome. By it the King was made head of the English National

Church. The change was in no sense a profound one, such as had taken place

in Lutheran Germany. The priests who took the new oath of allegiance to

the King instead of the Pope as the head of the Church, as most of them

did, continued in the churches, the service was changed to English, some

reforms were instituted, but the people did not experience any great

change in religious feeling or ideas. This new National Church became

known as the English or Anglican Church.

So far as the early history of America is concerned, the most important

reform movement was neither Lutheranism nor Anglicanism, but Calvinism. In

1537 John Calvin, a French Protestant who had fled to Switzerland, [12]

was invited to submit a plan for the educational and religious

reorganization of the city of Geneva, and in 1541 he was entrusted with

the task of organizing there a little religious City-Republic. For this he

established a combined church and city government, in which religious

affairs and the civil government were as closely connected as they had

ever been in any Catholic country. During the twenty-three years that

Calvin dominated Geneva it became the Rome of Protestantism. Calvin's _The

Institutes of Christianity_, published in Latin in 1536, and in French in

1541, was the first orderly presentation of the principles of Christian

faith from the Protestant standpoint, [13] while his French _Catechism_

(1537) was extensively used [14] in Calvinistic lands as a basis for

elementary religious instruction.

[Illustration: FIG. 90. JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564)

(Drawn from a contemporary painting)]

From Geneva a reformed Calvinistic religion spread over northern France,

[15] where its followers became known as _Huguenots_; to Scotland (1560),

where they were known as _Scotch Presbyterians_; to the Netherlands

(1572), where originated the Dutch Reformed Church; and to portions of

central England, where those who embraced it became known as _Puritans_.

Through the Puritans who settled New England, and later through the

Huguenots in the Carolinas, the Scotch Presbyterians in the central

colonies, and the Dutch in New York, Calvinism was carried to America, was

for long the dominant religious belief, and profoundly colored all early

American education. Lutheranism also came in through the Swedes along the

Delaware and the Germans in Pennsylvania, while the Anglican Church, known

in America as the _Episcopalian_, came in through the landed aristocracy

in Virginia and the later settlers in New York. The early settlement of

America was thus a Protestant settlement, while the migration to America

of large numbers of peoples from Catholic lands is a relatively recent

movement.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND RELIGIOUS WARFARE. Of course the revolt against the

authority of the Church, once inaugurated, could not be stopped. The same

right to freedom in religious belief which Luther claimed for himself and

his followers had of course to be extended to others. This the Protestants

were not much more willing to grant than had been the Catholics before

them. The world was not as yet ready for such rapid advances, and

religious toleration, [16] though established in principle by the revolt,

was an idea to which the world has required a long time to become

accustomed. It took two centuries of intermittent religious warfare,

during which Catholic and Protestant waged war on one another, plundered

and pillaged lands, and murdered one another for the salvation of their

respective souls, before the people of western Europe were willing to stop

fighting and begin to recognize for others that which they were fighting

for for themselves. When religious tolerance finally became established by

law, civilization had made a tremendous advance.

The religious wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were waged

with greatest intensity in Spain, France, and the German States, though no

land wholly escaped. The result of this religious strife was to check the

progress of the higher civilization of the people for nearly three

centuries, and to delay greatly the coming of the great blessing of

freedom in matters of religious belief, while the poverty and misery

resulting from the devastation of these religious wars left neither the

energy for nor the interest in educational or political progress.

The struggle to suppress Lutheranism in Germany was postponed for twenty-

five years--due to outside pressure, chiefly that of the Turks in

southeastern Europe--from the time that the Diet of Worms decided against

Luther (1521). Finally, in 1546, the German-Spanish Emperor Charles V felt

at last free to proceed against the Lutheran heresy, and from the

breaking-out in that year of the struggle between Charles and the German

princes who sided with Luther, to the Peace of Westphalia, in 1648,

represents a century of almost continual religious warfare in the German

States. The worst of the period was the last thirty years, when religious

ferocity and hatred reached its climax in the period known as the _Thirty

Years' War_ (1618-48). Though fought on German soil, France, Spain, and

Sweden were deeply involved in the struggle. It left Germany a ruin. From

the most prosperous State in Europe, in 1550, Germany was so reduced that

it was not until the second third of the nineteenth century that central

and southern Germany had fully recovered. More than half the population

and two thirds of the movable property were swept away. The people were so

reduced by starvation that cannibalism was openly practiced. But one tenth

of the inhabitants of the Duchy of Würtemberg were left alive. Land tilled

for centuries became a wilderness, thousands of towns were destroyed,

whole trades were swept away, and the generation which survived the war

came to manhood without knowing education, religion, law and order, or

organized industry. Not until the end of the eighteenth century was

Germany again able to make any significant contribution to education or

civilization, and not until the middle of the nineteenth century did parts

of Germany come to have as many people or cattle as before this

devastating religious war broke out.

[Illustration: FIG. 91. A FRENCH PROTESTANT (c. 1600)

A restoration, Musée d'Artillerie, Paris]

From 1560 to 1629 in France, also, a period of carnage and devastation

prevailed, due to an attempt to exterminate the Calvinistic Huguenots. In

the massacre of Saint Bartholomew's eve, in 1572, ten thousand Protestants

are said to have perished in Paris alone, and forty-five thousand

additional outside the city. Though the Edict of Nantes (1598) had granted

religious toleration, this never was fully accomplished, and in 1685 the

Edict was revoked. The Huguenots were now given fifteen days to become

Catholics or leave France. The demands were enforced with great severity,

and the sect, which embraced one tenth of the population of France, was

stamped out and France became once more a Catholic country. In a short

time four hundred thousand thrifty and highly intelligent Huguenots had

left France for other lands. In Southern German lands, Holland, England,

and America many found a new home.

CHANGED ATTITUDE TOWARD THE OLD PROBLEMS. The Peace of Westphalia (1648),

which ended the bloody Thirty Years' War, itself the culmination of a

century of bitter and vindictive religious strife, has often been regarded

as both an end and a beginning. Though the persecution of minorities for a

time continued, especially in France, this treaty marked the end of the

attempt of the Church and the Catholic States to stamp out Protestantism

on the continent of Europe. The religious independence of the Protestant

States was now acknowledged, and the beginnings of religious freedom were

established by treaty. This new freedom of conscience, once definitely

begun for the ruling princes, was certain in time to be extended further.

Ultimately the day must come, though it might be centuries away, when

individual as well as national freedom in religious matters must be

granted as a right, and one of the greatest blessings of mankind finally

be firmly established by law. [17]

The end of the period of bitter religious warfare, too, was followed by a

reaction against religious intolerance which contained within itself the

germs of much future liberty and human progress. Paulsen has well

expressed the change, in the following words: [18]

The long and terrible wars to which the ecclesiastical schism had

everywhere given rise--the wars of the Huguenots in France, the Thirty

Years War, and the Civil War in England--had, in the end, created a

feeling of indifference toward religious and theological problems. Did

it really pay, people asked themselves, to kill each other and

devastate each other's countries for the sake of such questions? Could

these problems ever be decided at all? If not, was it not much more

reasonable to let everyone believe what he could, and, instead of

wasting breath and arguments, convincing to nobody, on

transubstantiation, predestination, and real presence, to cultivate

sciences which really placed lasting and verifiable truths within the

reach of the understanding, such as mathematics and natural

philosophy, geography and astronomy? Here were sciences which offered

knowledge to the mind that could be turned to account in this earthly

life, whereas those transcendental speculations were of no use at

all.... Toward the end of the seventeenth century this spirit of

indifference and scepticism toward theology, and sometimes even toward

religion in general and the future world, formed a most important

factor in the changing intellectual attitude of the times. [19]

Physically exhausted, and recognizing at last the futility of fire and

sword as means for stamping out opposing religious convictions, but still

thoroughly convinced as to the correctness of their respective points of

view, both sides now settled down to another century and more of religious

hatred, suspicion, and intolerance, and to a close supervision of both

preaching and teaching as safeguards to orthodoxy. During the century

following the Peace of Westphalia greater reliance than ever before was

placed on the school as a means for protecting the faith, and the pulpit

and the school now took the place of the sword and the torch as converting

and holding agents.

RELIGIOUS REFORM. The effect of the Protestant Revolts on the Church was

good. For the first time in history Catholic churchmen learned that they

could not rely on the general acceptance of any teachings they

promulgated, or any practices they saw fit to approve. The spirit of

inquiry which had been aroused by the methods of the humanists would in

the future force them to explain and to defend. If they were to make

headway against this great rebellion they must reform abuses, purify

church practices, and see that monks and clergy led upright Christian

lives. Unless the mass of the people could be made loyal to the Church by

reverence for it, further revolts and the ultimate break-up of the

institution were in prospect. The Council of Trent (1545-63) at last

undertook the reform which should have come at least a century before.

Better men were selected for the church offices, and bishops and clergy

were ordered to reside in their proper places and to preach regularly. New

religious orders arose, whose purpose was to prepare priests better for

the service of the Church and for ministry to the needs of the people.

Irritating practices were abandoned. The laws and doctrines of the Church

were restated, in new and better form. Moral reforms were instituted. In

most particulars the reforms forced by the work of Luther were thorough

and complete, and since the middle of the sixteenth century the Catholic

Church, in morals and government, has been a reformed Church. Above all,

attention was turned to education rather than force as a means of winning

and holding territory. A rigid quarantine was, however, established in

Catholic lands against the further spread of heretical text books and

literature. Especially was the reading of the Bible, which had been the

cause of all the trouble, for a time rigidly prohibited. [20]

Such, in brief, are the historical facts connected with the various

revolts against authority which split the Roman Catholic Church in the

sixteenth century. These have been stated, as briefly and as impartially

as possible, because so much of future educational history arose out of

the conditions resulting from these revolts. The early educational history

of America is hardly understandable without some knowledge of the

religious forces awakened by the work of the Protestants. To the

educational significance and consequences of these revolts we next turn.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. How do you explain the difference in the effect, on the scholars of the

time, of the Revival of Learning in Italy and in northern lands?

2. How do you explain the serious church opposition to the different

attempts of northern scholars to try to turn the Church back to the

simpler religious ideals and practices of early Christianity?

3. Explain how opposition to the practices of the Church could be

organized into a political force.

4. Explain the analogy of a heretic in the fifteenth century and an

anarchist of to-day.

5. Assuming that the Church had encouraged progressive evolution as a

policy, and thus warded off revolution and disruption, in what ways might

history have been different?

6. How can the bitter opposition to the reading and study of the Bible be

explained?

7. Show the analogy between the freedom of thinking demanded by Luther,

and that obtained three centuries earlier by the scholars in the rising

universities. Why were the universities not opposed?

8. Enumerate the changes which had taken place in western Europe between

the days of Wycliffe and Huss and the time of Luther, which enabled him to

succeed where they had failed.

9. Explain in what ways the Protestant Revolt was essentially a revolution

in thinking, and that, once started, certain other consequences must

inevitably follow in time.

10. Was it perfectly natural that the reformers should refuse to their

followers the same right to revolt, and separate off into smaller and

still different sects, which they had contended for for themselves? Why?

11. On what basis could Catholic and Protestant wage war on one another to

try to enforce their own particular belief?

12. Compare the individualism of the Greek Sophists with that of the

Protestant reformers. Did Greece attempt to deal with them in the same

way?

SELECTED READINGS

In the accompanying _Book of Readings_ the following selections are

reproduced:

147. Wycliffe: On the Enemies of Christ.

148. Wycliffites: Attack the Pope and the Practice of Indulgences.

149. Council of Constance: List of Church Abuses demanding Reform.

150. Geiler: A German Priest's View as to Coming Reform.

151. Luther: Illustrations from his Ninety-Five Theses.

152. Saint Thomas Aquinas: On the Treatment of Heresy.

153. Henry VIII: The English Act of Supremacy.

QUESTIONS ON THE READINGS

1. Was Wycliffe's attack (147) as direct and fierce as Luther's (151)?

2. Explain the difference in the results attained by the two attacks?

3. Was the challenge of Wycliffe's followers on indulgences (148) any less

direct than that of Luther (151)?

4. Does the list of items drawn up by the Church Council of Constance

(149) indicate a general recognition of the need for extensive Church

reform?

5. Try to state the possible change in the progress of human history and

civilization, had the demands of the Council of Constance (149) been

carried out in good faith.

6. Considering the nature of heresy at the time, does the extract from

Thomas Aquinas (152) indicate a narrow or a liberal attitude?

SUPPLEMENTARY REFERENCES

* Adams, G. B. _Civilization during the Middle Ages_.

Beard, Charles. _Martin Luther and the Reformation_.

Beard, Charles. _The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century in its

Relation to Modern Thought and Knowledge_. (Hibbert Lectures,

1883.)

Fisher, George P. _History of the Reformation_.

Gasquet, F. A. _Eve of the Reformation_.

Johnson, A. H. _Europe in the Sixteenth Century_.

Perry, George G. _History of the Reformation in England_.

CHAPTER XIII

EDUCATIONAL RESULTS OF THE PROTESTANT REVOLTS

I. AMONG LUTHERANS AND ANGLICANS

ULTIMATE CONSEQUENCES OF THE BREAK WITH AUTHORITY. That the Protestant

Revolts in the different lands produced large immediate and permanent

changes in the character of the education provided in the revolting States

is no longer accepted as being the case. In every phase of educational

history growth has proceeded by evolution rather than by revolution, and

this applies to the Protestant Revolts as well as to other revolutions.

Many changes naturally resulted at once, some of which were good and some

of which were not, while others which were enthusiastically attempted

failed of results because they involved too great advances for the time.

Much, too, of the progress that was inaugurated was lost in the more than

a century of religious strife which followed, and the additional century

and more of suspicion, hatred, religious formalism, and strict religious

conformity which followed the period of religious strife. The educational

significance of the reformation movement, though, lies in the far-reaching

nature of its larger results and ultimate consequences rather than in its

immediate accomplishments, and because of this the importance of the

immediate changes effected have been overestimated by Protestants and

underestimated by Catholics.

The dominant idea underlying Luther's break with authority, and for that

matter the revolts of Wycliffe, Huss, Zwingli, and Calvin as well, was

that of substituting the authority of the Bible in religious matters for

the authority of the Church; of substituting individual judgment in the

interpretation of the Scriptures and in formulating decisions as to

Christian duty for the collective judgment of the Church; and of

substituting individual responsibility for salvation, in Luther's

conception of justification through personal faith and prayer, for the

collective responsibility for salvation of the Church. [1] Whether one

believes that the Protestant position was sound or not depends almost

entirely upon one's religious training and beliefs, and need not concern

us here, as it makes no difference with the course of history. We can

believe either way, and the course that history took remains the same. The

educational consequences of the position taken by the Protestants, though,

are important.

Under the older theory of collective judgment and collective

responsibility for salvation--that is, the judgment of the Church rather

than that of individuals--it was not important that more than a few be

educated. Under the new theory of individual judgment and individual

responsibility promulgated by the Protestants it became very important, in

theory at least, that every one should be able to read the word of God,

participate intelligently in the church services, and shape his life as he

understood was in accordance with the commandments of the Heavenly Father.

This undoubtedly called for the education of all. Still more, from

individual participation in the services of the Church, with freedom of

judgment and personal responsibility in religious matters, to individual

participation in and responsibility for the conduct of government was not

a long step, and the rise of democratic governments and the provision of

universal education were the natural and ultimate corollaries, though not

immediately attained of the Protestant position regarding the

interpretation of the Scriptures and the place and authority of the

Church. This was soon seen and acted upon. The great struggle of the

sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in consequence, became one for

religious freedom and toleration; the great struggle of the eighteenth and

nineteenth centuries has been for political freedom and political rights;

to supply universal education has been left to the nineteenth and the

twentieth centuries.

SCHOOLS AND LEARNING BEFORE THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. After the rise of the

universities, as we have seen, many Latin secondary schools were founded

in western Europe, and a more extensive development of the cathedral and

other larger church schools took place. Rashdall (R. 154) thinks that by

1400 the opportunity to attend a Latin grammar school was rather common,

an opinion in which Leach and Nohle concur. After the humanistic learning

had spread to northern lands these opportunities were increased and

improved. In England, for example, some two hundred and fifty Latin

grammar schools are known to have been in existence by 1500. In Germany,

as we have seen (chapter xi), many such schools were founded before the

time of Luther. These offered a form of advanced education, in the

language of the educated classes of the time, for those intending to go to

the universities to prepare for service in either Church or State, and for

teaching. The Church had also for long maintained or exercised control

over a number of types of more elementary schools--parish, song, chantry,

hospital (chapter VII)--the chief purpose of which was to prepare for

certain phases of the church service, or to enter the secondary schools.

These schools, too, were taught partly or wholly in Latin. In consequence,

while Latin schools came to be rather widely diffused, schools in the

vernacular hardly existed outside of a few of the larger commercial cities

of the north. Even the burgh and guild schools (p. 205), established in

the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, were essentially Latin schools.

[Illustration: PLATE 6. EDUCATIONAL LEADERS IN PROTESTANT GERMANY

(From a painting dated 1543, by Lucas Cranach, a German contemporary of

both men, and now in the Uffizi Gallery, at Florence)

MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546)

Professor of Theology at Wittenberg

PHILIPP MELANCHTHON (1497-1560)

Professor of Greek at Wittenberg]

In the commercial cities of the North, however, though often only after

quite a struggle with the local church authorities, which throughout the

Middle Ages had maintained a monopoly of all instruction as a protection

to orthodoxy, different types of elementary vernacular schools had been

developed to meet local commercial needs, such as writing-schools to train

writers, [2] and reckoning-schools to train young men to handle accounts.

[3] Reading, manners, and religion were also taught in these schools.

Other city schools, largely Latin in type, but containing some vernacular

instruction to meet local business needs not met by the cathedral or

parish schools of the city, were also developed. Up to the time of the

Protestant Revolts, however, there was almost no instruction in the

vernacular outside of the commercial cities, nor was there any particular

demand for such instruction elsewhere. If one wished to be a scholar, a

statesman, a diplomat, a teacher, a churchman, or to join a religious

brotherhood, he needed to study the learned language of the time,--Latin.

With this he could be at home with people of his kind anywhere in western

Europe. The vernacular he could leave to tradesmen, craftsmen, soldiers,

laborers, and the servant classes.

[Illustration: FIG. 92. TWO EARLY VERNACULAR SCHOOLS

GERMAN (From a woodcut, printed at Nuremberg, 1505)

FRENCH (After a drawing by Soquand, 1528)]

These people, on the other hand, had practically no need for a written

language, aside from a very small amount for business needs. Even here the

sign of the cross would do. There were but few books written in the

vernacular tongues, and these had to be copied by hand and, in

consequence, were scarce and expensive. There were no newspapers (first

newspaper, Venice, 1563) or magazines. Spectacles for reading were not

known until the end of the thirteenth century, and were not common for two

centuries after that. There was little knowledge that could not pass from

mouth to mouth. Such little vernacular literature as did exist was

transmitted orally, and no great issue which appealed to the imagination

of the masses had as yet come to the front to create any strong desire for

the ability to read. As a result, the education of the masses was in hand

labor, the trades, and religion, and not in books, and the need for book

education was scarcely felt.

A NEW DEMAND FOR VERNACULAR SCHOOLS. The invention of printing and the

Protestant Revolts were in a sense two revolutionary forces, which in

combination soon produced vast and far-reaching changes. The discovery of

the process of making paper and the invention of the printing press

changed the whole situation as to books. These could now be reproduced

rapidly and in large numbers, and could be sold at but a small fraction of

their former cost. The printing of the Bible in the common tongue did far

more to stimulate a desire to be able to read than did the Revival of

Learning (Rs. 155, 170). Then came the religious discussions of the

Reformation period, which stirred intellectually the masses of the people

in northern lands as nothing before in history had ever done. In an effort

to reach the people the reformers originated small and cheap pamphlets,

written in the vernacular, and these, sold for a penny or two, were

peddled in the market-places and from house to house. While there had been

imperfect translations of the Bible in German before Luther's, his

translation (New Testament, 1522) was direct from the original Greek and

so carefully done that it virtually fixed the character of the German

language. [4] Calvin's _Institutes of Christianity_ (French edition, 1541)

in a similar manner fixed the character of the French language, [5] and

Tyndale's translation of the New Testament (1526) was into such simple and

homely language [6] that it fixed the character of the English tongue, and

was made the basis for the later Authorized translation.

[Illustration: FIG. 93. THE FIRST PAGE OF WYCLIFFE'S BIBLE

Translated between 1382 and 1384. Facsimile of the first verses of

Genesis]

The leaders of the Protestant Revolts, too, in asserting that each person

should be able to read and study the Scriptures as a means to personal

salvation, created an entirely new demand, in Protestant lands, for

elementary schools in the vernacular. Heretofore the demand had been for

schools only for those who expected to become scholars or leaders in

Church or State, while the masses of the people had little or no interest

in learning. Now a new class became desirous of learning to read, not

Latin, but the language which they had already learned to speak. Wycliffe,

Huss, Zwingli, Luther, Calvin, and Knox alike insisted on the importance

of the study of the Bible as a primary necessity in the religious life. In

an effort to bring the Bible within reach of the people Wycliffe's

followers had attempted the laborious and impossible task of multiplying

by hand (p. 290) copies of his translation. Zwingli had written a pamphlet

on _The Manner of Instruction and Bringing up Boys in a Christian Way_

(1524), in which he urged the importance of religious education. Luther,

besides translating the Bible, had prepared two general Catechisms, one

for adults and one for children, had written hymns [7] and issued numerous

letters and sermons in behalf of religious education. All these were

printed in the vernacular and scattered broadcast. Luther thought that

"every human being, by the time he has reached his tenth year, should be

familiar with the Holy Gospels, in which the very core and marrow of his

life is bound." In his sermons and addresses he urged a study of the Bible

and the duty of sending children to school. Calvin's Catechism similarly

was extensively used in Protestant lands.

1. _Lutheran School Organization_

EDUCATIONAL IDEAS OF LUTHER. Luther enunciated the most progressive ideas

on education of all the German Protestant reformers. In his _Letter to the

Mayors and Aldermen of all the Cities of Germany in behalf of Christian

Schools_ (1524) (R. 156), and in his _Sermon on the Duty of Sending

Children to School_ (1530), we find these set forth. That his ideas could

be but partially carried out is not surprising. There were but few among

his followers who could understand such progressive proposals, they were

entirely too advanced for the time, there was no body of vernacular

teachers [8] or means to prepare them, the importance of such training was

not understood, and the religious wars which followed made such

educational advantages impossible, for a long time to come. The sad

condition of the schools, which he said were "deteriorating throughout

Germany," awakened his deep regret, and he begged of those in authority

"not to think of the subject lightly, for the instruction of youth is a

matter in which Christ and all the world are concerned." All towns had to

spend money for roads, defense, bridges, and the like, and why not some

for schools? This they now could easily afford, "since Divine Grace has

released them from the exaction and robbery of the Roman Church." Parents

continually neglected their educational duty, yet there must be civil

government. "Were there neither soul, heaven, nor hell," he declared, "it

would still be necessary to have schools for the sake of affairs here

below.... The world has need of educated men and women to the end that men

may govern the country properly and women may properly bring up their

children, care for their domestics, and direct the affairs of their

households." "The welfare of the State depends upon the intelligence and

virtue of its citizens," he said, "and it is therefore the duty of mayors

and aldermen in all cities to see that Christian schools are founded and

maintained" (R. 156).

[Illustration: FIG. 94. LUTHER GIVING INSTRUCTION

An ideal drawing, though representative of early Protestant popular

instruction]

The parents of children he held responsible for their Christian and civic

education. This must be free, and equally open to all--boys and girls,

high and low, rich and poor. It was the inherent right of each child to be

educated, and the State must not only see that the means are provided, but

also require attendance at the schools (R. 158). At the basis of all

education lay Christian education. The importance of the services of the

teacher was beyond ordinary comprehension (R. 157). Teachers should be

trained for their work, and clergymen should have had experience as

teachers. A school system for German people should be a state system,

divided into:

1. _Vernacular Primary Schools._ Schools for the common people,

to be taught in the vernacular, to be open to both sexes, to include

reading, writing, physical training, singing, and religion, and to

give practical instruction in a trade or in household duties. Upon

this attendance should be compulsory. "It is my opinion," he said,

"that we should send boys to school for one or two hours a day, and

have them learn a trade at home the rest of the time. It is desirable

that these two occupations march side by side."

2. _Latin Secondary Schools._ Upon these he placed great emphasis

(R. 156) as preparatory schools by means of which a learned clergy was

to be perpetuated for the instruction of the people. In these he would

teach Latin, Greek, Hebrew, rhetoric, dialectic, history, science,

mathematics, music, and gymnastics.

3. _The Universities._ For training for the higher service in

Church and State.

[Illustration: FIG. 95. JOHANNES BUGENHAGEN (1485-1558)

Father of the Lutheran _Volksschule_ in northern Germany]

THE ORGANIZING WORK OF BUGENHAGEN. Luther assisted in reorganizing the

churches at Wittenberg (1523), Leipzig (1523), and Magdeburg (1524), in

connection with all of which he provided for Lutheran-type schools. [9]

Luther, though, was not essentially an organizer. The organizing genius of

the Reformation, in central and southern Germany, was Luther's colleague,

Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560), Professor of Greek at the University of

Wittenberg. In northern Germany it was Johannes Bugenhagen (1485-1558),

another of Luther's colleagues at Wittenberg. More than any other Germans

these two directed the necessary reorganization of religion and education

in those parts of Germany which changed from Roman Catholicism to German

Lutheranism. The churches, of course, had to be reorganized as Lutheran

churches, and the schools connected with them refounded as Lutheran

schools. For the reorganization of each of these a more or less detailed

_Ordnung_ had to be written out (Rs. 159, 160). In this change cathedral

and other large church schools became Latin secondary schools, while the

song, chantry, and other types of parish elementary schools were

transformed into Lutheran vernacular parish schools.

Bugenhagen was sent to reorganize the churches of northern Germany. Being

in close sympathy with Luther's ideas, he made good provision for Lutheran

parish schools in connection with each of the churches he reorganized. At

Brunswick (1528), Hamburg (1529) (R. 159), Lübeck (1530), for his native

State of Pomerania (1534), for Schleswig-Holstein (1537), and elsewhere in

northern Germany, he drew up church and school plans (_Kirchen und Schule-

Ordnungen_) which formed models (Rs. 159, 160) for many northern German

cities and towns. Besides providing for a Latin school for the city, he

organized elementary vernacular schools in each parish, for both boys and

girls, in which instruction in reading, writing, and religion was to be

given in the German tongue. He has been called the father of the German

_Volksschule_, though probably much of what he did was merely the

redirection of existing schools. In 1537 he was called to Denmark, by the

Danish King, to reorganize the University of Copenhagen and the Danish

Church and schools as Lutheran institutions.

Efforts were also made to create Protestant schools in the Scandinavian

countries. In Denmark writing-schools for both boys and girls were

organized, and the sexton of each parish was ordered to gather the

children together once a week for instruction in the Catechism. In Sweden

little was done before 1686, when Charles XI ordained that the sacristan

of each parish should instruct the children in reading, while the

religious instruction should be conducted by the clergy, and carried on by

means of sermons, the Catechism, and a yearly public examination. The

ability to read and a knowledge of the Catechism was made necessary for

communion. A Swedish law of this same time also ordered that, "No one

should enter the married state without knowing the lesser Catechism of

Luther by heart and having received the sacrament." This latter regulation

drove the peasants to request the erection of children's schools in the

parishes, to be supported by the State, though it was not for more than a

century that this was generally brought about. The general result of this

legislation was that the Scandinavian countries, then including Finland,

early became literate nations.

THE REORGANIZING WORK OF MELANCHTHON. Melanchthon, unlike Bugenhagen, was

essentially a humanistic scholar, and his interest lay chiefly In the

Latin secondary schools. He prepared plans for schools in many cities and

smaller States of central and southern Germany, among which were Luther's

native town, Eisleben (1525), and for Nuremberg (1526), Herzeberg (1538),

Cologne (1543), and Wittenberg (1545) among cities; and Saxony (1528),

Mecklenberg (1552), and the Palatinate (1556) among States. The schools he

provided for Saxony may be described as typical of his work.

In 1527 he was asked by the Elector of Saxony to head a commission of

three to travel over the kingdom and report on its needs as to schools. In

his _Report, or Book of Visitation_, which was probably the first school

survey report in history, he outlined in detail plans for school

organization for the State (R. 161), of which the following is an

abstract:

Each school was to consist of three classes. In the first class there

was to be taught the beginnings of reading and writing, in both the

vernacular and in Latin, Latin grammar (Donatus), the Creed, the

Lord's prayer, and the prayers and hymns of the church service. In the

second class Latin became the language of instruction, and Latin

grammar was thoroughly learned. Latin authors were read, and religious

instruction was continued. In the third class more advanced work in

reading Latin (Livy, Sallust, Vergil, Horace, and Cicero) was given,

and rhetoric and dialectic were studied.

These were essentially humanistic schools with but a little preparatory

work in the vernacular, and their purpose was to prepare those likely to

become the future leaders of the State for entrance to the universities.

How different was Melanchthon's conception as to the needs for education

from the conceptions of Luther and Bugenhagen may easily be seen. Yet, so

great were his services in organizing and advising, and so well did such

schools meet the great demand of the time for educational leaders that he

has, very properly, been called "the Preceptor of Germany." His work was

copied by other leaders, and the result was the organization of a large

number of humanistic _gymnasia_ throughout northern Germany, in which the

new learning and the Protestant faith were combined. Sturm's school at

Strassburg (p. 272) was one of the more important and better organized of

this type, many of which have had a continuous existence up to the

present. By 1540 the process was begun of endowing such schools from the

proceeds of old monasteries, confiscated by the State, and many German

_gymnasia_ of to-day trace their origin back to some old monastic

foundation, altered by state authority to meet modern needs and purposes.

EARLY GERMAN STATE SCHOOL SYSTEMS. Melanchthon's Saxony plan was put into

partial operation as a Lutheran Church school system, but the first German

State to organize a complete system of schools was Würtemberg (R. 162), in

southwestern Germany, in 1559. This marks the real beginning of the German

state school systems. Three classes of schools were provided for:

(1) Elementary schools, for both sexes, in which were to be taught

reading, writing, reckoning, singing, and religion, all in the

vernacular. These were to be provided in every village in the Duchy.

(2) Latin schools (_Particularschulen_), with five or six

classes, in which the ability to read, write, and speak Latin,

together with the elements of mathematics and Greek in the last year,

were to be taught.

(3) The universities or colleges of the State, of which the University

of Tübingen (f. 1476) and the higher school at Stuttgart were declared

to be constituent parts.

Acting through the church authorities, these schools were to be under the

supervision of the State.

The example of Würtemberg was followed by a number of the smaller German

States. Ten years later Brunswick followed the same plan, and in 1580

Saxony revised its school organization after the state-system plan thus

established. In 1619 the Duchy of Weimar added compulsory education in the

vernacular for all children from six to twelve years of age. In 1642, the

same date as the first Massachusetts school law (chapter XV), Duke Ernest

the Pious of little Saxe-Gotha and Altenburg established the first school

system of a modern type in German lands. An intelligent and ardent

Protestant, he attempted to elevate his miserable peasants, after the

ravages of the Thirty Years' War, by a wise economic administration and

universal education. With the help of a disciple of the greatest

educational thinker of the period, John Amos Comenius (chapter XVII), he

worked out a School Code (_Schulmethode_, 1642) which was the pedagogic

masterpiece of the seventeenth century (R. 163). In it he provided for

compulsory school attendance, and regulated the details of method,

grading, and courses of study. Teachers were paid salaries which for the

time were large, pensions for their widows and children were provided, and

textbooks were prepared and supplied free. So successful were his efforts

that Gotha became one of the most prosperous little spots in Europe, and

it was said that "Duke Ernest's peasants were better educated than

noblemen anywhere else."

By the middle of the seventeenth century most of the German States had

followed the Würtemberg plan of organization. Even Duke Albrecht V of

Bavaria, which was a Catholic State, ordered the establishment of "German

schools" throughout his realm, with instruction in reading, writing, and

the Catholic creed, the schools to be responsible through the Church to

the State.

PROTESTANT STATE SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. We see here in German lands a new,

and, for the future, a very important tendency. Throughout all the long

Middle Ages the Church had absolutely controlled all education. From the

suppression of the pagan schools, in 529 A.D., to the time of the

Reformation there had been no one to dispute with the Church its complete

monopoly of education. Even Charlemagne's attempt at the stimulation of

educational activity had been clearly within the lines of church control.

Until the beginnings of the modern States, following the Crusades, the

Church had been the State as well, and for long humbled any ruler who

dared dispute its power. In the later Middle Ages nobles and rising

parliaments had at times sided with the king against the Church--warnings

of a changing Europe that the Church should have heeded--but there had

been no serious trouble with the rising nationalities before the sixteenth

century. Now, in Protestant lands, all was changed. The authority of the

Church was overthrown. By the Peace of Augsburg (1555) each German prince

and town and knight were to be permitted to make choice between the

Catholic and Lutheran faith, and all subjects were to accept the faith of

their ruler or emigrate.

This established freedom of conscience for the rulers, but for no one

else. It also gave them control of both religious and secular affairs,

thus uniting in the person of the ruler, large or small, control of both

Church and State. This was as much progress toward religious freedom as

the world was then ready for, as Church and State had been united for so

many centuries that a complete separation of the two was almost

inconceivable. It was left for the United States (1787) to completely

divorce Church and State, and to reduce the churches to the control of

purely spiritual affairs.

The German rulers, however, were now free to develop schools as they saw

fit, and, through their headship of the Church in their principality or

duchy or city, to control education therein. We have here the beginnings

of the transfer of educational control from the Church to the State, the

ultimate fruition of which came first in German lands, and which was to be

the great work of the nineteenth century. It was through the kingly or

ducal headship of the Church, and through it of the educational system of

the kingdom or duchy, that the great educational development in

Würtemberg, Saxony, and Gotha was brought about by their rulers, and it

was through the ruling princes that the German Universities were reformed

[10] and the new Protestant universities established. [11] Even in

Catholic States, as Bavaria, the German state-control idea took root

early. Many of the important features of the modern German school systems

are to be seen in their beginnings in these Lutheran state-church schools.

[Illustration: FIG. 96. EVOLUTION OF GERMAN STATE SCHOOL CONTROL]

2. _Anglican foundations_

THE REFORMATION AND EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. The Reformation in England took

a very different direction from what it did in Germany, and its

educational results in consequence were very different. In England the

reform movement was much more political in character than in German lands.

Henry VIII was no Protestant, in the sense that Luther or Calvin or

Zwingli or Knox was. He distrusted their teachings, and was always anxious

to explain objections to the old faith. The people of England as a body,

too, had been much less antagonized by the exactions of the Roman Church

and the immoral lives of the monks and Roman clergy; the new learning had

awakened there somewhat less of a spirit of moral and religious reform;

and the reformation movement of Luther, after a decade and a half, had

roused no general interest. The change from the Roman Catholic faith to an

independent English Church, when made, was in consequence much more

nominal than had been the case in German lands. As a result the severance

from Rome was largely carried out by the ruling classes, and the masses of

the people were in no way deeply interested in it. The English National

Church merely took over most of the functions formerly exercised by the

Roman Church, in general the same priests remained in charge of the parish

churches, and the church doctrines and church practices were not greatly

altered by the change in allegiance. The changing of the service from

Latin to English was perhaps the most important change. The English

Church, in spirit and service, has in consequence retained the greatest

resemblance to the Roman Catholic Church of any Protestant denomination.

In particular, the Lutheran idea of personal responsibility for salvation,

and hence the need of all being taught to read, made scarcely any

impression in England.

By the time of Elizabeth (1558-1603) it had become a settled conviction

with the English as a people that the provision of education was a matter

for the Church, and was no business of the State, and this attitude

continued until well into the nineteenth century. The English Church

merely succeeded the Roman Church in the control of education, and now

licensed the teachers (R. 168), took their oath of allegiance (R. 167),

supervised prayers (R. 169) and the instruction, and became very strict as

to conformity to the new faith (Rs. 164-166), while the schools, aside

from the private tuition and endowed schools, continued to be maintained

chiefly from religious sources, charitable funds, and tuition fees.

Private tuition schools in time flourished, and the tutor in the home

became the rule with families of means. The poorer people largely did

without schooling, as they had done for centuries before. As a

consequence, the educational results of the change in the headship of the

Church relate almost entirely to grammar schools and to the universities,

and not to elementary education. The development of anything approaching a

system of elementary schools for England was consequently left for the

educational awakening of the latter half of the nineteenth century. When

this finally came the development was due to political and economic, and

not to religious causes.

The English Act of Supremacy (R. 153), which severed England from Rome,

had been passed by parliament in 1534. In 1536 an English Bible was issued

to the churches, [12] the services were ordered conducted in English, and

in 1549 the English Prayer Book, Psalter, and Catechism were put into use.

In 1538 the English Bible was ordered chained in the churches, [13] that

the people might read it (R. 170), and the people were ordered instructed

in English in the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments. The

change of the service to English was perhaps the largest educational gain

the masses of the people obtained as the result of the Reformation in

England. [14]

[Illustration: FIG. 97. A CHAINED BIBLE

(Redrawn from an old print showing a chained Bible in a church in York,

England)]

SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES AND THE FOUNDING OF GRAMMAR SCHOOLS.

Between 1536 and 1539 the most striking result of the Reformation in

England took place,--the dissolution of the monasteries. Their doubtful

reputation enabled Henry and Parliament to confiscate their property, and

"the dead hand of monasticism was removed from a third of the lands of

England." There were precedents for this in pre-Reformation times, the

church authorities themselves having converted several monastic

foundations into grammar schools. At one blow Parliament now suppressed

the monasteries of all England, some eight thousand monks and nuns were

driven out, many of the monasteries, nunneries, and abbey churches were

destroyed, and the monastic lands were forfeited to the Crown. It was a

ruthless proceeding, though in the long course of history beneficial to

the nation. Much of the land was given to influential followers of the

king in return for their support, and a large part of the proceeds from

sales was spent on coast defenses and a navy, though more than was

formerly thought to be the case was used in refounding grammar schools. A

number of the monasteries were converted into collegiate churches, with

schools attached. Some of the alms-houses and hospitals confiscated at the

same time were similarly used, and the cathedral churches in nine English

cities were taken from the monks (R. 171), who had driven out the regular

clergy during the tenth to the twelfth centuries, and were refounded as

cathedral church schools. The cathedral church school at Canterbury, which

Henry refounded in 1541 as a humanistic grammar school, with a song school

attached, and for the government of which he made detailed provisions (R.

172), is typical of a school which had fallen into bad repute (R. 171),

and was later refounded as a result of the confiscation of the monastic

property. The College of Christ Church at Oxford, and Trinity College at

Cambridge, were also richly endowed from the monastic proceeds.

In 1546 another Act of Parliament vested the title of all chantry

foundations, some two hundred in number, in the Crown that they might be

"altered, changed, and amended to convert them to good and godly uses as

in the erecting of grammar schools," but so pressing became the royal need

for money that, after their sale, the intended endowments were never made.

As the song schools had been established originally to train a few boys

"to help a priest sing mass," and as the service was now to be read rather

than sung, the need for choristers largely disappeared. Being regarded as

nurseries of superstition, they were abandoned without regret.

[Illustration: PLATE 7. THE FREE SCHOOL AT HARROW

One of the "Great Public" Grammar Schools of England. Founded in 1571, in

the reign of Elizabeth; building finished in 1593. The names of famous

"old boys" are seen lettered on the wall at the back. Pupils are seen

seated in "forms," reciting to the masters. (From a picture published by

Ackermann, in his illustrated _History of the Colleges of Winchester,

Eton, Westminster_, etc. London, 1816.)]

RESULT OF THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND. The result of the change in

religious allegiance in England was a material decrease in the number of

places offering grammar-school advantages, though with a material

improvement in the quality of the instruction provided, and a consequent

decrease in the number of boys given free education in the refounded

grammar schools. As for elementary education, the abolition of the song,

chantry, and hospital schools took away most of the elementary schools

which had once existed. The clerk of the parish usually replaced them by

teaching a certain number of boys "to read English intelligently instead

of Latin unintelligently," many new parish elementary schools were

created, especially during the reign of Elizabeth, and in time the dame

school, the charity school, the writing school, and apprenticeship

training arose (chapter XVIII) and became regular English institutions.

These types of schooling constituted almost all the elementary-school

advantages provided in England until well into the eighteenth century.

The post-Reformation educational energy of England was given to the

founding of grammar schools, and during the century and a half before the

outbreak of the struggle with James II (1688) to put an end in England for

all time to the late-mediaeval theory of the divine right of kings, a

total of 558 grammar schools were founded or refounded. [15]

The grammar schools thus founded were, one and all, grammar schools of the

reformed humanistic type. What was to be taught in them was seldom

mentioned in the foundation articles, as it was assumed that every one

knew what a grammar school was, so well by this time had the humanistic

type become established. They were one and all modeled after the

instruction first provided in Saint Paul's School (p. 275) in London, and

such modifications as had been sanctioned with time, and this continued to

be the type of English secondary school instruction until well into the

nineteenth century.

THE DOMINATING RELIGIOUS PURPOSE. The religious conflicts following the

reformation movement everywhere intensified religious prejudices and

stimulated religious bigotry. This was soon reflected in the schools of

all lands. In England, after the restoration under Catholic Mary (1553-58)

and the final reëstablishment of the English Church under Elizabeth

(1558), all school instruction became narrowly religious and English

Protestant in type. By the middle of the seventeenth century the grammar

schools had become nurseries of the faith, as well as very formal and

disciplinary in character. In England, perhaps more than in any other

Protestant country, Christianity came to be identified with a strict

conformity to the teachings and practices of the Established Church, and

to teach that particular faith became one of the particular missions of

all types of schools. Bishops were instructed to hunt out schoolmasters

who were unsound in the faith (R. 164 a), and teachers were deprived of

their positions for nonconformity (R. 164 b). More effectively to handle

the problem a series of laws were enacted, the result of which was to

institute such an inquisitorial policy that the position of schoolmaster

became almost intolerable. In 1580 a law (R. 165) imposed a fine of £10 on

any one employing a schoolmaster of unsound faith, with disability and

imprisonment for the schoolmaster so offending; in 1603 another law

required a license from the bishop on the part of all schoolmasters as a

condition precedent to teaching; in 1662 the obnoxious Act of Uniformity

(R. 166) required every schoolmaster in any type of school, and all

private tutors, to subscribe to a declaration that they would conform to

the liturgy of the Church, as established by law, with fine and

imprisonment for breaking the law; in 1665 the so-called "Five-Mile Act"

forbade Dissenters to teach in any school, under penalty of a fine of £40;

and in that same year bishops were instructed to see that

the said schoolmasters, ushers, schoolmistresses, and instructors, or

teachers of youth, publicly or privately, do themselves frequent the

public prayers of the Church, and cause their scholars to do the same;

and whether they appear well affected to the Government of his

Majesty, and the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England.

This attitude also extended upward to the universities as well, where

nonconformists were prohibited by law (1558) from receiving degrees, a

condition not remedied until 1871 (R. 305). The great purpose of

instruction came to be to support the authority and the rule of the

Established Church, and the almost complete purpose of elementary

instruction came to be to train pupils to read the Catechism, the Prayer

Book, and the Bible. This intense religious attitude in England was

reflected in early colonial America, as we shall see in a following

chapter.

THE POOR-LAW LEGISLATION, AND ITS EDUCATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE. After the

thirteenth century, due in part to the rise of the wool industry in

Flanders, England began to change from a farming to a sheep-raising

country. Accompanying this decline in the importance of farming there had

been a slow but gradual growth of trade and manufacturing in the cities,

and to the cities the surplus of rural peasantry began to drift. The cost

of living also increased rapidly after the fifteenth century. As a result

there was a marked shifting of occupations, much unemployment, and a

constantly increasing number of persons in need of poor-relief. In the

time of Elizabeth (1558-1603) it has been estimated that one half the

population of England did not have an income sufficient for sustenance,

and great numbers of children were running about without proper food or

care, and growing up in idleness and vice.

The situation, which had been growing worse for two centuries, culminated

at the time of the Reformation when the religious houses, which had

previously provided alms, were confiscated as a result of the reformation

activities. The groundwork of the old system of religious charity was thus

swept away, and the relation which had for so long existed between prayer

and penance and almsgiving and charity was altered. The nation was thus

forced to deal with the problem of poor-relief, and with the care of the

children of the poor. In the place of the old system the people were

forced, by circumstances, to develop a new conception of the State as a

community of peoples bound together by community interest, good feeling,

charity, and service.

As this new conception dawned on the English people, a series of laws were

enacted which attempted to provide for the situation which had been

created. These were progressive in character, and ranged over much of the

sixteenth century. First the poor were restricted from begging, outside of

certain specified limits. Next church collections and parish support for

the poor were ordered (1553), and the people were to be urged to give.

Then workhouses for the poor and their children, and materials with which

to work, were ordered provided, and those persons of means who would not

give freely were to be cited before the bishop first (R. 173), and the

justices later, and if necessary forcibly assessed (1563). The next step

was to permit the local authorities to raise needed funds by strictly

local taxation (1572). In 1601 the last step was taken, when the

compulsory taxation of all persons of property was ordered to provide the

necessary poor-relief, and the excessive burdens of one parish were to be

shared by neighboring parishes. Thus, after a long period of slowly

evolving legislation (R. 173), the English Poor-Law of 1601 (R. 174)

finally gave expression to the following principles:

1. The compulsory care of the poor, as an obligation of the State.

2. The compulsory apprenticeship of the children of the poor, male and

female, to learn a useful trade.

3. The obligation of the master to train his apprentices in a trade.

4. The obligation of the overseers of the poor to supply, where

necessary, the opportunity and the materials for such training of

the children of the poor.

5. The compulsory taxation of all persons of property to provide the

necessary funds for such a purpose, and without reference to any

benefits derived from the taxation.

6. The excessive burdens of any one parish to be pooled throughout the

hundred or county.

In this compulsory apprenticeship of the children of the poor, with the

obligation imposed that such children must be trained in a trade and in

proper living, with general taxation of those of property to provide

workhouses and materials for such a purpose, we have the germ, among

English-speaking peoples, of the idea of the general taxation of all

persons by the State to provide schools for the children of the State. The

apprenticing of the children of the poor to labor and the requirement that

they be taught the elements of religion soon became a fixed English

practice (R. 217), and in the seventeenth century this idea was carried to

the American colonies and firmly established there. It was on the

foundations of the English Poor-Law of 1601, above stated, that the first

Massachusetts law relating to the schooling of all children (1642) was

framed (R. 190), but with the significant Calvinistic addition that:

7. "In euery towne ye chosen men" shall see that parents and masters

not only train their children in learning and labor, but also "to

read & understand the principles of religion & the capitall lawes

of this country," with power to impose fines on such as refuse to

render accounts concerning their children.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Why is progress that is substantial nearly always a product of slow

rather than rapid evolution?

2. Show why the evolution of many Protestant sects was a natural

consequence of the position assumed by Luther. What is the ultimate

outcome of the process?

3. Why was it not important that more than a few be educated under the

older theory of salvation?

4. Show how modern democratic government was a natural consequence of the

Protestant position.

5. Why was universal education involved as a later but ultimate

consequence of the position taken by the Protestants?

6. Explain why the local Church authorities, before 1520, tried so hard to

prevent the establishment of vernacular schools.

7. Explain why the religious discussions of the Reformation should have so

strongly stimulated a desire to read.

8. Explain the fixing in character of the German, French, and English

languages by a single book. What had fixed the Italian?

9. Was Luther probably right when he wrote, in 1524, that the schools

"were deteriorating throughout Germany"? Why?

10. Give reasons why Luther's appeals for schools were not more fruitful.

11. What was the significance of the position of Luther for the future

education of girls?

12. Was Luther's idea that a clergyman should have had some experience as

a teacher a good one, or not? Why?

13. How do you explain Luther's ideas as to coupling up elementary and

trade education in his primary schools?

14. Point out the similarity of Luther's scheme for a school system with

the German school system as finally evolved (Figure 96).

15. Show how Melanchthon's Saxony Plan differed from Luther's ideas. For

the times was it a more practical plan? Why?

16. Explain why the Lutheran idea of personal responsibility for salvation

made so little headway in England, and show that the natural educational

consequences of this resulted.

17. Show what different conditions were likely to follow, in later

centuries, from the different stands taken as to the relation of the State

and Church to education by the German people by the middle of the

sixteenth century, and by the English at the time of Elizabeth.

18. Compare the origin of the vernacular elementary-school teacher in

Germany and England.

19. Leach estimates that, in 1546, there were approximately three hundred

grammar schools in England for a total population of approximately two and

one half millions. About what opportunities for grammar-school education

did this afford?

SELECTED READINGS

In the accompanying Book of Readings the following selections are

reproduced:

154. Rashdall: Diffusion of Education in Mediaeval Times.

155. Times: The Vernacular Style of the Translation of the Bible.

156. Luther: To the Mayors and Magistrates of Germany.

157. Luther: Dignity and Importance of the Teacher's Work.

158. Luther: On the Duty of Compelling School Attendance.

159. Hamburg: An Example of a Lutheran _Kirchenordnung_.

160. Brieg: An Example of a Lutheran _Schuleordnung_.

161. Melanchthon: The Saxony School Plan.

162. Raumer: The School System Established in Würtemberg.

163. Duke Ernest: The _Schulemethodus_ for Gotha.

164. Strype: The Supervision of a Teacher's Acts and Religious Beliefs

in England.

(a) Letter of Queen's Council on.

(b) Dismissal of a Teacher for non-conformity.

165. Elizabeth: Penalties on Non-conforming Schoolmasters.

166. Statutes: English Act of Uniformity of 1662.

167. Carlisle: Oath of a Grammar School Master.

168. Strype: An English Elementary-School Teacher's License.

169. Cowper: Grammar School Statutes regarding Prayers.

170. Green: Effect of the Translation of the Bible into English.

171. Old MS.: Ignorance of the Monks at Canterbury and Messenden.

172. Parker: Refounding of the Cathedral School at Canterbury.

173. Nicholls: Origin of the English Poor-Law of 1601.

174. Statutes: The English Poor Law of 1601.

QUESTIONS ON THE READINGS

1. From the selection from Rashdall (154), what do you infer as to the

effect of the Reformation on the schools? What kind of schools does

Rashdall describe as existing?

2. Contrast the vernacular style of the Bible (155) with the Ciceronian.

3. Characterize the three extracts (156-58) from Luther.

4. How advanced was the ground taken by Luther (158)? Would we accept the

logic of his argument to-day?

5. Just what do the Hamburg (159) and Brieg (160) _Ordnungen_ indicate?

6. Compare Melanchthon's Saxony Plan (161) with Sturm's (137) and the

French Collège de Guyenne (136), and grade the three in order of

importance.

7. Show the close similarity of the Würtemberg plan of 1559-65 (162) and a

modern German state school system.

8. How advanced for the time was the work of Duke Ernest of Gotha (163)?

9. What kind of a school attitude is indicated by the close supervision of

English teachers, as described in 164 and 165?

10. What would be the natural effect on the teaching occupation of such

legislation as the Act of Uniformity (166)?

11. Compare the form of license of an elementary teacher (168) with a

modern form. What have we added and omitted?

12. What do the statutes regarding prayers (169) indicate as to the nature

of the grammar schools of the time?

13. Characterize the educational importance of the translations of the

Bible into the native tongues (170).

14. What are the marked features of the refounding act (172) for

Canterbury cathedral school? What improvements are indicated?

15. State the steps in the development (173) of the English Poor-Law of

1601, just what the law provided for (174), and just what elements

necessary to the creation of a state school system were incorporated into

it.

SUPPLEMENTARY REFERENCES

* Adams, G. B. _Civilization during the Middle Ages_

Barnard, Henry. _German Teachers and Educators_.

Francke, Kuno. _Social Forces in German Literature_.

* Good, Harry E. "The Position of Luther upon Education," in _School and

Society_, vol. 6, pp. 511-18 (Nov. 3, 1917).

* Montmorency, J. E. G. de. _State Intervention in English

Education_.

* Montmorency, J. E. G. de. _The Progress of Education in England_.

Painter, F. V. N. _Luther on Education_.

Paulsen, Fr. _German Education_.

Richard, J. W. _Philipp Melanchthon, the Protestant Preceptor of

Germany_.

Woodward, W. H. _Education during the Renaissance_.

CHAPTER XIV

EDUCATIONAL RESULTS OF THE PROTESTANT REVOLTS

II. AMONG CALVINISTS AND CATHOLICS

3. _Educational work of the Calvinisms_

THE ORGANIZING WORK OF CALVIN. From the point of view of American

educational history the most important developments in connection with the

Reformation were those arising from Calvinism. While the Calvinistic faith

was rather grim and forbidding, viewed from the modern standpoint, the

Calvinists everywhere had a program for political, economic, and social

progress which has left a deep impress on the history of mankind. This

program demanded the education of all, and in the countries where

Calvinism became dominant the leaders included general education in their

scheme of religious, political, and social reform. [1] In the governmental

program which Calvin drew up (1537) for the religious republic at Geneva

(p. 298), he held that learning was "a public necessity to secure good

political administration, sustain the Church unharmed, and maintain

humanity among men."

In his plan for the schools of Geneva, published in 1538, he outlined a

system of elementary education in the vernacular for all, which involved

instruction in reading, writing, arithmetic, religion, careful grammatical

drill, and training for civil as well as for ecclesiastical leadership. In

his plan of 1541 he upholds the principle, as had Luther, that "the

liberal arts and good training are aids to a full knowledge of the Word."

This involved the organization of secondary schools, or _colleges_ as he

called them, following the French nomenclature, to prepare leaders for the

ministry and the civil government through "instruction in the languages

and humane science." In the colleges (secondary schools) which he

organized at Geneva and in neighboring places to give such training, and

which became models of their kind which were widely copied, the usual

humanistic curriculum was combined with intensive religious instruction.

These colleges became famous as institutions from which learned men came

forth. The course of study in the seven classes of one of the Geneva

colleges, which has been preserved for us, reveals the nature of the

instruction (R. 175). The lowest class began with the letters, reading was

taught from a French-Latin Catechism, and the usual Latin authors were

read. Greek was begun in the fourth class, and, in addition to the usual

Greek authors, the New Testament was read in Greek. In the higher classes,

as was common also in German _gymnasia_, logic and rhetoric were taught to

prepare pupils to analyze, argue, and defend the faith. Elocution was also

given much importance in the upper classes as preparation for the

ministry, two original orations being required each month. Psalms were

sung, prayers offered, sermons preached and questioned on, and the Bible

carefully studied. The men who went forth from the colleges of Geneva to

teach and to preach the Calvinistic gospel were numbered by the hundreds.

[2]

Calvin's great educational work at Geneva has been well summarized by a

recent writer, [3] as follows:

The strenuous moral training of the Genevese was an essential part of

Calvin's work as an educator. All were trained to respect and obey

laws, based upon Scripture, but enacted and enforced by

representatives of the people, and without respect of persons. How

fully the training of children, not merely in sound learning and

doctrine, but also in manners, "good morals," and common sense was

carried out is pictured in the delightful human _Colloquies_ of

Calvin's old teacher, Corderius (once a teacher at the College of

Guyenne, p. 269), whom he twice established at Geneva....

Calvin's memorials to the Genevan magistrates, his drafts for civil

law and municipal administration, his correspondence with reformers

and statesmen, his epoch-making defense of interest taking, his

growing tendency toward civil, religious, and economic liberty, his

development of primary and university education, his intimate

knowledge of the dialect and ways of thought of the common people of

Geneva, and his broad understanding of European princes, diplomats,

and politics mark him out as a great political, economic, and

educational as well as a religious reformer, a constructive social

genius capable of reorganizing and moulding the whole life of a

people.

The world owes much to the constructive, statesman-like genius of Calvin

and those who followed him, and we in America probably most of all. Geneva

became a refuge for the persecuted Protestants from other lands, and

through such influences the ideas of Calvin spread to the Huguenots in

France, the Walloons of the Dutch and Belgian Netherlands, the Germans in

the Palatinate, the Presbyterians of Scotland, the Puritans in England,

and later to the American colonies.

[Illustration: FIG. 98. A FRENCH SCHOOL OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

(From an old woodcut by Abraham Bosse, 1611-78)]

CALVINISM IN THE OTHER LANDS. The great educational work done by the

Calvinists in France, in the face of heavy persecution, deserves to be

ranked with that of the Lutherans in Germany in its importance. Had the

Calvinists had the same opportunity for free development the Lutherans

had, and especially their state support, there can be little doubt that

their work would have greatly exceeded the Lutherans in importance and

influence on the future history of mankind. Beginning with one church in

1538, they had 2150 churches by 1561, when the severe persecutions and

religious wars began.

True to the Calvinistic teaching of putting principles into practice, they

organized an extensive system of schools, extending from elementary

education for all, through secondary schools or colleges, up to eight

Huguenot universities. As a people they were thrifty and capable of making

great sacrifices to carry out their educational ideals. The education they

provided was not only religious but civil; not only intellectual but

moral, social, and economic. Education was for all, rich and poor alike.

Their synods made liberal appropriations for the universities, while

municipalities provided for colleges and elementary education. They

emphasized, in the lower schools, the study of the vernacular and

arithmetic, and in the colleges Greek and the New Testament. The long list

of famous teachers found in their universities reveals the character of

their instruction. Foster has well summarized the distinguishing

characteristics of Huguenot education in France, before they were driven

from the land, as follows: [4]

The significant characteristics of Huguenot education were: an

emphasis on the education of the laity; training for "the republic"

and "society" as well as for the Church; insistence upon virtue as

well as knowledge; the wide-spread demand for education, and a view of

it as essential to liberty of conscience; a comprehensive working

system of elementary, collegiate, and university training for all,

poor as well as rich; an astonishing familiarity with Scripture, even

among the lowest classes; utilization of representative church

organization for founding, supporting, and unifying education;

readiness to sacrifice for education, a spirit of carrying a thing

through at any cost; business-like supervision of money, and

systematic supervision of both professors and students; a notable

emphasis on vernacular, arithmetic, Greek, use of full texts, and

libraries; and finally a progressive spirit of inquiry and

investigation.

In the Palatinate (see map, Figure 88) some progress in founding churches

and schools was made, especially about Strassburg, and the universities of

Heidelberg and Marburg became the centers of Huguenot teaching. In the

Dutch Netherlands, and in that part of the Belgian Netherlands inhabited

by the Walloons, Calvinist ideas as to education dominated. The

universities of Leyden (f. 1575), Groningen (f. 1614), Amsterdam (f.

1630), and Utrecht (f. 1636) were Calvinistic, and closely in touch with

the Calvinists and Huguenots of German lands and France. Popular education

was looked after among these people as it was in Calvinistic France and

Geneva. The Church Synod of The Hague (1586) ordered the establishment of

schools in the cities, and in 1618 the Great Synod held at Dort (R. 176)

ordered that:

Schools in which the young shall be properly instructed in piety and

fundamentals of Christian doctrine shall be instituted not only in cities,

but also in towns and country places where heretofore none have existed.

The Christian magistracy shall be requested that honorable stipends be

provided for teachers, and that well-qualified persons may be employed and

enabled to devote themselves to that function; and especially that the

children of the poor may be gratuitously instructed by them and not be

excluded from the benefits of schools.

[Illustration: FIG. 99. A DUTCH VILLAGE SCHOOL

(After a painting by Adrian Ostade, dated 1662, now in the Louvre, at

Paris)]

Further provisions were made as to the certificating of schoolmasters, and

the pastors were made superintendents of the schools, to visit, examine,

encourage, advise, and report (R. 176). Provision for the free education

of the poor became common, and elementary education was made accessible to

all. The careful provision for education made by the province of Utrecht

(1590, 1612) (R. 178) was typical of Dutch activity. The province of

Drenthe ordered (1630) a school tax paid for all children over seven,

whether attending school or not. The province of Overyssel levied (1666) a

school tax for all children from eight to twelve years of age. The

province of Groningen constituted the pastors the attendance officers to

see that the children got to school. Amsterdam and many other Dutch cities

demanded an examination of all teachers before being licensed to teach. By

the middle of the seventeenth century a good system of schools seems to

have been provided generally [5] by the Dutch and the Belgian Walloons (R.

178). That the teaching of religion was the main function of the Dutch

elementary schools, as of all other vernacular schools of the time, is

seen from the official lists of the textbooks used (R. 178).

John Knox, the leader of the Scottish Reformation (1560), who had spent

some time at Geneva and who was deeply impressed by the Calvinistic

religious-state found there, introduced the Calvinistic religious and

educational ideas into Scotland. His _Book of Discipline for the Scottish

Church_ (1560), framed closely on the Genevan model, contained a chapter

devoted to education in which he proposed:

That everie severall churche have a school-maister appointed, such a

one as is able at least to teach Grammar and the Latin tung, yf the

Town be of any reputation. Yf it be upaland ... then must either the

Reider or the Minister take cayre over the children ... to instruct

them in their first rudementie and especially in the catechisme.

[Illustration: FIG. 100. JOHN KNOX (1505?-72)]

The educational plan proposed by Knox would have called for a large

expenditure of money, and this the thrifty Scotch were not ready for. Knox

and his followers then proposed to endow the new schools from the old

church and monastic foundations, but the Scottish nobles hoped to share in

these, as had the English nobility under Henry VIII, and Knox's plan was

not approved. This delayed the establishment of a real national system of

education for Scotland until the nineteenth century. The new Church,

however, took over the superintendence of education in Scotland, and when

parish schools were finally established by decree of the Privy Council, in

1616, and by the legislation of 1633 and 1646 (R. 179), the Church was

given an important share in their organization and management. These

schools, while not always sufficient in number to meet the educational

needs, were well taught, and have deeply influenced the national

character.

4. _The Counter-Reformation of the Catholics_

THE JESUIT ORDER. The Protestant Revolt made but little headway in Italy,

Spain, Portugal, much of France, or southern Belgium (see map, p. 296).

Italy was scarcely disturbed at all, while in France, where of all these

countries the reform ideas had made greatest progress, nine tenths of the

people remained loyal to Rome. In a general way it may be stated that

those parts of western Europe which had once formed an integral part of

the old Roman Empire remained loyal to the Roman Church, while those which

had been the homes of the Germanic tribes revolted. Now it naturally

happened that the countries which remained loyal to the old Church

experienced none of the feelings of the necessity for education as a means

to personal salvation which the Lutherans and Calvinists felt. There, too,

the church system of education which had developed during the long Middle

Ages remained undisturbed and largely unchanged. The Church as an

institution, though, learned from the Protestants the value of education

as a means to larger ends, and soon set about using it. [6]

After the Church Council of Trent (1545-63), where definite church reform

measures were carried through (p. 303), the Catholics inaugurated what has

since been called a counter-reformation, in an effort to hold lands which

were still loyal and to win back lands which had been lost. Besides

reforming the practices and outward lives of the churchmen, and reforming

some church practices and methods, the Church inaugurated a campaign of

educational propaganda. In this last the chief reliance was upon a new and

a very useful organization officially known as the "Society of Jesus," but

more commonly called the "Jesuit Order." This had been founded, in 1534,

by a Spanish knight, pilgrim, man of large ideas, and scholar by the name

of Ignatius Loyola, and had been sanctioned as an Order of the Church by

Pope Paul III, in 1540. It was organized along strictly military lines,

all members being responsible to its General, and he in turn alone to the

Pope. The quiet life of the cloister was abandoned for a life of open

warfare under a military discipline. The Jesuit was to live in the world,

and all peculiarities of dress or rule which might prove an obstacle to

worldly success were suppressed. The purposes of the Order were to combat

heresy, to advance the interests of the Church, and to strengthen the

authority of the Papacy. Its motto was _Omnia ad Majorem Dei Gloriam_

(that is, All for the greater glory of God), and the means to be employed

by it to accomplish these ends were the pulpit, the confessional, the

mission, and the school. Of these the school was given the place of first

importance. Realizing clearly that the real cause of the Reformation had

been the ignorance, neglect, and vicious lives of so many monks and

priests and the extortion and neglect practiced by the Church, and that

the chief difficulty was in the higher places of authority, it became the

prime principle of the Order to live upright and industrious lives

themselves, and to try to reach and train those likely to be the future

leaders in Church and State. With the education of the masses of the

people the Order was not concerned. [7] Our interest lies only with the

educational work of this Order, a work in which it was remarkably

successful and through which it exercised a very large influence.

[Illustration: FIG. 101. IGNATIUS DE LOYOLA (1491-1556)]

GREAT SUCCESS OF THE ORDER. The service of the Order to the Church in

combating Protestant heresies was very marked. Beginning in a small way,

the Order, by 1600, had established two hundred colleges (Latin secondary

schools), universities, and training seminaries; by 1640, 372; by 1706

(150 years after the death of its founder), 769; and by 1756, 728. In

1773, when the Order was for a time abolished, [8] after it had been

driven out of a number of European countries because of the unscrupulous

methods it adopted and the continual application of its doctrine that the

end justifies the means, the Order had 22,589 members, about half of whom

were teachers. Its colleges (secondary schools) and universities were most

numerous and its work most energetically carried on in northern France,

Belgium, Holland, the German States, Austria, Poland, and Hungary. Here

was the great battle line, and here the Jesuits deeply entrenched

themselves. In these portions of Europe alone there were, in 1750, 217

colleges, 55 seminaries, 24 houses for novitiates, and 160 missions. In

France alone there were 92 colleges. They did much, single-handed, to roll

back the tide of Protestantism which had advanced over half of western

Europe, and to hold other countries true to the ancient faith.

The colleges were usually large and well-supported institutions, with

dormitories, classrooms, dining-halls; and play-grounds. The usual number

of scholars in each was about 300, though some had an attendance of 600 to

800, and a few as high as 2000. At their period of maximum influence the

colleges and universities of the Order probably enrolled a total of

200,000 students. Their graduates were prominent in every scholarly and

governmental activity of the time. As far as possible the pupils were a

selected class to whom the Order offered free instruction. The children of

the nobility and gentry, and the brightest and most promising youths of

the different lands were drawn into their schools. The children of many

Protestants, also, were attracted by the high quality of the instruction

offered. There they were given the best secondary-school education of the

time, and received, at an impressionable age, the peculiar Jesuit stamp.

[9] Bacon gave his opinion as to the success of their instruction in the

following sentence: "As for the pedagogical part, the shortest rule would

be, Consult the schools of the Jesuits; for nothing better has been put in

practice." (_De Augmentis_, VI, 4.) [10]

SUCCESS OF THE JESUIT SCHOOLS. Displaying a genius for organization worthy

of Rome, Loyola and his followers absorbed the best educational ideas of

the time as to school organization and management and curriculum, and

incorporated these into their educational plan. Too practical to make many

changes, but with a keen eye for what was best, they accepted the best and

used it much as others had worked it out. From the municipal college of

Guyenne, the colleges of Calvin, and Sturm's organization at Strassburg,

they adopted the plan of class organization, with a teacher for each

class. From the Calvinists they obtained the idea of the careful

supervision of instruction, which was worked out in the Prefect of Studies

for their colleges. In their course of study they incorporated the

Ciceronian ideal of the humanistic learning, and as careful religious

instruction as was provided by any of the reformers. From the Italian

court schools they took the idea of physical training. The method of

instruction and classroom management which they worked out was detailed,

practical, and for their purposes excellent. The reasons for their

educational work gave them a clearly defined aim and purpose. The military

brotherhood type of organization, the lifetime of celibate service, and

the opportunity to sort the carefully selected members according to their

ability for service in the different lines of the Order gave them the

best-selected teaching force in Europe, and these men they trained for the

teaching service with a thoroughness unknown before and seldom equaled

since. Knowing why they were at work and what ends they should achieve,

intolerant of opposition, intensely practical in all their work, and

possessed of an indefatigable zeal in the accomplishment of their purpose,

they gave Europe in general and northern continental Europe in particular

a system of secondary schools and universities possessed of a high degree

of effectiveness, which, combined with religious warfare and persecution,

in time drove out or dwarfed all competing institutions in the countries

they were able to control.

That their educational system, viewed from a modern liberal-education

standpoint, equaled in effectiveness for liberal-education ends such

institutions as the court schools of Vittorino da Feltre, Battista da

Guarino, or other Italian humanistic educators of the Renaissance (p.

267); the French and Swiss colleges of Calvin (p. 331); Colet's school at

Saint Paul's (p. 275), and the better English grammar schools; or the

schools of the Brethren of the Common Life in the Netherlands (p. 271);

would hardly be contended for to-day. Such, though, was not their purpose.

To proselyte for the Church rather than to liberalize--from their point of

view there had been too much liberalizing already--was their ultimate aim,

and their educational work was organized to suppress rather than to awaken

more Protestant heresy. The work of this Order was so successful, and for

two centuries so dominated secondary and higher education in Europe, that

it will pay us to examine a little more closely their educational

organization to see more fully the reasons for their large success. In so

doing we will examine three points--their school organization, their

methods of instruction, and the training of their teachers.

JESUIT SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. Each college was presided over by a _Rector_,

who was in effect the president of the institution, and a _Prefect of

Studies_, who was the superintendent of instruction. Below these were the

_Professors_ or teachers, the _House Prefect_, the official disciplinarian

of the institution, known as the _Corrector_, the monitors, and the

students. There were two classes of students, interns and externs. Their

schools were divided into two courses. The _studia inferiora_, or lower

school, which covered the six years from ten to twelve years of age up to

sixteen to eighteen; and the _studia superiora_, which followed, and

included the higher college and university courses, with philosophy and

theology as the important subjects. For the whole, there was a very

carefully worked-out manual of instruction (R. 180) known as the _Ratio

Studiorum_. [11]

The boy entering a Jesuit college was supposed to have previously learned

how to read Latin. The first three years were given to learning Latin

grammar and a little Greek. In the fourth year Latin and Greek authors

were begun, and in the fifth and sixth years a rhetorical study of the

Latin authors was made. Latin was the language of the classroom and the

playground as well, the mother tongue being used only by permission. Greek

was studied through the medium of the Latin. The retention of Latin as the

language of all scholarly and political intercourse, and the cultivation

of the style and speech of Cicero as the standard of purity and elegance,

were the ends aimed at. Careful attention was given to the health and

sports of the pupils, and special regard was paid to moral and religious

training.

Following this lower school of six years came the so-called philosophical

course of three years (sometimes two). The study of the Latin classics and

rhetoric was continued, and dialectics (logic) and some metaphysics were

added. The nine years together covered about the same scope as Sturm's

school (R. 137) at Strassburg (p. 273), but was more formal in character

and partook more of the nature of the later formalized humanistic schools.

Slight variations were allowed in places, to meet particular local needs,

but this course of study remained practically unchanged until 1832, when

some history, geography, and elementary mathematics and science were added

to the lower schools, and advanced mathematics and science to the

philosophical course. In 1906 each Province of the Order was permitted to

change the _Ratio_ further, if necessary to adjust it better to local

needs. Above the philosophical course a course of four or six years in

philosophy and theology prepared for the higher work of the Order, the

four-year course for preaching and the six-year course for teaching.

JESUIT SCHOOL METHODS. The characteristic method of the schools was oral,

with a consequent closeness of contact of teacher and pupils. This

closeness of contact and sympathy was further retained by the system

whereby all punishment was given by the official Corrector of the

institution. Their method, like that of the modern German _Volkschule_,

was distinctly a teaching and not a questioning method. The teacher

planned and gave the instruction; the pupils received it. In the upper

classes the teacher explained the general meaning of the entire passage;

then the construction of each part; then gave the historical,

geographical, and archaeological information needed further to explain the

passage; then called attention to the rhetorical and poetical forms and

rules; then compared the style with that of other writers; and finally

drew the moral lesson. The memory was drilled; but little training of the

judgment or understanding was given. Thoroughness, memory drills, and the

disciplinary value of studies were foundation stones in the Jesuit's

educational theory. Repetition, they said, was the mother of memory. Each

day the work of the previous day was reviewed, and there were further

reviews at the end of each week, month, and year.

To retain the interest of the pupils amid such a load of memorizing

various school devices were resorted to, chief among which were prizes,

ranks, emulations, rivals, and public disputations. The system of rivals,

whereby each boy had an opponent constantly after him, as shown in Figure

102, was one of the peculiar features of their schools. While the schools

were said to have been made pleasant and attractive, the idea of the

absolute authority of the Church which they represented pervaded them and

repressed the development of that individuality which the court schools of

the Italian Renaissance, the schools of the northern humanists, and the

Calvinistic colleges had tried particularly to foster. This, however, is a

criticism made from a modern point of view. That the school represented

well the spirit of the times is indicated by their marked success as

teaching institutions.

[Illustration: FIG. 102. PLAN OF A JESUIT SCHOOLROOM

The pupils were arranged in equal numbers in opposite rows, known as

_decuriae_, and designated by the numbers. Each boy in each row had a

"rival" in the similarly numbered opposite row (one pair is designated by

dots), who rose whenever he was called on to recite, and who tried to

correct him in some error. A monitor for each group sat at _C_, and the

regular teacher at _B. A, D, E, i, o_, and _x_ represent various student

officials.]

TRAINING OF THE JESUIT TEACHER. The newest and the most distinguishing

feature of the Jesuit educational scheme, as well as the most important,

was the care with which they selected and the thoroughness with which they

trained their teachers. To begin with, every Jesuit was a picked man, and

of those who entered the Order only the best were selected for teaching.

Each entered the Order for life, was vowed to celibacy, poverty, chastity,

uprightness of life, and absolute obedience to the commands of the Order.

The six-year inferior course had to be completed, which required that the

boy be sixteen to eighteen years of age before he could take the

preliminary steps toward joining the Order. Then a two-year novitiate,

away from the world, followed. This was a trial of his real character, his

weak points were noted, and his will and determination tested. Many were

dismissed before the end of the novitiate. If retained and accepted, he

took the preliminary vows and entered the philosophical course of study.

On completing this he was from twenty-one to twenty-three years of age. He

was now assigned to teach boys in the inferior classes of some college,

and might remain there. If destined for higher work he taught in the

inferior classes for two or three years, and then entered the theological

course at some Jesuit university. This required four years for those

headed for the ministry, and six for those who were being trained for

professorships in the colleges. On completing this course the final vows

were taken, at an age of from twenty-nine to thirty-two. The training to-

day is still longer. To become a teacher in the inferior classes required

training until twenty-one at least, and for college (secondary) classes

training until at least twenty-nine. The training was in scholarship,

religion, theology, and an apprenticeship in teaching, and was superior to

that required for a teaching license in any Protestant country of Europe,

or in the Catholic Church itself outside of the Jesuit Order.

With such carefully selected and well-educated teachers, themselves models

of upright life in an age when priests and monks had been careless, it is

not surprising that they wielded an influence wholly out of proportion to

their numbers, and supplied Europe with its best secondary schools during

the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In the loyal Catholic

countries they were virtually the first secondary schools outside of the

monasteries and churches, and the real introduction of humanism into

Spain, Portugal, and parts of France came with the establishment of the

Jesuit humanistic colleges. For their schools they wrote new school books

--the Protestant books, the most celebrated of which were those of

Erasmus, Melanchthon, Sturm, and Lily, were not possible of use--and for

a time they put new life into the humanistic type of education. Before the

eighteenth century, however, their secondary schools had become as formal

as had those in Protestant lands (R. 146), and their universities far more

narrow and intolerant.

The elements of strength and weakness in the Jesuit system of education

has been well summarized by Dabney, [12] in the following words:

The order of the Jesuits was anti-democratic, and was founded to

uphold authority, and to antagonize the right of private judgment.

With masterly skill they ruled the Catholic world for about two

centuries; and, in the beginning of their activity, performed services

of great value to mankind. For, although they aimed, in their system

of education, to fit pupils merely for so-called practical avocations,

and to avoid all subjects likely to stimulate them to independent

thought, it was nevertheless the best system which had then appeared.

In dropping the old scholastic methods, and teaching new and fresher

subjects, although with the intention of perverting them to their own

ends, they sowed, in fact, the germs of their own decay. In spite of

their wonderful organization, and their indefatigable industry as

courtiers in royal palaces, as professors in the universities, as

teachers in the schools, as preachers, as confessors, and as

missionaries, they were utterly unable to crush the spirit of doubt

and inquiry. During the first half century of their existence they

were intellectually in advance of their age; but after that they

gradually dropped behind it, and, instead of diffusing knowledge, saw

that the only hope of retaining their dominion was to oppose it with

all their might.

THE CHURCH AND ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. As was stated on a preceding page,

the countries which remained loyal to the Church experienced none of the

Protestant feeling as to the necessity for universal education for

individual salvation. In such lands the church system of education which

had grown up during the Middle Ages remained undisturbed, and was expanded

but slowly with the passage of time. The Church, never having made general

provision for education, was not prepared for such work. Teachers were

scarce, there was no theory of education except the religious theory, and

few knew what to do or how to do it. Many churchmen, too, did not see the

need for doing anything. Nevertheless the Church, spurred on by the new

demands of a world fast becoming modern, and by the exhortations of the

official representatives of the people, [13] now began to make extra

efforts, in the large cathedral cities, to remedy the deficiency of more

than a thousand years. In Paris, for example, which was typical of other

French cities, the Church organized a regular system of elementary

schools, with teachers licensed by the Precentor of the cathedral of Notre

Dame and nominally under his supervision, in which instruction was offered

to children of the artisan and laboring classes, of both sexes, "in

reading, writing, reckoning, the rudiments of Latin Grammar, Catechism,

and singing." By 1675 these "Little Schools" in Paris came to contain

"upwards of 5000 pupils, taught by some 330 masters and mistresses." All

such schools, of course, remained under the immediate control of the

Church, and modern state systems of education in the Catholic States are

late nineteenth-century productions. In Spain, Portugal, Poland, and the

Balkan States, general state systems of education have not even as yet

been evolved.

The general effect of the Reformation, though, was to stimulate the Church

to greater activity in elementary, as well as in secondary and higher

education. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries we find a large

number of decrees by church councils and exhortations by bishops urging

the extension of the existing church system of education, so as to supply

at least religious training to all the children of the faithful. As a

result a number of teaching orders were organized, the aim of which was to

assist the Church in providing elementary and religious education for the

children of the laboring and artisan classes in the cities.

TEACHING ORDERS ESTABLISHED. The teaching orders for elementary education,

founded before the eighteenth century, with the dates of their foundation,

were:

* 1535-The Order of Ursulines. (U.S., 1729.)

1592--The Congregation of Christian Doctrine.

* 1598--The Sisters of Notre Dame. (U.S., 1847.)

* 1610--The Visitation Nuns. (U.S., 1799.)

1621--Patres piarum scholarum (Piarists). First school opened in 1597;

authorized by the Pope, 1662.

1627--The Daughters of the Presentation.

* 1633--The Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul. (U.S., 1809.)

1637--The Port Royalists (Jansenists). (Suppressed in 1661.)

1643--The Sisters of Providence.

* 1650--The Sisters of Saint Joseph. Rule based on Jesuits. (U.S.,

19th C.)

1652--The Sisters of Mary of Saint Charles Borromeo.

1684--The Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin.

* 1684--The Brothers of the Christian Schools. (U.S., 1845.)

* Have communities in the United States, the date being that of the

first one established. See _Cyclopedia of Education_, vol. v, p.

528.

All of these, except the Ursulines and the Piarists, were founded in

France, many of them originating in Paris. The first has long been

prominent in Italy, and is now found in all lands. The second was founded

by Father César de Bus, at Cavaillon, Avignon, in southern France, and its

purpose was to teach the Catechism to the young. The catechetical schools

of this Order were prominent in southern France up to the time of the

French Revolution. The third was founded by the Blessed Peter Fourier

(1565-1640), in 1598, and played an important part in the education of

girls in France, particularly in Lorraine, where Calvinism had made much

headway. This noted Order offered free instruction to tradesmen's

daughters, not only in religion but in "that which concerns this present

life and its maintenance" as well. The girls were taught "reading,

writing, arithmetic, sewing, and divers manual arts, honorable and

peculiarly suitable for girls" of their station of life. At a time when

handwork had not been thought of for boys, the beginnings of such work

were here introduced for girls. In 1640 Fourier gave the sisterhood a

constitution and a rule, which were revised and perfected in 1694. In this

he laid down rules for the organization and management of schools, methods

of teaching the different branches, and provided for a rudimentary form of

class organization. The following extract from the Rule illustrates the

approach to class organization which he devised:

[Illustration: FIG. 103. AN URSULINE

Order founded, 1535]

The inspectress, or mistress of the class, shall endeavor, as far as it

possibly can be carried out, that all the pupils of the same mistress have

each the same book, in order to learn and read therein the same lesson; so

that, whilst one is reading hers in an audible and intelligible voice

before the mistress, all the others, following her and following this

lesson, in their books at the same time, may learn it sooner, more

readily, and more perfectly. [14] The Piarists were established in Italy,

the first school being opened in Rome, in 1597, by a Spanish priest who

had studied at Lerida, Valencia, and Alcalá. Being struck by the lack of

educational opportunities for the poor, he opened a free school for their

instruction. By 1606 he had 900 pupils in his schools, and by 1613 he had

1200. In 1621 Pope Gregory XV gave his work definite recognition by

establishing it a teaching Order for elementary (reading, writing,

counting, religion) education, modeled on that of the Jesuits. The Order

did some work in Italy and Spain, but its chief services were in border

Catholic lands. In 1631 it began work in Moravia, in 1640 in Bohemia, in

1642 in Poland, and after 1648 in Austria and Hungary. The members wore a

habit much like that of the Jesuits, had a scheme of studies similar to

their _Ratio_, and were organized by provinces and were under discipline

as were the members of the older Order.

The Jansenists, founded by Saint Cyran, at Port Royal, conducted a very

interesting and progressive educational experiment, and their schools have

become known to history as the "Little Schools of Port Royal." The

congregation was a reaction against the work and methods of the Jesuits.

It included both elementary and secondary education, but never extended

itself, and probably never had more than sixty pupils and teachers. After

seventeen years of work it was suppressed through the opposition of the

Jesuits, and its members fled to the Netherlands. There they wrote those

books which have explained to succeeding generations what they attempted,

[15] and which have revealed what a modern type of educational experiment

they conducted. The progressive and modern nature of their teaching, in an

age of suspicion and intolerance, condemned them to extinction. Yet

despite the progressive nature of their instruction, the intense religious

atmosphere which they threw about all their work (R. 181) reveals the

dominant characteristic of most education for church ends at the time.

THE BROTHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. The largest and most influential of

the teaching orders established for elementary education was the

"Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools," founded by Father La

Salle at Rouen, in 1684, and sanctioned by the King and Pope in 1724. As

early as 1679 La Salle had begun a school at Rheims, and in 1684 he

organized his disciples, prescribed a costume to be worn, and outlined the

work of the brotherhood (_R. 182_). The object was to provide free

elementary and religious instruction in the vernacular for the children of

the working classes, and to do for elementary education what the Jesuits

had done for secondary education La Salle's _Conduct of Schools_, first

published in 1720, was the _ratio studiorum_ of his order. His work marks

the real beginning of free primary instruction in the vernacular in

France. In addition to elementary schools, a few of what we should call

part-time continuation schools were organized for children engaged in

commerce and industry. Realizing better than the Jesuits the need for

well-trained rather than highly educated teachers for little children, and

unable to supply members to meet the outside calls for schools, La Salle

organized at Rheims, in 1685, what was probably the second normal school

for training teachers in the world. [16] Another was organized later at

Paris. In addition to a good education of the type of the time and

thorough grounding in religion, the student teachers learned to teach in

practice schools, under the direction of experienced teachers.

The pupils in La Salle's schools were graded into classes, and the class

method of instruction was introduced. [17] The curriculum was unusually

rich for a time when teaching methods and textbooks were but poorly

developed, the needs for literary education small, and when children could

not as yet be spared from work longer than the age of nine or ten.

Children learned first to read, write, and spell French, and to do simple

composition work in the vernacular. Those who mastered this easily were

taught the Latin Psalter in addition. Much prominence was given to

writing, the instruction being applied to the writing of bills, notes,

receipts, and the like. Much free questioning was allowed in arithmetic

and the Catechism, to insure perfect understanding of what was taught.

Religious training was made the most prominent feature of the school, as

was natural. A half-hour daily was given to the Catechism, mass was said

daily, the crucifix was always on the wall, and two or three pupils were

always to be found kneeling, telling their beads. The discipline, in

contradistinction to the customary practice of the time, was mild, though

all punishments were carefully prescribed by rule. [18] The rule of

silence in the school was rigidly enjoined, all speech was to be in a low

tone of voice, and a code of signals replaced speech for many things.

[Illustration: FIG. 104. A SCHOOL OF LA SALLE AT PARIS, 1688

A visit of James II and the Archbishop of Paris to the School (From a bas-

relief on the statue of La Salle, at Rouen)]

Though the Order met with much opposition from both church and civil

authorities, it made slow but steady headway. At the time of the death of

La Salle, in 1719, thirty-five years after its foundation, the Order had

one general normal school, four normal schools for training teachers,

three practice schools, thirty-three primary schools, and one continuation

school. The Order remained largely French, and at the time of its

suppression, in 1792, had schools in 121 communities in France and 6

elsewhere, about 1000 brothers, and approximately 30,000 children in its

schools. This was approximately 1 child in every 175 of school age of the

population of France at that time. While relatively small in numbers,

their schools represented the best attempt to provide elementary education

in any Catholic country before well into the nineteenth century. The

distribution of their schools throughout France, by 1792, is shown on the

map above. In 1803 the Order was reëstablished, by 1838 it had schools in

282 communities, and in 1887, when La Salle was declared a Saint of the

Church, it had 1898 communities on four continents, 109 of which were in

the United States, and was teaching a total of approximately 300,000

primary children.

[Illustration: FIG. 105. THE BROTHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS BY 1792

Map, showing the locations of their communities]

5. _General Results of the Reformation on Education_

DESTRUCTION AND CREATION OF SCHOOLS. Any such general overturning of the

established institutions and traditions of a thousand years as occurred at

the time of the Protestant Revolts, with the accompanying bitter hatreds

and religious strife, could not help but result in extensive destruction

of established institutions. Monasteries, churches, and schools alike

suffered, and it required time to replace them. Even though they had been

neglectful of their functions, inadequate in number, and unsuited to the

needs of a world fast becoming modern, they had nevertheless answered

partially the need of the times. In all the countries where revolts took

place these institutions suffered more or less, but in England probably

most of all. The old schools which were not destroyed were transformed

into Protestant schools, the grammar schools to train scholars and

leaders, and the parish schools into Protestant elementary schools to

teach reading and the Catechism, but the number of the latter, in all

Protestant lands, was very far short of the number needed to carry out the

Protestant religious theory. This, as we have seen, proposed to extend the

elements of an education to large and entirely new classes of people who

never before in the history of the world had had such advantages. Out of

the Protestant religious conception that all should be educated the

popular elementary school of modern times has been evolved. The evolution,

though, was slow, and long periods of time have been required for its

accomplishment.

In place of the schools destroyed, or the teachers driven out if no

destruction took place, the reformers made an earnest effort to create new

schools and supply teachers. This, though, required time, especially as

there was as yet in the world no body of vernacular teachers, no

institutions in which such could be trained, no theory as to education

except the religious, no supply of educated men or women from which to

draw, no theory of state support and control, and no source of taxation

from which to derive a steady flow of funds. Throughout the long Middle

Ages the Church had supplied gratuitous or nearly gratuitous instruction.

This it could do, to the limited number whom it taught, from the proceeds

of its age-old endowments and educational foundations. In the process of

transformation from a Catholic to a Protestant State, and especially

during the more than a century of turmoil and religious strife which

followed the rupture of the old relations, many of the old endowments were

lost or were diverted from their original purposes. As the Protestant

reformers were supported generally by the ruling princes, many of these

tried to remedy the deficiency by ordering schools established. The landed

nobility though, unused to providing education for their villein tenants

and serfs, were averse to supplying the deficiency by any form of general

taxation. Nor were the rising merchant classes in the cities any more

anxious to pay taxes to provide for artisans and servants what had for

ages been a gratuity or not furnished at all.

NO REAL DEMAND OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. The creation of a largely new type

of schools, and in sufficient numbers to meet the needs of large classes

of people who before had never shared in the advantages of education, in

consequence proved to be a work of centuries. The century of warfare which

followed the reformation movement more or less exhausted all Europe, while

the Thirty Years' War which formed its culmination left the German States,

where the largest early educational progress had been made, a ruin. In

consequence there was for long little money for school support, and

religious interest and church tithes had to be depended on almost entirely

for the establishment and support of schools. Out of the parish sextons or

clerks a supply of vernacular teachers had to be evolved, a system of

school organization and supervision worked out and added to the duties of

the minister, and the feeling of need for education awakened sufficiently

to make people willing to support schools. In consequence what Luther and

Calvin declared at the beginning of the sixteenth century to be a

necessity for the State and the common right of all, it took until well

into the nineteenth century actually to create and make a reality.

The great demand of the time, too, was not so much for the education of

the masses, however desirable or even necessary this might be from the

standpoint of Protestant religious theory, but for the training of leaders

for the new religious and social order which the Revival of Learning, the

rise of modern nationalities, and the Reformation movements had brought

into being. For this secondary schools for boys, largely Latin in type,

were demanded rather than elementary vernacular schools for both sexes. We

accordingly find the great creations of the period were secondary schools.

[Illustration: FIG. 106. TENDENCIES IN EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN EUROPE,

1500 to 1700]