"Modern education begins with the Renaissance. The educational

methods that we then begin to discern will doubtless not be

developed and perfected till a later period; the new doctrines

will pass into practice only gradually, and with the general

progress of the times. But from the sixteenth century

education is in possession of its essential principles. ...

The men of the sixteenth century having renewed with classical

antiquity an intercourse that had been too long interrupted,

it was natural that they should propose to the young the study

of the Greeks and the Romans. What is called secondary

instruction really dates from the sixteenth century. The crude

works of the Middle Age are succeeded by the elegant

compositions of Athens and Rome, henceforth made accessible to

all through the art of printing; and, with the reading of the

ancient authors, there reappear through the fruitful effect of

imitation, their qualities of correctness in thought, of

literary taste, and of elegance in form. In France, as in

Italy, the national tongues, moulded, and, as it were,

consecrated by writers of genius, become the instruments of an

intellectual propaganda. Artistic taste, revived by the rich

products of a race of incomparable artists, gives an extension

to the horizon of life, and creates a new class of emotions.

Finally, the Protestant Reform develops individual thought and

free inquiry, and at the same time, by its success, it imposes

still greater efforts on the Catholic Church. This is not

saying that everything is faultless in the educational efforts

of the sixteenth century. First, as is natural for innovators,

the thought of the teachers of this period is marked by

enthusiasm rather than by precision. They are more zealous in

pointing out the end to be attained, than exact in determining

the means to be employed. Besides, some of them are content to

emancipate the mind, but forget to give it proper direction.

Finally, others make a wrong use of the ancients; they are too

much preoccupied with the form and the purity of language;

they fall into Ciceromania, and it is not their fault if a new

superstition, that of rhetoric, does not succeed the old

superstition, that of the Syllogism."

_G. Compayré, The History of Pedagogy,

chapter 5 (section 92-93)._

EDUCATION:

Rabelais' Gargantua.

Rabelais' description of the imaginary education of Gargantua

gives us the educational ideas of a man of genius in the 16th

century: "Gargantua," he writes, "awaked, then, about four

o'clock in the morning. Whilst they were rubbing him, there

was read unto him some chapter of the Holy Scripture aloud and

clearly, with a pronunciation fit for the matter, and hereunto

was appointed a young page born in Basché, named Anagnostes.

According to the purpose and argument of that lesson, he

oftentimes gave himself to revere, adore, pray, and send up

his supplications to that good God whose word did show His

majesty and marvellous judgments. Then his master repeated

what had been read, expounding unto him the most obscure and

difficult points. They then considered the face of the sky, if

it was such as they had observed it the night before, and into

what signs the sun was entering, as also the moon for that

day. This done, he was appareled, combed, curled, trimmed and

perfumed, during which time they repeated to him the lessons

of the day before. He himself said them by heart, and upon

them grounded practical cases concerning the estate of man,

which he would prosecute sometimes two or three hours, but

ordinarily they ceased as soon as he was fully clothed. Then

for three good hours there was reading. This done, they went

forth, still conferring of the substance of the reading, and

disported themselves at ball, tennis, or the 'pile trigone,'

gallantly exercising their bodies, as before they had done

their minds. All their play was but in liberty, for they left

off when they pleased, and that was commonly when they did

sweat, or were otherwise weary. Then were they very well dried

and rubbed, shifted their shirts, and walking soberly, went to

see if dinner was ready. Whilst they stayed for that, they did

clearly and eloquently recite some sentences that they had

retained of the lecture. In the mean time Master Appetite

came, and then very orderly sat they down at table. At the

beginning of the meal there was read some pleasant history of

ancient prowess, until he had taken his wine. Then, if they

thought good, they continued reading, or began to discourse

merrily together; speaking first of the virtue, propriety,

efficacy, and nature of all that was served in at that table;

of bread, of wine, of water, of salt, of flesh, fish, fruits,

herbs, roots, and of their dressing. By means whereof, he

learned in a little time all the passages that on these

subjects are to be found in Pliny, Athenæus, Dioscorides,

Julius, Pollux, Galen, Porphyrius, Oppian, Polybius,

Heliodorus, Aristotle, Œlian, and others.

{703}

Whilst they talked of these things, many times, to be the more

certain, they caused the very books to be brought to the

table, and so well and perfectly did he in his memory retain

the things above said, that in that time there was not a

physician that knew half so much as he did. Afterwards they

conferred of the lessons read in the morning, and ending their

repast with some conserve of quince, he washed his hands and

eyes with fair fresh water, and gave thanks unto God in some

fine canticle, made in praise of the divine bounty and

munificence. This done, they brought in cards, not to play,

but to learn a thousand pretty tricks and new inventions,

which were all grounded upon arithmetic. By this means he fell

in love with that numerical science, and every day after

dinner and supper he passed his time in it as pleasantly as he

was wont to do at cards and dice. ... After this they

recreated themselves with singing musically, in four or five

parts, or upon a set theme, as it best pleased them. In matter

of musical instruments, he learned to play the lute, the

spinet, the harp, the German flute, the flute with nine holes,

the violin, and the sackbut. This hour thus spent, he betook

himself to his principal study for three hours together, or

more, as well to repeat his matutinal lectures as to proceed

in the book wherein he was, as also to write handsomely, to

draw and form the antique and Roman letters. This being done,

they went out of their house, and with them a young gentleman

of Touraine, named Gymnast, who taught the art of riding.

Changing then his clothes, he mounted on any kind of horse,

which he made to bound in the air, to jump the ditch, to leap

the palisade, and to turn short in a ring both to the right

and left hand. ... The time being thus bestowed, and himself

rubbed, cleansed, and refreshed with other clothes, they

returned fair and softly; and passing through certain meadows,

or other grassy places, beheld the trees and plants: comparing

them with what is written of them in the books of the

ancients, such as Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Marinus, Pliny,

Nicander, Macer, and Galen, and carried home to the house

great handfuls of them, whereof a young page called Rhizotomos

had charge--together with hoes, picks, spuds, pruning-knives,

and other instruments requisite for herborising. Being come to

their lodging, whilst supper was making ready, they repeated

certain passages of that which had been read, and then sat

down at table. ... During that repast was continued the lesson

read at dinner as long as they thought good: the rest was

spent in good discourse, learned and profitable. After that

they had given thanks, they set themselves to sing musically,

and play upon harmonious instruments, or at those pretty

sports made with cards, dice or cups,--thus made merry till it

was time to go to bed; and sometimes they would go make visits

unto learned men, or to such as had been travellers in strange

countries. At full night they went into the most open place of

the house to see the face of the sky, and there beheld the

comets, if any were, as likewise the figures, situations,

aspects, oppositions, and conjunctions of the stars. Then with

his master did he briefly recapitulate, after the manner of

the Pythagoreans, that which he had read, seen, learned, done,

and understood in the whole course of that day. Then they

prayed unto God the Creator, falling down before Him, and

strengthening their faith towards Him, and glorifying Him for

His boundless bounty; and, giving thanks unto Him for the time

that was past, they recommended themselves to His divine

clemency for the future. Which being done, they entered upon

their repose."

_W. Besant, Readings in Rabelais, pages 20-29._

EDUCATION:

Germany.

"The schools of France and Italy owed little to the great

modern movement of the Renaissance. In both these countries

that movement operated, in both it produced mighty results;

but of the official establishments for instruction it did not

get hold. In Italy the mediæval routine in those

establishments at first opposed a passive resistance to it;

presently came the Catholic reaction, and sedulously shut it

out from them. In France the Renaissance did not become a

power in the State, and the routine of the schools sufficed to

exclude the new influence till it took for itself other

channels than the schools. But in Germany the Renaissance

became a power in the State; allied with the Reformation,

where the Reformation triumphed in German countries the

Renaissance triumphed with it, and entered with it, into the

public schools. Melancthon and Erasmus were not merely enemies

and subverters of the dominion of the Church of Rome, they

were eminent humanists; and with the great but single

exception of Luther, the chief German reformers were all of

them distinguished friends of the new classical learning, as

well as of Protestantism. The Romish party was in German

countries the ignorant party also, the party untouched by the

humanities and by culture. Perhaps one reason why in England

our schools have not had the life and growth of the schools of

Germany and Holland is to be found in the separation, with us,

of the power of the Reformation and the power of the

Renaissance. With us, too, the Reformation triumphed and got

possession of our schools; but our leading reformers were not

at the same time, like those of Germany, the nation's leading

spirits in intellect and culture. In Germany the best spirits

of the nation were then the reformers; in England our best

spirits,--Shakspeare, Bacon, Spenser,--were men of the

Renaissance, not men of the Reformation, and our reformers

were men of the second order. The Reformation, therefore,

getting hold of the schools in England was a very different

force, a force far inferior in light, resources, and

prospects, to the Reformation getting hold of the schools in

Germany. But in Germany, nevertheless, as Protestant orthodoxy

grew petrified like Catholic orthodoxy, and as, in

consequence, Protestantism flagged and lost the powerful

impulse with which it started, the school flagged also, and in

the middle of the last century the classical teaching of

Germany, in spite of a few honourable names like Gesner's,

Ernesti's, and Heyne's, seems to have lost all the spirit and

power of the 16th century humanists, to have been sinking into

a mere church appendage, and fast becoming torpid. A

theological student, making his livelihood by teaching till he

could get appointed to a parish, was the usual school-master.

'The schools will never be better,' said their great

renovator, Friedrich August Wolf, the well-known critic of

Homer, 'so long as the school-masters are theologians by

profession.

{704}

A theological course in a university, with its smattering of

classics, is about as good a preparation for a classical

master as a course of feudal law would be.' Wolf's coming to

Halle in 1783, invited by Von Zedlitz, the minister for public

worship under Frederick the Great, a sovereign whose civil

projects and labours were not less active and remarkable than

his military, marks an era from which the classical schools of

Germany, reviving the dormant spark planted in them by the

Renaissance, awoke to a new life."

_M. Arnold, Schools and Universities on

the Continent, chapter 14._

It is surprising to learn "how much was left untaught, in the

sixteenth century, in the schools. Geography and history were

entirely omitted in every scheme of instruction, mathematics

played but a subordinate part, while not a thought was

bestowed either upon natural philosophy or natural history.

Every moment and every effort were given to the classical

languages, chiefly to the Latin. But we should be overhasty,

should we conclude, without further inquiry, that these

branches, thus neglected in the schools, were therefore every

where untaught. Perhaps they were reserved for the university

alone, and there, too, for the professors of the philosophical

faculty, as is the case even at the present day with natural

philosophy and natural history; nay, logic, which was a

regular school study in the sixteenth century, is, in our day,

widely cultivated at the university. We must, therefore, in

order to form a just judgment upon the range of subjects

taught in the sixteenth century, as well as upon the methods

of instruction, first cast a glance at the state of the

universities of that period, especially in the philosophical

faculties. A prominent source of information on this point is

to be found in the statutes of the University of Wittenberg,

revised by Melancthon, in the year 1545. The theological

faculty appears, by these statutes, to have consisted of four

professors, who read lectures on the Old and New

Testaments,--chiefly on the Psalms, Genesis, Isaiah, the

Gospel of John, and the Epistle to the Romans. They also

taught dogmatics, commenting upon the Nicene creed and

Augustine's book, 'De spiritu et litera.' The Wittenberg

lecture schedule for the year 1561, is to the same effect;

only we have here, besides exegesis and dogmatics, catechetics

likewise. According to the statutes, the philosophical faculty

was composed of ten professors. The first was to read upon

logic and rhetoric; the second, upon physics, and the second

book of Pliny's natural history; the third, upon arithmetic

and the 'Sphere' of John de Sacro Busto; the fourth, upon

Euclid, the 'Theoriæ Planetarum' of Burbach, and Ptolemy's'

Almagest'; the fifth and sixth, upon the Latin poets and

Cicero; the seventh, who was the 'Pedagogus,' explained to the

younger class, Latin Grammar, Linacer 'de emendata structura

Latini sermonis,' Terence, and some of Plautus; the eighth,

who was the 'Physicus,' explained Aristotle's 'Physics and

Dioscorides'; the ninth gave instruction in Hebrew; and the

tenth reviewed the Greek Grammar, read lectures on Greek

Classics at intervals, also on one of St. Paul's Epistles,

and, at the same time, on ethics. ... Thus the philosophical

faculty appears to have been the most fully represented at

Wittenberg, as it included ten professors, while the

theological had but four, the medical but three. ... We have a

... criterion by which to judge of the limited nature of the

studies of that period, as compared with the wide field which

they cover at the present day, in the then almost total lack

of academical apparatus and equipments. The only exception was

to be found in the case of libraries; but, how meager and

insufficient all collections of books must have been at that

time, when books were few in number and very costly, will

appear from the fund, for example, which was assigned to the

Wittenberg library; it yielded annually but one hundred

gulden, (about $63,) with which, 'for the profit of the

university and chiefly of the poorer students therein, the

library may be adorned and enriched with books in all the

faculties and in every art, as well in the Hebrew and Greek

tongues.' Of other apparatus, such as collections in natural

history, anatomical museums, botanical gardens, and the like,

we find no mention; and the less, inasmuch as there was no

need of them in elucidation of such lectures as the professors

ordinarily gave. When Paul Eber, the theologian, read lectures

upon anatomy, he made no use of dissection."

_K. von Raumer, Universities in the Sixteenth Century (Barnard's

American Journal of Education, volume 5, pages 535-540)._

EDUCATION:

Luther and the Schools.

"Luther ... felt that, to strengthen the Reformation, it was

requisite to work on the young, to improve the schools, and to

propagate throughout Christendom the knowledge necessary for a

profound study of the holy Scriptures. This, accordingly, was

one of the objects of his life. He saw it in particular at the

period which we have reached, and wrote to the councillors of

all the cities of Germany, calling upon them to found

Christian schools. 'Dear sirs,' said he, 'we annually expend

so much money on arquebuses, roads, and dikes; why should we

not spend a little to give one or two schoolmasters to our

poor children? God stands at the door, and knocks; blessed are

we if we open to him. Now the word of God abounds. O my dear

Germans, buy, buy, while the market is open before your

houses. ... Busy yourselves with the children,' continues

Luther, still addressing the magistrates; 'for many parents

are like ostriches; they are hardened towards their little

ones, and satisfied with having laid the egg, they care

nothing for it afterwards. The prosperity of a city does not

consist merely in heaping up great treasures, in building

strong walls, in erecting splendid mansions, in possessing

glittering arms. If madmen fall upon it, its ruin will only be

the greater. The true wealth of a city, its safety, and its

strength, is to have many learned, serious, worthy,

well-educated citizens. And whom must we blame because there

are so few at present, except you magistrates, who have

allowed our youth to grow up like trees in a forest?' Luther

particularly insisted on the necessity of studying literature

and languages: 'What use is there, it may be asked, in

learning Latin, Greek, and Hebrew? We can read the Bible very

well in German. Without languages,' replies he, 'we could not

have received the gospel. ... Languages are the scabbard that

contains the sword of the Spirit; they are the casket that

guards the jewels; they are the vessel that holds the wine;

and as the gospel says, they are the baskets in which the

loaves and fishes are kept to feed the multitude. If we

neglect the languages, we shall not only eventually lose the

gospel, but be unable to speak or write in Latin or in German.

{705}

No sooner did men cease to cultivate them than Christendom

declined, even until it fell under the power of the pope. But

now that languages are again honored, they shed such light

that all the world is astonished, and everyone is forced to

acknowledge that our gospel is almost as pure as that of the

apostles themselves. In former times the holy fathers were

frequently mistaken, because they were ignorant of languages.

... If the languages had not made me positive as to the

meaning of the word, I might have been a pious monk, and

quietly preached the truth in the obscurity of the cloister;

but I should have left the pope, the sophists, and their

antichristian empire still unshaken."

_J. H. Merle d' Aubigné, History of the Reformation of

the 16th Century, book 10, chapter 0 (volume 3)._

Luther, in his appeal to the municipal magistrates of Germany,

calls for the organization of common schools to be supported

at public cost. "Finally, he gives his thought to the means of

recruiting the teaching service. 'Since the greatest evil in

every place is the lack of teachers, we must not wait till

they come forward of themselves; we must take the trouble to

educate them and prepare them.' To this end Luther keeps the

best of the pupils, boys and girls, for a longer time in

school; gives them special instructors, and opens libraries

for their use. In his thought he never distinguishes women

teachers from men teachers; he wants schools for girls as well

as for boys. Only, not to burden parents and divert children

from their daily labor, he requires but little time for school

duties. ... 'My opinion is [he says] that we must send the

boys to school one or two hours a day, and have them learn a

trade at home for the rest of the time. It is desirable that

these two occupations march side by side.' ... Luther gives

the first place to the teaching of religion: 'Is it not

reasonable that every Christian should know the Gospel at the

age of nine or ten?' Then come the languages, not, as might be

hoped, the mother tongue, but the learned languages, Latin,

Greek, and Hebrew. Luther had not yet been sufficiently rid of

the old spirit to comprehend that the language of the people

ought to be the basis of universal instruction. He left to

Comenius the glory of making the final separation of the

primary school from the Latin school. ... Physical exercises

are not forgotten in Luther's pedagogical regulations. But he

attaches an especial importance to singing. 'Unless a

school-master know how to sing, I think him of no account.'

'Music,' he says again, 'is a half discipline which makes men

more indulgent and more mild.' At the same time that he

extends the programme of studies, Luther introduces a new

spirit into methods. He wishes more liberty and more joy in

the school. 'Solomon,' he says, 'is a truly royal

schoolmaster. He does not, like the monks, forbid the young to

go into the world and be happy. Even as Anselm said: "A young

man turned aside from the world is like a young tree made to

grow in a vase." The monks have imprisoned young men like

birds in their cage. It is dangerous to isolate the young.'

... Do not let ourselves imagine, however, that Luther at once

exercised a decisive influence on the current education of his

day. A few schools were founded, called writing schools; but

the Thirty Years' War, and other events, interrupted the

movement of which Luther has the honor of having been the

originator. ... In the first half of the seventeenth century,

Ratich, a German, and Comenius, a Slave, were, with very

different degrees of merit, the heirs of the educational

thought of Luther. With something of the charlatan and the

demagogue, Ratich devoted his life to propagating a novel art

of teaching, which be called didactics, and to which he

attributed marvels. He pretended, by his method of languages,

to teach Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, in six months. But

nevertheless, out of many strange performances and lofty

promises, there issue some thoughts of practical value. The

first merit of Ratich was to give the mother tongue, the

German language, the precedence over the ancient languages."

_G. Compayré, The History of Pedagogy,

chapter 6 (section 130-134)._

EDUCATION:

Netherlands.

"When learning began to revive after the long sleep of the

Middle Ages, Italy experienced the first impulse. Next came

Germany and the contiguous provinces of the Low Countries. The

force of the movement in these regions is shown by an event of

great importance, not always noticed by historians. In 1400,

there was established at Deventer, in the northeastern

province of the Netherlands, an association or brotherhood,

usually called Brethren of the Life in Common [see BRETHREN OF

THE COMMON LOT]. In their strict lives, partial community of

goods, industry in manual labor, fervent devotion, and

tendency to mysticism, they bore some resemblance to the

modern Moravians. But they were strikingly distinguished from

the members of this sect by their earnest cultivation of

knowledge, which was encouraged among themselves and promoted

among others by schools, both for primary and advanced

education. In 1430, the Brethren had established forty-five

branches, and by 1460 more than thrice that number. They were

scattered through different parts of Germany and the Low

Countries, each with its school subordinate to the head

college at Deventer. It was in these schools, in the middle of

the fifteenth century, that a few Germans and Netherlanders

were, as Hallam says, roused to acquire that extensive

knowledge of the ancient languages which Italy as yet

exclusively possessed. Their names should never be omitted in

any remembrance of the revival of letters; for great was their

influence upon subsequent times. Chief among these men were

Wessels, of Groningen, 'one of those who contributed most

steadily to the purification of religion'; Hegius of Deventer,

under whom Erasmus obtained his early education, and who

probably was the first man to print Greek north of the Alps;

Dringeberg, who founded a good school in Alsace; and Longius,

who presided over one at Munster. Thanks to the influence of

these pioneers in learning, education had made great progress

among the Netherlanders by the middle of the sixteenth

century. ... We have the testimony of the Italian Guicciardini

to the fact that before the outbreak of the war with Spain

even the peasants in Holland could read and write well. As the

war went on, the people showed their determination that in

this matter there should be no retrogression. In the first

Synod of Dort, held in 1574, the clergy expressed their

opinion upon the subject by passing a resolution or ordinance

which, among other things, directed 'the servants of the

Church' to obtain from the magistrates in every locality a

permission for the appointment of schoolmasters, and an order

for their compensation as in the past.

{706}

Before many years had elapsed the civil authorities began to

establish a general school system for the country. In 1582,

the Estates of Friesland decreed that the inhabitants of towns

and villages should, within the space of six weeks, provide

good and able Reformed schoolmasters, and those who neglected

so to do would be compelled to accept the instructors

appointed for them. This seems to have been the beginning of

the supervision of education by the State, a system which soon

spread over the whole republic. In these schools, however,

although they were fostered by the State, the teachers seem,

in the main, to have been paid by their pupils. But as years

went on, a change came about in this part of the system. It

probably was aided by the noteworthy letter which John of

Nassau, the oldest brother of William the Silent, the noble

veteran who lived until 1606, wrote to his son Lewis William,

Stadtholder of Friesland. In this letter, which is worthy of a

place on the walls of every schoolhouse in America, the

gallant young stadt-holder is instructed to urge on the

States-General 'that they, according to the example of the

pope and Jesuits, should establish free schools, where

children of quality as well as of poor families, for a very

small sum, could be well and christianly educated and brought

up. This would be the greatest and most useful work, and the

highest service that you could ever accomplish for God and

Christianity, and especially for the Netherlands themselves.

... In summa, one may jeer at this as popish trickery, and

undervalue it as one will: there still remains in the work an

inexpressible benefit. Soldiers and patriots thus educated,

with a true knowledge of God and a Christian conscience, item,

churches and schools, good libraries, books, and

printing-presses, are better than all armies, arsenals,

armories, munitions, alliances, and treaties that can be had

or imagined in the world.' Such were the words in which the

Patriarch of the Nassaus urged upon his countrymen a

common-school system. In 1609, when the Pilgrim Fathers took

up their residence in Leyden, the school had become the common

property of the people, and was paid for among other municipal

expenses. It was a land of schools supported by the State--a

land, according to Motley, 'where every child went to school,

where almost every individual inhabitant could write and read,

where even the middle classes were proficient in mathematics

and the classics, and could speak two or more modern

languages.' Does any reader now ask whence the settlers of

Plymouth, who came directly from Holland, and the other

settlers of New England whose Puritan brethren were to be

found in thousands throughout the Dutch Republic, derived

their ideas of schools first directed, and then supported by

the State."

EDUCATION:

Leyden University.

To commemorate the deliverance of Leyden from the Spanish

siege in 1574 (see NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1573-1574), "and as a

reward for the heroism of the citizens, the Prince of Orange,

with the consent of the Estates of the province, founded the

University of Leyden. Still, the figment of allegiance

remained; the people were only fighting for their

constitutional rights, and so were doing their duty to the

sovereign. Hence the charter of the university ran in the name

of Philip, who was credited with its foundation, as a reward

to his subjects for their rebellion against his evil

counsellors and servants, 'especially in consideration of the

differences of religion, and the great burdens and hardships

borne by the citizens of our city of Leyden during the war

with such faithfulness.' Motley calls this 'ponderous irony,'

but the Hollanders were able lawyers and intended to build on

a legal basis. This event marks an epoch in the intellectual

history of Holland and of the world. ... The new university

was opened in 1575, and from the outset took the highest rank.

Speaking, a few years ago, of its famous senate chamber,

Niebuhr called it 'the most memorable room of Europe in the

history of learning.' The first curator was John Van der Does,

who had been military commandant of the city during the siege.

He was of a distinguished family, but was still more

distinguished for his learning, his poetical genius, and his

valor. Endowed with ample funds, the university largely owed

its marked pre-eminence to the intelligent foresight and wise

munificence of its curators. They sought out and obtained the

most distinguished scholars of all nations, and to this end

spared neither pains nor expense. Diplomatic negotiation and

even princely mediation were often called in for the

acquisition of a professor. Hence it was said that it

surpassed all the universities of Europe in the number of its

scholars of renown. These scholars were treated with princely

honors. ... The 'mechanicals' of Holland, as Elizabeth called

them, may not have paid the accustomed worship to rank, but to

genius and learning they were always willing to do homage.

Space would fail for even a brief account of the great men,

foreign and native, who illuminated Leyden with their

presence. ... But it was not alone in scholarship and in

scientific research that the University of Leyden gave an

impetus to modern thought. Theological disputes were developed

there at times, little tempests which threatened destruction

to the institution, but they were of short duration. The right

of conscience was always respected, and in the main the right

of full and public discussion. ... When it was settled that

dissenters could not be educated in the English universities,

they flocked to Leyden in great numbers, making that city,

next to Edinburgh, their chief resort. Eleven years after the

opening of the University of Leyden, the Estates of democratic

Friesland, amid the din of war, founded the University of

Franeker, an institution which was to become famous as the

home of Arminius. ... Both of these universities were

perpetually endowed with the proceeds of the ecclesiastical

property which had been confiscated during the progress of the

war."

_D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England,

and America, chapter 2, 20, and 3._

EDUCATION:

England.

"In contemplating the events of the fifteenth and sixteenth

centuries, in their influence on English civilisation, we are

reminded once more of the futility of certain modern

aspirations. No amount of University Commissions, nor of

well-meant reforms, will change the nature of Englishmen. It

is impossible, by distributions of University prizes and

professorships, to attract into the career of letters that

proportion of industry and ingenuity which, in Germany for

example, is devoted to the scholastic life.

{707}

Politics, trade, law, sport, religion, will claim their own in

England, just as they did at the Revival of Letters. The

illustrious century which Italy employed in unburying,

appropriating, and enjoying the treasures of Greek literature

and art, our fathers gave, in England, to dynastic and

constitutional squabbles, and to religious broils. The

Renaissance in England, and chiefly in Oxford, was like a

bitter and changeful spring. There was an hour of genial

warmth, there breathed a wind from the south, in the lifetime

of Chaucer; then came frosts and storms; again the brief

sunshine of court favour shone on literature for a while, when

Henry VIII. encouraged study, and Wolsey and Fox founded

Christ Church and Corpus Christi College, once more the bad

days of religious strife returned, and the promise of learning

was destroyed. Thus the chief result of the awakening thought

of the fourteenth century in England was not a lively delight

in literature, but the appearance of the Lollards. The

intensely practical genius of our race turned, not to letters,

but to questions about the soul and its future, about property

and its distribution. The Lollards were put down in Oxford;

'the tares were weeded out' by the House of Lancaster, and in

the process the germs of free thought, of originality, and of

a rational education, were destroyed. 'Wyclevism did domineer

among us,' says Wood; and, in fact, the intellect of the

University was absorbed, like the intellect of France during

the heat of the Jansenist controversy, in defending or

assailing '267 damned conclusions,' drawn from the books of

Wyclife. The University 'lost many of her children through the

profession of Wyclevism.'"

_A. Lang, Oxford, chapter 3._

EDUCATION:

Colet and St. Paul's School.

Dr. John Colet, appointed Dean of St. Paul's in 1505,

"resolved, whilst living and in health, to devote his

patrimony to the foundation of a school in St. Paul's

Churchyard, wherein 153 children, without any restriction as

to nation or country, who could already read and write, and

were of 'good parts and capacities,' should receive a sound

Christian education. The 'Latin adulterate, which ignorant

blind fools brought into this world,' poisoning thereby 'the

old Latin speech, and the very Roman tongue used in the time

of Tully and Sallust, and Virgil and Terence, and learned by

St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine,'--all that

'abusion which the later blind world brought in, and which may

rather be called Blotterature than Literature,'--should be

'utterly abanished and excluded' out of this school. The

children should be taught good literature, both Latin and

Greek, 'such authors that have with wisdom joined pure chaste

eloquence'--'specially Christian authors who wrote their

wisdom in clean and chaste Latin, whether in prose or verse;

for,' said Colet, 'my intent is by this school specially to

increase knowledge, and worshipping of God and Our Lord Jesus

Christ, and good Christian life and manners in the children.'

... The building consisted of one large room, divided into an

upper and lower school by a curtain, which could be drawn at

pleasure; and the charge of the two schools devolved upon a

high-master and a sub-master respectively. The forms were

arranged so as each to seat sixteen boys, and were provided

each with a raised desk, at which the head-boy sat as

president. The building also embraced an entrance-porch and a

little chapel for divine service. Dwelling-houses were

erected, adjoining the school, for the residence of the two

masters; and for their support, Colet obtained, in the spring

of 1510, a royal license to transfer to the Wardens and Guild

of Mercers in London, real property to the value of £53 per

annum (equivalent to at least £530 of present money). Of this

the head-master was to receive as his salary £35 (say £350)

and the under-master £18 (say £180) per annum. Three or four

years after, Colet made provision for a chaplain to conduct

divine service in the chapel, and to instruct the children in

the Catechism, the Articles of the faith, and the Ten

Commandments,--in English; and ultimately, before his death,

he appears to have increased the amount of the whole endowment

to £122 (say £1,200) per annum. So that it, may be considered,

roughly, that the whole endowment, including the buildings,

cannot have represented a less sum than £30,000 or £40,000 of

present money. And if Colet thus sacrificed so much of his

private fortune to secure a liberal (and it must be conceded

his was a liberal) provision for the remuneration of the

masters who should educate his 153 boys, he must surely have

had deeply at heart the welfare of the boys themselves. And,

in truth, it was so. Colet was like a father to his

schoolboys. ... It was not to be expected that he should find

the school-books of the old grammarians in any way adapted to

his purpose. So at once he set his learned friends to work to

provide him with new ones. The first thing wanted was a Latin

Grammar for beginners. Linacre undertook to provide this want,

and wrote with great pains and labour, a work in six books,

which afterwards came into general use. But when Colet saw it,

at the risk of displeasing his friend, he put it altogether

aside. It was too long and too learned for his 'little

beginners.' So he condensed within the compass of a few pages

two little treatises, an 'Accidence' and a 'Syntax,' in the

preface to the first of which occur the gentle words quoted

above. These little books, after receiving additions from the

hands of Erasmus, Lilly, and others, finally became generally

adopted and known as Lilly's Grammar. This rejection of his

Grammar seems to have been a sore point with Linacre, but

Erasmus told Colet not to be too much concerned about it. ...

Erasmus, in the same letter in which he spoke of Linacre's

rejected Grammar ... put on paper his notions of what a

schoolmaster ought to be, and the best method of teaching

boys, which he fancied Colet might not altogether approve, as

he was wont somewhat more to despise rhetoric than Erasmus

did. He stated his opinion that--'In order that the teacher

might be thoroughly up to his work, he should not merely be a

master of one particular branch of study. He should himself

have travelled through the whole circle of knowledge. In

philosophy he should have studied Plato and Aristotle,

Theophrastus and Plotinus; in Theology the Sacred Scriptures,

and after them Origen, Chrysostom, and Basil among the Greek

fathers, and Ambrose and Jerome among the Latin fathers; among

the poets, Homer and Ovid; in geography, which is very

important in the study of history, Pomponins Mela, Ptolemy,

Pliny, Strabo. He should know what ancient names of rivers,

mountains, countries, cities, answer to the modern ones; and

the same of trees, animals, instruments, clothes, and, gems,

with regard to which it is incredible how ignorant even

educated men are.

{708}

He should take note of little facts about agriculture,

architecture, military and culinary arts, mentioned by

different authors. He should be able to trace the origin of

words, their gradual corruption in the languages of

Constantinople, Italy, Spain, and France. Nothing should be

beneath his observation which can illustrate history or the

meaning of the poets. But you will say what a load you are

putting on the back of the poor teacher! It is so; but I

burden the one to relieve the many. I want the teacher to have

traversed the whole range of knowledge, that it may spare each

of his scholars doing it. A diligent and thoroughly competent

master might give boys a fair proficiency in both Latin and

Greek, in a shorter time and with less labour than the common

run of pedagogues take to teach their babble.' On receipt of

this ... Colet wrote to Erasmus: ... '"What! I shall not

approve!" So you say! What is there of Erasmus's that I do not

approve?'"

_F. Seebohm, The Oxford Reformers, chapter 6._

EDUCATION:

Ascham and "The Scholemaster."

Roger Ascham, the friend of Lady Jane Grey and the tutor of

Queen Elizabeth, was born in 1515, and died in 1568. "It was

partly with the view to the instruction of his own children,

that he commenced the 'Schole-master,' the work by which he is

most and best known, to which he did not live to set the last

hand. He communicated the design and import of the book in a

letter to Sturmius, in which he states, that not being able to

leave his sons a large fortune, he was resolved to provide

them with a preceptor, not one to be hired for a great sum of

money, but marked out at home with a homely pen. In the same

letter he gives his reasons for employing the English

language, the capabilities of which he clearly perceived and

candidly acknowledged, a high virtue for a man of that age,

who perhaps could have written Latin to his own satisfaction

much more easily than his native tongue. But though the

benefit of his own offspring might be his ultimate object, the

immediate occasion of the work was a conversation at Cecil's,

at which Sir Richard Sackville expressed great indignation at

the severities practiced at Eton and other great schools, so

that boys actually ran away for fear of merciless

flagellation. This led to the general subject of school

discipline, and the defects in the then established modes of

tuition. Ascham coinciding with the sentiments of the company,

and proceeding to explain his own views of improvement,

Sackville requested him to commit his opinions to paper and

the 'Schole-master' was the result. It was not published till

1670. ... We ... quote a few passages, which throw light upon

the author's good sense and good nature. To all violent

coercion, and extreme punishment, he was decidedly

opposed:--'I do agree,' says he, 'with all good school-masters

in all these points, to have children brought to good

perfectness in learning, to all honesty in manners; to have

all faults rightly amended, and every vice severely corrected,

but for the order and way that leadeth rightly to these

points, we somewhat differ.' 'Love is better than fear,

gentleness than beating, to bring up a child rightly in

learning.' 'I do assure you there is no such whetstone to

sharpen a good wit, and encourage a will to learning, as is

praise.'... 'The scholar is commonly beat for the making, when

the master were more worthy to be beat for the mending, or

rather marring, of the same; the master many times being as

ignorant as the child what to say properly and fitly to the

matter.' ... This will I say, that even the wisest of your

great beaters do as oft punish nature as they do correct

faults. Yea many times the better nature is the sorer

punished. For if one by quickness of wit take his lesson

readily, another by hardness of wit taketh it not so speedily;

the first is always commended, the other is commonly punished,

when a wise school-master should rather discreetly consider

the right disposition of both their natures, and not so much

weigh what either of them is able to do, as what either of

them is likely to do hereafter. For this I know, not only by

reading of books in my study, but also by experience of life

abroad in the world, that those which be commonly the wisest,

the best learned, and best men also, when they be old, were

never commonly the quickest of wit when they were young. Quick

wits commonly be apt to take, unapt to keep. Some are more

quick to enter speedily than be able to pierce far, even like

unto oversharp tools, whose edges be very soon turned.'"

_H. Coleridge, Biographia Borealis, pages 328-330._

EDUCATION:

Jesuit Teaching and Schools.

"The education of youth is set forth in the Formula of

Approval granted by Paul III. in 1540," to the plans of

Ignatius Loyola for the foundation of the Society of Jesus,

"as the first duty embraced by the new Institute. ... Although

the new religious were not at once able to begin the

establishment of colleges, yet the plan of those afterwards

founded, was gradually ripening in the sagacious mind of St.

Ignatius, who looked to these institutions as calculated to

oppose the surest bulwarks against the progress of heresy. The

first regular college of the Society was that established at

Gandia in 1546, through the zeal of St. Francis Borgia, third

General of the Society; and the regulations by which it was

governed, and which were embodied in the constitutions, were

extended to all the Jesuit colleges afterwards founded. The

studies were to include theology, both positive and

scholastic, as well as grammar, poetry, rhetoric, and

philosophy. The course of philosophy was to last three years,

that of theology four; and the Professors of Philosophy were

enjoined to treat their subject in such a way as to dispose

the mind for the study of theology, instead of setting up

faith and reason in opposition to one another. The theology of

St. Thomas, and the philosophy of Aristotle, were to be

followed, except on those points where the teaching of the

latter was opposed to the Catholic faith."

_A. T. Drane, Christian Schools and Scholars, page 708._

"As early as the middle of the sixteenth century ... [the

Society of Jesus] had several colleges in France, particularly

those of Billom, Mauriac, Rodez, Tournon, and Pamiers. In 1561

it secured a footing in Paris, notwithstanding the resistance

of the Parliament, of the university, and of the bishops

themselves. A hundred years later it counted nearly fourteen

thousand pupils in the province of Paris alone. The college of

Clermont, in 1651, enrolled more than two thousand young men.

The middle and higher classes assured to the colleges of the

society an ever-increasing membership.

{709}

At the end of the seventeenth century, the Jesuits could

inscribe on the roll of honor of their classes a hundred

illustrious names, among others those of Condé and Luxembourg,

Fléchier and Bossuet, Lamoignon and Séguier, Descartes,

Comeille, and Moliere. In 1710 they controlled six hundred and

twelve colleges and a large number of universities. They were

the real masters of education, and they maintained this

educational supremacy till the end of the eighteenth century.

Voltaire said of these teachers: 'The Fathers taught me

nothing but Latin and nonsense.' But from the seventeenth

century, opinions are divided, and the encomiums of Bacon and

Descartes must be offset by the severe judgment of Leibnitz.

'In the matter of education, says this great philosopher, 'the

Jesuits have remained below mediocrity.' Directly to the

contrary, Bacon had written: 'As to whatever relates to the

instruction of the young, we must consult the schools of the

Jesuits, for there can be nothing that is better done.' ... A

permanent and characteristic feature of the educational policy

of the Jesuits is, that, during the whole course of their

history, they have deliberately neglected and disdained

primary instruction. The earth is covered with their Latin

colleges; and wherever they have been able, they have put

their hands on the institutions for university education; but

in no instance have they founded a primary school. Even in

their establishment for secondary instruction, they entrust

the lower classes to teachers who do not belong to their

order, and reserve to themselves the direction of the higher

classes."

_G. Compayré, History of Pedagogy, pages 141-143._

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

"The Jesuits owed their success partly to the very narrow task

which they set themselves, little beyond the teaching of Latin

style, and partly to the careful training which they gave

their students, a training which often degenerated into mere

mechanical exercise. But the mainspring of their influence was

the manner in which they worked the dangerous force of

emulation. Those pupils who were most distinguished at the end

of each month received the rank of prætor, censor, and

decurion. The class was divided into two parts, called Romans

and Carthaginians, Greeks and Trojans. The students sat

opposite each other, the master in the middle, the walls were

hung with swords, spears and shields which the contending

parties carried off in triumph as the prize of victory. These

pupils' contests wasted a great deal of time. The Jesuits

established public school festivals, at which the pupils might

be exhibited, and the parents flattered. They made their own

school books, in which the requirements of good teaching were

not so important as the religious objects of the order. They

preferred extracts to whole authors; if they could not prune

the classics to their fancy they would not read them at all.

What judgment are we to pass on the Jesuit teaching as a

whole? It deserves praise on two accounts. First, it

maintained the dignity of literature in an age which was too

liable to be influenced by considerations of practical

utility. It maintained the study of Greek in France at a

higher level than the University, and resisted the assaults of

ignorant parents on the fortress of Hellenism. Secondly, it

seriously set itself to understand the nature and character of

the individual pupil, and to suit the manner of education to

the mind that was to receive it. Whatever may have been the

motives of Jesuits in gaining the affections, and securing the

devotion of the children under their charge; whether their

desire was to develop the individuality which they probed, or

to destroy it in its germ, and plant a new nature in its

place; it must be admitted that the loving care which they

spent upon their charge was a new departure in education, and

has become a part of every reasonable system since their time.

Here our praise must end. ... They amused the mind instead of

strengthening it. They occupied in frivolities such as Latin

verses the years which they feared might otherwise be given to

reasoning and the acquisition of solid knowledge. ...

Celebrated as the Jesuit schools have been, they have owed

much more to the fashion which filled them with promising

scholars, than to their own excellence in dealing with their

material. ... They have never stood the test of modern

criticism. They have no place in a rational system of modern

education."

_O. Browning, Introduction to the History

of Educational Theories, chapter 8._

EDUCATION: Modern: European Countries.

Austria.

"The annual appropriations passed by Parliament allow the

minister of public instruction $8,307,774 for all kinds of

public educational institutions, elementary and secondary

schools, universities, technical and art schools, museums, and

philanthropic institutions. Generally, this principle is

adhered to by the state, to subsidize the highest institutions

of learning most liberally, to share the cost of maintaining

secondary schools with church and community, and to leave the

burden of maintaining elementary schools almost entirely to

the local or communal authorities. ... In the Austrian public

schools no distinctions are made with the pupils as regards

their religious confessions. The schools are open to all, and

are therefore common schools in the sense in which that term

is employed with us. In Prussia it is the policy of the

Government to separate the pupils of different religious

confessions in ... elementary, but not to separate them in

secondary schools. In Austria and Hungary, special teachers of

religion for the elementary and secondary schools are

employed; in Prussia this is done only in secondary schools,

while religion is taught by the secular teachers in elementary

schools. This is a very vital difference, and shows how much

nearer the Austrian schools have come to our ideal of a common

school."

_United States Commissioner of Education,

Report, 1889-90, pages 465-466._

EDUCATION: Modern: European Countries.

Belgium.

"The treaty of Paris, of March 30, 1814, fixed the boundaries

of the Netherlands, and united Holland and Belgium. In these

new circumstances, the system of public instruction became the

subject of much difficulty between the Calvinists of the

northern provinces and the Catholics of the southern. The

government therefore undertook itself to manage the

organization of the system of instruction in its three grades.

... William I. desired to free the Belgians from French

influence, and with this object adopted the injudicious

measure of attempting to force the Dutch language upon them.

He also endeavored to familiarize them with Protestant ideas,

and to this end determined to get the care of religious

instruction exclusively into the hands of the state. But the

clergy were energetic in asserting their rights; the boldness

of the Belgian deputies to the States-General increased daily;

and the project for a system of public and private instruction

which was laid before the second chamber on the 26th November,

1829, was very unfavorably received by the Catholics. The

government very honorably confessed its error by repealing the

obnoxious ordinances of 1825. But it was too late, and the

Belgian provinces were lost to Holland. On the 12th October,

1830, the provisory government repealed all laws restricting

the freedom of instruction, and the present system, in which

liberty of instruction and governmental aid and supervision

are recognized, commenced."

_Public Instruction in Belgium (Barnard's American

Journal of Education, volume 8, pages 582-583)._

{710}

EDUCATION: Modern: European Countries.

Denmark.

"Denmark has long been noted for the excellence of her

schools. ... The perfection and extension of the system of

popular instruction date from the beginning of the eighteenth

century, when Bishop Thestrup, of Aalberg, caused 6 parish

schools to be established in Copenhagen and when King

Frederick IV. (1699-1730) had 240 school-houses built. ...

Christian VI. (17301746), ... ordained in 1739 the

establishment of common or parish schools in every town and in

every larger village. The branches of instruction were to be

religion, reading, writing, and arithmetic. No one was to be

allowed to teach unless he had shown himself qualified to the

satisfaction of the clergyman of the parish. .... Many

difficulties, however (especially the objections of the landed

proprietors, who had their own schools on their estates),

hindered the free development of the common school system, and

it was not until 1814 that a new and more favorable era was

inaugurated by the law of July 29 of that year. According to

this law the general control of the schools is in the hands of

a minister of public instruction and subordinate

superintendents for the several departments of the kingdom."

_Education in Denmark

(United States Bureau of Education,

Circulars of Information, 1877, no. 2), pages 40-41._

"With a population in 1890 of 2,185,157, the pupils enrolled

in city and rural schools in Denmark numbered 231,940, or

about 10 per cent. of the population receiving the foundation

of an education. In 1881 the illiterates to 100 recruits

numbered 0.36; in Sweden at that date, the per cent. was

0.39."

_United States Commissioner of Education,

Report, 1889-90, page 523._

EDUCATION: Modern: European Countries.

England: Oxford and Cambridge.

"Oxford and Cambridge, as establishments for education,

consist of two parts--of the University proper, and of the

Colleges. The former, original and essential, is founded,

controlled, and privileged by public authority, for the

advantage of the nation. The latter, accessory and contingent,

are created, regulated, and endowed by private munificence,

for the interest of certain favored individuals. Time was,

when the Colleges did not exist, and the University was there;

and were the Colleges again abolished, the University would

remain entire. The former, founded solely for education,

exists only as it accomplishes the end of its institution; the

latter, founded principally for aliment and habitation, would

still exist, were all education abandoned within their walls.

The University, as a national establishment, is necessarily

open to the lieges in general; the Colleges, as private

institutions, might universally do, as some have actually

done--close their gates upon all, except their foundation

members. The Universities and Colleges are thus neither

identical, nor vicarious of each other. If the University

ceases to perform its functions, it ceases to exist; and the

privileges accorded by the nation to the system of public

education legally organized in the University, can not,

without the consent of the nation--far less without the

consent of the academical legislature--be lawfully transferred

to the system of private education precariously organized in

the Colleges, and over which neither the State nor the

University have any control. They have, however, been

unlawfully usurped. Through the suspension of the University,

and the usurpation of its functions and privileges by the

Collegial bodies, there has arisen the second of two systems,

diametrically opposite to each other.--The one, in which the

University was paramount, is ancient and statutory; the other,

in which the Colleges have the ascendant, is recent and

illegal.--In the former, all was subservient to public

utility, and the interests of science; in the latter, all is

sacrificed to private monopoly, and to the convenience of the

teacher. ... In the original constitution of Oxford, as in

that of all the older Universities of the Parisian model, the

business of instruction was not confided to a special body of

privileged professors. The University was governed, the

University was taught, by the graduates at large. Professor,

Master, Doctor, were originally synonymous. Every graduate had

an equal right of teaching publicly in the University the

subjects competent to his faculty, and to the rank of his

degree; nay, every graduate incurred the obligation of

teaching publicly, for a certain period, the subjects of his

faculty, for such was the condition involved in the grant of

the degree itself."

_Sir William Hamilton, Discussions on Philosophy and

Literature, etc.: Education, chapter 4._

EDUCATION: Modern: European Countries.

England: The "Great Public Schools."

What is a public school in England? "The question is one of

considerable difficulty. To some extent, however, the answer

has been furnished by the Royal Commission appointed in 1861

to inquire into the nature and application of the endowments

and revenues, and into the administration and management of

certain specified colleges and schools commonly known as the

Public Schools Commission. Nine are named in the Queen's

letter of appointment, viz., Eton, Winchester, Westminster,

the Charterhouse, St. Paul's, Merchant Taylors', Harrow,

Rugby, and Shrewsbury. The reasons probably which suggested

this selection were, that the nine named foundations had in

the course of centuries emerged from the mass of endowed

grammar-schools, and had made for themselves a position which

justified their being placed in a distinct category, and

classed as 'public schools.' It will be seen as we proceed

that all these nine have certain features in common,

distinguishing them from the ordinary grammar-schools which

exist in almost every country town in England. Many of these

latter are now waking up to the requirements of the new time

and following the example of their more illustrious sisters.

The most notable examples of this revival are such schools as

those at Sherborne, Giggleswick, and Tunbridge Wells, which,

while remodelling themselves on the lines laid down by the

Public Schools Commissioners, are to some extent providing a

training more adapted to the means and requirements of our

middle classes in the nineteenth century than can be found at

any of the nine public schools.

{711}

But twenty years ago the movement which has since made such

astonishing progress was scarcely felt in quiet country places

like these, and the old endowments were allowed to run to

waste in a fashion which is now scarcely credible. The same

impulse which has put new life into the endowed

grammar-schools throughout England has worked even more

remarkably in another direction. The Victorian age bids fair

to rival the Elizabethan in the number and importance of the

new schools which it has founded and will hand on to the

coming generation. Marlborough, Haileybury, Uppingham,

Rossall, Clifton, Cheltenham, Radley, Malvern, and Wellington

College, are nine schools which have taken their place in the

first rank. ... In order, then, to get clear ideas on the

general question, we must keep these three classes of schools

in mind--the nine old foundations recognized in the first

instance by the Royal Commission of 1861; the old foundations

which have remained local grammar-schools until within the

last few years, but are now enlarging their bounds, conforming

more or less to the public-school system, and becoming

national institutions; and, lastly, the modern foundations

which started from the first as public schools, professing to

adapt themselves to the new circumstances and requirements of

modern English life. The public schools of England fall under

one or other of these categories. ... We may now turn to the

historic side of the question, dealing first, as is due to

their importance, with the nine schools of our first category.

The oldest, and in some respects most famous of these, is

Winchester School, or, as it was named by its founder William

of Wykeham, the College of St. Mary of Winchester, founded in

1382. Its constitution still retains much of the impress left

on it by the great Bishop of the greatest Plantagenet King,

five centuries ago. Toward the end of the fourteenth century

Oxford was already the center of English education, but from

the want of grammar-schools boys went up by hundreds untaught

in the simplest rudiments of learning, and when there lived in

private hostels or lodging-houses, in a vast throng, under no

discipline, and exposed to many hardships and temptations. In

view of this state of things, William of Wykeham founded his

grammar-school at Winchester and his college at Oxford,

binding the two together, so that the school might send up

properly trained scholars to the university, where they would

be received at New College, in a suitable academical home,

which should in its turn furnish governors and masters for the

school. ... Next in date comes the royal foundation of Eton,

or 'The College of the Blessed Mary of Eton, near Windsor.' It

was founded by Henry VI., A. D. 1446, upon the model of

Winchester, with a collegiate establishment of a provost, ten

fellows (reduced to seven in the reign of Edward IV.), seventy

scholars, and ten chaplains (now reduced to two; who are

called 'conducts'), and a head and lower master, ten lay

clerks, and twelve choristers. The provost and fellows are the

governing body, who appoint the head master. ... Around this

center the great school, numbering now a thousand boys, has

gathered, the college, however, still retaining its own

separate organization and traditions. Besides the splendid

buildings and playing-fields at Eton, the college holds real

property of the yearly value of upward of £20,000, and forty'

livings ranging from £100 to £1,200 of yearly value. ... The

school next in date stands out in sharp contrast to Winchester

and Eton. It is St. Paul's School, founded by Dean Colet. ...

Shrewsbury School, which follows next in order of seniority,

claims a royal foundation, but is in reality the true child of

the town's folk. The dissolution of the monasteries destroyed

also the seminaries attached to many of them, to the great

injury of popular education. This was specially the case in

Shropshire, so in 1551 the bailiffs, burgesses, and

inhabitants of Shrewsbury and the neighborhood petitioned

Edward VI. for a grant of some portion of the estates of the

dissolved collegiate churches for the purpose of founding a

free school. The King consented, and granted to the

petitioners the appropriated tithes of several livings and a

charter, but died before the school was organized. It was in

abeyance during Mary's reign, but opened in the fourth year of

Elizabeth, 1562, by Thomas Aston. ... We have now reached the

great group of Elizabethan schools, to which indeed Shrewsbury

may also be said to belong, as it was not opened until the

Queen had been three years on the throne. The two metropolitan

schools of Westminster and Merchant Taylors' were in fact

founded in 1560, two years before the opening of Shrewsbury.

Westminster as a royal foundation must take precedence. It is

a grammar-school attached by the Queen to the collegiate

church of St. Peter, commonly called Westminster Abbey, and

founded for the free education of forty scholars in Latin,

Greek, and Hebrew. The Queen, with characteristic thriftiness,

provided no endowment for her school, leaving the cost of

maintenance as a charge on the general revenues of the dean

and chapter, which indeed were, then as now, fully competent

to sustain the burden. ... Merchant Taylors', the other

metropolitan school founded in 1560, owes its origin to Sir

Thomas White, a member of the Court of Assistants of the

company, and founder of St. John's College, Oxford. It was

probably his promise to connect the school with his college

which induced the Company to undertake the task. ... Sir

Thomas White redeemed his promise by endowing the school with

thirty-seven fellowships at St. John's College. ... Rugby, or

the free school of Lawrence Sheriff, follows next in order,

having been founded in 1567 by Lawrence Sheriff, grocer, and

citizen of London. His 'intent' (as the document expressing

his wishes is called) declares that his lands in Rugby and

Brownsover, and his 'third of a pasture-ground in Gray's Inn

Fields, called Conduit Close,' shall be applied to maintain a

free grammar school for the children of Rugby and Brownsover,

and the places adjoining, and four poor almsmen of the same

parishes. These estates, after providing a fair schoolhouse

and residences for the master and almsmen, at first produced a

rental of only £24 13s. 4d. In due time, however, Conduit

Close became a part of central London, and Rugby School the

owner of eight acres of houses in and about the present Lamb's

Conduit Street. The income of the whole trust property amounts

now to about £6,000, of which £255 is expended on the

maintenance of the twelve almsmen. ... Harrow School was

founded in 1571, four years later than Rugby, by John Lyon, a

yeoman of the parish.

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He was owner of certain small estates in and about Harrow and

Barnet, and of others at Paddington and Kilburn. All these he

devoted to public purposes, but unfortunately gave the former

for the perpetual education of the children and youth of the

parish, and the latter for the maintenance and repair of the

highways from Harrow and Edgeware to London. The present

yearly revenue of the school estates is barely over £1,000,

while that of the highway trust is nearly £4,000. But, though

the poorest in endowments, Harrow, from its nearness to

London, and consequent attractions for the classes who spend a

large portion of their year in the metropolis either in

attendance in Parliament, or for pleasure, has become the

rival of Eton as a fashionable school. ... Last on the list of

the nine schools comes the Charterhouse (the Whitefriars of

Thackeray's novels). It may be fairly classed with the

Elizabethan schools, though actually founded in 1609, after

the accession of James I. In that year a substantial yeoman,

Thomas Sutton by name, purchased from Lord Suffolk the lately

dissolved Charterhouse, by Smithfield, and obtained letters

patent empowering him to found a hospital and school on the

old site."

_T. Hughes, The Public Schools of England

(North American Review, April, 1879)._

EDUCATION: England

Fagging.

"In rougher days it was found, that in large schools the

stronger and larger boys reduced the smaller and weaker to the

condition of Helots. Here the authorities stepped in, and

despairing of eradicating the evil, took the power which mere

strength had won, and conferred it upon the seniors of the

school--the members, that is, of the highest form or forms. As

in those days, promotion was pretty much a matter of rotation,

everyone who remained his full time at the school, was pretty

sure to reach in time the dominant class, and the humblest fag

looked forward to the day when he would join the ranks of the

ruling aristocracy. Meantime he was no longer at the beck of

any stronger or ruder classfellow. His 'master' was in theory,

and often in practice, his best protector: he imposed upon him

very likely what may be called menial offices--made him carry

home his 'Musæ'--field for him at cricket--brush his coat; if

we are to believe school myths and traditions, black his

shoes, and even take the chill off his sheets. The boy,

how-ever, saw the son of a Howard or a Percy similarly

employed by his side, and in cheerfully submitting to an

ancient custom, he was but following out the tendencies of the

age and class to which he belonged. ... The mere abolition of

the right of fagging, vague and undefined as were the duties

attached to it, would have been a loss rather than a gain to

the oppressed as a class. It would merely have substituted for

the existing law, imperfect and anomalous as that law might

be, the licence of brute force and the dominion of boyish

truculence. ... Such was, more or less, the state of things

when he to whom English education owes so incalculable a debt,

was placed at the head of Rugby School. ... It was hoped that

he who braved the anger of his order by his pamphlet on Church

Reform--at whose bold and uncompromising language bishops

stood aghast and courtly nobles remonstrated in vain--would

make short work of ancient saws and mediæval traditions--that

a revolution in school life was at hand. And they were not

mistaken. ... What he did was to seize on the really valuable

part of the existing system--to inspire it with that new life,

and those loftier purposes, without which mere institutions,

great or small, must, sooner or later, wither away and perish.

His first step was to effect an important change in the actual

machinery of the school--one which, in itself, amounted to a

revolution. The highest form in the school was no longer open

to all whom a routine promotion might raise in course of time

to its level. Industry and talent as tested by careful

examinations (in the additional labour of which he himself

bore the heaviest burden), were the only qualifications

recognised. The new-modelled 'sixth form' were told, that the

privileges and powers which their predecessors had enjoyed for

ages were not to be wrested from them; but that they were to

be held for the common good, as the badges and instruments of

duties and responsibilities, such as anyone with less

confidence in those whom he addressed would have hesitated to

impose. They were told plainly that without their co-operation

there was no hope of keeping in check the evils inherent in a

society of boys. Tyranny, falsehood, drinking, party-spirit,

coarseness, selfishness--the evil spirits that infest

schools--these they heard Sunday after Sunday put in their

true light by a majestic voice and a manly presence, with

words, accents, and manner which would live in their memory

for years; but they were warned that, to exercise such

spirits, something more was needed than the watchfulness of

masters and the energy of their chief. They themselves must

use their large powers, entrusted to them in recognition of

the principle, or rather of the fact, that in a large society

of boys some must of necessity hold sway, to keep down, in

themselves and those about them, principles and practices

which are ever ready, like hideous weeds, to choke the growth

of all that is fair and noble in such institutions. Dr. Arnold

persevered in spite of opposition, obloquy, and

misrepresentation. ... But he firmly established his system,

and his successors, men differing in training and temperament

from himself and from each other, have agreed in cordially

sustaining it. His pupils and theirs, men in very different

walks of life, filling honourable posts at the universities

and public schools, or ruling the millions of India, or

working among the blind and toiling multitudes of our great

towns, feel daily how much of their usefulness and power they

owe to the sense of high trust and high duty which they

imbibed at school."

_Our Public Schools--Their Discipline and

Instruction (Fraser's Magazine, volume 1, pages 407--409)._

EDUCATION: England: A. D. 1699-1870.

The rise of Elementary Schools.

"The recognition by the English State of its paramount duty in

aiding the work of national education is scarcely more than a

generation old. The recognition of the further and far more

extensive work of supplementing by State aid, or by State

agency, all deficiencies in the supply of schools, dates only

thirteen years back [to 1870]; while the equally pressing duty

of enforcing, by a universal law, the use of the opportunities

of education thus supplied, is a matter almost of yesterday.

The State has only slowly stepped into its proper place; more

slowly in the case of England than in the case of any other of

the leading European nations. ... In 1699 the Society for the

Propagation of Christian Knowledge was founded, and by it

various schools were established throughout the country.

{713}

In 1782 Robert Raikes established his first Sunday school, and

in a few years the Union, of which he was the founder, had

under its control schools scattered all over the country. But

the most extensive efforts made for popular education were

those of Andrew Bell and Joseph Lancaster towards the close of

the eighteenth century. ... They misconceived and misjudged

the extent of the work that had to be accomplished. They

became slaves to their system--that which was called the

Monitorial system ... and by elevating it to undue importance

they did much to discredit the very work in which they were

engaged. ... Amongst the Nonconformist followers of Lancaster

there arose the British and Foreign School Society; while by

those of Bell there was established, on the side representing

the Church, the National Society. The former became the

recognised agency of the Dissenters, the latter of the Church;

and through one or other of these channels State aid, when it

first began to flow, was obliged to take its course. ... In

1802 the first Sir Robert Peel passed a Bill which restricted

children's labour in factories, and required that reading,

writing, and arithmetic should be taught to them during a part

of each day. This was the beginning of the factory

legislation. ... In 1807 Mr. Whitebread introduced a Bill for

the establishment of parochial schools through the agency of

local vestries, who were empowered to draw on the rates for

the purpose. The House of Commons accepted the Bill, but it

was thrown out in the House of Lords. ... The movement for a

State recognition of education was pressed more vigorously

when the fears and troubles of European war were clearing

away. It was in 1816 that Brougham obtained his Select

Committee for Inquiring into the Education of the Poor in the

Metropolis. ... In 1820 Brougham introduced, on the basis of

his previous inquiries, an Education Bill. ... By this Bill

the issue between the contending parties in the State, which

was henceforward destined to be the chief stumbling-block in

the way of a State education, was placed on a clear and

well-defined basis. ... The Church was alarmed at anything

which seemed to trench upon what she naturally thought to be

her appointed task. The Dissenters dreaded what might add to

the impregnability of the Church's strongholds. ... When the

beginning was actually made it came ... as an almost unnoticed

proposal of the Executive. In 1832 the sum of £20,000 for

public education was placed in the estimates; it was passed by

the Committee of Supply; and the first step was taken on that

course from which the State has never since drawn back. No

legislation was necessary. ... The next great step was taken

in 1839, when the annual vote was increased from £20,000 to

£30,000, and when a special department was created to

supervise the work. Hitherto grants had been administered by

the Treasury to meet a certain amount of local exertion, and

in general reliance upon vague assurances as to maintenance of

the schools by local promoters. ... The conditions which were

soon found to be necessary as securities, either for

continuance or for efficiency, were not yet insisted upon. To

do this it was necessary to have a Department specially

devoted to this work; and the means adopted for creating such

a Department was one which had the advantage of requiring no

Act of Parliament. By an order in Council a Special Committee

of the Privy Council was established, and, in connection with

this Committee, a special staff of officers was engaged. The

same year saw the appointment of the first inspectors of

schools. It was thus that the Education Department was

constituted. The plan which the advisers of the Government in

this new attempt had most at heart was that of a Normal

Training College for teachers. ... But it was surrounded with

so much matter for dispute, gathered during a generation of

contention, that the proposal all but wrecked the Government

of Lord Melbourne. The Church objected to the scheme. ... In

the year 1844, after five years of the new administration, it

was possible to form some estimate, not only of the solid work

accomplished, but of the prospects of the immediate future.

... Between 1839 and 1844, under the action of the Committee

of Council, £170,000 of Imperial funds had been distributed to

meet £430,000 from local resources. In all, therefore, about

one million had been spent in little more than ten years. What

solid good had this accomplished? ... According to a careful

and elaborate report in the year 1845, only about one in six,

even of the children at school, was found able to read the

Scriptures with any ease. Even for these the power of reading

often left them when they tried a secular book. Of reading

with intelligence there was hardly any; and about one-half of

the children who came to school left, it was calculated,

unable to read. Only about one child in four had mastered,

even in the most mechanical way, the art of writing. As

regards arithmetic, not two per cent. of the children had

advanced as far as the rule of three. ... The teaching of the

schools was in the hands of men who had scarcely any training,

and who had often turned to the work because all other work

had turned away from them. Under them it was conducted upon

that monitorial system which was the inheritance from Dr.

Bell, the rival of Lancaster. The pupils were set to teach one

another. ... The inquiries of the Committee of Council thus

gave the death-blow, in public estimation, to the once

highly-vaunted monitorial system. But how was it to be

replaced? The model of a better state of things was found in

the Dutch schools. There a selected number of the older

pupils, who intended to enter upon the profession of teachers,

were apprenticed, when they had reached the age of thirteen,

to the teacher. ... After their apprenticeship they passed to

a Training College. ... Accordingly, a new and important start

was made by the Department on the 25th of August 1846. ... In

1851 twenty-five Training Colleges had been established; and

these had a sure supply of qualified recruits in the 6,000

pupil teachers who were by that time being trained to the

work. ... The ten years between 1842 and 1852 saw the

Parliamentary grant raised from £40,000 to £160,000 a year,

with the certainty of a still further increase as the

augmentation grants to teachers and the stipends to pupil

teachers grew in number. Nearly 3,800 schools had been built

with Parliamentary aid, providing accommodation for no less

than 540,000 children. The State had contributed towards this

more than £400,000; and a total expenditure had been incurred

in providing schools of more than £1,000,000. ... But the

system was as yet only tentative; and a mass of thorny

religious questions had to be faced before a really national

system could be established.

{714}

... All parties became convinced that the first step was to

inquire into the merits and defects of the existing system,

and on the basis of sound information to plan some method of

advance. Under this impression it was that the Commission on

Public Education, of which the Duke of Newcastle was chairman,

was appointed in 1858." The result of the Commission of 1858

was a revision of the educational Code which the Committee of

the Privy Council had formulated. The New Code proved

unsatisfactory in its working, and every year showed more

plainly the necessity of a fully organized system of national

education. "Out of the discussions there arose two societies,

which fairly expressed two different views. ... The first of

these was the Education League, started at Birmingham in 1869.

... Its basis, shortly stated, was that of a compulsory system

of school provision, by local authorities through means of

local rates; the schools so provided to be at once free and

unsectarian. ... In this programme the point which raised most

opposition was the unsectarian teaching. It was chiefly to

counteract this part of the League's objects that there was

formed the Education Union, which urged a universal system

based upon the old lines. ... By common consent the time for a

settlement was now come. Some guarantee must be taken that the

whole edifice should not crumble to pieces; that for local

agencies there should be substituted local authorities; and

that the State should be supplied with some machinery whereby

the gaps in the work might be supplied. It was in this

position of opinion that Mr. Forster, as Vice-President,

introduced his Education Bill in 1870. ... The measure passed

the House of Lords without any material alteration; and

finally became Law on the 9th of August 1870."

_R. Craik, The State in its Relation to Education._

The schools to which the provisions of the Act of 1870

extends, and the regulations under which such schools are to

be conducted, are defined in the Act as follows: "Every

elementary school which is conducted in accordance with the

following regulations shall be a public elementary school

within the meaning of this Act; and every public elementary

school shall be conducted in accordance with the following

regulations (a copy of which regulations shall be

conspicuously put up in every such school); namely

(1.) It shall not be required, as a condition of any child

being admitted into or continuing in the school, that he shall

attend or abstain from attending any Sunday school, or any

place of religious worship, or that he shall attend any

religious observance or any instruction in religious subjects

in the school or elsewhere, from which observance or

instruction he may be withdrawn by his parent, or that he

shall, if withdrawn by his parent, attend the school on any

day exclusively set apart for religious observance by the

religious body to which his parent belongs:

(2.) The time or times during which any religious observance

is practised or instruction in religious subjects is given at

any meeting of the school shall be either at the beginning or

at the end or at the beginning and the end of such meeting,

and shall be inserted in a time-table to be approved by the

Education Department, and to be kept permanently and

conspicuously affixed in every school-room; and any scholar

may be withdrawn by his parent from such observance or

instruction without forfeiting any of the other benefits of

the school:

(3.) The school shall be open at all times to the inspection

of any of Her Majesty's inspectors, so, however, that it shall

be no part of the duties of such inspector to inquire into any

instruction in religious subjects given at such school, or to

examine any scholar therein in religious knowledge or in any

religious subject or book:

(4.) The school shall be conducted in accordance with the

conditions required to be fulfilled by an elementary school in

order to obtain an annual parliamentary grant."

_J. R. Rigg, National Education, appendix A._

"The new Act retained existing inspected schools, ... it also

did away with all denominational classifications of schools

and with denominational inspection, treating all inspected

schools as equally belonging to a national system of schools

and under national inspection, the distinctions as to

inspectors and their provinces being henceforth purely

geographical. But the new Act no longer required that public

elementary schools established by voluntary agency and under

voluntary management should have in them any religious

character or element whatever, whether as belonging to a

Christian Church or denomination, or as connected with a

Christian philanthropic society, or as providing for the

reading of the Scriptures in the school. It was left open to

any party or any person to establish purely voluntary schools

if they thought fit. But, furthermore, the Act made provision

for an entirely new class of schools, to be established and

(in part) supported out of local rates, to be governed by

locally-elected School Boards, and to have just such and so

much religious instruction given in them as the governing

boards might think proper, at times preceding or following the

prescribed secular school hours, and under the protection of a

time-table Conscience Clause, as in the case of voluntary

schools, with this restriction only, that in these schools no

catechism or denominational religious formulary of any sort

was to be taught. The mode of electing members to the School

Boards was to be by what is called the cumulative vote--that

is, each elector was to have as many votes as there were

candidates, and these votes he could give all to one, or else

distribute among the candidates as he liked; and all

ratepayers were to be electors. ... The new law ... made a

clear separation, in one respect, between voluntary and Board

schools. Both were to stand equally in relation to the

National Education Department, under the Privy Council; but

the voluntary schools were to have nothing to do with local

rates or rate aid, nor Local Boards to have any control over

voluntary schools."

_J. H. Rigg, National Education, chapter 10._

"To sum up ... in few words what may be set down as the chief

characteristics of our English system of Elementary Education,

I should say

(1) first, that whilst about 30 per cent. of our school

accommodation is under the control of school boards, the cost

of maintenance being borne in part by local rates as well as

by the Parliamentary grant, fully 70 per cent. is still in the

hands of voluntary school-managers, whose subscriptions take

the place of the rates levied by school boards.

(2) In case a deficiency in school accommodation is reported

in any school district, the Education Department have the

power to require that due provision shall be made for the same

within a limited time; the 'screw' to be applied to wilful

defaulters in a voluntary school district being the threat of

a board, and in a school board district the supercession of

the existing board by a new board, nominated by the

Department, and remunerated out of the local rates.

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(3) Attendance is enforced everywhere by bye-laws, worked

either by the school board or by the School Attendance

Committee: and although these local authorities are often very

remiss in discharging their duties, and the magistrates not

seldom culpably lenient in dealing with cases brought before

them, there are plenty of districts in which regularity of

school attendance has been improved fully 10 per cent. in the

past two or three years. ...

(4) The present provision for teachers, and the means in

existence for keeping up the supply, are eminently

satisfactory. Besides a large but somewhat diminishing body of

apprenticed pupil teachers, there is a very considerable and

rapidly increasing number of duly qualified assistants, and at

their head a large array of certificated teachers, whose ranks

are being replenished, chiefly from the Training Colleges, at

the rate of about 2,000 a year.

(5) The whole of the work done is examined and judged every

year by inspectors and inspectors' assistants organised in

districts each superintended by a senior inspector--the total

cost of this inspection for the present year being estimated

at about £150,000."

_Reverend H. Roe, The English System of Elementary

Education (International Health Exhibition, London,

1884: Conference on Education, section A)._

"The result of the work of the Education Department is causing

a social revolution in England. If the character of the

teaching is too mechanical, if the chief aim of the teacher is

to earn as much money as possible for his managers, it must be

remembered that this cannot be done without at least giving

the pupil the ability to read and write. Of course the schools

are not nearly so good as the friends of true education wish.

Much remains to be done. ... Free education will shortly be an

accomplished fact; the partial absorption of the voluntary

schools by the School Boards will necessarily follow, and

further facilitate the abolition of what have been the cause

of so much evil--result examinations, and 'grant payments.'

'Write "Grant factory" on three-fourths of our schools,' said

an educator to me. ... The schools are known as

(1) Voluntary Schools, which have been built, and are partly

supported by voluntary subscriptions. These are under

denominational control.

(2) Board Schools: viz., schools built and supported by money

raised by local taxation, and controlled by elected School

Boards.

Out of 4,688,000 pupils in the elementary schools, 2,154,000

are in the schools known as Voluntary, provided by, and under

the control of the Church of England; 1,780,000 are in Board

Schools; 330,000 attend schools under the British School

Society, or other undenominational control; 248,000 are in

Roman Catholic schools; and 174,000 belong to Wesleyan

schools. The schools here spoken of correspond more nearly

than any other in England to the Public School of the United

States and Australia; but are in many respects very different,

chiefly from the fact that they are provided expressly for the

poor, and in many cases are attended by no other class."

_W. C. Grasby, Teaching in Three Continents, chapter 2._

EDUCATION: England: A. D. 1891.

Attainment of Free Education.

In 1891, a bill passed Parliament which aims at making the

elementary schools of the country free from the payment of

fees. The bill as explained in the House of Commons, "proposed

to give a grant of 10s. per head to each scholar in average

attendance between five and fourteen years of age, and as

regarded such children schools would either become wholly

free, or would continue to charge a fee reduced by the amount

of the grant, according as the fee at present charged did or

did not exceed 10s. When a school had become free it would

remain free, or when a fee was charged, the fee would remain

unaltered unless a change was required for the educational

benefit of the locality; and under this arrangement he

believed that two-thirds of the elementary schools in England

and Wales would become free. There would be no standard

limitations, but the grant would be restricted to schools

where the compulsory power came in, and as to the younger

children, it was proposed that in no case should the fee

charged exceed 2d." In a speech made at Birmingham on the free

education bill, Mr. Chamberlain discussed the opposition to it

made by those who wished to destroy the denominational

schools, and who objected to their participation in the

proposed extension of public support. "To destroy

denominational schools," he said, "was now an impossibility,

and nothing was more astonishing than the progress they had

made since the Education Act of 1870. He had thought, he said,

they would die out with the establishment of Board schools,

but he had been mistaken, for in the last twenty-three years

they had doubled their accommodation, and more than doubled

their subscription list. At the present time they supplied

accommodation for two-thirds of the children of England and

Wales. That being the case, to destroy voluntary schools--to

supply their places with Board schools, as the Daily News

cheerfully suggested--would be to involve a capital

expenditure of £50,000,000, and £5,000,000 extra yearly in

rates, But whether voluntary or denominational schools were

good or bad, their continued existence had nothing to do with

the question of free education, and ought to be kept quite

distinct from it. To make schools free was not to give one

penny extra to any denominational endowment. At the present

time the fee was a tax, and if the parents did not pay fees

they were brought before the magistrates, and if they still

did not pay they might be sent to gaol. The only thing the

Government proposed to do was not to alter the tax but to

alter the incidence. The same amount would be collected; it

would be paid by the same people, but it would be collected

from the whole nation out of the general taxation." The bill

was passed by the Commons July 8, and by the Lords on the 24th

of the same month. The free education proposals of the

Government are said to have been generally accepted throughout

the country by both Board and Voluntary schools.

_Annual Register, 1891, pages 128 and 97, and part 2, page 51._

{716}

EDUCATION: France: A. D. 1565-1802.

The Jesuits.

Port Royal.

The Revolution.

Napoleon.

"The Jesuits invaded the province long ruled by the University

alone. By that adroit management of men for which they have

always been eminent, and by the more liberal spirit of their

methods, they outdid in popularity their superannuated rival.

Their first school at Paris was established in 1565, and in

1762, two years before their dissolution, they had eighty-six

colleges in France. They were followed by the Port Royalists,

the Benedictines, the Oratorians. The Port Royal schools [see

PORT ROYAL], from which perhaps a powerful influence upon

education might have been looked for, restricted this

influence by limiting very closely the number of their pupils.

Meanwhile the main funds and endowments for public education

in France were in the University's hands, and its

administration of these was as ineffective as its teaching.

... The University had originally, as sources of revenue, the

Post Office and the Messageries, or Office of Public

Conveyance; it had long since been obliged to abandon the Post

Office to Government, when in 1719 it gave up to the same

authority the privilege of the Messageries, receiving in

return from the State a yearly revenue of 150,000 livres. For

this payment, moreover, it undertook the obligation of making

the instruction in all its principal colleges gratuitous. Paid

or gratuitous, however, its instruction was quite inadequate

to the wants of the time, and when the Jesuits were expelled

from France in 1764, their establishments closed, and their

services as teachers lost, the void that was left was

strikingly apparent, and public attention began to be drawn to

it. It is well known how Rousseau among writers, and Turgot

among statesmen, busied themselves with schemes of education;

but the interest in the subject must have reached the whole

body of the community, for the instructions of all three

orders of the States General in 1789 are unanimous in

demanding the reform of education, and its establishment on a

proper footing. Then came the Revolution, and the work of

reform soon went swimmingly enough, so far as the abolition of

the old schools was concerned. In 1791 the colleges were all

placed under the control of the administrative authorities; in

1792 the jurisdiction of the University was abolished; in 1793

the property of the colleges was ordered to be sold, the

proceeds to be taken by the State; in September of the same

year the suppression of all the great public schools and of

all the University faculties was pronounced. For the work of

reconstruction Condorcet's memorable plan had in 1792 been

submitted to the Committee of Public Instruction appointed by

the Legislative Assembly. This plan proposed a secondary

school for every 4,000 inhabitants; for each department, a

departmental institute, or higher school; nine lycées, schools

carrying their studies yet higher than the departmental

institute, for the whole of France; and to crown the edifice,

a National Society of Sciences and Arts, corresponding in the

main with the present institute of France. The whole expense

of national instruction was to be borne by the State, and this

expense was estimated at 29,000,000 of francs. But 1792 and

1793 were years of furious agitation, when it was easier to

destroy than to build. Condorcet perished with the Girondists,

and the reconstruction of public education did not begin till

after the fall of Robespierre. The decrees of the Convention

for establishing the Normal School, the Polytechnic, the

School of Mines, and the écoles centrales, and then Daunou's

law in 1795, bore, however, many traces of Condorcet's design.

Daunou's law established primary schools, central schools,

special schools, and at the head of all the Institute of

France, this last a memorable and enduring creation, with

which the old French Academy became incorporated. By Daunou's

law, also, freedom was given to private persons to open

schools. The new legislation had many defects. ... The

country, too, was not yet settled enough for its education to

organise itself successfully. The Normal School speedily broke

down; the central schools were established slowly and with

difficulty; in the course of the four years of the Directory

there were nominally instituted ninety·one of these schools,

but they never really worked. More was accomplished by private

schools, to which full freedom was given by the new

legislation, at the same time that an ample and open field lay

before them. They could not, however, suffice for the work,

and education was one of the matters for which Napoleon, when

he became Consul, had to provide. Foureroy's law, in 1802,

took as the basis of its school-system secondary schools,

whether established by the communes or by private individuals;

the Government undertook to aid these schools by grants for

buildings, for scholarships, and for gratuities to the

masters; it prescribed Latin, French, geography, history, and

mathematics as the instruction to be given in them. They were

placed under the superintendence of the prefects. To continue

and complete the secondary schools were instituted the

lyceums; here the instruction was to be Greek and Latin,

rhetoric, logic, literature, moral philosophy, and the

elements of the mathematical and physical sciences. The pupils

were to be of four kinds: boursiers nationaux, scholars

nominated to scholarships by the State; pupils from the

secondary schools, admitted as free scholars by competition;

paying boarders, and paying day-scholars."

_M. Arnold, Schools and Universities on the

Continent, chapter 1._

EDUCATION: France: A. D. 1833-1889.

The present System of Public Instruction.

"The question of the education of youth is one of those in

which the struggle between the Catholic Church and the civil

power has been, and still is, hottest. It is also one of those

in which France, which for a long time had remained far in the

rear, has made most efforts, and achieved most progress in

these latter years. ... Napoleon I. conceived education as a

means of disciplining minds and wills and moulding them into

conformity with the political system which he had put in

force; accordingly he gave the University the monopoly of

public education. Apart from the official system of teaching,

no competition was allowed except that specially authorised,

regulated, and controlled by the State itself. Religious

instruction found a place in the official programmes, and

members of the clergy were even called on to supply it, but

this instruction itself, and these priests themselves, were

under the authority of the State. Hence two results: on the

one hand the speedy impoverishment of University education,

... on the other hand, the incessant agitation of all those

who were prevented by the special organisation given to the

University from expounding their ideas or the faith that was

in them from the professorial chair. This agitation was begun

and carried on by the Catholic Church itself, as soon as it

felt more at liberty to let its ambitions be discerned.

{717}

On this point the Church met with the support of a good number

of Liberals, and it is in a great measure to its initiative

that are due the three important laws of 1833, 1850, and 1875,

which have respectively given to France freedom of primary

education, of secondary education, and finally that of higher

education; which have given, that is to say, the right to

everyone, under certain conditions of capacity and character,

to open private schools in competition with the three orders

of public schools. But the Church did not stop there. Hardly

had it insured liberty to its educational institutions--a

liberty by which all citizens might profit alike, but of which

its own strong organisation and powerful resources enabled it

more easily to take advantage--hardly was this result obtained

than the Church tried to lay hands on the University itself,

and to make its doctrines paramount there. ... Thence arose a

movement hostile to the enterprises of the Church, which has

found expression since 1880 in a series of laws which Excluded

her little by little from the positions she had won, and only

left to her, as to all other citizens, the liberty to teach

apart from, and concurrently with, the State. The right to

confer degrees has been given back to the State alone; the

privilege of the 'letter of obedience' has been abolished;

religious teaching has been excluded from the primary schools;

and after having 'laicized,' as the French phrase is, the

curriculum, the effort was persistently made to 'laicize' the

staff. .... From the University point of view, the territory

of France is divided into seventeen academies, the chief towns

of which are Paris, Douai, Caen, Rennes, Poitiers, Bordeaux,

Toulouse, Montpellier, Aix, Grenoble, Chambéry, Lyons,

Besançon, Nancy, Dijon, Clermont, and Algiers. Each academy

has a rector at its head, who, under the authority of the

Minister of Public Instruction, is charged with the material

administration of higher and secondary education, and with the

methods of primary instruction in his district. The

administration of this last belongs to the prefect of each

department, assisted by an academy-inspector. In each of these

three successive stages--department, academy, and central

administration--is placed a council, possessing administrative

and disciplinary powers. The Departmental Council of Public

Instruction, which comprises six officials ... forms a

disciplinary council for primary education, either public or

free (i. e., State or private). This council sees to the

application of programmes, lays down rules, and appoints one

or more delegates in each canton to superintend primary

schools. The Academic Council ... performs similar functions

with regard to secondary and higher education. The Higher

Council of Public Instruction sits at Paris. It comprises

forty-four elected representatives of the three educational

orders, nine University officials, and four 'free'

schoolmasters appointed by the Minister, and is the

disciplinary court of appeal for the two preceding councils.

... Such is the framework, administrative as well as judicial,

in which education, whether public or free, lives and moves.

... Since 1882 Primary Education has been compulsory for all

children of both sexes, from the age of six to the end of the

thirteenth year, unless before reaching the latter age they

have been able to pass an examination, and to gain the

certificate of primary studies. To satisfy the law, the

child's name must be entered at a public or private school; he

may, however, continue to receive instruction at home, but in

this case, after he has reached the age of eight, he must be

examined every year before a State board. ... At the age of

thirteen the child is set free from further teaching, whatever

may be the results of the education he has received. ... In

public schools the course of instruction does not include, as

we have said, religious teaching; but one day in the week the

school must take a holiday, to allow parents to provide such

teaching for their children, if they wish to do so. The school

building cannot be used for that purpose. In private schools

religious instruction may be given, but this is optional. The

programme of primary education includes: moral and civic

instruction; reading, writing, French, geography and history

(particularly those of France); general notions of law and

science; the elements of drawing, modelling, and music; and

gymnastics. No person of either sex can become a teacher,

either public or private, unless he possesses the 'certificate

of capacity for primary instruction' given by a State board.

For the future--putting aside certain temporary

arrangements--no member of a religious community will be

eligible for the post of master in a public school. ... As a

general rule, every commune is compelled to maintain a public

school, and, if it has more than 500 inhabitants, a second

school for girls only. ... The sum total of the State's

expenses for primary education in 1887 is as high as

eighty-five million francs (£3,400,000), and that without

mentioning grants for school buildings, whereas in 1877 the

sum total was only twelve millions (£480,000). ... From 1877

to 1886, the number of public schools rose from 61,000 to

66,500; that of the pupils from 4,200,000 to 4,500,000, with

96,600 masters and mistresses; that of training schools for

male teachers from 79 to 89, of training schools for female

teachers from 18 to 77, with 5,400 pupils (3,500 of them

women), and 1,200 masters. As to the results a single fact

will suffice. In these ten years, before the generations newly

called to military service have been able to profit fully by

the new state of things, the proportion of illiterate recruits

(which is annually made out directly after the lots are drawn)

has already fallen from 15 to 11 per cent."

_A. Lebon and P. Pelet, France as it is, chapter 5._

"In 1872, after the dreadful disaster of the war, Monsieur

Thiers, President of the Gouvernement de la Défense Nationale,

and Monsieur Jules Simon, Minister of Public Instruction, felt

that what was most important for the nation was a new system

of public instruction, and they set themselves the task of

determining the basis on which this new system was to be

established. In September, 1882, Monsieur Jules Simon issued a

memorable circular calling the attention of all the most

distinguished leaders of thought to some proposed plans. He

did not long remain in power, but in his retirement he wrote a

book entitled: 'Réforme de l'Enseignement Secondaire.'

Monsieur Bréal, who was commissioned to visit the schools of

Germany, soon after published another book which aroused new

enthusiasm in France. ... From that day a complete educational

reform was decided on.

{718}

In 1872 we had at the Ministeré de l'Instruction Publique

three distinguished men: Monsieur Dumont for the Enseignement

Supérieur, one from whom we hoped much and whose early death

we had to mourn in 1884; Monsieur Zévort for the Enseignement

Secondaire, who also died ere the good seed which he had sown

had sprung up and borne fruit (1887); and Monsieur Buisson to

whose wisdom, zeal, and energy we owe most of the work of the

Enseignement Primaire. At their side, of maturer years than

they, stood Monsieur Gréard, Recteur de l'Académie de Paris.

... All the educationists of the first French Revolution had

insisted on the solidarity of the three orders of education;

maintaining that it was not possible to separate one from

another, and that there ought to be a close correspondence

between them. This principle lies at the root of the whole

system of French national instruction. Having established this

principle, the four leaders called upon all classes of

teachers to work with them, and professors who had devoted

their life to the promotion of superior instruction brought

their experience and their powers of organization to bear upon

schools for all classes, from the richest to the poorest. ...

But to reform and to reconstruct a system of instruction is

not a small task. It is not easy to change at once the old

methods, to give a new spirit to the masters, to teach those

who think that what had been sufficient for them need not be

altered and is sufficient forever. However, we must say that

as soon as the French teachers heard of the great changes

which were about to take place, they were all anxious to rise

to the demands made on them, and were eager for advice and

help. Lectures on pedagogy and psychology were given to them

by the highest professors of philosophy, and these lessons

were so much appreciated that the attention of the University

of France was called to the necessity for creating at the

Sorbonne a special course of lectures on pedagogy. Eleven

hundred masters and mistresses attended them the first year

that they were inaugurated; from that time till now their

number has always been increasing. Now we have at the Sorbonne

a Chaire Magistrale and Conférences for the training of

masters and professors; and the faculties at Lyons, Bordeaux,

Nancy, and Montpellier have followed the example given at the

Sorbonne, Paris. ... In 1878, the Musée Pedagogique was

founded; in 1882, began the publication of the Revue

Pedagogique and the Revue Internationale de l'Enseignement.

Four large volumes of the Dictionnaire de Pédagogie, each

containing about 3,000 closely printed pages, have also come

out under the editorship of Monsieur Buisson, all the work of

zealous teachers and educationists. In 1879 normal schools

were opened. Then in 1880 primary schools, and in 1882 we may

say that the Ecoles Maternelles and the Ecoles Enfantines were

created, so different are they from the infant schools or the

Salles d'Asile; in 1883 a new examination was established for

the Professorat and the Direction des Ecoles Normales, as well

as for the inspectors of primary instruction; and in July,

1889, the law about public and private teaching was

promulgated, perhaps one of the most important that has ever

been passed by the Republic."

_Mme. Th. Armagnac, The Educational

Renaissance of France (Education, September, 1890)._

EDUCATION: France: A. D. 1890-1891.

Statistics.

The whole number of pupils registered in the primary,

elementary and superior schools, public and private, of France

and Algiers (excluding the "écoles maternelles") for the

school-year 1890-91, was 5,593,883; of which 4,384,905 were in

public schools (3,760,601, "laïque," and 624,304

"congréganiste"), and 1,208,978 in private schools (151,412

"laïques," and 1,057,566 "congréganiste"). Of 36,484

communes, 35,503 possessed a public school, and 875 were

joined for school purposes with another commune. The male

teachers employed in the elementary and superior public

schools numbered 28,657; female teachers, 24,273; total

52,930.

_Ministère de l'Instruction publique, Résumé des

états de situation de l'enseignement primaire pour

l'année scolaire 1890-1891._

EDUCATION:

Ireland.

"The present system of National Education in Ireland was

founded in 1831. In this year grants of public money for the

education of the poor were entrusted to the lord-lieutenant in

order that they might be applied to the education of the

people. This education was to be given to children of every

religious belief, and to be superintended by commissioners

appointed for the purpose. The great principle on which the

system was founded was that of 'united secular and separate

religious instruction.' No child should be required to attend

any religious instruction which should be contrary to the

wishes of his or her parents or guardians. Times were to be

set apart during which children were to have such religious

instruction as their parents might think proper. It was to be

the duty of the Commissioners to see that these principles

were carried out and not infringed on in any way. They had

also power to give or refuse money to those who applied for

aid to build schools. Schools are 'vested' and 'non-vested.'

Vested schools are those built by the Board of National

Education; non-vested schools are the ordinary schools, and

are managed by those who built them. If a committee of persons

build a school, it is looked on by the Board as the 'patron.'

If a landowner or private person builds a school, he is

regarded as the patron if he has no committee. The patron,

whether landlord or committee, has power to appoint or dismiss

a manager, who corresponds with the Board. The manager is also

responsible for the due or thorough observance of the laws and

rules. Teachers are paid by him after he certifies that the

laws have been kept, and gives the attendance for each

quarter. When an individual is patron, he may appoint himself

manager and thus fill both offices. ... The teachers are paid

by salaries and by results fees. The Boards of Guardians have

power to contribute to these results fees. Some unions do so

and are called 'contributory.' School managers in Ireland are

nearly always clerics of some denomination. There are

sometimes, but very rarely, lay managers. ... From the census

returns of 1881 it appears that but fifty-nine per cent. of

the people of Ireland are able to read and write, The greater

number of national schools through Ireland are what are

called 'unmixed,' that is, attended by children of one

denomination only. The rest of the schools are called 'mixed,'

that is, attended by children of different forms of religion.

The percentage of schools that show a 'mixed' attendance tends

to become smaller each year. ... There are also twenty-nine

'model' schools in different parts of Ireland. These schools

are managed directly by the Board of National Education. ...

{719}

According to the report of the Commissioners of National

Education for 1890, the 'percentage of average attendance to

the average number of children on the rolls of the schools was

but 59.0,' and the percentage of school attendance to the

estimated population of school age in Ireland would be less

than 50. Different reasons might be given for this small

percentage of attendance. The chief reasons are, first,

attendance at school not being compulsory, and next, education

not being free. ... The pence paid for school fees in Ireland

may seem, to many people, a small matter. But in a country

like Ireland, where little money circulates, and a number of

the people are very poor, school pence are often not easily

found every week. In 1890, £104,550 4s. and 8d. was paid in

school fees, being an average of 4s. 32¾d. per unit of average

attendance."

_The Irish Peasant;

by a Guardian of the Poor, chapter 8._

EDUCATION:

Norway.

"In 1739 the schools throughout the country were regulated by

a royal ordinance, but this paid so little regard to the

economical and physical condition of Norway that it had to be

altered and modified as early as 1741. Compulsory instruction,

however, had thus been adopted, securing to every child in the

country instruction in the Christian doctrine and in reading,

and this coercion was retained in all later laws. ... Many

portions of the country are intersected by high mountains and

deep fiords, so that a small population is scattered over a

surface of several miles. In such localities the law has

established 'ambulatory schools,' whose teachers travel from

one farm to another, living with the different peasants.

Although this kind of instruction has often been most

incomplete and the teachers very mediocre, still educational

coercion has everywhere been in force, and Christian

instruction everywhere provided for the children. These

'ambulatory schools' formerly existed in large numbers, but

with the increase of wealth and population, and the growing

interest taken in education, their number has gradually

diminished, and that of fixed circle-schools augmented in the

same proportion."

_G. Gade, Report on the Educational System of Norway

(U. S. Bureau of Education, Circulars of Information,

July, 1871)._

"School attendance is compulsory for at least 12 weeks each

year for all children in the country districts from 8 years of

age to confirmation, and from 7 years to confirmation in the

towns. According to the law of 1889, which in a measure only

emphasizes preceding laws, each school is to have the

necessary furnishings and all indispensable school material.

The Norwegians are so intent upon giving instruction to all

children that in case of poverty of the parents the

authorities furnish text-books and the necessary clothing, so

that school privileges may be accorded to all of school age."

_U. S. Commissioner of Education,

Report, 1889-90, page 513._

EDUCATION: Prussia: A. D. 1809.

Education and the liberation movement.

"The most important era in the history of public instruction

in Prussia, as well as in other parts of Germany, opens with

the efforts put forth by the king and people, to rescue the

kingdom from the yoke of Napoleon in 1809. In that year the

army was remodeled and every citizen converted into a soldier;

landed property was declared free of feudal service;

restrictions on freedom of trade were abolished, and the whole

state was reorganized. Great reliance was placed on infusing a

German spirit into the people by giving them freer access to

improved institutions of education from the common school to

the university. Under the councils of Hardenberg, Humboldt,

Stein, Altenstein, these reforms and improvements were

projected, carried on, and perfected in less than a single

generation. The movement in behalf of popular schools

commenced by inviting C. A. Zeller, of Wirtemberg, to Prussia.

Zeller was a young theologian, who had studied under

Pestalozzi in Switzerland, and was thoroughly imbued with the

method and spirit of his master. On his return he had convened

the school teachers of Wirtemberg in barns, for want of better

accommodations being allowed him, and inspired them with a

zeal for Pestalozzi's methods, and for a better education of

the whole people. On removing to Prussia he first took charge

of the seminary at Koenigsberg, soon after founded the

seminary at Karalene, and went about into different provinces

meeting with teachers, holding conferences, visiting schools,

and inspiring school officers with the right spirit. The next

step taken was to send a number of young men, mostly

theologians, to Pestalozzi's institution at Ifferten, to

acquire his method, and on their return to place them in new,

or reorganized teachers' seminaries. To these new agents in

school improvement were joined a large body of zealous

teachers, and patriotic and enlightened citizens, who, in ways

and methods of their own, labored incessantly to confirm the

Prussian state, by forming new organs for its internal life,

and new means of protection from foreign foes. They proved

themselves truly educators of the people. Although the

government thus not only encouraged, but directly aided in the

introduction of the methods of Pestalozzi into the public

schools of Prussia, still the school board in the different

provinces sustained and encouraged those who approved and

taught on different systems. ... Music, which was one of

Pestalozzi's great instruments of culture, was made the

vehicle of patriotic songs, and through them the heart of all

Germany was moved to bitter hatred of the conqueror who had

desolated her fields and homes, and humbled the pride of her

monarchy. All these efforts for the improvement of elementary

education, accompanied by expensive modifications in the

establishments of secondary and superior education, were made

when the treasury was impoverished, and taxes the most

exorbitant in amount were levied on every province and commune

of the kingdom."

_H. Barnard, National Education in Europe, pages 83-84._

For this notable educational work begun in Prussia in 1809,

and which gave a new character to the nation, "the

Providential man appeared in Humboldt, as great a master of

the science and art of education as Scharnhorst was a master

of the organisation of war. Not only was he himself, as a

scholar and an investigator, on a level with the very first of

his age, not only had he lived with precisely those masters of

literature, Schiller and Goethe, who were most deliberate in

their self-culture, and have therefore left behind most

instruction on the higher parts of education, but he had been

specially intimate with F. A. Wolf. It is not generally known

in England that Wolf was not merely the greatest philologer

but also the greatest teacher and educationist of his time.

... Formed by such teachers, and supported by a more intense

belief in culture than almost any man of his time, Humboldt

began his work in April, 1809.

{720}

In primary education Fichte had already pointed

to Pestalozzi as the best guide. One of that reformer's

disciples, C. A. Zeller, was summoned to Königsberg to found a

normal school, while the reformer himself, in his weekly

educational journal, cheered fallen Prussia by his panegyric,

and wrote enthusiastically to Nicolovius pronouncing him and

his friends the salt and leaven of the earth that would soon

leaven the whole mass. It is related that in the many

difficulties which Zeller not unnaturally had to contend with,

the King's genuine benevolence, interest in practical

improvement, and strong family feeling, were of decisive use.

... The reform of the Gymnasia was also highly successful.

Süvern here was among the most active of those who worked

under Humboldt's direction. In deference to the authority of

Wolf the classics preserved their traditional position of

honour, and particular importance was attached to Greek. ...

But it was on the highest department of education that

Humboldt left his mark most visibly. He founded the University

of Berlin; he gave to Europe a new seat of learning, which has

ever since stood on an equality with the very greatest of

those of which Europe boasted before. We are not indeed to

suppose that the idea of such a University sprang up for the

first time at this moment, or in the brain of Humboldt. Among

all the losses which befell Prussia by the Peace of Tilsit

none was felt more bitterly than the loss of the University of

Halle, where Wolf himself had made his fame. Immediately after

the blow fell, two of the Professors of Halle made their way

to Memel and laid before the King a proposal to establish a

High School at Berlin. This was on August 22nd, 1807. ... On

September 4th came an Order of Cabinet, in which it was

declared to be one of the most important objects to compensate

the loss of Halle. It was added that neither of the two

Universities which remained to Prussia, those of Königsberg

and Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, could be made to supply the place

of Halle, Königsberg being too remote from the seat of

Government and Frankfurt not sufficiently provided with means.

At Berlin a University could best, and at least expense, be

established. Accordingly all funds which had hitherto gone to

Halle were to go for the future to Berlin, and assurances were

to be given to the expelled Professors which might prevent

their talents being lost to the country. A University is not

founded in a day, and accordingly while Stein held office the

design did not pass beyond the stage of discussion. ...

Humboldt sent in his Report on May 12, 1809, and on August

16th followed the Order of Cabinet assigning to the new

University, along with the Academies of Science and Art, an

annual dotation of 150,000 thalers, and the Palace of Prince

Henry as its residence. During the rest of his term of office

Humboldt was occupied in negotiations with eminent men of

science all over Germany, whose services he hoped to procure.

He was certainly not unsuccessful. He secured Fichte for

Philosophy; Schleiermacher, De Wette, and Marheineke for

Theology; Savigny and Schmalz for Jurisprudence; Friedländer,

Kohlrausch, Hufeland, and Reil for Medicine; Wolf, Buttmann,

Böckh, Heindorf, and Spalding for the Study of Antiquity;

Niebuhr and Rühs for History; Tralles for Mathematics (Gauss

refused the invitation). The University was opened at

Michaelmas of 1810, and as the first result of it the first

volume of Niebuhr's Roman History, opening so vast a field of

historical speculation, was published in 1811. ... Altogether

in that period of German history the relations of literature,

or rather culture in general, to politics are remarkable and

exceptional. There had been a most extraordinary intellectual

movement, a great outpouring of genius, and yet this had taken

place not, as according to some current theories it ought to

have done, in the bosom of political liberty, but in a country

where liberty was unknown. And as it was not the effect, so

the new literature did not seem disposed to become the cause,

of liberty. Not only was it careless of internal liberty, but

it was actually indifferent to national independence. The

golden age of German literature is the very period when

Germany was conquered by France. ... So far literature and

culture seemed a doubtful benefit, and might almost be

compared to some pernicious drug, which should have the power

to make men forget their country and their duties. Not

unreasonably did Friedrich Perthes console himself for the

disasters of Germany by reflecting that at least they had

brought to an end 'the paper time,' the fool's paradise of a

life made up of nothing more substantial than literature. In

Humboldt's reform we have the compensation for all this. Here

while on the one hand we see the grand spectacle of a nation

in the last extremity refusing to part with the treasures of

its higher life, on the other hand that higher life is no

longer unnaturally divorced from political life. It is prized

as one of the bulwarks of the State, as a kind of spiritual

weapon by which the enemy may be resisted. And in the new and

public-spirited generation of thinkers, of which Fichte and

Sehleiermacher were the principal representatives, culture

returns to politics the honour that has been done to it. ...

In Humboldt and his great achievements of 1809, 1810, meet and

are reconciled the two views of life which found their most

extreme representatives in Goethe and Stein."

_J. R. Seeley, Life and Times of Stein,

part 6, chapter 3 (volume 2)._

EDUCATION: Prussia: A. D. 1874.

The Educational Administration.

"There is no organic school-law in Prussia, ... though

sketches and projects of such a law have more than once been

prepared. But at present the public control of the higher

schools is exercised through administrative orders and

instructions, like the minutes of our Committee of Council on

Education. But the administrative authority has in Prussia a

very different basis for its operations from that which it has

in England, and a much firmer one. It has for its basis these

articles of the Allgemeine Landrecht, or common law of

Prussia, which was drawn up in writing in Frederick the

Great's reign, and promulgated in 1794, in the reign of his

successor:--'Schools and universities are State institutions,

having for their object the instruction of youth in useful and

scientific knowledge. Such establishments are to be instituted

only with the State's previous knowledge and consent. All

public schools and public establishments of education are

under the State's supervision, and must at all times submit

themselves to its examinations and inspections.

{721}

Whenever the appointment of teachers is not by virtue of the

foundation or of a special privilege vested in certain persons

or corporations, it belongs to the State. Even where the

immediate supervision of such schools and the appointment of

their teachers is committed to certain private persons or

corporations, new teachers cannot be appointed, and important

changes in the constitution and teaching of the school cannot

be adopted without the previous knowledge or consent of the

provincial school authorities. The teachers in the gymnasiums

and other higher schools have the character of State

functionaries.' ... It would be a mistake to suppose that the

State in Prussia shows a grasping and centralising spirit in

dealing with education; on the contrary, it makes the

administration of it as local as it possibly can; but it takes

care that education shall not be left to the chapter of

accidents. ... Prussia is now divided into eight provinces,

and these eight provinces are again divided into twenty-six

governmental districts, or Regierungen. There is a Provincial

School Board (Provinzial-Schulcollegium) in the chief town of

each of the eight provinces, and a Governmental District Board

in that of each of the twenty-six Regierungen. In general, the

State's relations with the higher class of secondary schools

are exercised through the Provincial Board; its relations with

the lower class of them, and with the primary schools, through

the District Board. In Berlin, the relations with these also

are managed by the Provincial Board. A

Provinzial-Schulcollegium has for its president the High

President of the province; for its director the vice-president

of that governmental district which happens to have for its

centre the provincial capital. The Board has two or three

other members, of whom, in general, one is a Catholic and one

is a Protestant; and one is always a man practically

conversant with school matters. The District Board has in the

provincial capitals the same president and director as the

Provincial Board; in the other centres of Regierungen it has

for its president the President of the Regierung, and three or

four members selected on the same principle as the members of

the Provincial Board. The provincial State authority,

therefore, is, in general, for gymnasiums, the larger

progymnasiums, and Realschulen of the first rank, the

Provincial School Board; for the smaller progymnasiums,

Realschulen of the second rank, the higher Burgher Schools,

and the primary schools of all kinds, the Governmental

District Board. Both boards are in continual communication

with the Educational Minister at Berlin. ... Besides the

central and provincial administration there is a local or

municipal administration for schools that are not Crown

patronage schools. ... In most towns the local authority for

schools of municipal patronage is the town magistracy,

assisted by a Stadtschulrath; sometimes the local authority is

a Curntorium or Schulcommission."

_M. Arnold, Higher Schools and Universities

in Germany, chapter 3._

"The secondary school differs from the elementary schools by a

course of instruction going beyond the immediate demands of

every-day life; from the special school, by the more general

character of the courses of instruction; from the university,

by its preparatory character. It has the special aim to give

that sound basis of scientific and literary education which

enables a man to participate in solving the higher problems of

life in church, state, and society, In accordance with their

historical development, two directions can be clearly traced,

viz., the gymnasium and the real-school: the former comprising

gymnasia and pro-gymnasia; and the latter real-schools of the

first class, real-schools of the second class, and higher

burgher-schools."

_History of Secondary Instruction in Germany

(U. S. Bureau of Education, Circulars of

Information, 1874, no. 3), page 41._

"The name gymnasium came into use as early as the sixteenth

century. The ministerial decree of the 12th of November, 1812,

ordered that all learned school institutions, such as lyceums,

pedagogiums, collegiums, Latin schools, etc., should bear the

name gymnasium. A gymnasium is and has long been a classical

school."

_U. S. Commissioner of Education, Report, 1889-90, page 318._

ALSO IN: _V. Cousin, Report on the state of

public instruction in Prussia._

EDUCATION: Prussia: A. D. 1885-1889.

The Elementary School-System.

"The New Yorker, anxious for a high degree of perfection in

the elementary schools of his State, must be struck forcibly

by the following merits of the Elementary School System of

Prussia. ...

1. Compulsory education laws, necessitating a full and regular

attendance of the children of school age.

2. Official courses of study fixing the work to be

accomplished in each of the different grades of schools.

Uniformity is thus secured in the work done in all schools of

the same class.

3. Definite qualifications and experience in teaching for

eligibility to the office of school commissioner.

4. Provisions elevating teaching to the dignity of a

profession and making the tenure of office secure.

5. Trained teachers in rural as well as city districts and a

school year of at least forty weeks.

6. General supervision of instruction for children of school

age in private schools and families, including the

qualifications of instructors. ...

Every Prussian child between the ages of 6 and 14 must, except

in cases of severe illness or other extraordinary cause, be

present at every session of the school he attends. The lists

of the children of school age, in charge of the local police

(in rural districts the Burgermeister), are kept so carefully

that it is impossible to escape the provisions of the

compulsory education laws, as much so as it is to evade the

military service. Dispensations amounting to more than four

weeks in the school year are never given to children under 12

years of age, and to them only when sickness in the family or

other unusual cause make it advisable. ... In order to

understand the qualifications required of school commissioners

(Kreisschulinspektoren) in Prussia, let us review briefly the

requirements of male teachers.

1. Elementary schools. It may be stated at the outset that

almost all the male elementary school teachers are normal

school graduates. To insure similarity in training and a

thorough knowledge of character, few foreigners and few beside

normal school (Schullehrer-Seminar) graduates are admitted to

the male teaching force. From 6 to 14 the would-be teacher has

attended, let us suppose, an elementary school. He must then

absolve the three years' course laid down for the preparatory

schools. ... He is now ready for the normal school. At the

close of a three years' course at the normal school he is

admitted to the first teachers' examination. If successful, he

must next practice as candidate or assistant teacher not less

than two years and not more than five years before his

admission to the final test. ... If a teacher fails to pass

the examination within five years, he is dropped.

{722}

2. Middle schools. For teachers of lower classes the same

requirements with the addition of ability to teach a foreign

tongue, or natural history in its broadest sense, and the

attainment of the mark 'good' in all subjects at the final

examination. ... For higher classes, a special examination

provided for middle school teachers. ... There is really no

gradation between elementary and middle schools. The latter

merely go on somewhat further with elementary school work,

introducing French, Latin and English.

3. High schools (Realschulen, Realgymnasien, Progymnasien and

Gymnasien). All high school teachers, except those engaged in

technical departments, must first absolve the nine years'

gymnasial course, which commences at the close of the third

school year.

Next comes the university course of three or four years. The

candidate is now ready for the State examination. The subjects

for this State examination ... are divided into four classes:

1. The ancient languages and German;

2. Mathematics and natural sciences;

3. History and geography;

4. Religion and Hebrew.

At the close of one year's practice to test teaching capacity

he receives a second certificate and is thereupon engaged

provisionally. ... The school commissioners ... are either

former regular high school teachers, general doctors of

philosophy or more rarely theologians, or former normal school

teachers. All must have had practical experience in teaching.

... The work to be accomplished in each Prussian elementary

school is definitely laid down by law. Each school is not a

law unto itself as to what shall be done and when and how this

is to be done. I have learned by practical experience that the

work in ungraded schools compares most favorably with that of

graded schools."

_J. R. Parsons, Jr., Prussian Schools through

American eyes, chapter 1, section 5-10._