THE REIGN OF THE WEIMAR CIRCLE--REVOLUTION IN EDUCATION AND HYMNOLOGY.
The systems of the great philosophical minds whom we have contemplated
were remarkable for their harmony. As we now look back upon them we do
not see shapeless and unfitting fragments, but a superstructure of rare
symmetry and grace. Jacobi was the leaven of improvement, and it was the
mission of that devout man to continue to some extent the habit of
respectful regard for God's word among intelligent circles of society.
All who were unwilling to become votaries of reason were his careful
readers and enthusiastic admirers.
What we thus see developed in philosophy was equally manifest in regard
to literature. There arose, as if by the enchanter's wand, a group of
literary giants at Weimar, an insignificant town on the outskirts of the
Thuringian Forest, who wielded an influence which was destined to be
felt in coming ages. Through a combination of circumstances, Weimar
became their common home. It grew into a modern Parnassus, and to this
day bears the name of the German Athens. Karl August, imitating the
example of Augustus Cæsar, gathered around him as numerous and powerful
a cluster of literary men as his scanty revenue would allow. He paid
but little regard to their theological differences; all that he cared
for was their possession of the truly literary spirit. His little
principality, of which this was the capital, could not possibly be
elevated into either a second or third rate power. All hope of great
influence being cut off in this direction, he secured the presence of
those chiefs of letters who gave him a name and a power secured to but
few in any age. The town of Weimar possesses a calm rustic beauty by
which the traveler cannot fail to be impressed. You see only a few
traces of architectural taste, but the memory of the departed worthies
who once walked the winding streets is now the glory of the place.
There, the church where Herder preached now stands; near by, the slab
that covers the dust of Wieland; yonder, the humble cottage of Schiller,
with the room just as it was when the mute minstrel was borne from it to
his home in the earth; across the brook is Goethe's country villa; and
back in the grove, the table whereon he wrote. There is a quiet sadness
in the whole town, as if nothing were left but the mere recollection of
what it once was. How different the picture sixty years ago, when all
the literary world looked thither for the last oracle from one of these
high-priests of poesy! Book-publishers went there to make proposals for
the editorship of magazines, or for some other new literary enterprise.
Napoleon himself craved an audience with Goethe, and it is the strongest
grudge held by the Germans against the master of their literature that
the oppressor of the fatherland was not denied his request. Young men
went to Weimar from all parts of Europe to kiss the hand of these great
transformers of æsthetic taste. There was not a sovereign within the
pale of civilization who did not envy Karl August's treasures. The
story of the literary achievements, of the Platonic friendships, and of
the evening entertainments of Weimar, forms one of the most remarkable
chapters in the whole history of letters.
The name of Herder demands our prominent notice because of its intimate
connection with the theological movement we have been tracing. He was
eminently adapted to his times. Perfectly at home with his generation,
he looked upon his contemporaries as brethren, and aroused himself
manfully to serve them in every interest. We notice in all his works a
careful study to meet the emergency then pressing upon society. We will
not say that Herder wrote every work just as it should have been, and
that he was evangelical throughout. This he was not, but he was greatly
in advance of his predecessors. Amid the labyrinth of philosophical
speculations it is interesting and refreshing to meet with an author
who, though endowed with the mind of a philosopher, was content to pass
for a poet, or even for an essayist. His was a mind of rare versatility.
What he was not capable of putting his hand to scarcely deserved the
name of study. In philosophy, practical religion, literature, church
history, education and exegesis he labored with almost equal success. He
was the instrument of God, not to raise each of the crushed elements of
Christian power to a lofty vitality, but to contribute to the moderate
elevation of nearly every one of them. It might be expected that his
later writings would not abound in such hearty tributes to devout
religious life as we find so glowingly expressed in his earlier
productions. The atmosphere of Weimar favored a perverted growth. The
personal acquaintance of the men who surrounded him increased his
literary power but did not make his religion more fervent and powerful.
His training had been in the old purifying furnace of Pietism. His
father had been a rare specimen of that class of devout householders,
who, back in the days of Spener and Francke, were the real glory of the
German people. Young Herder was accustomed to family worship every day,
when the hard duties of temporal life were forgotten by those engaged in
singing, in the leisurely reading of the Scriptures, and in prayer. One
of the first books that had fallen under his notice was Arndt's "_True
Christianity_." It was this work that inspired him with that respect for
religion which never left him in subsequent life.
Herder's creed was the improvement of man. He expressed it in one word,
_humanity_. But by this term he meant more than most men conceive in
whole volumes. With him, it was that development and elevation of the
race for which every true man should labor. We do not come into this
life with a perfect humanity; but we have the germ of it, and therefore
we should contribute to its growth with unceasing energy. We are born
with a divine element within us, and it is for the maturity of this
personal gift that all great and good men, such as lawgivers,
discoverers, philosophers, poets, artists and every truly noble friend
of his race, have striven, in the education of children, by the various
institutions designed to foster their individual taste. To beautify
humanity is the great problem of humanity. It must be done; man must be
elevated by one long and unwearied effort, or he will relax into
barbarism. Christianity presents us, in the purest way, with the purest
humanity.
Herder was greatly interested in the poetic features of the Bible. His
work on _Hebrew Poesy_ is full of his warm attachment to the inspired
pictures of early oriental life and history. Whatever divested the
Scriptures of this eastern glow received his outright indignation. He
censured Michaelis for having criticised all the heart out of the
time-honored and God-given record. He compared the critical labors of
the Rationalists to squeezing a lemon; and the Bible that they would
give, he said, "was nothing save a juiceless rind." He totally rejected
the scientific reading of the Bible for common purposes; and maintained,
with great ardor, that the more simple and human our reading of God's
word is, the nearer do we approach God's will. We must make use of our
own thoughts, and we must imagine living scenes, with the inspired words
as our thought-outlines. The whole policy of the new class of critics,
he believed, was a thoroughly mistaken one. Instead of discarding the
pictorial Biblical beauties, as they did with a few hasty dashes of the
pen, he would elevate them to a loftier status, and lead the rising
generation to imbibe their spirit as a useful element for later life. In
his opinion, many of the Rationalists had not the keen insight into the
marvelous beauty of the Bible which all should possess who would
undertake to elucidate its language and doctrines. They were, therefore,
not competent to decide upon it. The only proper method of studying the
Scriptures for the instruction of others is by the exercise of a fine
poetic sentiment. Hence the best poet makes the best exegete. This
reminds us of Schiller's idea of historiography. Schiller said that, in
his writing of history, he did not intend to feel continually hampered
by the sequence of events, but that he would write as his own
imagination approved. High above facts would he place æsthetic taste. A
beautiful fancy! But heaven be praised that all historians are not
Schillers, and that all commentators are not Herders.
From this representation of Herder's tenacity for the records of
inspiration, and particularly for the Mosaic accounts, one would be led
to infer that his attachment was due solely to his lofty views of the
supernatural origin of these revelations. But we cannot think this was
the fact. A careful estimate of his underlying sympathies leads us to
conclude that he loved the Bible, not because it was inspired, as much
as because it was the highest, earliest, and simplest embodiment of
poetry,--for it traces out those things in our history which we are most
interested in knowing. The poetic beauty of the Scriptures entranced
him. Had each chapter of our canon been written in stately prose, Herder
would have been one of its coldest admirers. He ransacked the myths and
legends of various nations, and dwelt upon the stories of giants and
demi-gods with scarcely less enthusiasm than if discoursing on the
building of Babel or on the gift of the law on Sinai. Herder disliked
the theories of Kant with cordial aversion. Of course the Königsberg
sage had nothing in common with the Weimar rhapsodist. Had Herder only
given a prominence to his belief in the _fact_ of inspiration equally
with an admiration of the _method_ of it, his service to the cause of
practical religion would have been incalculable. Yet, in his views of
the person of Christ, he was far in advance of the times. He conceived
Christ not as a mere innovating teacher, but as the great centre of
faith. His belief in the sufficiency of the atonement stands out in bold
contrast with the barren faith of his Weimar associates, who had such
lofty ideas of human excellence that they thought man needed only one
thing more to complete his perfection,--his emergence from ignorance
into taste and knowledge. But Herder could see an abyss of depravity in
the heart along with the germ of excellence. He held that Christ alone
was able to annihilate the former and develop the latter. He believed
that the first three evangelists gave the human side of Christ's
character, and that it was John who revealed his divinity. With these
four accounts before us we cannot be at a loss to form a sound opinion
on the mission of the Messiah. He came to seek and save the lost. What
he accomplished could have been effected by no other agency. Herder's
own words are: "Jesus must be looked upon as the first real fountain of
purity, freedom, and salvation to the world." Of the Lord's Supper he
said, on his entrance upon his pastoral duties at Weimar, "The Lord's
Supper should not be a mere word and picture, but a fact and truth. We
should taste and see what joys God has prepared for us in Jesus Christ
when we have intercourse with him at his own table. In every event and
accident of life we should feel that we are his brethren and are sitting
at one table, and that, when we refresh ourselves at the festival of our
Saviour, we are resting in the will and love of the great King of the
world as in the bosom of the Father. The high, still joy of Christ, and
the spirit which prevails in the eternal kingdom of heaven should speak
out from ourselves, influence others, and testify of our own love." It
is a lamentable reflection, however, that Herder's lofty views of the
mission of Christ, which had been formed in the paternal home, were, in
common with many other evangelical views, doomed to an unhappy
obscuration upon the advance of his later years by frequent intercourse
with more skeptical minds.
One of the chief services rendered the church by Herder was his
persistent attempt to elevate the pastoral office to its original and
proper dignity. He held that the pastor of the church should not be
solely a learned critic but the minister of the common people. In his
day, the pastor was considered the mere instrument of the state, a sort
of theological policeman;--a degradation which Herder could hardly
permit himself to think of without violent indignation. In his _Letters
on the Study of Theology_, published in 1780, and in subsequent smaller
works, he sought to evoke a generation of theologians who, being imbued
with his own ideas of humanity, would betake themselves to the
edification of the humble mind. He would eject scholasticism from the
study of the Bible, and show to his readers that simplicity of inquiry
is the safest way to happy results. He would place the modern pastor,
both in his relations to the cause of humanity and in the respect
awarded him by the world, close beside the patriarch and prophet of
other days. And that man, in his opinion, was not worthy the name of
pastor who could neglect the individual requirements of the soul.
According to Herder, the theologian should be trained from childhood
into the knowledge of the Bible and of practical religion. Youths should
have ever before them the example of pious parents, who were bringing
them up with a profound conviction of the doctrines of divine truth. To
choose theology for a profession from mercenary aims would preclude all
possibility of pastoral usefulness. "Let prayer and reading the Bible be
your morning and evening food," was his advice to a young preacher. Some
of the most eloquent words from his pen were written against the
customary moral preaching which so much afflicted him. "Why don't you
come down from your pulpits," he asks, "for they cannot be of any
advantage to you in preaching such things? What is the use of all these
Gothic churches, altars, and such matters? No, indeed! Religion, true
religion, must return to the exercise of its original functions, or a
preacher will become the most indefinite, idle, and indifferent thing on
earth. Teachers of religion, true servants of God's word, what have you
to do in our century? The harvest is plenteous, but the laborers are
few. Pray the Lord of the harvest that he will send out laborers who
will be something more than bare teachers of wisdom and virtue. More
than this, Help yourselves!"
The counsel given by Herder to others was practised first by himself. He
lived among critical minds, who spurned humble pastoral work, but he
felt it his duty, and therefore discharged it to the best of his
ability. His preaching was richly lucid, and not directed to the most
intelligent portion of his auditors. He took up a plain truth and strove
to make it plainer. Yet, while the masses were most benefited by his
simplicity of pulpit conversation, those gifted men who thought with him
arose from their seats profoundly impressed with the dignity and value
of the gospel. A witty writer of the time, Sturz, gives an account of
Herder's preaching that throws some light upon the manner in which the
plain, earnest exposition of God's word always affected the indifferent
auditor. "You should have seen," says this man, "how every rustling
sound was hushed and each curious glance was chained upon him in a very
few minutes. We were as still as a Moravian congregation. All hearts
opened themselves spontaneously; every eye hung upon him and wept
unwonted tears. Deep sighs escaped from every breast. My dear friend,
nobody preaches like him. Else religion would be to every one just what
it should be, the most valuable and reliable friend of men. He explained
the gospel of the day without fanaticism, yet with a grand simplicity
which needed not to ransack the world for its wisdom, its figures of
speech, or its scholastic arts. It was no religious study, hurled in its
three divisions at the heart of stony sinners; nor was it what some
would call a current article of pulpit manufacture. It was no cold,
heathen, moral lecture, which sought nothing but Socrates in the Bible,
and would therefore teach that we can do without both Christ and the
Scriptures. But he preached the faith which works by love, the same
which was first preached by the God of love, the kind which teaches to
suffer and bear and hope, and which, by its rest and contentment,
rewards bountifully and independently of all the joys and sorrows of the
world. It seems to me that the scholars of the apostles must have
preached thus, for they did not tie themselves down to the hard
dogmatics of their faith, and therefore did not play with technical
terms, as children with their counting pennies." William von Humboldt
said of Herder's sermons that they were "very attractive: one always
found them too short, and wished them of double length." Schiller spoke
of his sermons as plain, natural, and adapted to the common life, and
adds that Herder's preaching was "more pleasing to him than any other
pulpit exercise to which he had ever listened."
Herder was the great theological writer of Weimar, and as such, his
impression upon theology and religion in general was decided. Though he
opposed the Kantian philosophy, because of its petrifying tendency, his
antagonism was counteracted by others of the Weimar celebrities. Goethe
and Schiller eclipsed all other names in their department of thought,
and were the culmination of the new type of literature. Herder might
preach, but it was only to a comparatively small world. Goethe and
Schiller were, on all points of literature, the oracles of Europe. Like
Kant, they stamped their own impress upon theology, which at that day
was plastic and weak beyond all conception. Under the Königsberg thinker
it became a great philosophical system as cold as Mont Blanc. Then came
Poetry and Romance, which, though they could give a fresh glow to the
face, had no power to breathe life into the prostrate form.
Schiller shares with Goethe the loftiest niche in the pantheon of German
literature. But the former is more beloved than the latter, for the
reason that his countrymen think that he had more soul. Schiller
endeared himself to his land because of his ardent aspirations to
political freedom. The poet of freedom is long-lived, and France will no
sooner forget her Béranger, nor America her Whittier, than the German
fatherland will become oblivious of Schiller. Like Herder, Schiller had
been trained carefully in household religion. In his earliest outbursts
of religious feeling there prevailed that ardent and devout spirit
which, had it been fostered by a healthy popular taste, might have
matured into something so transcendentally brilliant and useful, that
the writer of _The Robbers_ would have proved one of the reformers of
his people. If his education had reaped its appropriate harvest, his
probable bearing upon the regeneration of Germany can be but faintly
imagined by the aid of Klopstock's example. These were the sincere
thoughts of Schiller's over-burdened soul when, one Sabbath in 1777, he
addressed himself to the Deity: "God of truth, Father of light. I look
to thee with the first rays of the morning sun, and I bow before thee.
Thou seest me, O God! Thou seest from afar every pulsation of my praying
heart. Thou knowest well my earnest desire for truth. Heavy doubt often
veils my soul in night; thou knowest how anxious my heart is within me,
and how it goes out for heavenly light. Oh yes! A friendly ray has often
fallen from thee upon my shadowed soul. I saw the awful abyss on whose
brink I was trembling, and I have thanked the kind hand that drew me
back in safety. Still be with me, my God and Father, for these are days
when fools stalk about and say, 'there is no God.' Thou hast given me my
birth, O my Creator, in these days when superstition rages at my right
hand and skepticism scoffs at my left. So I often stand and quake in the
storm; and oh, how often would the bending reed break if thou didst not
prevent it; thou, the mighty Preserver of all thy creatures and Father
of all who seek thee.
"What am I without truth, without her leadership through life's
labyrinths? A wanderer through the wilderness, overtaken by the night,
with no friendly hand to lead me and no guiding star to show me the
path. Doubt, uncertainty, skepticism! You begin with anguish and you end
with despair. But Truth, thou leadest us safely through life, bearest
the torch before us in the dark vale of death, and bringest us home to
heaven, where thou wast born. O my God, keep my heart in peace, in that
holy rest during which Truth loves best to visit us. The sun refuses to
reflect itself in the stormy sea, but it is down into its calm
mirror-like flood that it beams its face. Even thus keep my heart at
peace, O God, that it may be fit to know thee and Jesus Christ whom thou
hast sent; for this alone is the truth which strengthens the heart and
elevates the soul. If I have truth then I have Christ; if I have Christ,
then have I God; and if I have God, then I have everything. And could I
ever permit myself to be robbed of this precious gem, this
heaven-reaching blessing by the wisdom of this world, which is
foolishness in thy sight? No. He who hates truth I will call my enemy,
but he who seeks it with simple heart I will embrace as my brother and
my friend.
"The bell rings that calls me to the sanctuary. I hasten thither to make
good my confession, to strengthen myself in the truth, and to prepare
myself for death and eternity. O lead me in such a path, my Father, and
so open my heart to the impressions of truth that I may be strong enough
to make it known to my fellow men. They know that thou art their God and
Father, and that thou didst send Jesus thy Son, and the Holy Spirit who
was to testify of the truth. They can therefore have strength for every
grief of this life, and for the sorrows of death a bright hope of a
happy immortality.
"Now, my God, thou canst take everything from me, yea every earthly joy
and blessing; but leave me truth, and I have joy and blessing enough!"
It was the young Schiller who wrote these ecstatic words at a time when
he contemplated entering the ministry. A few years passed by, and all
was changed. He grew into a sincere admirer, we might say worshiper, of
the heathen faith. He complained that all the life and spirit were taken
out of the Bible by the Rationalists, but he did nothing to remedy their
error. He became absorbed in the spirit of classic times. The antiquity
of Greece was far dearer to him than that of Palestine, and his poetic
fancy was excited to a greater tension by the tales of heathen deities
than by the histories of the Bible. He was a devotee of Kant, and his
poetry was largely made up of that philosopher's metaphysics. Yet, in
Schiller's hand, abstractions became living pictures. He knew how to
speak clearly, and his popularity is evidence to the fact that his
generations of readers have plainly understood him.
While Schiller represented Kant in verse, Goethe did the same thing with
Schelling's philosophy. The influence of the latter poet on religion was
very pernicious. He expressed himself favorably of the Bible, but he
claimed that it could only educate the people up to a little higher
stage of intelligence and taste. He was intensely egotistic, and totally
indifferent to all religious belief. His false idolatry of art and his
enthusiasm arrayed for heathendom, in all the beautiful charms of the
most seductive poetry, had a tendency fatal to the cause of Christianity
and to all public and private virtue.[36] He expressed himself sometimes
as very favorable toward the Roman Catholic worship, and the adherents
of that faith quote his words of approbation with evident pride. In his
_Autobiography_ he pays some high compliments to the seven sacraments of
the Romanists. He made several visits to the beautiful little Catholic
church dedicated to St. Roch, situated just above Bingen on the Rhine.
He presented it with an altar-piece, and on one occasion said, "Whenever
I enter this church I always wish I were a Catholic priest." But
Goethe's love and admiration of Catholicism were due rather to his
attachment to the old works of art than to that particular system of
faith and worship. The Romish church was the conservator of the
art-triumphs of the Middle Ages. She laid great store by her paintings
and statuary, and had been the patroness of the arts ever since the
wealth of noblemen and kings began to be poured into her lap. Goethe
loved her because she loved art. The key to this only evidence of
religious principle lies in his own words, as he once expressed himself
on contemplating a painting of the old German school. "Down to the
period of the Reformation," he said, "a spirit of indescribable
sweetness, solace, and hope seems to live and breathe in all these
paintings--everything in them seems to announce the kingdom of heaven.
_But since the Reformation, something painful, desolate, almost evil
characterizes works of art; and, instead of faith, skepticism, is often
transparent._"
Our plan precludes an estimate of Goethe's literary achievements. But
the influence of his productions on theology was, in the main, as
destructive as if he had written nothing but uncompromising Rationalism.
He was the head of the Weimar family. He had a cool, careful judgment.
Schiller was excitable and impulsive; but Goethe was always stoical,
regarding holy things as convenient for the more rapid advance of
civilization, but not absolutely necessary for the salvation of the
soul. He directed the literature of Europe. In popularity Schiller was
his peer, yet in real power over the minds and lives of others no one
was a match for Goethe. Other men at Weimar, such as Wieland, Knebel,
and Jean Paul, were admired, but Goethe was the cynosure of all eyes. He
was always thinking what next to write, and when he issued a new play,
poem, or romance, a sensation was made wherever the German and French
tongues were spoken.
Contemporaneously with these literary influences, which greatly
increased the power and prestige of Rationalism, there was a gradual
transformation of the training and instruction of the children of
Germany. A thorough infusion of doubt into the minds of the youth of the
land was all that was now needed to complete the sovereignty of
skepticism.
It cannot be disputed that there were serious defects in the educational
system already prevalent. The Latin schools instituted by Melanchthon
were still in existence, but they had become mere machines. Children
were compelled to commit the dryest details to memory. The most useless
exercises were elevated to great importance, and years were spent in the
study of many branches that could be of no possible benefit in either
the professions or the trades. The primary schools were equally
defective. There was no such thing as the pleasant, developing influence
of the mature over the young mind. The same defect had already
contributed to the spread of Rationalism, but the Rationalists were now
shrewd enough to seize upon this very evil and use it as an instrument
of strength and expansion.
Basedow was the first innovator in education, and, glaring as his faults
were, he succeeded in effecting radical changes in the entire circle of
youthful training. Sprung from a degraded class, addicted to vulgar
habits, and dissipated beyond the countenance of good society, this man
educated himself, and then set himself up as a fit agent for the
reformation of German education.[37] He undertook, by his publication of
the _Philalethy_, and of the _Theoretical System of Sound Reason_, to
infuse new spirit into the university method of instruction. But he had
taken too large a measure of his own powers, and therefore made but
little impression upon the circle to which he had addressed himself.
But, with that restless determination which distinguished him through
life, he began to appeal to the younger mind, and contended boldly for
the freedom of children from their common and long-standing restraints.
From 1763 to 1770 Basedow deluged the whole land with his books on
education; and, uniting his appeals for educational reform with
strictures upon the validity of the Scriptures, he incurred the sore
displeasure of Götze, Winkler and others of their class. They replied to
him, but he was always ready-witted, and the press groaned under his
repeated and sometimes ribald rejoinders. He told the nation, in an
_Address to the Friends of Humanity_, that the old excesses would soon
be done away with, since he was about to publish a work and commence an
educational institution which would rid the children of the shackles of
customary instruction. He solicited subscriptions for the issue of his
elementary book, as it would require numerous plates, and be attended
with other unusual expenses. His manifesto was freely circulated.
Replies soon came to him, with liberal subscriptions from all parts of
Europe. Princes and people became infatuated with his great plans and
wrote him their warm approval. They remitted large contributions for his
assistance. A specimen of his _Child's Book_ appeared, and all classes
were pleased with it. Whatever he promised was accepted with avidity,
because his promises were at once so flattering and exaggerated.
Schlegel and other educators tried in vain to make the multitude believe
that the vulgar mountebank could never fulfill their expectations.
Basedow proposed to parents, that if they would observe his system, all
languages and subjects,--grammar, history, and every other study--could
be learned, not in the tread-mill style, but as an amusement; that
morality and religion, both Jewish and Christian, Catholic as well as
Protestant, could be easily taught; that all the old bonds of education
were henceforth to be broken; and that every great difficulty would
hereafter be a pastime. Finally a part of the elementary work appeared.
But one plan creating the necessity for another, he soon found himself
immersed in the conception of a great philosophical school, in which not
only children but also teachers were to be trained for the application
of his new system to the appalling wants of the people. Every family
became possessor of the elementary book, and all eyes were turned toward
the _Philanthropium_ in Dessau. Compared with Basedow's wishes, this was
but a fragment of an institution. But upon its existence depended the
solution of his lauded problems.
Just at this time Germany was stirred by the reading of Rousseau's works
on popular education. Neither in Switzerland nor France had they
effected the purpose for which they were written, but among the Germans
their success was complete. Many persons, earnestly favoring Rousseau's
doctrine of freedom from all conventional restraints in families,
desired even his _Idyls of Life_ to be introduced into the schools.
Basedow and Rousseau thought in harmony; recommended that nature, not
discipline, should be our guide in education; and that only those
stories should be taught, of the utility of which the children are
themselves conscious. Subscriptions came in profusely, and the
_Philanthropium_ in Dessau commenced its existence. It was opened
without pupils on the twenty-seventh of December, 1774, and in the
following year it was attended by only fifteen. It threatened to
decline, but rallied again; and in 1776 a great public examination was
held. Then Basedow retired from its curatorship; but, returning once
more, his institution suffered under his care, and finally met with
total extinction. The great bubble of his plans burst. People awoke to
their mistake, and many of his dupes began to confess that, after all,
the old system of education was the best that had been devised.
But there were men who had lighted their torches at Basedow's flame.
Some who had been temporary inmates of his _Philanthropium_ went to work
with great perseverance to write juvenile books. Though the institution
had tumbled to ruin, and public notice began to be turned from it, the
excitement of the popular mind on the training of youth had been so
intense that the subject could not soon cease to receive attention. For
this reason, the writers of books for children found a large circle to
read them, and become impressed by them. Herder had called attention to
the subject of education in some of his most eloquent periods. He
contended zealously for the development of the young mind. His own words
were, "that it should be the chief aim of the teacher to imbue the child
with living ideas of everything that he sees, says, or enjoys, in order
to give him a proper position in his world, and continue the enjoyment
of it through every day of his life." Jean Paul, in his _Levana, or the
Doctrine of Education_, called attention to the necessity of the
personal training of children by their parents in opposition to the old
stiff method which, instead of quickening, only stupefied the intellect.
Campe and Salzmann had been students in Basedow's _Philanthropium_, and
subsequently each of them commenced a similar institution, but of more
humble pretensions. Yet it was not so much as practical educators as by
their writings, that they were instrumental in effecting a powerful
impression upon the young mind of Germany. Campe's _Children's Library_
had a fascinating influence upon children. It encouraged their literary
taste to the exclusion of religious development. The author advocated
morality, but only that which is taught by the common dictates of
nature. He stoutly rejected the old _Catechism_ of Luther as unfit to be
drilled into a youthful mind, and, unhappily, he found many
sympathizers. His _Robinson the Younger_ was to the Germans what
_Robinson Crusoe_ was, and still is, to the English-speaking world, and
from the time that the children read its wonderful stories they looked
with disgust upon the less exciting histories of the Bible. From 1775 to
1785 it captivated every boy and girl who could collect groschen enough
to buy a copy. When they had ceased reading it they were filled with the
idea that they were naturally perfect.
Pestalozzi belongs rather to the present than to the last century, but
he stands highest in the catalogue of the educational reformers who
arose during the meridian strength of Rationalism. He was a Swiss by
birth. In 1798 he went to Stanz and labored for the amelioration of the
orphan children whose parents had fallen in the French wars.[38] His
idea was, to make the school an educating family, into which the ease
and pleasure of home should be introduced. He, too, believed in man's
natural goodness, and held that true education is not so much the
infusion of what is foreign to, as the educing of what is native in the
child. But he warmly encouraged youthful acquaintance with the Bible,
and said that the history of Christ is an indispensable ingredient in
the education of every young mind. But while these few men, both by
their active life and facile pen, contributed their share to the
improvement of the youth of Germany, there was a large class of writers
for the young, whose productions became as plentiful as autumn leaves.
Some were sentimental, having imbibed their spirit from _Siegwart, La
Nouvelle Héloïse_, and similar works. Young men and women became
dreamers, and children of every social condition were converted into
premature thinkers on love, romance, and suicide. Whoever could wield a
pen thought himself fit to write a book for children. There has never
been a period in the whole current of history when the youthful mind was
more thoroughly and suddenly revolutionized. The result was very
disastrous. Education, in its true import, was no longer pursued, and
the books most read were of such nature as to destroy all fondness for
the study of the Bible, all careful preparation for meeting the great
duties of coming maturity, and every impression of man's incapacity for
the achievement of his own salvation.
The teachers in the common institutions of learning having now become
imbued with serious doubts concerning the divine authority of the
Scriptures, their pupils suffered keenly from the same blight. In many
schools and gymnasia miracles were treated with contempt. Epitomes of
the Scriptures on a philosophical plan were introduced. Ammon, in one of
his works, tells the young people that the books of the Old Testament
have no divine worth or character for us, except so far as they agree
with the spirit of the gospel. As to the New Testament, much must be
figuratively understood, since many things have no immediate relation to
our times. Christ is a mere man. Dinter was a voluminous writer on
theological subjects, and in his books tells children of imperfect
notions of former times as to God, angels, and miracles. He gives
teachers directions how to conduct themselves cleverly in such matters,
and afterwards, in agreement with the principles he recommends, he lays
down plans of catechizing. For example, there are to be two ways of
catechizing about Jonah; one before an audience not sufficiently
enlightened, and where all remains in its old state; another for places
which have more light. In the prophecies concerning the Messiah a double
explanation is given for the same reason. One is the old orthodox way,
the other a more probable neological plan. A clever teacher is to choose
for himself; a dull one may ask the parish clergyman how far he may go.
As a fair specimen of the kind of Biblical instruction then imparted to
the children of Germany, we may adduce the example of Becker's
_Universal History for the Young_. A second edition was issued in Berlin
in 1806. Speaking of the person and character of Christ, the author
says, "Jesus probably got the first notion of his undertaking from being
a friend of John, and going often to his father's, who was a priest; and
from the Gospel it appears that the sight of feasts and of the crowd of
worshipers had a great effect upon him. It is doubtful whether Jesus and
John were sent into Egypt for their education, or were taught by the
Essenes, and then sent into Palestine as ambassadors of that sect, with
secret support and according to arranged plan.... The indications of the
Messiah in the Old Testament had produced great effect on Jesus and John
who were both hot-heads, such as destiny raises for some great purpose.
We are in danger, therefore, of judging them unjustly, especially from
the great mixture of high and low, clear and obscure in them."
Becker had the modesty to say that he would not undertake to fix the
character of Jesus, but merely collect the fragments of it from his
_wretched_ biographers. The friends had great mutual esteem, but John
saw in Jesus a higher spirit than his own. Both had the same hatred of
the priests, their pride and hypocrisy; both thought the Mosaic law no
longer fit for the time, and that the notion of a national God was the
source of all the evil in Judea. After long meditation they decided that
Jesus must be the Messiah; and John found the part of a precursor fixed
for himself. Christ, partly from his power of attraction, and partly
from the hope of future power, made his disciples depend blindly on him.
It was only with great caution that he could undertake his great work of
destroying the priests. The people were divided into sects; and the
characteristics of his plan were, his choice of the lowest people, and
his withdrawing himself frequently from public view, that the priests
might not nip his plan in the bud. As all the prophets had worked
miracles, and many were expected from the Messiah, he too was obliged,
according to Becker, to undertake them or renounce his hopes. No doubt
he performed miracles; for the power of the mind on the body is such
that we need not doubt his curing the melancholy and the nervous. As to
the miraculous meals, raising the dead, curing the blind and deaf, these
things must be attributed to the calculation of his historians; and we
need not hesitate to do so after observing such tangible fabrications as
Christ's walking on the sea, his blasting the fig tree, devils driven
into the swine, and virtue going out of himself. In the story of Lazarus
we cannot help suspecting some secret concert. Christ did perform some
uncontested miracles, however and there was in his manner that
inexpressible something which makes greatness irresistible. The mystic
obscurity thrown over his future kingdom, the many parables he used, and
his assured manner of speaking of future things, begot reverence. The
prudence of his judgment and the strictness of his life are
praiseworthy. He could pursue the destruction of old usages but very
slowly; first he allowed the neglect of the Sabbath, and at last made
open war with the priests, "_on whom, he lanced all the thunder of a
Ciceronian eloquence_."
"John's death," continues this model writer for youth, "made Christ very
timid. He got away into the desert and ordered his followers not to call
him Messiah in public. In his last journey to Jerusalem, the multitude
protected him by day, and he escaped by night. His answers, made to
several questions at this time, for example, John viii. 3, are still
admired. He had always suspected Judas; and as he had a presentiment
that he would come to a bad end, he became very uneasy, and yet was able
to exhort his disciples. He did not really die on the cross. Whenever
recognized by his disciples afterwards, he went away directly, and came
back unexpectedly and for a short time. At last he disappeared quickly,
and let himself be seen no more. This end, like that of Lycurgus,
produced many followers. By degrees all the tales of the crucifixion
were extended and a Christian mythology erected."[39]
Becker was not more extreme in his inculcation of doctrine than many
others. Even Gesenius, in the preface to his _Hebrew Reading Book_,
tells the students of the Bible that Gen. i. 2, 3, contains the
description of the origin of the earth by a sage of antiquity; that the
narrator has a very imperfect knowledge of nature, though his
description is sublime, that he can hardly be the first inventor of the
description, as the principal outlines of it and even the six works of
creation are to be found in other religions of the East; and that
probably he only accommodates the general tradition of the East to the
national opinions of the Hebrews,--a remark which applies especially to
his ascribing a mystic origin to the Sabbath, a festival peculiar to the
Jews.
Such was the kind of theology in which the German youth were trained
during a period extending through the latter part of the eighteenth and
the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. It is no matter of
astonishment, then, that when those children became adults they were
rigid Rationalists from the mere force of training.
We now come to one of the most inexcusable deeds with which Rationalism
stands charged. We refer to the general destruction or alteration of the
time-honored German hymns.
Both the great branches of the Protestant church had always highly
prized their rich hymns, of which there were eighty thousand in
existence. Some of the finest lyrics of any tongue were among the
number. The sacred songs now used in our American churches are not
solely of English origin, or of our own production; but many of the
sweetest of them are free versions from the German hymnists. The
Rationalists, not being content with their present laurels, began in
great earnestness to despoil the hymn-books of the Protestant church of
everything savoring of inspiration or of any of the vital doctrines
already rejected. They looked upon those songs of devotion as composed
during the iron age of truth, and therefore unfit to be sung by the
congregations whose lot had been cast in the golden period. Should these
verses continue to be sung by the church, they would remain a strong tie
holding the masses to the pitiable days of effete orthodoxy. The
Rationalists reasoned correctly, for, in Germany, music is a power which
has at times defied the authority of popes and kings. It was, therefore,
with a sort of savage satisfaction that these destroyers of truth began
the work of denuding those earnest and evangelical hymns of all their
vigor and nationality for the purpose of placing in their stead cold and
heartless moral verses.
Klopstock commenced the work of alteration, though with a good
intention, by remodeling twenty-nine old church hymns. Cramer and
Schlegel followed in his steps. Soon the devout and animating songs of
Gellert, Bach, and their brother minstrels were despoiled of the spirit
that had ever made them dear to the popular heart and familiar to the
common ear. By and by, everybody who could make a tolerable rhyme seized
some of the master-pieces of hymnology, and set them up on stiff
philosophical stilts. New hymn books were introduced into many of the
churches, and the people sang Rationalism. General superintendents,
consistorial counselors, and court preachers, rivaled each other in
preparing a new volume of religious songs for the territory under their
charge. Individual towns and churches had their own selections. Some
portions of Germany, especially Würtemberg, refused awhile to give up
the old hymns, and certain writers of the sterling character of the poet
Schubert, raised a loud and indignant voice against the wretched
vandalism. But they could accomplish nothing, and the old hymns suffered
that fearful mortality which the Rationalists had by this time become
so able to inflict on almost everything of value. It is a lamentable
scene to see those reckless doubters sit down with scalpel in hand to
dissect as pure and inspiring hymns as are to be found in the devotional
literature of any nation. For a good sacred song is only complete just
as its author finishes it. If an authorized hymn committee attempt to
alter it, they fill it at once with icicles. They can no more improve it
by emendations than they can improve a rose by the use of a penknife.
Each clipping or puncture destroys some natural charm.
But the music accompanying the hymns was doomed to a like fate. The old
chorals, which had been lingering in those renowned gothic temples ever
since the days of Luther, were so altered as to stand upon the same
footing with the hymns themselves. All sentiment was extracted, as quite
out of place, and sublimity was made to give way to a more temperate and
stoical standard. In due time the Rationalists effected their purpose.
Secular music was introduced into the sanctuary; an operatic overture
generally welcomed the people into church, and a march or a waltz
dismissed them. Sacred music was no longer cultivated as an element of
devotion. The oratorios and cantata of the theatre and beer-garden were
the Sabbath accompaniments of the sermon. The masses consequently began
to sing less; and the period of coldest skepticism in Germany, like
similar conditions in other lands, was the season when the
congregations, the common people, and the children sang least and most
drowsily.
We now behold Protestant Germany in the full possession of a shrewd,
powerful, and aggressive system of infidelity. The most thorough student
of church history must conclude that no other kind of skepticism has
received more aid from external sources. Everything that appeared on the
surface of the times contributed its mite toward the spiritual
petrification of the masses. Hamann, Oetinger, Reinhard, Lavater, and
Storr were insufficient for the great task of counteraction, while
Rationalism could count its strong men by the score and hundred.
Literature, philosophy, history, education, and sacred music were so
influenced by increasing indifference and doubt that when the people
awoke to their condition they found themselves in a strange latitude and
on a dangerous coast. But they thought themselves safe. They could not
see how each new feature in politics, literature, and theology was
affecting them in a remarkable manner; and how so many influences from
opposite quarters could contribute to the same terrible result,--the
total overthrow of evangelical faith.
FOOTNOTES:
[36] Möhler's _Symbolism_: Memoir of Author.
[37] Schlosser, _History of the Eighteenth Century_, vol. 2, pp. 33-41.
[38] Kahnis: _German Protestantism_, p. 216.
[39] Rose, _State of Protestantism in Germany_, pp. 178-181.