History of Education, Levi Seeley [short novels in english txt] 📗

[55] This was because the pastor had an oversight of the school, a practice still very common in Germany.

The educational work of Luther and Melanchthon bore remarkable fruit. Luther had urged parents to see to it that their children should be educated, and had appealed to magistrates to assist the Church in maintaining schools. He insisted upon compulsory education in the memorable words, "The authorities are bound to compel their subjects to send their children to school." As a result schools were organized in Nuremberg, Frankfort, Ilfeld, Strasburg, Hamburg, Bremen, Dantzic, and many other places. Eton, Rugby, Harrow, and other educational institutions were founded about this time in England.

Melanchthon's course of study (Schulplan) for Saxony had appeared in 1528, and in 1558 the school law of Würtemberg, by far the best yet enacted, went into force. Other German provinces adopted more or less efficient school systems, and for the first time in the history of Christian education, the duty of the State to assume the responsibility of the education of its subjects was recognized. Out of these primitive systems have grown the completer systems of the present, after more than three centuries of experiment, study, and struggle.

The Reformation taught the right of every person to an education, primarily, it is true, for religious ends, and it gradually came to be understood that the State must assume that duty. For the Church had neither the means nor the power to accomplish universal education. But it was not till the nineteenth century that this end was reached, whereby the advantages of education were offered to the child of every parent of whatever rank or station, and the State assumed full control of the schools.

This was the great work marked out by Luther and Melanchthon, and their pupils and disciples carried that work to its fulfillment. Among these immediate followers we may mention Sturm,[56] Trotzendorf, and Neander, who contributed to educational reform.

STURM[57] (1507-1589)

Johann Sturm is counted among the greatest schoolmen that the Reformation produced, though he belonged to the French rather than the German reformers. He received an excellent training in the schools of Germany, and completed his education at Paris, where he afterward became professor of Greek. He soon gained such a wide reputation that when only thirty years of age he was called to the rectorship of the Gymnasium at Strasburg, a position which he held for forty-seven years, and where he gained lasting fame. This fame rests not on his work as a teacher, but as an organizer and an executive. Paulsen doubts his having been a great teacher. He says, "He was a man who gave his attention to great things. He had his hands in universal politics; he was in the service of nearly all the European potentates, drawing his yearly salary from all.... It is not probable that such a wonderful man was also a good schoolmaster."[58]

But his great work was the organization of the Strasburg Gymnasium, especially its course of study, which became the model for the Latin schools for many years. Sturm's counsel was sought by schoolmen all over Europe, and he came to be the recognized leader of educational forces. His school course took the boy at six years of age and provided at first a nine years', afterward a ten years' course, ending at the sixteenth year of age. He added a five years' course to this later, and evidently planned to found a university.[59]

Sturm believed that the mother should have charge of the child for the first six years of its life. In his ten years' course he required ten years of Latin, six of Greek, besides rhetoric, logic, religion, and music. He introduced the practice of translating Latin into German and then translating it back into Latin.[60] His course took no account of German, history, mathematics, or science. He thus sought to reinstate Greece and Rome, but entirely neglected those things which prepare for life. Williams says, "With regard to Sturm's plan of organization, it should be borne in mind that it is the very earliest scheme that we have, looking to an extended, systematic, well-articulated course of studies for a school of several teachers, in which is assigned to each class such portion of the subject-matter of the course of instruction as is suited to the age and stage of advancement of its pupils."[61]

This course of study attracted the attention of all Europe. Karl Schmidt says that in 1578 "his school numbered several thousand students, among whom were two hundred of noble birth, twenty-four counts and barons, and three princes—from Portugal, Poland, Denmark, England, etc."

Paulsen, while not belittling the work of Sturm, thinks that the celebrated course has but little in it different from the courses of the Wittenberg reformers. He says, "If Melanchthon had had the planning of a school course for a large city, it would have been much the same (as Sturm's). The Saxon school plan of 1528 was effective only in small cities and country places. The basis of both (Melanchthon's and Sturm's) is the same,—grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, with music and religion. In the large schools, like those of Nuremberg and Hamburg, a beginning of Greek and mathematics was added."[62]

Sturm's course has the merit of definiteness, thoroughness, and unity. There seems to be some doubt as to his success in carrying it out. It is certain that but few students completed his course compared with the number who began it. Instead of sixty to seventy pupils in the last class, there were only nine or ten. The influence of Sturm, however, spread not only over Germany, but also reached to many other countries, and his Strasburg course of study shaped the work in the classical schools for many years.

TROTZENDORF (1490-1556)

Valentine Trotzendorf was born in poverty and beset by many difficulties in boyhood. His mother was a constant inspiration to him, and when he was disposed to give up the struggle, her words, "My son, stick to your school," led him to continue until he overcame the obstacles. When ready for the university he went to Leipsic, where he studied Greek and Latin for two years. In 1515 he became a teacher in a village near Leipsic, a position that he retained for three years. He then went to Wittenberg, where he studied under Melanchthon for five years, and became very intimate with that great teacher. His fame as a teacher was made at Goldberg, where he was thirty-five years rector of a school. Like Melanchthon, he believed that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and that the school is an adjunct of the Church. With Sturm, he laid great stress upon the classic languages, and insisted that his pupils should speak in the Latin tongue. As a teacher he possessed remarkable power. He loved to mingle with his pupils, converse with and question them, and he had great skill in drawing them out. In his instruction he employed many illustrations, and proceeded from the concrete to the abstract.

His discipline was unique and original. He introduced a practice before unknown, namely, that of self-government on the part of the students, an experiment that has been tried in recent years with excellent results in many American institutions for higher learning. Trotzendorf established a senate of twelve students, a consul, and other officers, who were made responsible for the government of the school. These constituted a court of which he was president. Offenders were brought before the tribunal and tried with great formality and dignity. This body sentenced the culprit to such punishment as his guilt merited, the master reserving to himself the right of being a court of final appeal. Besides the officers above named, there were others who were in charge of the boys in their domestic relations,—such as keeping guard over their punctuality, table manners, diligence in study, etc. It was considered a high honor to hold one of these offices. The scheme worked well under Trotzendorf; it taught self-government, and inculcated the spirit of freedom as well as an intelligent submission to law. Trotzendorf thus gives an example of school government which is quite in accord with the spirit of modern times. He also had his best pupils instruct the lower classes under his supervision, and thus prepared them to go forth as teachers. Teachers from his school were sought for by intelligent patrons of education in all parts of Europe.

NEANDER (1525-1595)

Michael Neander was another of Melanchthon's pupils who became great as a teacher. Neander was for forty-five years the sole teacher of a Latin school at Ilfeld. Though he never had many pupils, his school was pronounced by Melanchthon as "the best seminary in the country." He was a most successful teacher, and the students whom he sent to the university were found to possess the very best preparation, and always stood among the first. He was well versed in medicine and chemistry, and was one of the best Greek and Latin scholars of his time. Contrary to the practice of his contemporaries, he favored the teaching of geography, history, and the natural sciences. His position in regard to the sciences places him in advance of other educators, and in this he was a follower of Melanchthon, who also believed that science should be taught.

Neander is celebrated also for the Greek and Latin text-books which he wrote. Speaking of these books, Paulsen says, "What he especially emphasized