II. The Ministry of the God-man.
Jesus as a teacher
One of the gifts of the Spirit is that of teaching, and Christ was a born teacher. Acquired ability amounts to but little where the spirit of teaching is wanting. Christ was a teacher both by virtue of His nationality, since all Jews were called to be teachers, and also by direct appointment; for He had to accomplish in His own life what the nation had refused to accomplish. He carried with Him no credentials, no statement of scholarship signed by the doctors of Israel, for none of these schools had known Him as a pupil; yet Nicodemus, a master teacher in Jerusalem, after listening to His words, sought Him in the quiet evening hours, and addressed Him as Rabbi,—Teacher. In the course of the conversation this learned man said, “We know that thou art a divine teacher, for no man can do as Thou except God be with him.” It was as a teacher, and more, as a divine teacher, that He was known from the very beginning of His ministry. His ministry was a ministry of teaching. He was known as a teacher, not so much by the words He spoke as by the life He lived, and the works He did.
As a teacher, success depended upon the life
The words of Bushnell are true: “We can see for ourselves in the simple directions and freedom of His teachings, that whatever He advances is from Himself.” He was giving Himself, and that He had a self, a divine self, to give is due to the education of the child and youth. God’s image was perfect in Him, and when the time of ministry came, there shone from Him what previous years had been developing in Him. This is the object of Christian education. The same author further says: “He is the high-priest ... of the divine nature, speaking as one that has come out from God, and has nothing to borrow from the world. It is not to be detected ... that the human sphere in which He moved imparted anything to Him. His teachings are just as full of divine nature, as Shakespeare’s of human.” What a commentary on the two systems of education, the one choosing inspiration as a basis; the other, the product of the human brain!
He taught as one having authority
Bushnell continues: “In His teaching He does not speculate about God, as a school professor, drawing out conclusions by a practice on words, and deeming that the way of proof; He does not build up a frame of evidence from below, by some constructive process, such as the philosophers delight in; but He simply speaks of God and spiritual things as one who has come out from Him, to tell us what He knows. And His simple telling brings us the reality; proves it to us in its own sublime self-evidence; awakens even the consciousness of it in our own bosom; so that formal arguments or dialectic proofs offend us by their coldness, and seem, in fact, to be only opaque substances set between us and the light. Indeed, He makes even the world luminous by His words—fills it with an immediate and new sense of God, which nothing has ever been able to expel. The incense of the upper world is brought out in His garments, and flows abroad, as perfume, on the poisoned air.” And no wonder, for from a child He had breathed the atmosphere of heaven. Every child should have the same privilege.
Principles of Christ’s education
When the two teachers, Christ and Nicodemus, the representatives of two systems of education, the divine and the worldly, met, Christ outlined to his questioner the principles upon which His system was based:[48]—
1. Its primary object is to prepare its pupils for the kingdom of God, a spiritual kingdom.
2. The first step is a spiritual birth; for “God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship in spirit.” “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
3. This the natural man can not understand, for it is spiritually discerned. As well might I try to explain it to you, Nicodemus, as to explain the blowing of the winds; you can see the results, but the truth can not be grasped by the senses. Do you pose as a teacher in Israel, and know not these things? “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?” I have but begun to tell you of the plan of the Father. There are yet many things, “but ye can not bear them now.”
4. The things I teach are as light in the darkness. “Every one that doeth evil hateth the light, ... but he that doeth truth cometh to the light.” It is thus that I distinguish true scholars from the false. When truth is offered, some believe, and whosoever believes in the Son of man shall have eternal life.
Nicodemus said: “How can these things be?” He longed for proof, for demonstration. “Proof is indeed the method of science, including theology; it has, no doubt, a function in religious teaching; but it is not the method of the highest form of religious teaching. The fundamental truths of religion are directly revealed to the human consciousness, and are not argued out or logically established.... The greatest religious truths lie deeper than formal reasoning. This is the reason why the greatest religious teachers have worked below the proposition-and-proof level; as said before, they have something of the prophetic gift. It may be added that no preacher [or teacher] who works mainly on this line will attract the most religious minds; he will not attract even those who have the piety of the intellect, to say nothing of the piety of the affections and the will. He may develop logical acumen, critical ability, and controversial power, but he will prove unequal to the generation of spirituality.... Such a minister will be sure to lead his flock into the error that is now far too common,—of assigning a disproportionate place in religious faith and life to the understanding, to the partial exclusion of the heart.”[49]
His pupils
His actual work as a teacher is seen in His dealings, first, with the apostles, His immediate followers, who were in training that they in turn might become teachers; second, with the multitudes who thronged His way; third, with the children who were brought to Him by mothers, and who were taught by Him, that mothers and apostles might the better know how to deal with youthful minds. Primarily, His was a training-school for workers, and His pupils represented every phase of human disposition. He chose humble fishermen, because their minds were unprejudiced, and they had less to unlearn before accepting the truth. “He knew what was in man.” That is, He had insight into the minds and hearts, and knew just what was needed to awaken the soul-life of each student. This is a necessary gift in the successful teacher. How much that is now taught would be dispensed with if teachers could read the soul conditions of pupils, and then feed them with only such food as would nourish. This, too, is Christian education. Before the teacher can have such an experience, however, he must have soul culture, and be in such close touch with the fountain of truth that he can draw whatever is needed. The well is deep, and faith alone can bring the water of life to the surface.[50]
His schoolroom the country.
With His chosen apostles, Christ “withdrew from the confusion of the city to the quiet of the fields and hills as more in harmony with the lessons of self-abnegation he desired to teach them.... Here, surrounded by the works of his own creation, he could turn the thoughts of his hearers from the artificial to the natural.” Those schools to-day which are located in some quiet country place afford the best opportunities for education.
Text-books
The books used seem to be two, and only two: the writings of the prophets and the great book of nature. Hinsdale says: “Scripture furnishes the basis of His teaching.... It is impossible to say how many distinct recognitions of Scripture are found in His teachings, but the number and range are both large.... One of the most interesting of these [methods] is his constant habit of expanding Scripture, or, as we might say, of reading into it new meanings. He thus treats not merely prophetic passages, but also dogmatic passages; moreover, His meanings are sometimes new, not merely to the Jewish teachers, but also to the authors of the passages themselves.”[51] This was because the teacher was led by the Spirit of truth, which guides into all truth.
His system emphasized the practical
It must be remembered that this instruction was given to men of mature minds, and tended to fit them to become teachers of all men in whatever station. Probably none of the apostles were under thirty. They were men who had become settled in a life work. John, the youngest, was most susceptible to spiritual teaching, and at length developed this nature so fully that his spirit left his body in vision.[52] Painter expresses well the method of instruction followed by Christ. He says: “He observes the order of nature, and seeks only a gradual development,—‘first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.’ With His disciples, He insists chiefly upon the practical and fundamental truths of religion, building, as it were, a substantial framework in the beginning, which the Holy Spirit was to conduct afterward to a harmonious and beautiful completion.”[53]
Visible results of His teaching
It was thus that all the truths we call doctrines were taught. The lesson on the resurrection was at the tomb of Lazarus; the one on Sabbath observance was in the synagogue, healing the withered hand, or bidding the dumb to speak. “One finds in His program,” says a French writer, “neither literary studies nor course of theology. And yet, strange as it may seem, when the moment of action arrives, the disciples—those unlettered fishermen—have become orators that move the multitudes and confound the doctors; profound thinkers that have sounded the Scriptures and the human heart; writers that give to the world immortal books in a language not their mother tongue.” If the worth of a system of education is to be judged by results, the world must hold its peace when looking upon the work of Christ. Astonishment will again take hold of men when Christians return to His methods. Of His reference to nature we have no need to write, for His parables are the wonder of the ages, and take a unique position in the literature of all times. Christ was not, as many other teachers, a writer of books. His writing was on the hearts of men. He spoke, and the vibratory waves set in motion have continued until to-day, and still beat upon our hearts. The soul of the spiritually minded hears, and men to-day become pupils of the Man of Nazareth as verily as did Peter, James, and John.
Indications of a completed course
A student was ready to go forth from Christ’s teachings to open the truth to others only when he could say, “Lo, now speakest Thou plainly.... Now we are sure that Thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask Thee. By this we believe that Thou camest forth from God.”[54] With the multitudes He did a work similar to that with the disciples; but because they were coming and going, He could not do the same thorough work. His teaching, however, was always practical, and the farmer went to his field a better man, seeing God in the growing grain; the fisherman returned to his nets with the thought ringing in his mind that he should be a fisher of men; the mother returned to her home recognizing her children as younger members of God’s family, and with a strong desire to teach as He taught. The tendency always in all His teaching was to arouse thought, to awaken soul-longings, and cause hearts to beat with a new life fed from above. Standing between heaven and earth of the musical scale, His life vibrated in unison with those higher notes of the universes circling round His Father’s throne, and with His human arm He encircled the world, imparting to beings here the same life, striving always to bring them into tune with the Infinite. “I, if I be lifted up,” He said, “will draw all men unto Me.”
IX
EDUCATION IN THE EARLY CHURCH
The church to teach all nations
“I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify [teach] them through Thy truth.”[55] As He lifted His eyes to heaven in those moments of quiet, just before entering Gethsemane, these words fell from the lips of the Son of man. Looking upon the little company of men clustering around Him, He saw in them the nucleus of the church which was to be called by His name, and His heart yearned for that body of Christians. Many and fierce would be their struggles; for He had breathed into the hearts of men a system of instruction which, because it was truth, would awaken all the bitterness of the enemy of truth; and the new system must be able to resist all the darts which human minds, swayed by the prince of evil, could hurl. Divine philosophy must meet and vanquish human philosophy. That was now the controversy, and it was left to a few weak men to start the work. What power was in that Spirit of truth with which they were baptized! His commission to this same company, as they watched Him recede from earth on the day of His ascension, was, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations.” They, the true Israel, were now to become teachers of nations.
Recognizing the difficulties to be met, He had, on another occasion, said: “I send you forth as sheep among wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and simple as doves.” In no boasted philosophy, no high-sounding words, but in simplicity of truth, was to lie their strength. Of the works of the apostles and those who believed on Christ through their teaching, we have this divine testimony, “I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: and hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name’s sake hast labored and hast not fainted.”[56] It is therefore evident that a great work was done, and that very speedily; for again Inspiration describes it: “Behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; ... and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.”[57] Men, though admonished to be as harmless as doves, were nevertheless, when teachers of truth, enabled to make themselves felt in the world.
A call from popular education
To accept Christianity in those early days meant the withdrawal from everything before cherished; it meant not only the separation from heathenism in worship, or Babylon, but also from heathenism in thought and education, or Egypt. It was a second exodus. Justin Martyr, a Christian born near the close of the first century, is quoted by Painter, as he describes the life of a follower of Christ: “We who once delighted in lewdness now embrace chastity; we who once embraced magical arts, have consecrated ourselves to the good and unbegotten God; we who loved above all things the gain of money and possessions, now bring all that we have into one common stock, and give a portion to everyone that needs; we who once hated and killed one another, now pray for our enemies.”
With this spirit in the church we are not surprised to find that in the words of Coleman, “The tender solicitude of these early Christians for the religious instruction of their children is one of their most beautiful characteristics. They taught them, even at the earliest dawn of intelligence, the sacred names of God and the Saviour. They sought to lead the infant minds of their children up to God, by familiar narratives from Scripture, of Joseph, of young Samuel, of Josiah, and of the holy child Jesus. The history of the patriarchs and prophets, apostles, and men whose lives are narrated in the sacred volume, were the nursery tales with which they sought to form the tender minds of their children. As the mind of the child expanded, the parents made it their sacred duty and delightful task daily to exercise him in the recital of select passages of scripture relating to the doctrines and duties of religion. The Bible was the entertainment of the fireside. It was the first, the last, the only schoolbook almost, of the child; and sacred psalmody, the only song with which his infant cry was hushed as he was lulled to rest on his mother’s arm. The sacred song and the rude melody of its music were, from the earliest periods of Christian antiquity, an important means of impressing the infant heart with sentiments of piety, and of imbuing the susceptible minds of the young with the knowledge and the faith of the Scriptures.”
True education developed missionaries
Painter writes: “The purpose of these early Christian parents, as of the ancient Jews, was to train up their children in the fear of God. In order that the children might be exposed as little as possible to the corrupting influence of heathen associations, their education was conducted within the healthful precincts of home. AS A RESULT, they grew up without a taste for debasing pleasures; they acquired simple domestic tastes; and when the time came, they took their place as consistent and earnest workers in the church.”[58] These words make several facts very prominent:—
1. Christian education should begin in the home.
2. Bible stories should be the basis for nursery tales and infant songs.
3. Christians should carry out the plan of education which the Jews failed to obey, and which Christ revealed in a new light.
4. The results of such Christian education in the home school will be elevated characters and workers in the cause of God.
Would that it could be said of Christian mothers to-day, as a heathen orator once exclaimed concerning those early followers of Christ, “What wives these Christians have!”
The duty of parents
One of the early Fathers thus expresses the danger of children and youth in the schools of the world, and shows the character of the education needed: “Mothers ought to care for the bodies of their children, but it is necessary also that they inspire their offspring with love for the good and with fear toward God. And fathers will not limit themselves to giving their children an earthly vocation, but will interest themselves also in their heavenly calling.
“The most beautiful heritage that can be given children is to teach them to govern their passions.... Let us have for our children the same fear that we have for our houses, when servants go with a light into places where there is inflammable material, as hay or straw. They should not be permitted to go where the fire of impurity may be kindled in their hearts, and do them an irreparable injury. A knowledge of the Scriptures is an antidote against the unreasonable inclinations of youth and against the reading of pagan authors, in which heroes, the slaves of every passion, are lauded. The lessons of the Bible are springs that water the soul. As our children are everywhere surrounded by bad examples, the monastic schools [what would correspond to-day with church schools] are the best for their education. Bad habits once contracted, they can not be got rid of. This is the reason God conducted Israel into the wilderness, ... that the vices of the Egyptians might be unlearned.... Now our children are surrounded by vice in our cities and are unable there to resist bad examples.... Let us take care of the souls of our children, that they may be formed for virtue, and not be degraded by vice.”
This writer might well address a modern audience, for he recognizes the influence of pagan authors, and states that the Bible alone can counteract this influence; he recognizes the worldly schools as Egypt, and says that Christians should take their children out; and finally he recognizes the value of having schools located in the country, and advises people to move out of the cities with their children.
Church schools among early Christians
Mosheim says: “There can be no doubt but that the children of Christians were carefully trained up from their infancy, and were early put to reading the sacred books and learning the principles of religion. For this purpose schools were erected everywhere from the beginning.”[59]
Training schools for missionaries
From these schools for children, we must distinguish those seminaries of the early Christians, erected extensively in the larger cities, at which adults, and especially such as aspired to be public teachers, were instructed and educated in all branches of learning, both human and divine. Such seminaries, in which young men devoted to the sacred office were taught whatever was necessary to qualify them properly for it, the apostles of Christ undoubtedly both set up themselves, and directed others to set up.[60] St. John, at Ephesus, and Polycarp, at Smyrna, established such schools. Among these seminaries, in subsequent times, none was more celebrated than that at Alexandria; which is commonly called a catechetic school.[61] In addition, then, to home and church schools for children, the early Christian church established seminaries for the education of workers. In reading the history of the times the course of instruction is seen to adhere closely to the Scriptures, and to draw a sharp distinction between the science of salvation and the Greek and Oriental philosophy as taught in the pagan schools.
Pagans feared Christian schools
Christian education was often regarded as narrow and limited by those who loved to study the mysteries of Greek wisdom; but as long as they adhered to their simple studies, and made faith the basis of their work, there was a power in the truths taught by the students of these schools, which made the pagan world, with all its great men, tremble. It is an interesting fact that as late as the fourth century, after the Christian schools had lost much of their power through the mingling of pagan with Christian methods, and the adoption of some of the pagan studies, they were still regarded as the stronghold of Christianity. When Julian, the apostate, began to reign, an attempt was made to revive paganism throughout the Roman Empire. One of his first acts was to close the schools of the Christians. “He contemptuously observes,” says Gibbon, “that the men who exalt the merit of implicit faith are unfit to claim or to enjoy the advantages of science; and he vainly contends that if they refuse to adore the gods of Homer and Demosthenes, they ought to content themselves with expounding Luke and Matthew in the church of the Galileans.
The public schools of Julian
“In all the cities of the Roman world, the education of the youth was intrusted to masters of grammar and rhetoric; who were elected by the magistrates, maintained at the public expense, and distinguished by many lucrative and honorable privileges.... As soon as the resignation of the more obstinate teachers had established the unrivaled dominion of the pagan sophists, Julian invited the rising generation to resort with freedom to the public schools, in a just confidence that their tender minds would receive the impressions of literature and idolatry. If the greatest part of the Christian youth should be deterred by their own scruples, or by those of their parents, from accepting this dangerous mode of instruction, they must, at the same time, relinquish the benefits of a liberal education. Julian had reason to expect that, in the space of a few years, the church would relapse into its primeval simplicity, and that the theologians, who possessed an adequate share of the learning and eloquence of the age, would be succeeded by a generation of blind and ignorant fanatics, incapable of defending the truth of their own principles, or of exposing the various follies of polytheism.”[62]
Julian can not be counted as a fool; for, wishing to make the world pagan, he proceeded to do so, (1) By closing the Christian schools where the “merit of implicit faith” was taught; (2) By compelling attendance of the public schools, taught by pagan teachers, and where literature and idolatry were combined.
As Gibbon says, he had just reason to expect that in the course of a generation the Christians thus educated would lose their faith, cease to oppose paganism, and sink into insignificance. If a pagan emperor expected this in the fourth century, is it any wonder that Protestants to-day, allowing their children to remain in the public schools where precisely the same things are taught, in principle as Julian had his public instructors teach, should lose power and cease to be Protestants? From the words of Gibbon one would infer that in the days of Julian there were parents who refused to send their children to the public schools; some children who, “because of their own scruples,” refused to attend; and some teachers who ceased to teach rather than teach literature and idolatry in state schools.
The seminary at Alexandria
Special mention is made of the Alexandrian school, as it was located in an Egyptian city to which flocked many noted pagan scholars. Sad as it may be to do so, it is yet necessary to see how these schools, and especially this one at Alexandria, lost their simplicity as they came in contact with pagan scholars, and attempted to meet them on their own grounds.
Alexandria adopts philosophy of Plato
Mosheim says: “This philosophy [of Plato] was adopted by such of the learned at Alexandria as wished to be accounted Christians, and yet to retain the name, garb, and the rank of philosophers. In particular, all those who in this century presided in the schools of the Christians at Alexandria ... are said to have approved of it. These men were persuaded that true philosophy, the great and most salutary gift of God, lay in scattered fragments among all the sects of philosophers; and therefore that it was the duty of every wise man, and especially of a Christian teacher, to collect those fragments from all quarters, and to use them for the defense of religion and the confutation of impiety.”[63]
Result of adopting worldly methods
The lesson so dear to Paul—that the gospel of Christ is the “power of God unto salvation”—was lost sight of when these Christian teachers assumed the philosopher’s garb, and used the philosopher’s vocabulary to confute impiety. “I have somewhat against thee,” writes the divine historian of this age, “because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place.”[64] The heaven-lit taper of Christian education in its purity was beginning to grow dim. Its flame must have a constant supply of truth, or, like the candle without oxygen, it burns low, and finally goes out. Paul, writing to the Corinthians who were placed in circumstances similar to those of the school at Alexandria, that is, pressed upon all sides by pagan philosophy, said: “I came toward you with weakness and fear and great timidity. And my thought and my statement was not clothed in captivating philosophical reasons; but in demonstrated spirit and power, so that your trust might not be in human philosophy, but in divine power.... What we speak is not in an artificial discussion of a human philosophy, but by spiritual teachings, comparing spiritualities with the spiritual.”[65]
Dialectics versus the Scriptures
Again, “Dialectic,” or logic, was that science of which Aristotle, the disciple of Plato, boasted as being the father. Says a writer of the church after the decline was well begun, it “is the queen of arts and sciences. In it reason dwells, and is manifested and developed. It is dialectic alone that can give knowledge and wisdom; it alone shows what and whence we are, and teaches us our destiny [human philosophy and evolution]; through it we learn to know good and evil. And how necessary is it to a clergyman, in order that he may be able to meet and vanquish heretics!” Men have more than once reverted to logic to vanquish heretics, but it was only when the Spirit of truth was lacking.
The educational question caused a division
Error was rapidly creeping into the church, and it came principally through these schools, as has already been seen. However, truth was not abandoned for error without a struggle. Mosheim says: “The estimation in which human learning should be held was a question on which the Christians were about equally divided. For while many thought that the literature and writings of the Greeks ought to receive attention, there were others who contended that true piety and religion were endangered by such studies.”[66] People then, as now, looked to the leaders in the church for guidance; and it was hard, when these studies were popular, for the conscientious to withdraw entirely to what the others called a narrow, limited education. It often led to contention among members of the same church, and often even parents and children failed to agree on the subject.
Wrong methods retained
“But gradually,” continues Mosheim, “the friends of philosophy and literature acquired the ascendency. To this issue Origen contributed very much; for having early imbibed the principles of the new Platonism, he inauspiciously applied them to theology, and earnestly recommended them to the numerous youth who attended on his instruction. And the greater the influence of this man, which quickly spread over the whole Christian world, the more readily was his method of explaining the sacred doctrines propagated.”
Origin of the papacy
The days when the papacy should be recognized as the beast of Revelation 13 were fast approaching. Such experiences in the history of education in the Christian church show how rapidly the life of the Master, the Spirit of truth, was giving place to the form of godliness which denied the power thereof. One reading thus the pages of history can not fail to see that the papacy was formed in the minds of men, was propagated in the schools, and really took birth in the educational system then developed. The political power, which was called upon to help the church, simply carried out at the point of the sword those principles which were developed in the schools. The two streams—paganism and apostate Christianity—united; and in the mad current which flowed from their confluence, men’s souls were lost forever.
Christian Education is the pure water of life, clear and sparkling, which flows from the throne of God; but when mingled with the turbid waters of the valley, it is lost sight of, and the current is evil. The part played by Platonic philosophy can not be overlooked. The foundation had already been laid in the third century for the scholasticism of the Middle Ages, and that “noontide of the papacy which was the world’s moral midnight” was fast approaching.
X
THE PAPACY—AN EDUCATIONAL PROBLEM
Previous chapters have revealed these facts: 1. That the Jewish nation was set as a light to the world. This light was to shine by means of education, and the Jews were to be teachers of the nations. 2. The Jewish nation lost its position as leader in educational reform, and, consequently, in all other particulars, because it departed from the pure system of education delivered to the Fathers, and mingled with the heathen, especially with the Greeks and the Egyptians.
In substantiation of this fact we have these words of Neander: “The Jews, completely imbued with the elements of Hellenic culture, endeavored to find a mean between it and the religion of their fathers, which they had no wish to renounce. To this end they availed themselves of the system most in vogue with those who, in Alexandria, busied themselves with religious matters—that of the Platonic philosophy, which had already acquired a mighty influence over their own intellectual life.... On the one hand, they firmly adhered to the religion of their fathers.... On the other hand, their minds were possessed by a philosophical culture at variance with these convictions. They were themselves not unconscious of the conflicting elements that filled their minds, and must have felt constrained to seek some artificial method of combining them into a harmonious whole. Thus they would be involuntarily driven to intercalate in the old records of religion, which for them possessed the highest authority, a sense foreign to their true spirit, supposing all the while that they were thereby really exalting their dignity as the source of all wisdom.”[67] 3. This intercalation of Greek philosophy with the truth delivered to the Jewish nation brought the schools of the Hebrews to such a position that the Son of man, when receiving His education, avoided them altogether, and in His public teaching warned His people against the schools of the doctors, who for the Word of God taught the traditions of men. This mingling of education then meant the crucifixion of Christ and the ruin of the Jewish nation. 4. The early Christian church, composed of members called out from the Jewish schools and from the purely pagan doctrines, at first taught their children truths based upon the Scriptures; but before the close of the first century, the tendency to commingle Christian teachings and heathen philosophy was already noticeable. Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, referring to this fact, said, “The mystery of iniquity doth already work.”
Papal education sophistry
This tendency, seen in the days of Paul, grew into a habit; and as Christian youth prepared for gospel work by attending the schools at Alexandria and elsewhere, an entire change took place.
It now becomes our duty to follow this changed system of education, which is indeed but a mixture of Christian and pagan, and hence not a separate and distinct system at all. It was designated by the apostle to the Gentiles as “the mystery of iniquity.” As found in the third century, Mosheim described it thus: “It is necessary, however, to observe that the methods now used of defending Christianity, and attacking Judaism and idolatry, degenerated much from the primitive simplicity, and the true rule of controversy. The Christian doctors, who had been educated in the schools of the rhetoricians and sophists, rashly employed the arts and evasions of their subtle masters in the service of Christianity; and, intent only upon defeating the enemy, they were too little attentive to the means of victory, indifferent whether they acquired it by artifice or plain dealing. This method of disputing, which the ancients called economical, and which had victory for its object, rather than truth, was, in consequence of the prevailing taste for rhetoric and sophistry, almost universally approved.”[68]
The effect of the Christian schools’ teaching Greek literature, sophistry, and rhetoric was bearing its fruit in an unmistakable way. The simplicity of the gospel and of the man of God, who was the truth, was fast passing away. Even at this early date we find the germ of the order of Jesuits, who, in the Middle Ages, carried out the theory of the Platonists, and asserted “that it was no sin for a person to employ falsehood and fallacies for the support of truth, when it was in danger of being borne down.” It was at this time, and under the influence of these same doctors and teachers, that there arose the practice of attributing the writing of certain books to illustrious authors; “hence, the book of canons, which certain artful men ascribed falsely to the apostles, ... and many other productions of that nature, which, for a long time, were too much esteemed by credulous men.”[69] How far men had departed from the simplicity of the gospel is evident.
Error introduced by teachers
The spread of ideas contrary to the purity of the gospel was almost universally begun in the schools professing to be Christian; and teachers were, almost without exception, the leaders in these intellectual moves, which in reality form the basis for every change in government or religion. Throughout the history of the centuries, men have arisen who were noted for their intellectual prowess, men of strong mind, who were searching for truth. By tracing the work of a few representative teachers through the first three or four centuries, we see the papacy appearing as the direct result of educational principles.
In order to make this clear, let us begin with the teachings of Clement in the school of Alexandria. It may be hard to distinguish between truth and error, as we trace the intricate windings of philosophy in the days of the early church; but it is necessary to find the origin of those leading principles of the papacy against which the Reformation contended. In order to do so, we go to the source of the stream, which is usually found at Alexandria, in the schools conducted by Christian teachers, or doctors, as they are often called. The foremost, the all-absorbing doctrine of the papacy, is the substitution of works for faith. Christ’s one lesson, illustrated in hundreds of ways, to the multitudes and to the few, was wisdom by faith, eternal life by faith. The early church was founded upon this principle, and faith in God’s Word was the first maxim in the home school, in the church school, and in the seminaries of the early Christians. Faith gives the hearing ear, as in the case of Solomon; this gives the ability to study, which brings true wisdom.
Corruption took place gradually
How or where faith was lost can not be stated in positive terms. As wood, under favorable conditions, changes, bit by bit, into solid stone, one atom of wood giving place to a grain of sand, and so on till the form of the tree, once an embodiment of life, now lies a hard and lifeless stone, retaining, however, each scar of branch and leaf, each crack or wrinkle of the bark, yea, even the annual marks of growth and the grain of the wood; so faith in God’s Word was lost, atom by atom, and the lost faith was replaced by human philosophy. Alexandria was to the Christian school what the marsh is to the fallen tree. Much Greek philosophy contained elements of truth; many truths were by the Greeks put in brilliant settings. God himself had evidently revealed to the minds of men, such as Plato, Pythagoras, Aristotle, and others, principles of truth; but it was not supposed that men to whom had been opened the treasures of wisdom and knowledge through His word and through His Son should ever find it necessary to search for a few gems of truth amidst a mass of error. Turning from the pure light to search for these stray thoughts in Greek philosophy, men lost their faith in God, failed to give His word its proper place, and erelong the living, fruit-bearing tree was but an image of its former self, molded in stone.
That the reader may see that this mingling of truth and error was adopted in place of the pure word, he is referred to Neander’s description of Clement and his quotations of that eminent scholar’s reasoning.[70]
Clement’s school work
Without taking the space necessary to give this quotation, we pass to the thought that Clement introduced this Greek philosophy into the school he was teaching, and through his disciples paved the way for the papacy in its power. Of the Alexandrian school we read: “What was the original aim of the school itself? Was it at the outset merely an institution for communicating religious instruction to the heathen, or had there long existed in Alexandria a school for educating teachers for the Christian church—a sort of theological seminary for the clergy?... We find that originally a single person was appointed by the bishop of Alexandria to hold the office of catechist, whose business it was to give religious instruction to the heathen and probably also to the children of the Christians in that place.... Men were required for this office who possessed a perfect acquaintance with the Grecian religion, and most especially must they have received a philosophical education, so as to be able to converse and to dispute with any learned pagans, who, after long investigation on other questions, might turn their attention to Christianity.
“It was not enough to teach here, as in other churches, the main doctrines of Christianity.... With these enlightened catechumens, it was necessary to go back to the primitive sources of the religion in Scripture itself, and to seek to initiate them into the understanding of it—for such required a faith which would stand the test of scientific examination.”[71]
In order to meet the demands made by pagans and Greek philosophers the school stooped from its exalted position of teaching a wisdom acquired by faith, and substituted a course of study which “would stand the test of scientific examination.”
Clement and higher criticism
Clement, one of the earliest teachers in this school, “points out the need of high and rich talents in the holder of the catechetical office at Alexandria.” “The range of instruction imparted by these men,” says Neander, “gradually extended itself, for they were the first who ... attempted to satisfy a want deeply felt by numbers—the want of a scientific exposition of the faith, and of a Christian science.” Here is perhaps the best place for one to attribute the change from faith to a scientific demonstration of the truths of the universe. Here is marked the time, so far as one is able to point it out with definiteness, of the transit from education by faith to education of the senses, from the spiritual to the intellectual and the physical. The fruit and the utter folly of the wisdom of the Greek and Egyptian sages (?) of this intellectual system are seen in its ripened state in the Dark Ages.
Christian students fed on pagan ideas
The same paragraph in Neander continues: “To their school were attracted not only those educated pagans, who, having by their teaching been converted to Christianity, and being seized with a desire to devote themselves and all they possessed to its service, chose ... the Alexandrian catechists for their guides, but also those youths, who, having been brought up within the Christian pale, were thirsting after a more profound knowledge, in order to prepare themselves for the office of church teachers.”[72]
Opposing voices
This school did not find its pathway always strewn with roses; for there were church teachers of the primitive class “who looked chiefly to the practical and real, ... and who were in continual dread of a corruption of Christianity by the admixture of foreign philosophical elements,” and these offered some opposition to the transit from an education of faith in God’s Word to one of scientific investigation and reason.
Clement’s justification
Those were days of lively debate, and the defenders of Christian education more than once contended for its principles. “‘Thus much,’ observes Clement, ‘I would say to those who are so fond of complaining: if the philosophy is unprofitable, still the study of it is profitable, if any good is to be derived from thoroughly demonstrating that it is an unprofitable thing.’” This argument is indulged in at the present time by those who espouse the cause of modern education, and wish to defend the study of the classics and the doctrine of evolution.
The words of Clement in his arguments sound doubly striking, when we remember that to-day the feeling that the education of the senses will ultimately tend to the grasping of eternal truth by faith is just as firmly held as then, notwithstanding the fact that a careful investigation shows that this can never be the case, and that the only avenue to truth is through faith, first, last, and all the time. He says: “Perhaps the latter [philosophy] was given to the Greeks in a special sense, as preliminary to our Lord calling the Gentiles, since it educated them as the law did the Jews, for Christianity; and philosophy was a preparatory step for those who were to be conducted through Christ to perfection.”[73]
Clement lost his faith
Accordingly, we find Clement perpetually verging toward the gnostic or platonic position. “With an idea of faith which flowed from the very essence of Christianity, there was associated in his mind the still lingering notion, derived from the Platonic philosophy, of an opposition between a religion of cultivated minds, and arrived at by the medium of science, and a religion of the many, who were shackled by the senses and entangled in mere opinion.”[74]
Birth of the papacy
Here is distinctly seen the beginnings of that system of education which elevates the few and holds the masses in subjection. Herein lies the wellspring of a monarchical government and a papal hierarchy. It was the propagation of the system of education introduced into the Alexandrian school by Clement that formed the papacy. We are not surprised to read in history of the contest between the churches of Alexandria, Constantinople, and Rome. Rome as arbiter was called to decide between the Greek Catholics and the Alexandrians; and from the downfall of both her rivals she gained the pontifical throne; but it was only to crown the educational ideas of the Alexandrian school, and sway the world by the enforcement of the principles of that system of instruction which substitutes scientific research for faith.
God had once called his people out of Egypt; but the church, forsaking the purity of the gospel, returned thither for its education. The Reformation was its second call, and to-day the third call is sounding. Having followed with some care the ideas first introduced by Clement, and finding that the result of the position taken by this teacher was that faith was destroyed and scientific reason substituted, we turn to the further development of this educational idea as advocated by one of Clement’s most noted pupils and his successor in the Alexandrian school. I refer to Origen.
Origen
Origen was born 185 A.D., in Alexandria; he received a most liberal education, and was initiated at an early age into Hellenic science and art; the principles of Christianity were instilled into his mind by such teachers as Clement of Alexandria.[75] “He says himself that it was an outward motive that first led him to busy himself with the study of Platonic philosophy, and to make himself better acquainted generally with the systems of those who differed from himself. The moving cause was his intercourse with heretics and pagans who had received a philosophical education.”
“Attracted by his great reputation, such persons” came often to him, and he thus defends himself for bestowing his time on the Greek philosophy: “When I had wholly devoted my time to the promulgation of the divine doctrines, and the fame of my skill in them began to be spread abroad, so that both heretics and others, such as had been conversant with the Greek sciences, and particularly men from the philosophical schools, came to visit me, it seemed to me necessary that I should examine the doctrinal opinions of the heretics, and what the philosophers pretended to know of the truth.”[76]
These facts concerning Origen are given because the argument is strikingly similar to that used by many ministers and teachers of the present day, and because it shows how the Platonic philosophy gained such a foothold in so-called Christian schools, and grew into the papacy.
Representatives of three systems
There are three individuals who stand as representatives of three systems of education. Plato personifies heathen philosophy; Christ said of Himself, “I am the ... truth;” Origen personifies the mixture of the two,—truth and error,—and hence stands, from an educational standpoint, as the father of the papacy, which is the mystery of iniquity. It behooves us now to follow carefully the work of this man. After doing so, one can more readily understand why the beast is represented as having several heads.[77]
Faith displaced by speculation
I quote extensively from Mosheim: “The principal doctrines of Christianity were now explained to the people in their native purity and simplicity, without any mixture of abstract reasonings or subtile inventions; nor were the feeble minds of the multitude loaded with a great variety of precepts. But the Christian doctors who had applied themselves to the study of letters and philosophy, soon abandoned the frequented paths, and struck out into the devious wilds of fancy. The Egyptians distinguished themselves in this new method of explaining the truth. They looked upon it as a noble and glorious task to bring the doctrines of celestial wisdom into a certain subjection to the precepts of their philosophy, and to make deep and profound researches into the intimate and hidden nature of those truths which the divine Saviour had delivered to his disciples. Origen was at the head of this speculative tribe. This great man, enchanted by the charms of the Platonic philosophy, set it up as the test of all religion, and imagined, that the reasons of each doctrine were to be found in that favorite philosophy, and their nature and extent to be determined by it. It must be confessed that he handled this matter with modesty and with caution; but he still gave an example to his disciples, the abuse of which could not fail to be pernicious, and under the authority of which, they would naturally indulge themselves without restraint in every wanton fancy. And so, indeed, the case was; for the disciples of Origen, breaking forth from the limits fixed by their master, interpreted, in the most licentious manner, the divine truths of religion according to the tenor of Platonic philosophy. From these teachers the philosophical or scholastic theology derives its origin.”[78]
Beginning of higher criticism
Mosheim says: “Origen unquestionably stands at the head of the interpreters of the Bible in this century. But with pain it must be added, he was first among those who have found in the Scriptures a secure retreat for all errors and idle fancies. As this most ingenious man could see no possible method of vindicating all that is said in the Scriptures against the cavils of the heretics and the enemies of Christianity, provided he interpreted the language of the Bible literally, he concluded that he must expound the sacred volume in the way in which the Platonists were accustomed to explain the history of their gods.”[79]
Higher criticism is Platonism
Murdock, in his notes, says: “Origen perversely turned a large part of Biblical history into moral fables and many of the laws into allegories. Probably he learned this in the school of Ammonius, which expounded Hesiod, Homer, and the whole fabulous history of the Greeks allegorically. The predecessors of Origen, who searched after a mystical sense of Scripture, still set a high value on the grammatical, or literal, sense; but he often expresses himself, as if he attached no value to it. Before him allegories were resorted to, only to discover predictions of future events and rules for moral conduct; but he betook himself to allegories in order to establish the principles of his philosophy on a Scriptural basis.... His propensity to allegories must be ascribed to the fertility of his invention, the prevailing custom of the Egyptians, his education, the instructions he received from his teachers, and the example both of the philosophers, of whom he was an admirer, and of the Jews.... He hoped, by means of his allegories, more easily to convince the Jews, to confute the gnostics, and to silence the objections of both. But we must not forget his attachment to that system of philosophy which he embraced. This philosophy could not be reconciled with the Scriptures; ... and therefore the Scriptures must be interpreted allegorically, that they might not contradict his philosophy.... As the body is the baser part of man, so the literal is the less worthy sense of Scripture; and as the body often betrays good men into sin, so the literal sense often leads us into error.”
Here is reason above faith
Mosheim himself tells us how Origen determined when a passage should be interpreted literally and when allegorically: “Whenever the words, if understood literally, will afford a valuable meaning, one that is worthy of God, useful to men, and accordant with truth and correct reason, then the literal meaning is to be retained; but whenever the words, if understood literally, will express what is absurd, or false, or contrary to correct reason, or useless, or unworthy of God, then the literal sense is to be discarded, and the moral and mystical alone to be regarded. This rule he applies to every part both of the Old Testament and the New.” This reasoning is sufficiently strong for any of our modern higher critics. If it led directly to the removal of the Word of God from the common people of the Middle Ages, because teachers adjudged no minds but their own capable of determining whether a certain passage should be interpreted literally or allegorically, to what will the same treatment of the Scriptures now lead? And if the disciples of Origen lacking the caution of the great teacher, were led into the gross licentiousness of the heathen, how much of the wickedness of modern society should be attributed to the spirit of higher criticism, echoed from the pulpit, and breathed from the schoolroom?
Minds prepared for the papacy
Mosheim continues: “He [Origen] assigns two reasons why fables and literal absurdities are admitted into the Sacred Volume. The first is, that if the literal meaning were always rational and good, the reader would be apt to rest in it, and not look after the moral and mystical sense. The second is, that fabulous and incongruous representations often afford moral and mystical instructions which could not so well be conveyed by sober facts and representations.”
Perhaps this is enough to show that scholasticism, or a philosophical interpretation of the Scriptures had its origin in the Christian schools. By this it is plain why these youth became papists, instead of followers of the meek and lowly Galilean. There was no other theory which could, so effectually as this, have stamped out faith. No other teaching than this same higher criticism could have more truly developed that power which “speaketh great words against the Most High, and thinketh to change times and laws.” It formed the beast in the third century; it is forming the image to the beast in the present century. Students under such instruction had received ample preparation for a belief in the right of the church to interpret Scripture, and a belief in the infallibility of the pope.
Scholasticism and higher criticism
We have seen the origin of two of the streams which, uniting, helped swell the torrent of the papacy. There are still other tributaries to this mighty river. Each rises somewhere in heathendom, flows with a devious course, but finally, as if in accordance with some great natural law, unites with those other currents in forming the mystery of iniquity. Each stream is an educational principle, opposed in itself to Christianity; but instead of being lost in the depths of the main channel, it seems to develop greater power of doing evil, and brings its adherents into more complete degradation after the mingling than before.
Mysticism
The third principle which presents itself for analysis is known as mysticism. Both the teachings of Clement and the scholasticism of Origen exalted reason above faith. Mysticism was advocated by Origen and later by Augustine. It is defined as “that faculty of reason, from which proceeds the health and vigor of the mind, ... an emanation from God into the human soul, and comprehended in it the principles and elements of all truth, human and divine.”[80] There is a spark of divinity in every man. It is the object of Christian education to develop the image of Christ in the human being; but with the mystics, it was maintained that “silence, tranquillity, repose, and solitude, accompanied with such acts of mortification as might tend to extenuate and exhaust the body, were the means by which the hidden and internal word was excited to produce its latent virtues and to instruct men in the knowledge of divine things.”
Education continues to decline
It is not so much with the doctrine as with the results which were wrought by the teachings of such doctrine, that we are concerned. From an adherence to this method of reasoning arose the whole monkish system; for, says Mosheim, “This method of reasoning produced strange effects, and drove many into caves and deserts, where they macerated their bodies with hunger and thirst, and submitted to all the miseries of the severest discipline that a gloomy imagination could prescribe.” Egypt soon swarmed with these fanatics, and the whole history of the Dark Ages circles around them. They broke the bonds of family affection, overturned governments, and seated popes. Draper, speaking of the monks, says: “It is said that there were at one time in that country [Egypt] of these religious recluses not fewer than seventy-six thousand males and twenty-seven thousand females. With countless other uncouth forms, under the hot sun of that climate they seemed to be spawned from the mud of the Nile.” “From Egypt and Syria monachism spread like an epidemic.” “It was significantly observed that the road to ecclesiastical elevation lay through the monastery porch, and often ambition contentedly wore for a season the cowl, that it might seize more surely the miter.”[81]
Monks control schools
We shall need to study the monastic system as the repositories of learning in the Dark Ages, and therefore give but a passing glance at the origin of the order in the doctrine of mysticism. Its evils can not be portrayed without a blush, and it was against this system, taking as it did into its clutches the education of the masses, that the Reformation thrust its weight. We have seen truth struggling against error. It was in the schools of the early Christians that wisdom by faith was taught. It was into these same schools that pagan philosophy crept. It was the teacher who espoused this philosophy, and again a teacher who opposed it. Students imbibed the ideas of the leading educators, and became church teachers. The strongest minds, turning from the Word, and that alone, became expounders of philosophy and the sciences.
Schools of the Dark Ages
Gradually error prevailed, until in the schools, almost entirely in monastic hands, truth was so covered that D’Aubigné’s description of the work of the schoolmen of the Dark Ages is striking. He says: “These industrious artisans of thought had unraveled every theological idea, and of all their threads had woven a web, under which it would have been difficult for more skillful persons than their contemporaries to recognize the truth in its pristine purity.”
It is not the province of this chapter to deal with theological controversies in themselves. It is only as these controversies took possession of and molded the courses of study in the schools; only as they found their strongest supporters in the persons of teachers, and were carried to the world by students, that our attention is drawn to another line of argument, which, as it were, clenched the work of the papacy, and gave it its power over the minds of men.
Pelagianism taught
Quoting again from D’Aubigné: “The Pelagian doctrine, expelled by Augustine from the church when it had presented itself boldly, insinuated itself as demi-Pelagianism, and under the mask of the Augustine forms of expression. This error spread with astonishing rapidity throughout Christendom. The danger of the doctrine was particularly manifested in this,—that by placing goodness without, and not within, the heart, it set a great value on external actions, legal observances, and penitential works.... Whilst Pelagianism corrupted the Christian doctrine, it strengthened the hierarchy.... When it laid down a doctrine that man could attain a state of perfect sanctification, it affirmed also that the merits of saints and martyrs might be applied to the church.... Pelagianism multiplied rites and ceremonies.
“But it was especially by the system of penance, which flowed immediately from Pelagianism, that Christianity was perverted. At first, penance had consisted in certain public expressions of repentance.... By degrees it was extended to every sin, even to the most secret.... Instead of looking to Christ for pardon, through faith alone, it was sought for principally in the church through penitential works.... Flagellations were superadded to these practices.... They accordingly invented that system of barter celebrated under the title of Indulgences.... A bull of Clement VII declared it an article of faith.... The philosophers of Alexandria had spoken of a fire in which men were to be purified. Many ancient doctors had adopted this notion; and Rome declared this philosophical opinion a tenet of the church. The pope by a bull annexed purgatory to his domain.”[82] “The Catholic Church was not the papacy,” says D’Aubigné. “The latter was the oppressor, the former the oppressed.” Draper tersely defines the papacy as “the tyranny of theology over thought.”
Summary
Men departed from the simplicity of a gospel by faith. Reason and scientific research took the place of faith in the Word. Education turned men’s minds from God to self, and reason was exalted. The papacy was thus formed. If we look for a visible union of the church and the state before recognizing it as the papacy, we shall find ourselves entrapped; for it is the working out of a system of education based on human philosophy that forms the papacy; and the body which adopts this system of education naturally turns to the state for support.
Papacy overthrown by Christian education
It is because of the truth of this statement that the papacy wields its influence through its schools; this is why it has always feared a revival of learning more than the combined forces of all the armies of the world. A death-blow to the papacy can be struck only by introducing a system of education founded upon the teachings of Christ, placing God’s Word as guide, and inspiring faith as the one avenue to wisdom.
XI
EDUCATION OF THE MIDDLE AGES
The development of the papacy led directly to the Dark Ages, for “the noontide of the papacy was the world’s moral midnight.” The papacy was the logical working out of an educational scheme; hence the moral darkness which spread over the world during the prophetic period of twelve hundred and sixty years was due to wrong methods of education. People do not sink into degradation and sin when properly educated. Truth elevates, and, when embodied in man, brings him nearer to his Maker. Faith is the ladder by which he climbs, and when that element has been lacking in an educational system, the masses have sunk lower and lower.
Papacy’s tyranny of theology over thought
Mind is a wonderful thing, the most profound study of the universe. It was designed to be free, to grasp the mighty laws of its own Creator, and a means was supplied by which that very thing could be done: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, ... but let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.”
In order to maintain the supremacy thus gained, it was necessary for the education of the young to lie wholly within the control of the papal hierarchy; and it is with their educational institutions and educational methods that we have now to deal. It is hoped that the study of the Dark Ages will so accentuate the importance of Protestants’ maintaining their own schools, that the tendency now so strong in the other direction may receive a check. The education begun in the schools of the early Christians has been followed into the monastic institutions of the Middle Ages. The life and power of Christianity departed, and form alone remained. It has been said that “paganism in the garb of Christianity walked into the church,” and it can truthfully be added that it gained admittance through the schools.
Papal primary schools
In order to trace carefully the education offered by the papacy,—and that comprised all that was then offered,—the first quotations are concerning primary instruction. Laurie says: “Instruction began about the age of seven. The alphabet, written on tables or leaves, was learned by heart by the children, then syllables and words. The first reading-book was the Latin psalter, and this was read again and again until it could be said by heart; and numerous priests, and even monks, were content all their lives with the mere sound of Latin words, which they could both read and recite, but did not understand.”[83]
Prominence of memory work
Note carefully that work for these children was almost wholly memory work. They were to learn by heart and to repeat without understanding. This was the first step in that great system which binds the minds of the masses to the will of one sovereign mind.
“Writing followed.” “The elements of arithmetic were also taught, but merely with a view to the calculation of church days and festivals.”[84]
Early use of Latin
“Latin was begun very early (apparently immediately after the psaltery was known), with the learning by heart of declensions and conjugations and lists of vocables. The rule was to use Latin in the school in conversing.... In the eleventh century, if not earlier, Latin conversation-books ... were not only read, but, like everything else, learned by heart.”[85] Their method of studying Latin emphasizes the thought of the formal abstract way of teaching, which tended to conservatism and mental subjection. “Memory is the faculty that subordinates the present under the past, and its extensive training develops a habit of mind that holds by what is prescribed, and recoils from the new and untried. In short, the educational curriculum that lays great stress on memorizing, produces a class of conservative people.”[86] The papal schools employed methods which, in themselves, in the course of a few generations would develop dependent rather than independent thinking; therefore methods are as important as the subject taught.
Result of universal language
Again it is well to remember that there was a deep design in making the Latin tongue universal. It was one of the ways by which the papacy kept its control of all nations and tongues. Draper explains it thus:—
“The unity of the church, and, therefore, its power, required the use of Latin as a sacred language. Through this Rome had stood in an attitude strictly European, and was enabled to maintain a general international relation. It gave her far more power than her asserted celestial authority.... Their officials could pass without difficulty into every nation, and communicate without embarrassment with each other, from Ireland to Bohemia, from Italy to Scotland.”[87]
Fables and traditions of men
The character of the youth was formed, says Painter, from memorizing “the fables of Æsop and collections of maxims and proverbs. After this, Virgil was usually the text-book, and was handled in the same style.”
Studies of Monastic schools
Of the monastic schools Mosheim says: “In most of the schools, the so-called seven liberal arts were taught. The pupil commenced with grammar, then proceeded to rhetoric, and afterward to logic or dialectics. Having thus mastered the Trivium, as it was called, those who aspired to greater attainments proceeded with slow steps through the Quadrivium [88]
Says Painter: “Seven years were devoted to the completion of the course in liberal arts [the Trivium and the Quadrivium].... Dialectic or logic was based somewhat remotely on the writings of Aristotle. At a later period, logic was rigidly applied to the development of theology, and gave rise to a class of scholars called the schoolmen.... Arithmetic was imperfectly taught, importance being attached to the supposed secret properties of numbers. Geometry was taught in an abridged form, while astronomy did not differ materially from astrology. The study of music consisted chiefly in learning to chant the hymns of the church.”[89]
Greater emphasis on logic
Mosheim thus continues his description of the work of the schools in the eleventh century: “This course of study, adopted in all the schools of the West, was not a little changed after the middle of this century. For logic, ... having been improved by the reflection and skill of certain close thinkers, and being taught more fully and acutely, acquired such an ascendency in the minds of the majority, that they neglected grammar, rhetoric, and the other sciences, both the elegant and the abstruse, and devoted their whole lives to dialectics, or to logical and metaphysical discussions. For whoever was well acquainted with dialectics, or what we call logic and metaphysics, was supposed to possess learning enough, and to lose nothing by being ignorant of all other branches of learning.... In this age, the philosophy of the Latins was confined wholly to what they called dialectics; and the other branches of philosophy were unknown even by name. Moreover their dialectics was miserably dry and barren.”[90]
Patristical Geography
This is sufficient, perhaps, on the use of language and logic, and we turn to geography and some of the sciences. Even the children to-day will smile at the teachings of some of the Church Fathers on the subject of geography. Says Draper: “In the Patristic Geography the earth is a flat surface bordered by the waters of the sea, on the yielding support of which rests the crystalline dome of the sky. These doctrines were for the most part supported by passages from the Holy Scriptures, perversely wrested from their proper meaning. Thus Cosmas Indicopleustes, whose Patristic Geography had been an authority for nearly eight hundred years, triumphantly disposed of the sphericity of the earth by demanding of its advocates, how, in the day of judgment, men on the other side of a globe could see the Lord descending through the air!”[91]
The beneficial work of explorers
It was in opposition to such theories, and a hundred absurdities concerning the ocean, the boiling waters of the equator, the serpents in the West, etc., that Columbus, De Gama, and other explorers had to contend; and one of the most wonderful effects of the work of these navigators was the thrust given papal education. A wound was then received which was incurable.
If, in the mind of the reader, the question arises, Why should the papal schools teach such things? simply consider that the whole system of papal theology was intended to make the people feel that the world was the center of the universe, and that the pope was the center of the world. Christ and his position in creation were usurped by the head of the church. This was the papacy.
Modern schools cling to papal methods
This could be brought about only by education, and could be maintained only as generation after generation was taught from infancy to old age to place faith in man, not God. Not only the subjects taught, but the manner of teaching them, served well the purpose of the papacy. Only within the last few years, comparatively speaking, have our own schools seen the necessity of breaking away from some of those relics of the educational system of the Dark Ages.
Detection of wrong methods
Memory work, pure and simple, has given way in a great measure to research and experiment, even in the primary grades. The alphabet is no longer driven into the childish mind by the ferule, nor kept there by mere force of repetition. The advanced methods in dealing with the mind are a step in the right direction. The pity is that educators, while groping for light, while casting off some of the moth-eaten garments of past ages, have failed to see the cause of the evil, and deal so largely with results instead of removing the cause. The evil began by renouncing the Scriptures and faith in Holy Writ as a part of education. The spirit and power will accompany reform only when these are replaced in their proper setting.
New books
While educators of the world are realizing the need of a change in methods, it is time for them to see also the need of a change in subject matter and text-books. Protestants in particular should arouse to the times. If the study of paganism, instead of Christianity or truth, produced the Dark Ages, and if wrong methods held the minds of men and prolonged that darkness, forbidding the shining of the light, it is time for both methods and material to be reconstructed in the schools of to-day.
Science in the papal schools
We can with profit notice the attitude of the papal schools toward some of the sciences, taking for example that most practical of modern branches, the science of medicine. What was the work of the physician during the Dark Ages? Draper says: “Physicians were viewed by the church with dislike, and regarded as atheists by the people, who held firmly to the lessons they had been taught, that cures must be wrought by relics of martyrs and bones of saints, by prayers and intercessions.”[92]
True healing forsaken
It is well to remember that Christ was the Great Physician, healing not only soul maladies, but physical infirmities as well; and to the apostles was given the commission to heal the sick and restore sight to the blind. Gradually, however, as the power of the gospel in its purity was lost by the substitution of error for truth, the leaders of the church introduced miracle cures, and preached the efficacy of the bones of saints, etc., in the cure of disease. This became popular, and increased throughout the Dark Ages.
Medical study discouraged
Draper describes the fanaticism of the monastic schools, and finally assigns a reason for the exclusion from them of the study of physiology and anatomy and the science of medicine. “The body,” he says, “was under some spiritual charge,—the first joint of the right thumb being in the care of God the Father, the second under that of the blessed Virgin, and so on of other parts. For each disease there was a saint. A man with sore eyes must invoke St. Clara, but if it were an inflammation elsewhere, he must turn to St. Anthony.... For the propitiation of these celestial beings it was necessary that fees should be paid, and thus the practice of imposture—medicine became a great source of profit. In all this there was no other intention than that of extracting money.”[93]
Doctors in secret
While such was the teachings of the papacy, the Jews and Mohammedans were achieving wonderful success, and making discoveries of lasting benefit to mankind in Spain and Asia Minor. “Bishops, princes, kings, and popes had each in private his Hebrew doctor; though all understood that he was a contraband luxury, in many countries pointedly and absolutely prohibited by the law. In the eleventh century nearly all the physicians in Europe were Jews.” One reason for this was: “The church would tolerate no interference with her spiritual methods of treating disease, which formed one of her most productive sources of gain; and the study of medicine had been formally introduced into the rabbinical schools.”[94]
Jewish physicians prohibited
The bitter hatred of the papacy toward independence of mind is well illustrated in the treatment that the Jewish physicians received from the popes. Draper says: “The school at Salerno was still sending forth its doctors. In Rome, Jewish physicians were numerous, the popes themselves employing them.... At this period Spain and France were full of learned Jews; and perhaps partly by their exerting too much influence upon the higher classes with whom they came in contact (for the physician of a Christian prince was very often the rival of his confessor), and partly because the practice of medicine, as they pursued it, interfered with the gains of the church, the clergy took alarm, and caused to be re-enacted or enforced the ancient laws. The Council of Beziers (A.D. 1246) and the Council of Alby (A.D. 1254) prohibited all Christians from resorting to the services of an Israelitish physician.”[95]
Hatred of physicians
To show that this was a matter which concerned the schools, and in proof of the statement that papal schools still adhere to formalism, miracle cure, and relic worship, we need only to notice that “the faculty of Paris [University], awakening at last to the danger of the case, caused, A.D. 1301, a decree to be published prohibiting either man or woman of the religion of Moses from practicing medicine upon any person of the Catholic religion. A similar course was pursued in Spain. At this time the Jews were confessedly at the head of French medicine. It was the appointment of one of their persuasion, Profatius, as regent of the faculty of Montpellier, A.D. 1300, which drew upon them the wrath of the faculty of Paris.”
Jews banished
“The animosity of the French ecclesiastics against the Jewish physicians at last led to the banishment of all the Jews from France, A.D. 1306.”[96] The papal universities were unwilling to teach medicine, and finding that the Jewish schools of science were greatly weakening papal authority in France, this race was banished bodily.
Position of physiology
Comparing this history with the present work of the medical fraternity, and especially with that class of medical students whose life work is to spread the gospel while relieving the body, one better understands that physiology should be the basis of every educational effort, and the place that it and kindred sciences should occupy in the courses of instruction pursued by our children, youth, and maturer minds; and also the cause of that spiritual darkness which is even now hanging over the world, and for centuries held Europe in its clutches; but it shall be pierced by Christian education.
Papal method of meeting opposition
The papacy, in case of opposition which threatened her authority, had two methods of procedure. The first was an attempt to annihilate both the trouble and the troublers. Thus she simply banished all Jews from France that her own universities might not be overshadowed by the light of truth. Her second method of procedure was a counter-reformation; that is, if a reform in education arose outside the church which threatened to undermine her doctrines, it might be met by a partial reform within her borders, the reform going only so far as was absolutely necessary to satisfy the cravings of minds that dared think for themselves.
Papacy can compromise
It was not always possible to completely crush a reformation, or the reformers; and as was quite often the case in the schools, studies which could not be entirely banished, were taught, but in such a way as best to conserve the needs of the church. That medicine, as well as law, was taught in the higher papal schools, can not be denied. Says Mosheim: “The seven liberal arts [The Trivium and the Quadrivium] were gradually included under the term philosophy; to which were added theology, jurisprudence, and medicine. And thus these four faculties, as they are called, were in the next century formed in the universities.”[97]
Medical study corrupted
But in the study of medicine, as in philosophy or law, memory work devoid of understanding—the form without the spirit—was the characteristic. As the saints and martyrs in theology had taken the place of the Greek gods and goddesses, so in the study of other branches a multitude of pagan terms, clothed with what was then known as the “Christian spirit,” was made to satisfy the longing for real mental culture. The simplicity of the gospel was laid aside. What God had revealed was made to appear too complex for the human mind, and the secret things which are known only to God were pried into. In theology, dialectics, or logic, became the study of endless queries, difficult syllogisms, meaningless quibbles. Men delighted in propounding such questions as, “How many angels can stand on the point of a needle?” and others prided themselves on the acuteness of their reasoning powers in arguing such questions. Likewise in medicine, the study of the simple needs of the body and the rational treatment of disease was obscured by hundreds of Latin terms, and these were memorized to the neglect of the simple philosophy of the science. It is with this multitude of names, hoary with age, and savoring strongly of their pagan origin, that the student of medicine is still compelled to grapple.
The Arabs as educators
The history of the rise of European universities throws light on the attitude of the papacy toward education. While Europe was overspread by spiritual and intellectual darkness, God used another people to disseminate truth. When faith in God was lost, and in its place was substituted that blind faith in man and obedience to the church which is known in European history as the age of faith, learning was propagated by the Arabs. That power which had failed to conquer the world by the sword, now gained by intellectual culture what the arms of Mohammed and his immediate successors failed to achieve. Spain, while in the hands of the Moors, contributed more to European civilization than at any other time in her history; and it was as an educator and through the influence of her schools that the papacy received its blow from the south which made her more readily succumb to the revolt of Germany under Luther. By the Arabs “flourishing schools were established in all the principal cities, notably at Bagdad and Damascus in the East, and at Cordova, Salamanca, and Toledo in the West. Here grammar, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, chemistry, and medicine were pursued with great ardor and success. The Arabians originated chemistry, discovering alcohol, and nitric and sulphuric acids. They gave algebra and trigonometry their modern form; applied the pendulum to the reckoning of time; ascertained the size of the earth by measuring a degree, and made catalogues of the stars.”[98] And all this was done when Europe as a whole was lying in darkness, when the chemist was considered a wizard, when astronomy was merely astrology, and whatever learning existed was formal and spiritless.
Arabs and papal schools
But the discoveries of the Arab teachers could not long remain with them alone, and it is with the spread of their ideas through the schools by means of the students that we are concerned. “For a time they [the Arabs] were the intellectual leaders of Europe. Their schools in Spain were largely attended by Christian youth from other European countries, who carried back with them to their homes the Arabian science, and through it stimulated intellectual activity in Christian [papal] nations.”[99]
Arabs and universities
The specialization of studies such as theology, medicine, or philosophy, together with the impulse derived from the Mohammedans in Africa and the Arabs in Spain, led to the establishment of the universities, which were, as before stated, composed of four faculties, or colleges. “They arose independently of both church and state.” The University of Paris “became the most distinguished seat of learning in Europe. At one time it was attended by more than twenty thousand students.”
Papacy seized universities
The growth of the universities was very rapid, and they threatened speedily to revolutionize the society of Europe and overthrow the papal hierarchy. “The influence and power of the universities were speedily recognized,” says Painter; “and though originally free associations, they were soon brought into relation with the church and the state, by which they were officially authorized and endowed.” If learning could not be suppressed, then it must be controlled by the church; and the “church sought to attach them [the universities] to itself, in order to join to the power of faith the power of knowledge. The first privileges that the universities received proceeded from the popes.” “While Rome was not the mother, she was yet the nurse of universities.” Scientific investigation had by this time received such an impulse from youth who had been students in the Arab schools that the church could not hope to crush it. The only hope of the papacy was to so surround the truth with fables and mysteries, and to so conduct the schools, that again the spirit of progress would be lost in its labyrinthine wanderings through empty forms. Monopoly in education works havoc in the same way that a monopoly in commerce leads to oppression. And so it was.
Character of students
“The students led a free and uncontrolled life, seeking and finding protection in their own university authorities even from the civil power.”[100]
Origin of courses and degrees
Youth from the age of twelve and upward attended these universities, making it necessary to teach the secondary studies which terminated in a bachelor’s degree. “Boys ... attended the Parisian university merely for instruction in ... grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic; and after three or four years’ study they received the title of Baccalaureus.” “When he reached ... the age of seventeen or eighteen, he then began the study for the mastership.”[101]
It will be remembered that the schools established by the early church were marked for the simplicity of their methods, and their singleness of purpose. Their object was to educate workers for the spread of the gospel. For the accomplishment of this object the course of instruction was arranged, and students were sent forth into the world commissioned of God, as were the disciples after their ordination. There was no call for the granting of degrees. These, it is true, were used in the pagan schools, and indicated that the receiver had been initiated, after years of study, into the hidden mysteries of Greek wisdom. Among the pagans, indeed, the principle of degrees and diplomas dated back to the days of Egyptian and Babylonian supremacy, where it was indicative of fellowship in the grossest forms of licentiousness.
Greece, the country which united the learning of Babylon and the wisdom of Egypt, and offered it to Europe in the form of Platonism, naturally enough made use of diplomas and degrees. And the fact that her wisdom was so complicated in its nature made it necessary to spend long years in mastering her sciences.
Paganism, moreover, has but one model for all men; its aim is ever to crush individuality and mold all characters alike. To accomplish this purpose the schools arranged their studies in courses, demanding that each student should pass over the same ground. This is characteristic of all educational systems aside from that one, the true education, which comes from God. If you look to China, you find it there, as it develops the disciples of Confucius; India educates her Brahmans in the same manner; the priests and wise men of Egypt were taught in schools of a similar type. The Jews had aped the fashion of the pagan world, and it was from this custom that Christ called his disciples. One of the surest signs that the schools established in the days of Christian purity had lost the spirit which characterized the apostolic teaching, is the fact that the schools of the Middle Ages had adopted this pagan custom.
Students were called into the universities when mere boys, and by hundreds and thousands were run through the “grind” which we term “course of instruction,” and were turned out at the end of ten, twenty, and sometimes even forty years with a degree, which, in dignity, corresponded to the years spent in completing the course.
This custom is papal. It is opposed to the very spirit of Christianity; and any institution of learning which deigns to accept the approval of the state, while at the same time passing as a Christian institution, is not only linking itself with the papacy, but with paganism as well. Of His followers Christ says, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”
“Older students, those especially in the theological faculty, with their fifteen or sixteen years’ course of study, achieved in this respect far greater notoriety. At the age of thirty or forty the student at the university was still a scholar.”[102] The idea of long courses is not, then, a modern one, and American colleges can truthfully point to the university of Paris for the precedent in this respect as in some others. In the granting of degrees another interesting subject is approached. Laurie continues: “Up to the middle of the twelfth century, anyone taught in the infant universities who thought he had the requisite knowledge.... In the second half of the twelfth century, when bishops and abbots, who acted, personally or through their deputies, as chancellors of the rising university schools, wished to assume to themselves exclusively the right of granting the license, ... Pope Alexander III forbade them, on the ground that the teaching faculty was a gift of God.”[103] This, however, must have been the work of a liberal pope, for earlier,—that is, in 1219,—“Pope Honorius III interfered with the granting of degrees; and in order to impose a check on abuses, directed that they should be conferred not by, but by permission of, the archdeacon of the cathedral, and under his presidency.”[104]
The church had gained control of the universities, and through her representative, usually the chancellor, granted degrees. Now, in order to keep the authority well in her own hands, no one was allowed to teach who did not hold a license granted by the university after an examination. Thus the educational trust developed, and the iron hand of Rome, though concealed in a silken glove, clinched her victories, and strove to crush all opponents.
Degrees and the papacy
Our modern B.S., M.A., LL.D., D.D., etc., were adopted into the universities at this stage of educational history. “Itter informs us,” says Laurie, “that ... a complete university course was represented by four degrees—bachelor, master, licentiate, and finally doctor, which last was usually taken at the age of thirty or thirty-five.” “The next development of the degree system was the introduction of the grades of bachelor and master, or licentiate, into each of the higher faculties—theology, law, and medicine. Thus a man who had finished his preliminary art studies, generally at the age of twenty-one, and wished to specialize in theology, medicine, or law, had to pass through the stages of bachelor of theology, or of medicine, or of law, and then of master or licentiate, before he obtained the title of doctor. The bachelorship of medicine or law was reached in three years, of theology in seven. Four years’ further study brought the doctor’s degree.”[105] “The conferring of degrees was originated by a pope.”[106] The educational monopoly appeared quite complete; and having gained the form of godliness and the civil power, the old scheme of killing the life and substituting those things which would recognize the papal hierarchy, were again introduced. Leading educators are awakening to the true situation. Christian education alone can deliver.
Form had replaced the life
“The moral tone of the universities was low,” says Painter; “there were brawls, outbreaks, and abominable immoralities. ‘The students,’ say the Vienna statutes, ‘shall not spend more time in drinking, fighting, and guitar playing than at physics, logic, and the regular courses of lectures; and they shall not get up public dances in the streets. Quarrelers, wanton persons, drunkards, those that go about serenading at night, or who spend their leisure in following after lewd women; thieves, those that insult citizens, players at dice—having been properly warned and not reforming, besides the ordinary punishment provided by law for those misdemeanors, shall be deprived of their academical privileges and expelled.’ These prohibitions give us a clear insight into university life of the time, for it was not worse at Vienna than at Paris and elsewhere.”[107]
Could some of those medieval students be resurrected and placed in some of the universities of the nineteenth century, they might feel quite at home, not only as far as courses of study and the granting of degrees is concerned, but in revelings, parties, etc., judging from the reports of the hazing, drinking, and general carousing of the students in our university towns.“[108] The conduct of students is the reflex of the instruction given. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that the instruction of the universities, containing as it did the form without the life, should fail to develop stability of character in its students.
“The true Catholic attitude to all investigation was, and is, one admitting of great advances in every department of learning, while checking all true freedom of thought.”[109]
The North American Review for October, 1842, expresses in concise language the relation of students and schools to the general government and consequent state of society. It says: “In the colleges is determined the character of most of the persons who are to fill the professions, teach the schools, write the books, and do most of the business of legislation for the whole body of the people. The general direction of literature and politics, the prevailing habits and modes of thought throughout the country, are in the hands of men whose social position and early advantages have given them an influence, of the magnitude and permanency of which the possessors themselves are hardly conscious.”
Recognizing this fact, the papacy controlled the education of the Middle Ages, and is to-day seeking to do the same thing. Luther and other reformers, also recognizing this fact, sought to overthrow the tyranny of the papacy by establishing new schools where freedom of thought would be fostered through faith in God’s Word.
Work for Protestants to-day
Protestants to-day, looking upon the system of education as it now exists, and tracing there the same long courses in the classics and the sciences; the same degrees granted in a manner similar to the Dark Ages, the text-book containing the same theories, the same terms, the same doctrines of philosophy; the same tendency toward monarchism, or the monopoly of education by certain universities, and through them by the same power that has borne sway, should, for the sake of their government, and for the sake of their faith, establish schools of their own. As the papacy, by the subjection of thought, builds up a monarchy in place of democracy; as she in the same way overthrows faith in God, substituting faith in man or the church, so Protestant schools should educate children in the pure principles of that gospel freedom which recognizes the equality of every man in the sight of heaven, and makes it possible for the government to be of, for, and by the people by developing the Christian character through faith in Jesus Christ.
XII
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY REFORMATION AN EDUCATIONAL REFORM
While following the history of education through the Dark Ages, we have often been compelled to recognize that an influence was at work slowly but surely undermining the structure which the papacy was, with the greatest perseverance, erecting, and which that power purposed should withstand all the attacks brought against it. The papacy had calculated well; it had, in absorbing the educational system of the times, laid its hand on the very tap-root of society, and, in its education as well as in its doctrines, woven about the human race meshes which only the Prince of heaven could rend with the sword of eternal truth.
Secret of papal strength
Never has the world seen such an enduring system as the papacy. Patterned so nearly after the truth of God, and resembling so closely, both in church government and educational principles, the plan delivered to the chosen nation, that only an expert, guided by the Spirit of truth, could judge between the true and the counterfeit, it had, as had the Jews before them, replaced the life by the mere form. Nevertheless, so firmly laid was the foundation, and so substantially built were the walls, that for centuries it baffled all attempts at overthrow.
This structure had as its foundation an educational system; the mortar which held the bricks in the wall was educational methods, and should the building fall, the foundation itself must be attacked.
As a civil power, the papacy was periodically attacked by ambitious kings and princes; but these shocks scarcely disturbed the serenity of the papal head, so firm was his throne. The sword of the Mohammedans was broken at Tours; and the Crescent, instead of advancing to the full by encircling the Mediterranean, waned as its light receded to the shores of Africa and the west of Asia.
The revival of learning
What the Turk could not do by force of arms, he did in another way. In 1453 Constantinople fell into the hands of the calif, yet this did not affect the strength of the papal hierarchy. But as the Turk came into Greece, Greek art and literature fled to Italy. Here is the attack on the papacy which came from the east. Painter says: “The revival of classical learning, which had its central point in the downfall of Constantinople in 1453, exerted a favorable influence. It opened the literary treasures of Greece and Rome, provided a new culture for the mind, awakened dissatisfaction with the scholastic teaching of the church, and tended to emancipate thought from subjection to ecclesiastical authority.”[110] The taking of Constantinople did still more toward hastening the Reformation. Venice had controlled the commerce of the eastern Mediterranean, but Turkish supremacy in those waters transferred that power to her rival, Genoa, on the other side of Italy; and from this latter center began the search for a western passage to the East Indies which led to the accidental discovery of America.
Greek classics
Again, “The revival of learning was so intimately related to the Reformation, and to the educational advancement dating from that time, that it calls for consideration in some detail. It had its origin in Italy.... Eager scholars from England, France, and Germany sat at the feet of Italian masters, in order afterward to bear beyond the Alps the precious seed of the new culture.”[111] However, this Greek culture, or new learning, was nothing more nor less than a revival of the study of Greek paganism. Notwithstanding that fact, a life and enthusiasm attended its study which drew students from the papal universities, and induced men to travel hundreds of miles for the sake of sitting at the feet of masters of the Greek classics.
This was the attempted reform of the papacy made by classic literature. Its results can not but interest us. Painter further says: “The revival of letters produced different results in different countries. Everywhere it contributed to the emancipation of the human mind, but in Italy it tended strongly to paganize its adherents.”
Bear in mind that the classics were attempting to reform the papacy. Here was the result in Italy. Italian schools undoubtedly needed reforming, for the words of Luther describing German schools are applicable to all papal institutions. Of these he said: “What have they been taught in the universities and convents, but to become blockheads? A man has studied twenty, forty years, and has learned neither Latin nor German.” But as much as reform was needed, Greek classics “in Italy tended strongly to paganize its adherents.” We can not look for the classics, then, to Christianize the Italian papists.
Greek in German schools
But while “in Italy the new learning became a minister of infidelity, in Germany [it became a minister] of religion.” Why this difference? The work of Erasmus, Luther, and Melancthon, as they introduced the study of the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures into the German schools, will answer why. The Italians studied the Greek classics for the thought, and it paganized its adherents; the Germans studied the Greek New Testament, translating it into the mother tongue, and it became one of the greatest helps in the spread of the Reformation of the sixteenth century.
So much for the attempted reform by Greek classics. They played their part, but they could not overthrow the papacy; and why should we expect it when papal education was, in the first place, built upon those same classics and the philosophy of Greek writers?
Papacy and Arab education
We now turn to the southern attack upon the papal system. This was also an educational attack. Already we have seen the Arab schools in Spain. Before the eleventh century Christian youth attended these schools, taking across the Pyrenees the science of the Moors. The papacy quailed before this attack, and in order to lessen its force, the sciences of the Arabs were adopted in the papal universities. This, as we have already seen, was done in medicine and mathematics. But again the form was retained without the life. France, because of her jealousy of the Jewish physicians, through the influence of the University of Paris, banished every Jew from her borders. A scientific attack could not overthrow the papacy.
Science and discovery of America
However, the Moors went quietly on in their scientific discoveries; and when the fall of Constantinople closed the eastern route to the Indian Ocean, and Genoa wanted a western route, Spain was prepared to offer sailors the necessary charts and maps, compasses, and other mariners’ instruments. Her astronomical studies, celestial maps, and measurements of the degrees on the earth’s surface encouraged voyages both to the south and west, in direct contradiction to the theories of the patristic geographies. When Columbus asked aid at the Spanish court to fit vessels for the tour across the Atlantic, it is strange to note that the wife of the king of Spain, who took from the Moors the keys of Granada, and drove the Arab and his learning out of Europe, was the same woman who pledged her jewels to this man,—a man, who, dependent upon Arabic scientific investigation, discovered a world where those same truths might be planted, and mature untrammeled by papal tyranny. I say this was more than a coincidence. The hand of God was in it; and, as D’Aubigné says: “He prepares slowly and from afar that which he designs to accomplish. He has ages in which to work.”
Science and the Reformation
While scientific knowledge could not overthrow the papacy, it had its part to play along with the classics. When men were spiritually dead, and the Word of God was hidden, minds were freed from papal thraldom by the work of the scientist and the classical student. Bear in mind, however, that the classics helped only as they offered the Scriptures; and science helped only as it opened men’s minds to the reception of the truths of God’s Word. Mighty forces were at work: the earth itself must be moved, and the fulcrum whereon rested the lever by which it was to be turned in its orbit was the throne of God, and the Word of the Eternal was the moving power. Men, weak in themselves but resolute in purpose, were the instruments in the hand of God to accomplish a task which ages had waited for, and principalities and powers in heavenly places had longed to see.
Reformation and education
The Reformation was not the work of a year, nor yet of one man, even in Germany. It was the gradual work of a system of education, and that system was the same as had formerly been given to Israel, as had been exemplified and amplified in the life of Christ, and was at the time of the Reformation to be revealed, little by little, as men’s minds, long darkened by oppression, were able to grasp it.
Forerunners of the Reformation
Agricola, known as the father of German humanism, was one of the earliest reformers, and his attitude as a teacher and his expressions concerning education prove the fact that the Reformation began in the educational institutions. This man was for a time “a pupil of Thomas à Kempis; he passed several years at the university of Louvain; subsequently he studied at Paris, and afterward in Italy,” so that he was well acquainted with the institutions of the day. He became a teacher at Heidelberg. At the age of forty-one he began the study of Hebrew, in order to read the Hebrew Bible.
Agricola’s ideas of the school
He was urged to take charge of a school at Antwerp, but refused, expressing his opinion of the school in this advice sent to the authorities: “It is necessary to exercise the greatest care in choosing a director for your school. Take neither a theologian nor a so-called rhetorician, who thinks he is able to speak of everything without understanding anything of eloquence. Such people make in school the same figure, according to the Greek proverb, that a dog does in a bath. It is necessary to seek a man resembling the phœnix of Achilles; that is, who knows how to teach, to speak, and to act at the same time. If you know such a man, get him at any price; for the matter involves the future of your children, whose tender youth receives with the same susceptibility the impress of good and of bad examples.”
Recognizes errors of papal system
His ideas concerning methods were as clear as those expressed on the subject of schools and the character of the teacher. He was evidently able to see things in advance of his age, and in the spirit of a seer can truthfully be classed with the forerunners of the Reformation. In another letter he writes: “Whoever wishes to study with success must exercise himself in these three things: in getting clear views of a subject; in fixing in his memory what he has understood; and in producing something from his own resources.” Each of the three things specified cuts directly across the methods employed in papal schools, and which were so necessary to the stability of that hierarchy. This was the beginning of the Reformation as seen in education.
Thought versus mere form
One more quotation from Agricola’s letter emphasizes the thought that schools were then conducted where dry form and abstract memory work were giving place to thought,—original thought. “It is necessary,” he says, “to exercise one’s self in composition; when we have produced nothing, what we have learned remains dead. The knowledge that we acquire ought to be like seed sown in the earth, germinating and bearing fruit.”[112]
Reuchlin advises teaching the Bible
Reuchlin, one of Melancthon’s teachers, recognized the best means of winning opponents to the truth, and said: “The best way to convert the Israelites would be to establish two professors of the Hebrew language in each university, who should teach the theologians to read the Bible in Hebrew, and thus refute the Jewish doctors.” The fact that such a position exposed Reuchlin to violent opposition from the monks and papal teachers shows that he rightly divined the remedy for papal oppression; and it is significant of an approaching reformation when he thus recommends that the Bible be placed in the universities for study by theologians.
There is a rift in the clouds, and ere long the sun will appear. But “men loved darkness rather than light.” Why?
Erasmus
Erasmus, recognized by all as a reformer, did his work by the publication of the New Testament in Greek. “The work was undertaken in the interests of a purer Christianity.” “It is my desire,” he said, “to lead back that cold dispute about words called theology to its real fountain. Would to God that this work may bear as much fruit to Christianity as it has cost me toil and application.” Here was a direct thrust at the study of dialectics in the universities. The meaningless disputes which constituted the course in theology was, by Erasmus, to be replaced by the living word of God. The Reformation drew nearer, and the papacy shuddered at the prospect. Gradually the Spirit was returning, and this is seen more and more as we take up the life of Luther. The highway had been cleared by such forerunners as have already been mentioned.
Protestantism fosters education
“The fundamental principles of Protestantism are favorable to education,” says Painter.[113] “With the Scriptures and his conscience for guides, every man is elevated to the freedom and dignity of ordering his own religious life. The feeling of individual responsibility is awakened, and the spirit of inquiry fostered. Intelligence becomes a necessity. The Bible must be studied; teachers must be provided; schools must be established. Protestantism becomes the mother of popular education.”
Again the same author says: “It [Christianity] does not withdraw man from the ordinary callings and relations of life; it makes him a steward of God in the world, and exalts his daily labors in the household, in the schoolroom, in the workshop, on the farm, into a divine service. The Protestant view restores nature, as a subject of investigation, to its rights. The whole circle of knowledge—whatever is elevating, whatever prepares for useful living—is held in honor. Primary and secondary schools are encouraged; the best methods of instruction, based upon a study of man’s nature and not upon the interests of the church, are sought out. Protestantism is a friend of universal learning.” One French scholar says: “The Reformation contracted the obligation of placing everyone in a condition to save himself by reading and studying the Bible. Instruction became then the first of the duties of charity; and all who had charge of souls, from the father of a family to the sovereign of the state, were called upon ... to favor popular education.[114]”
Luther an educator
It is no wonder, then, that much of Luther’s time and ambition was spent in the cause of education. “The necessities of the Reformation gave Luther,” says Painter, “an intense interest in education. The schools of the time, already inadequate in number and defective in method, were crippled during the early stages of the Reformation by the excited and unsettled condition of society. A new generation was growing up without education. The establishment of schools became a necessary measure for the success and permanence of the Reformation. The appeal had been made to the Word of God, and it was necessary to teach the masses to read it. Preachers and teachers were needed for the promulgation and defense of the gospel.... As early as 1524, Luther made an appeal of marvelous energy to the authorities of the German cities for the establishment of schools. If we consider its pioneer character, in connection with its statement of principles and admirable recommendations, the address must be regarded the most important educational treatise ever written.”[115] God had trained him for his position.
Luther’s plea for schools
Here are the words of the Reformer. Judge for yourselves if they should not voice the sentiment of every true Protestant to-day! “He wrote,” says D’Aubigné, “to the councilors of all the cities of Germany, calling upon them to found Christian schools.” “Dear sirs,” said Luther, “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. The Word of God and His grace are like a shower that falls and passes away. It was among the Jews; but it passed away, and now they have it no longer. Paul carried it into Greece; but in that country also it has passed away, and the Turk reigns there now. It came to Rome and the Latin empire; but there also it has passed away, and Rome now has the pope. O Germans, do not expect to have this Word forever. The contempt that is shown to it will drive it away. For this reason let him who desires to possess it lay hold of it and keep it.
“Busy yourselves with the children; for many parents are like ostriches, they are hardened toward their little ones, and, satisfied with having laid the egg, they care nothing for it afterward.... 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 your magistrates who have allowed your youth to grow up like trees in a forest?”[116]
D’Aubigné says truly: “It was not the public worship alone that the Reformation was ordained to change. The school was early placed beside the church, and these two great institutions, so powerful to regenerate the nations, were equally reanimated by it. It was by a close alliance with learning that the Reformation entered into the world; in the hour of its triumph it did not forget its ally.”[117] 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 was one of the results.”[118]
Schools strengthen the church
Painter, describing the educational work of the great Reformer, says: “With Luther, education was not an end in itself, but a means to more effective service in church and state. If people or rulers neglect the education of the young, they inflict an injury upon both the church and state; they become enemies of God and man; they advance the cause of Satan, and bring down upon themselves the curse of heaven. This is the fundamental thought that underlies all Luther’s writings upon education.”[119]
Schools not appreciated
Luther expresses his views briefly in these words: “The common man does think that he is under obligation to God and the world to send his son to school. Everyone thinks that he is free to bring up his son as he pleases, no matter what becomes of God’s word and command. Yea, even our rulers act as if they were exempt from the divine command. No one thinks that God has earnestly willed and commanded that children be brought up to his praise and work—a thing that can not be done without schools. On the contrary, everyone hastens with his children after worldly gain.” Luther’s words ringing down the centuries must be echoed by all true Protestants to-day. Where are the men with the courage of educational reformers?
Luther’s educational plans
“Luther did not concern himself about the education of the clergy only, it was his desire that knowledge should not be confined to the church; he proposed extending it to the laity, who hitherto had been deprived of it.... He emancipated learning from the hands of the priests, who had monopolized it, like those of Egypt in times of old, and put it within the reach of all.”[120] Luther grasped with wonderful clearness the real meaning of Christian education, and there is scarcely a phase of it which he has left untouched.
Luther’s methods a model
“If we survey,” says Dittes, “the pedagogy of Luther in all its extent, and imagine it fully realized in practice, what a splendid picture the schools and education of the sixteenth century would present! We should have courses of study, text-books, teachers, methods, principles, and modes of discipline, schools and school regulations, that could serve as models for our own age.”
Luther’s ideals of teachers
The Reformer writes: “Where would preachers, lawyers, and physicians come from if the liberal arts were not taught? From this source must they all come. This, I say, no one can ever sufficiently remunerate the industrious and pious teacher that faithfully educates.... Yet people shamefully despise this calling among us, as if it were nothing, and at the same time they pretend to be Christians! If I were obliged to leave off preaching and other duties, there is no office I would rather have than that of school-teacher; for I know that this work is, with preaching, the most useful, greatest, and best; and I do not know which of the two is to be preferred. For it is difficult to make old dogs docile, and old rogues pious, yet that is what the ministry works at, and must work at in great part, in vain; but young trees, although some may break, are more easily bent and trained. Therefore, let it be one of the highest virtues on earth faithfully to educate the children of others who neglect it themselves.”[121]
Germany established schools
Germany was aroused. “In 1525 he was commissioned by the Duke of Mansfield to establish two schools in his native town, ... one for the primary and the other for secondary instruction.” They were not conducted after the manner of papal schools, differing only in the fact that the teacher was a Protestant. “Both in the course of study and in the methods of instruction these schools become models after which many others were fashioned.... In a few years the Protestant portion of Germany was supplied with schools. They were still defective, ... but, at the same time, they were greatly superior to any that had preceded them. Though no complete system of popular instruction was established, the foundation for it was laid. To this great result, Luther contributed more than any other man of his time; and this fact makes him the leading educational reformer of the sixteenth century.”[122]
No compromise
The changes wrought by Luther were not mere superficial, formal changes; but as the Reformation, as a religious movement, struck a death-blow to the papacy, viewed as an educational movement, it is found to have cut directly across the established methods of popular education. It meant a change in the courses, a different idea of graduation, a change in text-books, in methods of teaching, methods of study, and character of the teachers.
Value of nature study
He was perhaps the first of the reformers to recognize the value of nature study. He once said: “We are at the dawn of a new era; for we are beginning to recover the knowledge of the external world that we have lost since the fall of Adam. Erasmus is indifferent to it; he does not care to know how fruit is developed from the germ. But by the grace of God, we already recognize in the most delicate flower the wonders of divine goodness and the omnipotence of God. We see in His creatures the power of His word. He commanded, and the thing stood fast. See that force display itself in the stone of a peach. It is very hard, and the germ that it incloses is very tender; but, when the moment has come, the stone must open to let out the young plant that God calls into life.”[123] It may at first seem strange that the bold, brave man who aroused the world by his theses nailed to the church door, should have a character to which the gentleness of nature made such a strong appeal. But Luther was a true preacher in that he was a teacher. What wonder that his work was enduring! It stands close beside the life-work of his Master, Jesus,—the Teacher sent of God.
Melancthon, Luther’s companion in education
Before carrying the work of Luther further, it is necessary to introduce a new character, born, it would seem, at a moment when his special mental qualities were most needed and fitted by heaven to stand by Luther’s side as an aid and as a comfort in the mighty storm through which he must pass. I refer to Melancthon; God chose him as a teacher, and imparted to him, in a wonderful degree, that gift of the Spirit. A few extracts from D’Aubigné will show clearly how he was guided into the paths of the Reformation, there to become one of the greatest workers for that cause.
He was born in 1497; hence, when Luther began his work in 1517, Melancthon was a youth of twenty. “He was remarkable for the excellence of his understanding, and his facility in learning and explaining what he had learnt.” “Melancthon at twelve years of age went to the University of Heidelberg, ... and took his bachelor’s degree at fourteen.” “In 1512, Reuchlin [the reformer referred to on a previous page] invited him to Tubingen.... The Holy Scriptures especially engaged his attention.... Rejecting the empty systems of the schoolmen, he adhered to the plain word of the gospel.”[124]
Erasmus wrote: “I entertain the most distinguished and splendid expectations of Melancthon. God grant that this young man may long survive us. He will entirely eclipse Erasmus.”
Melancthon teaches
“In 1514 he was made doctor of philosophy, and then began to teach. He was seventeen years old. The grace and charm that he imparted to his lessons formed the most striking contrast to the tasteless method which the doctors, and above all, the monks, had pursued till then.”
Melancthon goes to Wittemberg
Frederick applied to Erasmus and Reuchlin for an instructor for the University of Wittemberg. Melancthon was recommended. Reaching the university, he did not make the most favorable impression on Luther and other professors, “when they saw his youth, his shyness, and diffident manners.” After his opening address, however, Luther and others became his ardent admirers. Luther wrote: “I ask for no other Greek master. But I fear that his delicate frame will be unable to support our mode of living, and that we shall be unable to keep him long on account of the smallness of his salary.”
The spirit of Christianity and of Christian education had drawn two souls together, and the success of the work from this time on depended largely upon this union. Says D’Aubigné: “Melancthon was able to respond to Luther’s affection. He soon found in him a kindness of disposition, a strength of mind, a courage, a discretion, that he had never found till then in any man.... We can not too much admire the goodness and wisdom of God in bringing together two men so different, and yet so necessary to one another. Luther possessed warmth, vigor, and strength; Melancthon clearness, discretion, and mildness. Luther gave energy to Melancthon; Melancthon moderated Luther. They were like substances in a state of positive and negative electricity, which mutually act upon each other. If Luther had been without Melancthon, perhaps the torrent would have overflowed its banks; Melancthon, when Luther was taken from him by death, hesitated, and gave way, even where he should not have yielded.”
Should you question why I thus dwell upon the life and character of Melancthon, I reply, Because from this union of two souls flowed the great educational reform of the sixteenth century. The two did what neither could have done alone; and the study of their lives alone reveals the secret of success in Christian education to-day.
Melancthon revolutionizes Wittemberg
It was a notable day to Wittemberg when Melancthon arrived. “The barrenness that scholasticism had cast over education was at an end. A new manner of teaching and of studying began with Melancthon. ‘Thanks to him,’ says an illustrious German historian, ‘Wittemberg became the school of the nation.’”
Papal education dropped
“The zeal of the teachers [Luther and Melancthon] was soon communicated to the disciples. It was decided to reform the method of instruction. With the electors’ consent, certain courses that possessed merely scholastic importance were suppressed; and at the same time the study of the classics received a fresh impulse. [Remember, however, that this study of the classics was the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures.] The school at Wittemberg was transformed, and the contrast with other universities became daily more striking.”[125]
Result of changes
The results of these changes were no less marvelous than the changes themselves. The author last quoted says: Wittemberg “flourished daily more and more, and was eclipsing all the other schools. A crowd of students flocked thither from all parts of Germany to hear this extraordinary man, whose teaching appeared to open a new era in religion and learning. These youths, who came from every province, halted as soon as they discovered the steeples of Wittemberg in the distance; they raised their hands to heaven, and praised God for having caused the light of truth to shine forth from this city, as from Zion in times of old, and whence it spread even to the most distant countries. A life and activity, till then unknown, animated the university.”
Such a school did not call together a class of students careless in habit and listless in study; for the fare, as before noted, was meager, and there was no great outward display. Those who attended came seeking for truth; and as their souls were filled with spiritual meat, they returned to their homes, “even to the most distant countries,” to spread the truths of Christian education. Luther himself wrote: “Our students here are as busy as ants.” Two thousand students from all parts of Europe thronged the lecture room of Melancthon.
Melancthon’s view of education
The life and work of those two animating spirits at Wittemberg can not be measured by any earthly standard. Melancthon said: “I apply myself solely to one thing, the defense of letters. By our example we must excite youth to the admiration of learning, and induce them to love it for its own sake, and not for the advantage that they may derive from it. The destruction of learning brings with it the ruin of everything that is good,—religion, morals, and all things human and divine. The better a man is, the greater his ardor in the preservation of learning; for he knows that, of all plagues, ignorance is the most pernicious.” “To neglect the young in our schools is just like taking the spring out of the year. They, indeed, take away the spring from the year who permit the schools to decline, because religion can not be maintained without them.”
Melancthon prepared text-books
Luther had stated that a reform in methods and courses was necessary. Melancthon had assisted in that work. He did still more. Breaking away as they did from the educational system of the universities of the world, and basing instruction upon the Word of God, it became necessary to have new text-books. Melancthon applied himself with great diligence to this duty. He was an arduous student, often arising at three in the morning, and many of his works were written between that hour and the dawn. Besides his Greek and Latin grammars he is the author of works on logic, rhetoric, physics, and ethics. “These works, written in a clear and scientific form, soon became popular, and some of them held their place in the schools for more than a hundred years.”
The Study of Theology had been degraded into the pursuit of subtle arguments and idle controversies. Melancthon wrote a work on dogmatic theology, publishing it in 1521. Of this work, Luther wrote: “Whoever wishes to become a theologian now enjoys great advantages; for, first of all, he has the Bible, which is so clear that he can read it without difficulty. Then let him read in addition the Loci Communes of Melancthon.... If he has these two things, he is a theologian from whom neither the devil nor heretics shall be able to take away anything.”
Preparatory schools
Melancthon’s life was not devoted alone to the education of such students as could attend Wittemberg, nor were his changes of the educational system applicable only to the higher schools and universities. Stump says: “Amid all the distractions and anxieties of this period, Melancthon steadily directed his efforts to the advancement of education and the building up of good Christian schools. During a period covering many years, he found time, in spite of his numerous other engagements, to give elementary instruction to a number of young men who lived with him in his own house. He did this on account of the lamentable lack of suitable preparatory schools. He lost no opportunity, however, to provide for this lack, whenever he found it possible to do so.
“In the spring of 1525, with Luther’s help, he reorganized the schools of Eisleben and Magdeburg. He went to Nuremberg, and assisted in the establishment of a gymnasium [high school] in that city; and in the following spring he returned to Nuremberg, and formally opened the school. He delivered an address in Latin, in which he dwelt upon the importance of education, and the credit which the movers in this enterprise deserved. He declared that ... ‘the cause of true education is the cause of God.’”[126]
Both church schools and higher schools, those offering instruction for students preparing for the universities, were organized by Melancthon.
Changes were bitterly opposed
This work was not allowed to proceed without some bitter attacks from the schoolmen and representatives of papal education. For illustration of this fact, we have the words of D’Aubigné: “The schools, which for five centuries past had domineered over Christendom, far from giving way at the first blow of the Reformer [Luther], rose up haughtily to crush the man who dared pour out upon them the flood of his contempt.” “Doctor Eck, the celebrated professor of Ingolstadt, ... was a doctor of the schools and not of the Bible; well versed in the scholastic writings, but not in the Word of God.... Eck represented the schoolmen.” “Eck was a far more formidable adversary than Tetzel [the vender of indulgences], Prierio, or Hochstraten; the more his work surpassed theirs in learning and in subtlety, the more dangerous it was.”[127] Thus Luther’s most bitter enemies were those who had once been his warm friends, and those who offered the strongest opposition to his work were the teachers in the universities of Germany. Luther was sometimes almost overcome in spirit by the ingratitude shown, and of Doctor Eck he once wrote: “If I did not know Satan’s thoughts, I should be astonished at the fury which has led this man to break off so sweet and so new a friendship, and that, too, without warning me, without writing to me, without saying a single word.”
The Saxony school plan
It was in order to meet the opposition offered by the schoolmen, and to put the Reformation on a firm basis, that Luther and Melancthon formulated the Saxony school plan, and reorganized the German schools.
Stump says: “In the year 1527, Melancthon took part with Luther in the visitation of the schools and churches of Saxony. It was high time for such a step. Affairs were in a wretched condition. In many places no religious instruction was given at all, because there were either no pastors and teachers stationed there, or those who were stationed there were grossly ignorant themselves. The greatest disorder imaginable reigned nearly everywhere.... The financial condition of many of the churches was equally bad.... It was the object of the visitation to bring order out of this chaos. Melancthon was charged with making a beginning in Thuringia. The spiritual distress which he discovered rent his heart, and he often went aside, and wept over what he saw.” “In 1528 Melancthon drew up the ‘Saxony school plan,’ which served as the basis of organization for many schools throughout Germany.”
Reforms advocated by this plan
According to this plan, teachers were to avoid “burdening the children with a multiplicity of studies that were not only unfruitful, but even hurtful.” Again, “The teacher should not burden the children with too many books,” and “it is necessary that the children be divided into classes.” “Three classes, or grades, are recommended,” and the subjects taught should be adapted to the age and condition of the pupil. Thus, avoid too many studies for children and youth; do not put too many books into their hands; group them according to their ability. This “plan” seems to resist the cramming system so universally followed to-day almost as vigorously as it opposed the papal schools of the sixteenth century.
Results, if Luther’s plans fulfilled
A great work was set on foot,—a revolution which was to affect the ages which followed. In the brief space of one man’s life, plans were laid, especially in the educational work, which, if carried out by his successors, would have placed Germany in a position to rule the world. Instead of returning to the pit from which she had been dug, her schools and universities might have been models worthy of imitation throughout Europe and in America. Luther died, and Melancthon, his co-laborer, was unable to carry forward the work. Theologians, pastors, ministers, into whose hands the work of the Reformation rightfully fell, instead of multiplying Christian schools, and carrying to perfection the methods of instruction introduced by Luther and Melancthon, passed by the greatest work of the age, and by internal strifes and theological disputes lost the hard-won battle. The seeds of truth had been sown in republicanism and Protestantism, and these two institutions should have been held in Germany. Education—Christian education—alone could hold them there. This was neglected; and as lost children, the two went hand in hand to the Netherlands, to England, and finally to America, in search of a fostering mother,—a pure system of education. The spirit and life so manifest in the teaching of the great Reformers, passed on, leaving Europe with the form. A house empty, swept, and garnished does not long so remain. The form was occupied by the spirit of the papacy, and Europe relapsed into a position from which she can be reclaimed only by a renewal of the plans of the sixteenth-century Reformers—a system of Christian education.
XIII
THE REACTION AFTER THE EDUCATIONAL REFORMATION
Widespread effects of the Reformation
The most momentous event of the world’s history, excepting alone the birth of the Redeemer, was the Reformation of the sixteenth century. Great religious movements have occurred before and since, but they are eclipsed by the brilliancy and far-reaching results of this one. More men have been reached, more lives revolutionized, than by the combined forces of all changes in civil and domestic circles since that time. The fact is, that when the causes of political changes in the modern world are considered, it must be acknowledged by every candid thinker that these changes are due in one way or another to the attitude assumed by the people concerned toward that one Reformation which was set in motion by the Wittemberg monk. Christ had been forgotten, and He came before the world again in the days of Luther.
A few quotations from Ranke show how far the Reformation extended in the brief space of forty years; and since we are dealing with the causes of this rapid spread, it is gratifying to see that this author gives in the most natural way due credit to the influence of the schools. Two things, then, should be noticed in reading these selections; first, the extent of territory covered by Protestant principles; second, the part played by schools and teachers in the conversion of nations. It is about the year 1563.
“In the Scandinavian realms they [the Protestants] had established themselves the more impregnably, because there their introduction was coincident with the establishment of new dynasties, and the remodeling of all political institutions. From the very first they were hailed with joy, as though there was in their nature a primitive affinity to the national feelings.”
“In the year 1552, the last representatives of Catholicism in Iceland succumbed.”
“On the southern shores, too, of the Baltic Lutheranism had achieved complete predominance, at least among the population of German tongue.”
In Poland it was said, “A Polish nobleman is not subject to the king; is he to be so to the pope?”
In Hungary, “Ferdinand I could never force the diet to any resolutions unfavorable to Protestantism.”
“Protestantism not only reigned paramount in northern Germany, where it had originated, and in those districts of upper Germany where it had always maintained itself, but its grasp had been extended much more widely in every direction.”
“In Wurzburg and Bamberg by far the greater part of the nobility and the episcopal functionaries, the magistrates and the burghers of the towns, at least the majority of them, and the bulk of the rural population, had passed over to the reforming party.”
In Bavaria “the great majority of the nobility had adopted the Protestant doctrine, and a considerable portion of the towns was decidedly inclined to it.”
“Far more than this, however, had been done in Austria. The nobility of that country studied in Wittemberg; all the colleges of the land were filled with Protestants.”
We are not surprised, therefore, to read that “it was said to be ascertained that not more, perhaps, than the thirtieth part of the population remained Catholic: step by step, a national constitution unfolded itself, formed upon the principles of Protestantism.” “In the Rauris, and the Gastein, in St. Veit, Tamsweg, and Radstadt, the inhabitants loudly demanded the sacramental cup, and this being refused [in order to compel them to remain Catholic], they ceased altogether to attend the sacrament. They withheld their children, too, from the [Catholic] schools.”
“The Rhenish nobility had early embraced Protestantism.... In all the towns there existed already a Protestant party.... The inhabitants of Mainz, too, did not hesitate to send their children to Protestant schools. In short, from west to east, and from north to south, throughout all Germany, Protestantism had unquestionably the preponderance.”
Accomplished by education
“The Protestant notions extended their vivifying energies to the most remote and most forgotten corners of Europe. What an immense domain had they conquered within the space of forty years! From Iceland to the Pyrenees, from Finland to the heights of the Italian Alps. Even beyond the latter mountains opinions analogous had once, as we are aware, prevailed. Protestantism embraced the whole range of the Latin church. It had laid hold of a vast majority of the higher classes, and of the minds that took part in public life; whole nations clung to it with enthusiasm, and states had been remodeled by it. This is the more deserving of our wonder, inasmuch as Protestantism was by no means a mere antithesis, a negation of the papacy, or an emancipation from its rule; it was in the highest degree positive, a renovation of Christian notions and principles, that sway human life even to the profoundest mysteries of the soul.”[128] Notice again that this was due to the educational ideas propagated by Protestants, and the reason why the papacy was so fast losing its foothold was because it had not yet learned that this Reformation, which began in schools, and was carried forward by Christian schools, must be defeated in schools and by teachers. For forty years Protestants had the right of way in education, and the results were stupendous.
Protestant schools winning everywhere
Ranke says: “Protestant opinions had triumphed in the universities and educational establishments. Those old champions of Catholicism [the teachers] who had withstood Luther were dead, or in advanced years: young men capable of supplying their places had not yet arisen. Twenty years had elapsed in Vienna since a single student of the university had taken priest’s orders. Even in Ingoldstadt, pre-eminently Catholic as it was, no competent candidates of the faculty of theology presented themselves to fill the places that had hitherto been always occupied by ecclesiastics. The city of Cologne founded an endowed school; but when all the arrangements for it had been made, it was found that the regent was a Protestant. Cardinal Otto Truchess established a new university in his city of Dillingen, with the express design of resisting the progress of Protestantism. The credit of this institution was maintained for some years by a few distinguished Spanish theologians; but as soon as these left it, not a single scholar could be found in all Germany to succeed to their places, and even these were likewise filled with Protestants. About this period the teachers in Germany were all, almost without exception, Protestants. The whole body of the rising generation sat at their feet, and imbibed a hatred of the pope with the first rudiments of learning.”[129]
Success of Reformation due to schools
Stress is not laid on their hatred of the pope, but on the fact that the rising generation sat at the feet of Protestant teachers throughout Germany; that parents withheld their children from the papal school, even though it might be necessary in so doing to send them from home to be educated; and finally, that the papacy was dying, and Protestantism was spreading through the work of the schools. Would that those schools might have retained their pristine purity and simplicity. No power on earth could then have retarded the progress of Protestantism, and instead of only modifying the history of many countries, it would eventually have swept from the earth all forms of tyranny, both civil and religious, for it breathed the freedom of the gospel, and no oppression could stand before it. It is as impossible to withstand pure Christian education as it is to withstand Christ, whose power is its life and strength.
Protestants failed to recognize its strength
It is with a pang that one is forced to trace in this movement that oft-repeated chapter in the history of mankind. As the leader of Israel was allowed to view the promised land from the top of Pisgah, but must there lay aside his armor and sleep the sleep of death because of a departure from right principles, so Protestantism, through its schools, looked across Jordan, but failed to maintain the principle of faith which could at the crucial moment command the waters to part.
Education by faith lost
One reason for the decline is thus stated by Painter: “In their efforts to give Christian doctrine a scientific form [that is, to formulate it], they lost its spirit. Losing its early freedom and life, Protestantism degenerated in a large measure into what has been called ‘dead orthodoxy.’ ... Christian life counted for little, and the Protestant world broke up into opposing factions. Says Kurtz, who is disposed to apologize for this period as far as possible: ‘Like medieval scholasticism, in its concern for logic, theology almost lost vitality. Orthodoxy degenerated into orthodoxism; externally, not only discerning essential diversities, but disregarding the broad basis of a common faith, and running into odious and unrestrained controversy; internally, holding to the form of pure doctrine, but neglecting cordially to embrace it and to live consistently with it.’”[130]
Scholasticism killed Protestant schools
How narrow the line between truth and error! How easy for those who had been given to eat of the tree of life to turn to the tree of knowledge of good and evil! What a pity that Protestant educators could not remain true to their trust! When on the eve of success, they turned to the old paths, and “called into existence a dialectic scholasticism which was in no way inferior to that of the most flourishing period of the Middle Ages.”[131] Papal principles are papal, whether advocated by Catholics or Protestants; having left the fountain of the pure waters of faith, they turned to the only other accessible source of knowledge—the pagan world. That system of education introduced by Luther and Melancthon, founded upon the Holy Scriptures, and through them viewing the sciences, mathematics, and literature, using the latter only as a means of illustrating God’s Word, was replaced by the scholasticism of the Middle Ages. One involuntarily asks, “How many times, O Israel, wilt thou return into Egypt?”
Form took the place of life
This decline is described in the following quotations taken from Painter, and they need no comment: “During the period extending from the middle of the sixteenth to the beginning of the eighteenth century, three leading tendencies are apparent in education. These may be characterized as the theological, the humanistic, and the practical.... A large share of the intellectual strength of the age was turned to theology. Every phase of religious truth, particularly in its doctrinal and speculative aspects, was brought under investigation. Theology was elevated to a science, and doctrinal systems were developed with logical precision, and extended to trifling subtilities.”[132]
In the figure of the Bible they strained for gnats, meanwhile swallowing the camel. The life was thus lost in the pulpit and in the theological schools. It was again the “teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”
Further return to papal methods
Painter further says: “The schools, which stand in close relation to religion, were naturally influenced in a large measure by the theological tendencies of the age. Theological interests imposed upon the schools a narrow range of subjects, a mechanical method of instruction, and a cruel discipline. The principle of authority, exacting a blind submission of the pupil, prevailed in the schools of every grade. The young were regarded not as tender plants to be carefully nurtured and developed, but as untamed animals to be repressed or broken.”[133]
Notice the creeping in of those very characteristics of papal education so often referred to heretofore: 1, narrow range of subjects; 2, mechanical instruction,—memory work devoid of understanding; 3, arbitrary government, as seen in the matter of discipline. To this we must add that which is the natural accompaniment in papal instruction—the teaching of Latin. Says Painter, quoting Dittes: “‘In the higher institutions, and even in the wretched town schools, Latin was the Moloch to which countless minds fell an offering in return for the blessing granted to a few. A dead knowledge of words took the place of a living knowledge of things. Latin schoolbooks supplanted the book of nature, the book of life, the book of mankind. And in the popular schools youthful minds were tortured over the spelling book and catechism. The method of teaching was almost everywhere, in the primary as well as in the higher schools, a mechanical and compulsory drill in unintelligible formulas. The pupils were obliged to learn, but they were not educated to see and hear, to think and prove, and were not led to a true independence and personal perfection. The teachers found their function in teaching the prescribed text, not in harmoniously developing the young human being according to the laws of nature—a process, moreover, that lay under the ban of ecclesiastical orthodoxy.’”[134]
Cramming system and memory work
That there was a cramming process followed equal to any twentieth-century school, is evident. “The discipline answered to the content and spirit of the instruction.... The principle was to tame the pupils, not to educate them. They were to hold themselves motionless, that the school exercises might not be disturbed. What took place in their minds, and how their several characters were constituted, the school pedants did not understand and appreciate.”
Sturm’s school a compromise
In order to appreciate the rapidity with which the relapse took place from the educational system introduced by Luther to the medieval principles and methods, our attention is directed to the school of John Sturm. This man, “regarded as the greatest educator that the Reformed Church produced during this period,” died in 1589, less than seventy years after the Diet of Worms; hence his work fell within the half century following those forty years of unusual prosperity for Protestantism which has already been noticed. His work is contemporary with the first Jesuit school of Germany. The decline is visible in every feature of his work.
John Sturm presided for forty years over the gymnasium of Strasburg, and his boast was that his institution “reproduced the best periods of Athens and Rome; and, in fact, he succeeded in giving to his adopted city the name of New Athens.” Sturm’s school stood as a halfway mark between the Christian schools and the purely papal schools of the Jesuits, but since compromise always places a person or institution on the side of wrong, in weighing the worth of his school the balances necessarily tip in favor of the papacy.
Course of study in Sturm’s school
That his was a mixture of the medieval classical literature with a thin slice of Scripture sandwiched in for effect, is seen in the course of study as outlined by Painter. The school was divided into ten classes covering ten years, but only so much is given as is necessary to show the character of the studies: “Tenth class—The alphabet, reading, writing, Latin declensions and conjugations, German or Latin catechism.” “Ninth class—Latin declensions and conjugations continued. Memorizing of Latin words.” The eighth and the seventh classes are about the same. In the sixth, Greek is begun. The fifth class is as follows: “Study of words, ... versification, mythology, Cicero, and Virgil’s eclogues, Greek vocabulary.... On Saturday and Sunday, one of Paul’s epistles.”[135] The remaining four classes have much “learning by heart,” rhetoric, Paul’s epistles, orations of Demosthenes, the Iliad of Odyssey; memorizing and recitation of the Epistle to the Romans, dialectics, and rhetoric continued; Virgil, Horace, Homer, Thucidides, Sallust, weekly dramatic entertainments, and again a reading of Paul’s epistles.
Such a course of instruction was well fitted to bridge the gulf between the papacy and Protestantism. It was imbibing perhaps unconsciously the spirit of the new papal schools. “History, mathematics, natural science, and the mother tongue are ignored. A great gap is left between the gymnasium and life—a gap that could not be filled even by the university. In aiming to reproduce Greece and Rome in the midst of modern Christian civilization, Sturm’s scheme involves a vast anachronism.”[136]
Influence of Sturm’s school
The Strasburg gymnasium at one time numbered several thousand pupils representing Denmark, Poland, Portugal, France, and England. “Sturm’s influence extended to England, and thence to America.” An English writer says: “No one who is acquainted with the education given at our principal classical schools, Eaton, Winchester, and Westminster, forty years ago, can fail to see that their curriculum was framed in a great degree on Sturm’s model.”[137] And yet it is acknowledged that his “scheme involves a vast anachronism.”
Modern schools follow Sturm
To show that Sturm is the father of much of the instruction now given in our high schools and universities, Rosenkranz says: “John Sturm, of Strasburg, long before Comenius, had laid the foundation of what has become the traditional course of instruction and methods of study in the classical schools for preparation for college.”[138]
Reaction as seen in discipline
The decline in the matter of instruction was accompanied by a corresponding retrogression in the morals of university students. Painter tells us that “the state of morals at the universities of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was very low. Idleness, drunkenness, disorder, and licentiousness prevailed in an unparalleled degree. The practice of hazing was universal, and new students were subjected to shocking indignities.” Duke Albrecht, of the university of Jena, wrote in 1624: “‘Customs before unheard of, inexcusable, unreasonable, and wholly barbarian, have come into existence.’” Then he speaks of the insulting names, the expensive suppers, and the carousing of the students, until “‘parents in distant places either determine not to send their children to this university, ... or to take them away again.’”[139]
Protestantism lost much because she ceased to educate her children. Had Protestantism remained true to her first principles of education, her overthrow would have been impossible. She paved the way for her own fall by departing gradually from the gospel, and by leaning more and more toward the classics and scholasticism.
Ignatius Loyola solves the problem
It was this decline on her own part, caused by the insidious workings of the Jesuits, which made possible the great victories of this order in later years. It was when Rome saw her youth slipping from her hands into the Protestant schools, and as a result, a few years later, found whole nations refusing obedience, and building for themselves new forms of government, that, in her distress, she grasped the offer made by Loyola. And while the power he represented in its organization, placed itself above the pope, becoming, as it were, a papacy of the papacy, still she accepted his offer, and the counter educational move began. The Jesuits organized to combat reformation in educational lines. In speaking of the Jesuits, Painter says: “This order, established by Ignatius Loyola [in 1534], found its special mission in combating the Reformation. As the most effective means of arresting the progress of Protestantism, it aimed at controlling education, particularly among the wealthy and the noble. In rivalry with the schools of Protestant countries, it developed an immense educational activity, and earned for its schools a great reputation.” Again, the same writer says: “More than any other agency it stayed the progress of the Reformation, and it even succeeded in winning back territory already conquered by Protestantism. Although employing the pulpit and the confessional, it worked chiefly through its schools, of which it established and controlled large numbers. Education in all Catholic countries gradually passed into its hands.”
Jesuit schools
In order to understand the reason for the success of the Jesuits as teachers it is necessary to glance at the plan of studies prepared in 1588 from a draft made by Loyola himself. “Every member of the order,” says Painter, “became a competent and practical teacher. He received a thorough course in the ancient classics, philosophy, and theology. During the progress of his later studies he was required to teach.” Jesuit schools contained two courses, the lower corresponding very closely to the work of Sturm. Rosenkranz gives an excellent description of the educational system of the Jesuits. He says:—
Course of instruction
“In instruction they developed so exact a mechanism that they gained the reputation of having model school regulations, and even Protestants sent their children to them. From the close of the sixteenth century to the present time they have based their teaching upon the Ratio et institutio studiorum Societatis Jesu of Claudius of Aquaviva. Following that, they distinguished two courses of teaching, a higher and a lower. The lower included nothing but an external knowledge of the Latin language, and some fortuitous knowledge of history, of antiquities, and of mythology. The memory was cultivated as a means of keeping down free activity of thought and clearness of judgment. The higher course comprehended dialectics, rhetoric, physics, and morals. Dialectics was expounded as the art of sophistry. In rhetoric, they favored the polemical and emphatic style of the African Fathers of the church and their gorgeous phraseology; in physics, they followed Aristotle closely, and especially encouraged reading of the books ‘De Generatione et Corruptione’ and ‘De Coelo,’ on which they commented after their fashion; finally, in morals, casuistic skepticism was their central point. They made much of rhetoric, on account of their sermons, giving to it careful attention. They laid stress on declamation, and introduced it into their showy public examinations through the performance of Latin school comedies, and thus amused the public, disposed them to approval, and at the same time quite innocently practiced the pupil in the art of assuming a feigned character.
“Diplomatic conduct was made necessary to the pupils of the Jesuits, as well by their strict military discipline as by their system of mutual distrust, espionage, and informing. Implicit obedience relieved the pupils from all responsibility as to the moral justification of their deeds. This exact following out of all commands and refraining from any criticism as to principles, created a moral indifference; and, from the necessity of having consideration for the peculiarities and caprices of the superior on whom all others were dependent, arose eye service. The coolness of mutual distrust sprang from the necessity which each felt of being on his guard against every other as a talebearer. The most deliberate hypocrisy and pleasure in intrigue merely for the sake of intrigue—this subtilest poison of moral corruption—were the result. Jesuitism had not only an interest in the material profit, which, when it had corrupted souls, fell to its share, but it also had an interest in the educative process of corruption. With absolute indifference as to the idea of morality ... or the moral quality of the means used to attain its end, it rejoiced in the efficacy of secrecy, and the accomplished and calculating understanding, and in deceiving the credulous by means of its graceful, seemingly scrupulous, moral language.”[140]
Spread of Catholicism by schools
Here is a picture of this papacy of the papacy. Again I say, had Protestantism remained true to principle, even this system could not have accomplished its overthrow; but since truth was neglected by Protestant schools, this system of the Jesuits easily carried every country into which it was introduced. “The Jesuit system of education ... was intended to meet the active influence of Protestantism in education. It was remarkably successful, and for a century [following 1584] nearly all the foremost men of Christendom came from Jesuit schools. In 1710 they had six hundred and twelve colleges, one hundred and fifty-seven normal schools, twenty-four universities, and an immense number of lower schools. These schools laid very great stress on emulation. Their experiments in this principle are so extensive and long-continued that they furnish a most valuable phase in the history of pedagogy in this respect alone. In the matter of supervision they are also worthy of study. They had a fivefold system, each subordinate being obedient to his superior. Besides this, there was a complete system of espionage on the part of the teachers and pupil monitors.”[141]
Methods of Jesuitical schools
On the subject of emulation, as made use of in the schools of the Jesuits, Painter gives us these thoughts: “The Jesuits made much of emulation, and in their eager desire to promote it they adopted means that could not fail to excite jealousy and envy. Says the Plan of Studies: ‘He who knows how to excite emulation has found the most powerful auxiliary in his teaching. Let the teacher, then, highly appreciate this valuable aid, and let him study to make the wisest use of it. Emulation awakens and develops all the powers of man. In order to maintain emulation, it will be necessary that each pupil have a rival to control his conduct and criticise him; also magistrates, questors, censors, and decurians should be appointed among the students. Nothing will be held more honorable than to outstrip a fellow student, and nothing more dishonorable than to be outstripped. Prizes will be distributed to the best pupils with the greatest possible solemnity. Out of school the place of honor will everywhere be given to the most distinguished pupils.’”[142]
As the Colossus of Rhodes stood astride the Greek waters, so the Jesuit schools spanned the gulf of education. One foot stood in Greece amidst its classics (for “Aristotle furnished the leading text-books”), the other on Christian soil, having the form of godliness; but like the demigods of Greece, it was neither human nor divine. The results of the educational system of the Jesuits are well summed up in another paragraph from Painter:—
“The Jesuit system of education, based not upon a study of man, but upon the interests of the order, was necessarily narrow. It sought showy results with which to dazzle the world. A well-rounded development was nothing. The principle of authority, suppressing all freedom and independence of thought, prevailed from beginning to end. Religious pride and intolerance were fostered. While our baser feelings were highly stimulated, the nobler side of our nature was wholly neglected. Love of country, fidelity to friends, nobleness of character, enthusiasm for beautiful ideals, were insidiously suppressed. For the rest, we adopt the language of Quick: ‘The Jesuits did not aim at developing all the faculties of their pupils, but merely the receptive and reproductive faculties. When the young man had acquired a thorough mastery of the Latin language for all purposes; when he was well versed in the theological and philosophical opinions of his preceptors; when he was skillful in dispute, and could make a brilliant display from the resources of a well-stored memory, he had reached the highest points to which the Jesuits sought to lead him. Originality and independence of mind, love of truth for its own sake, the power of reflecting and of forming correct judgments, were not merely neglected, they were suppressed in the Jesuits’ system. But in what they attempted they were eminently successful, and their success went a long way toward securing their popularity.’”[143]
Wherein Jesuit schools worthy of imitation
One can not condemn without reserve the Jesuitical system of education; for all false systems contain some points of truth, and the strength of all these systems lies in their close counterfeit of the true. Hence we can agree with these words: “Whatever its defects as a system of general education, it was admirably suited to Jesuit purposes, and in some particulars it embodied valuable principles.” As the progress of the papacy through the Jesuitical schools is followed into one country and then another, one admires the constancy and self-sacrifice of those who have committed their lives to the order. Had Protestants been one half as diligent in advocating the principles of Christian education as the Jesuit teachers have been in counteracting the influence of the Reformation, far different results would to-day be seen in the world.
Spread of Jesuit schools
In tracing the growth of the schools of the Jesuits we begin with Germany, the heart of the reform movement, and follow quite carefully the history as given by Ranke: “Bishop Urban became acquainted with Le Jay and heard from him, for the first time, of the colleges the Jesuits had founded in several universities.
Jesuit college in Vienna
“Upon this the bishop advised his imperial master [Ferdinand I] to found a similar college in Vienna, seeing how great was the decay of Catholic theology in Germany. Ferdinand warmly embraced the suggestion; in a letter he wrote to Loyola on the subject, he declares his conviction that the only means to uphold the declining cause of Catholicism in Germany, was to give the rising generation learned and pious Catholics for teachers.” We can understand the grounds for this decision when we recall the statement that about 1563 it was said that “twenty years had elapsed in Vienna since a single student of the university had taken priest’s orders.” “The preliminaries,” says Ranke, “were easily arranged. In the year 1551 thirteen Jesuits, among them Le Jay himself, arrived in Vienna, and were in the first instance, granted a dwelling, chapel, and pension, by Ferdinand, until shortly after he incorporated them with the university, and even assigned to them the visitation of it.” “Soon after this they arose to consideration in Cologne,” but for a time had little success. In 1556 the endowed school referred to before governed by a Protestant regent, “gave them an opportunity of gaining a firmer footing. For since there was a party in the city bent above all things on maintaining the Catholic character of the university, the advice given by the patrons of the Jesuits to hand over the establishment to that order, met with attention.” “At the same period they also gained a firm footing in Ingoldstadt.” “From these three metropolitan centers the Jesuits now spread out in every direction.” These schools were, some of them at least, training schools for Catholic teachers; for Ranke tells of a certain man in Hungary, Olahus by name, and dedicated in infancy to the church, who, “contemplating the general decay of Catholicism in Hungary, saw that the last hope left for it was that of maintaining its hold on the common people, who had not yet wholly lapsed from its rule. To this end, however, there lacked teachers of Catholic principles, and to form whom, he founded a college of Jesuits at Tyrnau in the year 1561.” “Two privy councilors of the elector Daniel, of Mainz, ... conceived likewise that the admission of the Jesuits was the only means that promised a recovery of the University of Mainz. In spite of the opposition made by the canons and feudal proprietors, they founded a college of the order in Mainz, and a preparatory school in Aschaffenburg.”
School at Heidelberg
The Jesuits advanced up the Rhine. “They particularly coveted a settlement at Spires, both because ... there were so many distinguished men [assembled there] over whom it would be of extraordinary moment to possess influence; and also in order to be placed near the Heidelberg University, which at that day enjoyed the highest repute for its Protestant professors. They gradually carried their point.” It is interesting to note how they shadowed the Protestant schools, as if, like a parasite, to suck from them their life. “In order to bring back his University of Dillingen to its original purpose, Cardinal Truchess resolved to dismiss all the professors who still taught there, and to commit the establishment entirely to the Jesuits.”
Rapid growth of Jesuit schools
To show the rapidity with which the Jesuits worked, Ranke says: “In the year 1551 they had not yet any fixed position in Germany;” “in 1556 they had extended over Bavaria and the Tyrol, Franconia, and Swabia, a great part of Rhineland, and Austria, and they had penetrated into Hungary, Bohemia, and Moravia.” True to the purpose of the order, “their labors were above all devoted to the universities. They were ambitious of rivaling the fame of those of the Protestants.”
Jesuits’ preparatory schools
“The Jesuits displayed no less assiduity in the conduct of their Latin schools. It was one of the leading maxims of Lainez that the lower grammatical classes should be supplied with good teachers, since first impressions exercise the greatest influence over the whole future life of the individual.” The Jesuits were willing to devote a lifetime to one phase of education. “It was found that young persons learned more under them in half a year than with others in two years; even Protestants called back their children from distant schools, and put them under the care of the Jesuits.” From this last sentence two things are to be observed. Protestants had lost sight of the importance of education, and their schools had greatly deteriorated, else they would not have intrusted their children to the Jesuits. While the Jesuits began by working into the universities, “schools for the poor, modes of instruction adapted for children, and catechizing followed.”
Reputation of Jesuit schools
“The instruction of the Jesuits was conveyed wholly in the spirit of that enthusiastic devotion which had from the first so peculiarly characterized their order.” This had its effect; for earnest, whole-hearted work on the part of the teacher, even though the methods may be wrong and material false, will surely react in the lives of the pupils. Viewing the work of Jesuit teachers, one feels to exclaim, “Since thou art so noble, I would thou wert on our side!” And so “erelong the children, who frequented the schools of the Jesuits in Vienna, were distinguished for their resolute refusal to partake on fast days of forbidden meats which their parents ate.”
Jesuits conquered Germany by their schools
Teachers had more weight with the children than the parents themselves, and became leaders of the older members of the family, so that “the feelings thus engendered in the schools were propagated throughout the mass of the population by preaching and confession.”
The final results in Germany, Ranke gives thus: “They occupied the professors’ chairs, and found pupils who attached themselves to their doctrines.... They conquered the Germans on their own soil, in their very home, and wrested from them a part of their native land.”[144] So much for Germany and its Jesuit schools.
Jesuit schools in France
Concerning the capture of France by the Jesuits it is not necessary to say much. Ranke gives a few strong paragraphs, showing the work of the order as teachers. The Protestants of France made a great mistake, and brought their cause into disrepute, especially in Paris, by taking up arms in a time of commotion, and Ranke says: “Backed by this state of public feeling, the Jesuits established themselves in France. They began there on a somewhat small scale, being constrained to content themselves with colleges thrown open to them by a few ecclesiastics.... They encountered at first the most obstinate resistance in the great cities, especially in Paris, ... but they at last forced their way through all impediments, and were admitted in the year 1564 to the privilege of teaching. Lyons had already received them. Whether it was the result of good fortune or of merit, they were enabled at once to produce some men of brilliant talents from amongst them.... In Lyons, especially, the Huguenots were completely routed, their preachers exiled, their churches demolished, and their books burned; whilst, on the other hand, a splendid college was erected for the Jesuits in 1567. They had also a distinguished professor, whose exposition of the Bible attracted crowds of charmed and attentive youth. From these chief towns they now spread over the kingdom in every direction.”[145] Through the influence gained as educators, 3,800 copies of Angier’s Catechism were sold in the space of eight years in Paris alone. France no longer leaned toward Protestantism. She had been regained by the Jesuit schools.
Jesuitical schools in England
Concerning the work in England, more is said, and our own connection with that kingdom adds weight in our eyes to the history of her education. Thompson says: “During the reign of Elizabeth the papal authorities renewed their exertions to put a stop to Protestantism in England, and sent more Jesuits there for that purpose.”[146] What they could not accomplish through intrigue and civil policy they were more sure to gain through the schools; hence Thompson says: “They accomplished one thing, which was to carry away with them several young English noblemen, to be educated by the Jesuits in Flanders, so as to fit them for treason against their own country,—repeating in this the experiment Loyola had made in Germany.... The Jesuits endeavored to become the educators of English youths as they had those of Germany.... The pope therefore established an English college at Rome, to educate young Englishmen.”
English college at Rome
Of this college, Ranke tells us further: “William Allen first conceived the idea of uniting the young English Catholics who resided on the continent for the prosecution of their studies, and, chiefly through the support of Pope Gregory, he established a college for them at Douay. This, however, did not seem to the pope to be adequate for the purpose in view. He wished to provide for those fugitives under his own eyes a more tranquil and less dangerous retreat than could be found in the disturbed Netherlands; accordingly he founded an English college in Rome, and consigned it to the care of the Jesuits. No one was admitted into the college who did not pledge himself, on the completion of his studies, to return to England, and to preach there the faith of the Roman Church.”[147]
Jesuits as teachers in America
America was settled when the Jesuit power was at its height. Those teachers who penetrated Germany without fear, and secretly stole into England when it was unsafe for them to be identified, followed closely the paths of discovery and settlement. “In the beginning of the seventeenth century we find,” says Ranke, “the stately fabric of the Catholic Church in South America fully reared.... The Jesuits taught grammar and the liberal arts, and a theological seminary was connected with their college of San Ildefonso. All branches of theological study were taught in the universities of Mexico and Lima.”[148]
Jesuits in the United States
In North America their vigilance was no less marked. “In 1611 Jesuit missionaries came over and labored with remarkable zeal and success in converting the Indians.”[149] In Maryland, a Catholic colony from the first, they held unbounded sway. Speaking of the time of Lord Baltimore, Thompson says: “At that time, in England, the papists were chiefly under the influence of the Jesuits, whose vigilance was too sleepless to permit the opportunity of planting their society in the New World to escape them.”[150] Their work has been quietly done from the very first, and some think that because of the papal decree of 1773, suppressing the order, they have ceased their work. This, however, is a mistake; for “Gregory XVI, whose pontificate commenced in 1831, was the first pope who seemed encouraged by the idea that the papacy would ultimately establish itself in the United States. His chief reliance, as the means of realizing this hope, was upon the Jesuits, upon whose entire devotion to the principles of absolutism he could confidently rely.”[151] But the Jesuits always accomplish their work largely by means of education, hence we may look for them to use the same tactics in our country that had proved so eminently successful to their cause in England and Germany.
Object of Jesuit schools in America
“The chief thing with the Jesuits,” as Gressinger writes, “was to obtain the sole direction of education, so that by getting the young into their hands, they could fashion them after their own pattern.” It has been the avowed aim of the Jesuits to stamp out Protestantism, and with this, republicanism. In this country, where these two principles were pre-eminently conspicuous, and so closely associated that whatever kills one kills the other, it is doubly true that by gaining control of the educational system the order could work for the papacy the utter ruin of America, both from a religious and a civil standpoint. From the dawn of our history there has been within our borders, mingling with our loyal citizens, a class of educators who carry out this principle described by Thompson. “The Roman Catholic youth are forbidden by the papal system from accepting as true the principles of the Declaration of Independence or of the Constitution of the United States.”[152] Leo XIII, who was educated a Jesuit [Thompson], remains true to his principles. His biographer says “that the ‘false education’ and ‘antichristian training’ of the young which prevail in the United States and among the liberal and progressive peoples of the world must be done away with, abandoned, and ‘Thomas Aquinnas [153]
Progress of papal principles
It is unnecessary to state the number of schools established by Catholics in the United States, which have been placed under the control of the Jesuits; neither is it necessary to trace the attempts which have been made by the papacy, at irregular periods in our history, to obtain the control of our public school system. The affairs at Stillwater, Minn., and at Farabault, in the same State, while unsuccessful, were weather vanes showing the direction of the wind,—were posers to test the public pulse, and just so surely show the policy of the papacy in educational matters. Of far greater importance to us as Protestants is the fact that Jesuitical principles may and do prevail in our popular system of education, and these principles, whether carried out by Jesuits, or by the ordinary teacher who is unconscious of her situation, and unmindful of the result of her methods, bring about the fall of Protestantism and republicanism. Our nation has repudiated her foundation principles; are our Protestant churches doing likewise? The history of the educational institutions of the United States, which are discussed in the next chapters, will show how the plan of work now followed in our universities, colleges, and schools of lower grades, are patterning after Sturm, and how they go farther back, connecting the twentieth century with the scholasticism of the Middle Ages. It is without the slightest feelings of animosity toward the Jesuits or the papacy that these facts are traced. These both do for their cause what will best serve to upbuild it. Their methods, in so far as they accomplish their desired end, are to be commended, and their zeal is ever to be admired.
An educational question for Protestants
The one problem for Protestants to solve is whether to accept Jesuitical, papal education, and thus become papal, forming “an image to the Beast,”—to use the language of the Apocalypse,—or whether they will follow the principles of Christian education, and remain true to the name Protestant. Let the reader forget the names; but let him remember that there are but two principles in the world, when the standard of eternal truth is recognized; one exalts Christ, and gives life everlasting; the other exalts man, and its life is for this world alone. Education according to the second does, in its methods, dwarf, enfeeble, and belittle. It puts stress upon the unimportant, and passes by truth without a glance. It prepares the mind for absolutism both in government and religion. Education according to the first will be based upon methods which develop, in every particular, the human being. It is a mental, moral, and physical education, and its object is so to educate that eventually each of these three natures will assume the right relation to the other two, and again, as on the Mount of Transfiguration with the Son of God, “divinity within will flash forth to meet divinity without.”
XIV
AMERICA AND THE EDUCATIONAL PROBLEM
Protestantism and Republicanism, Born of the Reformation, Nourished by Schools.—As if lifted from the bosom of the deep by the mighty hand of God, America stood forth to receive the principles of religious and civil freedom born of the Reformation on German soil. To the German government was first offered the opportunity of developing to the full the reform movement. This full and complete development would have meant religious liberty for all, and a government by the people,—Protestantism and republicanism. These two systems go hand in hand, and are more closely connected than any other principles in existence. The death of one means the death of the other, for the same life-blood nourishes both.
Germany started well. There were to be found princes, liberal in mind and government, who accepted the new religion, and stood by the Reformers through all their storm-tossed career. God had raised up these men for the time and place, as surely as he called Nebuchadnezzar, or appointed a work for Cyrus. Protestantism was firmly rooted, and, as we have already seen, during the first forty years of its existence, so strong was its vitality that men and nations bowed before it. The early Reformers, especially Luther and Melancthon, connected the movement with the fountain of life when they introduced a system of Christian education. And previous chapters make plain the truth that the life of the entire movement in its twofold aspect—Protestantism and republicanism—depended upon a right educational system. When the mass of German youth sat at the feet of German teachers, and those teachers were true to the principles of Christian education, Roman influence dwindled, and her very life was threatened. It was then that the papacy itself took up the subject of education, and by the work of the Jesuits succeeded in killing the Reform in Germany,—indeed, in all Europe.
“A day of great intellectual darkness has been shown to be favorable to the success of popery. It will yet be demonstrated that a day of great intellectual light is equally favorable for its success.”
Protestantism killed by Jesuit schools
The Jesuits planted schools of their own in the shadow of Protestant schools; they entered Protestant schools as teachers; they sucked the life-blood from the young child, and it faded and died. The principles of the Reformation found honest hearts in the Netherlands. The Dutch took up the question of education; but the Jesuits were again on the track, and, as Ranke says, “They gradually carried their point.” The Reformation crossed the Channel, to find the hearts of Englishmen longing for greater freedom. Lollardism, started by Wyclif two hundred years earlier, sprang anew into life in the hearts of the Puritans, until, in the reign of Henry VIII, more than one half of the English population was Protestant. Finally the Commonwealth was established.
England loses her golden opportunity
To England was offered the opportunity of showing to the world the perfect fruits of the Reformation in its Protestant religion and a republican government. But alas! the story is repeated. English youth fell into the hands of Jesuits. An English college was founded at Rome, and teachers, ministers, and canvassers returned to their native land with the avowed purpose of their educators, the Jesuits, to overthrow the Reformation. And England fell!
Those familiar words from the pen of Luther, which appear in his letter appealing for aid in the establishment of Protestant schools, echo through England also: “The Word of God and His grace are like a shower that falls, and passes away. It was among the Jews; but it passed away, and now they have it no longer. Paul carried it to Greece; but in that country also it has passed away, and the Turk reigns there now. It came to Rome and the Latin empire; but there also it has passed away, and Rome now has the pope. O, Germans, do not expect to have this Word forever!” Could this man of God have come forth from his grave a century later, and have looked over his loved Germany, and over England, he would have added these names to those of the countries where God’s Word and His grace had been, but had passed away. Must the name of America be added to the above list? May Protestants be aroused before it is too late!
The Puritan exodus
Finding that England closed her doors against progress, the Puritans sought greater freedom in the Netherlands. They were disappointed, for they could not there educate their children as Protestantism taught them that they should be educated. As Pilgrims they sought new homes in America, finding a retreat on the bleak shores of New England.
Protestantism reaches America
It is now our duty to trace the growth and decline of Protestantism in our own land. Its prosperity in every other country has been in proportion to its adherence to the correct principles of education; its decline has without exception been the result of a wrong system of education. How is it in the United States?
No student of history, and especially of prophetic history, doubts for a moment that the way was divinely prepared for Protestantism to cross the Atlantic, and it is equally as evident that that same Hand was upholding those principles after they reached these shores. God’s Word spoke often to the hearts of men, leading them to devise plans, pass laws, establish institutions, and in various ways to so work that His truths might here grow to a perfection which they never reached in the old country. On the other hand, those teachings which have frustrated the principles of Protestantism in Europe are seen to be at work in America from the first planting of a colony until the present day. That strength-producing element was Christian education; that counteracting influence was false or papal education. These two form the subject of this chapter.
Educational History of the United States
United States history is interwoven with the history of education. Her founders, especially of the New England colonies, traced their origin to an educational center in England, and as early New England history circles about Harvard, so the fathers and supporters of that institution traced their origin in Old England to the counties of East Anglia, where Cambridge University bore sway. “Of the first six hundred who landed in Massachusetts, one in thirty, it is said, was a graduate of the English Cambridge. These and their companions were rare men. They had the schooling for a service the like of whose execution, in completeness and good sense, the world has never equaled.”[154]
“With matchless wisdom they joined liberty and learning in a perpetual and holy alliance, binding the latter to bless every child with instruction, which the former invests with the rights and duties of citizenship. They made education and sovereignty co-extensive, by making both universal.”[155]
John Fiske enlarges upon this thought.[156] The “greater hospitality of Cambridge [University, England] toward new ideas” is proverbial, and the very names, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, Cambridge and Huntingdon, familiar in the geography of New England, are telling a story of Protestant education.
Radical and Conservative Puritans
Strong as the Puritans seemed in denouncing the Church of Rome, and in accepting Protestantism, which, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, more than ever before, meant separation from the established church and the established forms of government, they were not united in thought. There were two classes: Puritans, and a class of this class represented by such men as Richard Hooker. Of the Puritans, Fiske says: “Some would have stopped short with Presbyterianism, while others held that ‘new presbyter was but old priest writ large,’ and so pressed on to Independency.”[157] This difference of opinion on religious matters is discernible when representatives of both classes, mingling in the society about Boston, started the educational work of America. Those inclined to remain under the banner of Presbyterianism taunted the others, who were known as Brownists, or Separatists, and who followed William Brewster to America, with anarchy, merely because they believed in carrying out fully the principles for which all were ready to fight.
Thus from the first has our educational work fallen into the hands of two classes of men,—a class willing to compromise in order to keep peace, and a bold, daring class, who advocated stepping out on truth regardless of what might follow.
Congregationalism and education
There was a mighty educational problem before the church. The Episcopalians had failed to take up that work in England; it was from their midst that Wm. Brewster, a Cambridge graduate, John Robinson, who also was graduated from Cambridge in 1600, and William Bradford, afterward governor of Plymouth for thirty years, withdrew to form the nucleus of the Congregational Church, which had its origin at Scrooby, England, and ended in Plymouth. What Episcopalianism had overlooked in the matter of education in England it now became the duty and privilege of the new church to begin on the virgin soil of America.
The New England theocracy
The reader is familiar with the fact that the Puritans, leaving England because of civil and religious oppression, the result of a union of church and state, came to America for freedom, and, contrary to what one would expect, especially at a casual glance, they here developed a theocracy. “The aim of Winthrop and his friends in coming to Massachusetts was the construction of a theocratic state which should be to Christians ... all that the theocracy of Moses and Joshua and Samuel had been to the Jews.... In such a scheme there was no room for religious liberty.... The state they were to found was to consist of a united body of believers; citizenship itself was to be co-extensive with church membership.”[158]
Educational work breaks the theocracy
It is equally well known, however, that this theocratic form was soon broken; and while the United States is beginning to find herself again approaching this mode of government, it is a remarkable fact, and one well worthy of our closest consideration, that the ancient theocracy of New England was broken by the power of the educational system there introduced. When this is read from the pages that follow, let the reader answer the question whether or not the repudiation of Protestant principles and the principles of republicanism by the United States in the nineteenth century is equally due to the present system. Bear in mind the question as we proceed.
The educational history of the United States may conveniently be studied in three sections; 1, colonial; 2, revolutionary; 3, nineteenth century.