CHAPTER XI
[1] Much as universities have contributed to intellectual progress, hostility to new types of thinking and to new subjects of study has been, through all time, a characteristic of many of their members, and often it has required much pressure from progressive forces on the outside to overcome their opposition to new lines of scholarship and public service.
[2] For a list of these treatises, see Monroe's Cyclopedia of Education, vol. v, p. 154.
[3] The distinguished author, Montaigne, was mayor in 1580.
[4] This order had begun as an institution for the instruction of the poor, emphasizing the use of the Bible and the vernacular, but when the new learning came in from Italy, classical learning was added and the instruction of the brotherhood became largely humanistic.
[5] The influence of the old Greek classical terms in this connection is interesting, and is another evidence of the permanence of Greek ideas. Sturm here adopted the Italian nomenclature, Vittorino da Feltre having called his school a Gymnasium Palatinum, or Palace School. Guarino wrote of gymnasia Italorum. Both derived the term from the Gymnasia of ancient Greece, just as the academies of the Italian cities took their name from the Academy of Plato at Athens (p. 44). Another famous Greek school was the Lyceum, founded by Aristotle (p. 44). All these names came in during the Revival of Learning in Italy, and were applied to the new classical schools at a time when every term, and even the names of men, were given classical form. As a result the Italian secondary schools of to-day are known as ginnasio, and the German classical secondary schools as gymnasia. The French took their term from the Lyceum, hence the French lycées. The English named their classical schools after the chief subject of study, hence the English grammar schools. In 1638 Milton visited Italy, and was much entertained in Florence by members of the academy and university there. In 1644 he published his Tractate on Education, in which he outlined his plan for a series of classical academies for England. Milton was a church reformer, as were the Puritans, and the Puritans, in settling America, brought over first the term grammar school, and later the term academy to England.
[6] Melanchthon, in his famous Saxony plan of 1528, had provided for but three classes (R. 161). The class-for-each-year idea was new in German lands.
[7] This became a fixed practice, Latin being the one language of the school. A century later, when it was attempted by the Jansenists, in France, to teach Greek directly through the vernacular, the practice was loudly condemned by the Jesuits as impious, because it broke the connection between France and Rome.
[8] His phrase book, De Copia Verborum et Rerum, went through sixty editions in his lifetime, and was popular for a century after his death. His book of proverbs, the Adagia, was in both Latin and Greek, and was widely used. His Book of Sayings from the Ancients (Apophthegmata) was a collection of little stories, much like some of our best modern books for elementary-school use. His Colloquies, or Latin dialogues, were widely used for two centuries in Protestant countries. These four were written between 1511 and 1519, and largely for use in Saint Paul's School. His Latin edition of Theodorus Gaza's Greek Grammar (1516) gave English schools for the first time a standard text.
[9] They were On the First Liberal Education of Children (1529), and On the Order of Study (1511).
[10] His Praise of Folly (1509), and his Ciceronian (1528).
[11] The introduction of the new learning into the English universities was easier than elsewhere, because the English universities had broken up into groups of residence halls, known as colleges. If the old colleges could not be reformed new ones could be created, and this took place. Trinity College, at Cambridge, founded in 1540, was from the first a center of humanistic studies. That same year the King founded royal professorships of Civil Law, Hebrew, and Greek at Cambridge.
[12] Elizabeth had had for her tutor Roger Ascham, author of The Scholemaster, and a teacher of Greek at Cambridge (R. 139).
[13] For generations this famous grammar was to England what Donatus was to mediaeval Europe. It was also used in the grammar schools of New England. Lily visited Jerusalem and studied under the best Latin teachers in Rome, so that he ranks with Linacre, Grocyn, and Colet as an introducer of classical culture into England.
[14] Winchester was the first of the so-called "great public schools" of England, of which Eton, Saint Paul's, Westminster, Harrow, Charterhouse, Rugby, Shrewsbury, and Merchant Taylors' are the other eight. The foundation statutes of Winchester made elaborate provision for "a Warden, a Head Master, ten Fellows, three Chaplains, an Usher, seventy scholars, three Chapel Clerks, sixteen Choristers, and a large staff of servants," as did Henry VIII later on for Canterbury (R. l72 a). The Warden and Fellows were the trustees. In addition to the seventy scholars (Foundationers) other non-foundationers (Commoners) were to be admitted to instruction. The admission requirements were to be "reading, plain song, and Old Donatus," and the school was to teach Grammar, the first of the Liberal Arts. Except for the change in the nature of the instruction when the new learning came in, this and the other "public schools" remained almost unchanged until the second half of the nineteenth century.
[15] Statutes for this school had provided the following entrance regulations: "But first see that they can the Catechisme in English or Latyn, that every one of the said two hundred & fifty schollers can read perfectly & write competently, or els lett them not be admitted in no wise."
[16] His The Positions (1581), and The Elementarie (1582). See Chapter XVIII.
[17] Solomon Lowe, in his Grammar, published in 1726, gives a bibliography of 128 Phrase Books which had appeared by that time. The following selection from the Colloquies of Corderius (R. 136) illustrates their nature:
Col. 7. Clericus Col. 7. Clericus,
The Master. Magister.
C. Master, may not I and my uncle's Licetne, Magister, ut ego &
son go home? patruélis eámus domom?
M. To what end? Quid eó?
C. To my sister's daughter's wedding. Ad nuptias consobrinae.
M. When is she to be married? Quando est nuptura?
C. To-morrow. Crástino die.
M. Why will you go so quickly? Cur tam citò vultis ire?
C. To CHANGE OUR CLOATHS. Ut mutémus vestimenta.
[18] Sturm, Trotzendorf, and Neander insisted on the use of Latin in all conversation in the school, and the Jesuits later on subjected boys to a whipping if reported as having used the vernacular.
[19] Leach, A. F., English Schools at the Reformation, p. 105.