THE REORGANIZING WORK OF MELANCHTHON. Melanchthon, unlike Bugenhagen, was essentially a humanistic scholar, and his interest lay chiefly In the Latin secondary schools. He prepared plans for schools in many cities and smaller States of central and southern Germany, among which were Luther's native town, Eisleben (1525), and for Nuremberg (1526), Herzeberg (1538), Cologne (1543), and Wittenberg (1545) among cities; and Saxony (1528), Mecklenberg (1552), and the Palatinate (1556) among States. The schools he provided for Saxony may be described as typical of his work.
In 1527 he was asked by the Elector of Saxony to head a commission of three to travel over the kingdom and report on its needs as to schools. In his Report, or Book of Visitation, which was probably the first school survey report in history, he outlined in detail plans for school organization for the State (R. 161), of which the following is an abstract:
Each school was to consist of three classes. In the first class there was to be taught the beginnings of reading and writing, in both the vernacular and in Latin, Latin grammar (Donatus), the Creed, the Lord's prayer, and the prayers and hymns of the church service. In the second class Latin became the language of instruction, and Latin grammar was thoroughly learned. Latin authors were read, and religious instruction was continued. In the third class more advanced work in reading Latin (Livy, Sallust, Vergil, Horace, and Cicero) was given, and rhetoric and dialectic were studied.
These were essentially humanistic schools with but a little preparatory work in the vernacular, and their purpose was to prepare those likely to become the future leaders of the State for entrance to the universities. How different was Melanchthon's conception as to the needs for education from the conceptions of Luther and Bugenhagen may easily be seen. Yet, so great were his services in organizing and advising, and so well did such schools meet the great demand of the time for educational leaders that he has, very properly, been called "the Preceptor of Germany." His work was copied by other leaders, and the result was the organization of a large number of humanistic gymnasia throughout northern Germany, in which the new learning and the Protestant faith were combined. Sturm's school at Strassburg (p. 272) was one of the more important and better organized of this type, many of which have had a continuous existence up to the present. By 1540 the process was begun of endowing such schools from the proceeds of old monasteries, confiscated by the State, and many German gymnasia of to-day trace their origin back to some old monastic foundation, altered by state authority to meet modern needs and purposes.
EARLY GERMAN STATE SCHOOL SYSTEMS. Melanchthon's Saxony plan was put into partial operation as a Lutheran Church school system, but the first German State to organize a complete system of schools was Würtemberg (R. 162), in southwestern Germany, in 1559. This marks the real beginning of the German state school systems. Three classes of schools were provided for:
(1) Elementary schools, for both sexes, in which were to be taught reading, writing, reckoning, singing, and religion, all in the vernacular. These were to be provided in every village in the Duchy.
(2) Latin schools (Particularschulen), with five or six classes, in which the ability to read, write, and speak Latin, together with the elements of mathematics and Greek in the last year, were to be taught.
(3) The universities or colleges of the State, of which the University of Tübingen (f. 1476) and the higher school at Stuttgart were declared to be constituent parts.
Acting through the church authorities, these schools were to be under the supervision of the State.
The example of Würtemberg was followed by a number of the smaller German States. Ten years later Brunswick followed the same plan, and in 1580 Saxony revised its school organization after the state-system plan thus established. In 1619 the Duchy of Weimar added compulsory education in the vernacular for all children from six to twelve years of age. In 1642, the same date as the first Massachusetts school law (chapter XV), Duke Ernest the Pious of little Saxe-Gotha and Altenburg established the first school system of a modern type in German lands. An intelligent and ardent Protestant, he attempted to elevate his miserable peasants, after the ravages of the Thirty Years' War, by a wise economic administration and universal education. With the help of a disciple of the greatest educational thinker of the period, John Amos Comenius (chapter XVII), he worked out a School Code (Schulmethode, 1642) which was the pedagogic masterpiece of the seventeenth century (R. 163). In it he provided for compulsory school attendance, and regulated the details of method, grading, and courses of study. Teachers were paid salaries which for the time were large, pensions for their widows and children were provided, and textbooks were prepared and supplied free. So successful were his efforts that Gotha became one of the most prosperous little spots in Europe, and it was said that "Duke Ernest's peasants were better educated than noblemen anywhere else."