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Luther’s educational positions are most fully revealed in his well-known Letter and Sermon. He holds that education should prepare for citizenship, and should be state-supported, and these recommendations were somewhat embodied in actual schools by his associates.
Zwingli was killed before he could greatly influence education, but the educational institutions of Calvin spread rapidly through Switzerland, France, Netherlands, Puritan England, and Scotland.
In England Henry VIII and Edward VI confiscated the property of some three hundred monastic and other ecclesiastical schools, but subsequently many of these were refounded.
The Jesuit colleges were organized to extend Catholic Christianity. The lower colleges were humanistic, and the higher taught ‘philosophy’ and theology. The teachers were trained, and the methods, though memoriter and emulative, were effective. The influence of the Jesuit colleges was phenomenal, but they have failed to meet new conditions.
The Port Royalists held that reason was more important than memory, but, while their ‘little schools’ stressed vernacular, logic, and geometry, they offered nothing beyond the best elements in the education of the past.
Elementary and industrial education was given an impulse for the Catholics by the schools of the Christian Brothers. They also opened training schools for teachers, and perfected the ‘simultaneous’ method.
Among the Protestants and some Catholics in Germany, Holland, Scotland, and certain of the American colonies, the Reformation inclined toward universal elementary education and control of the schools by the state. The secondary schools in Protestant countries also came largely under civic authorities, although the clergy still taught and inspected them; while Catholic secondary education was furnished mostly by the Jesuit colleges. In many instances the universities turned Protestant; and new universities, Protestant and Catholic, were founded.
The Relation of the Reformation to the Renaissance.—The series of revolts from the Catholic Church, generally known collectively as the ‘Reformation,’ may be regarded as closely connected with the Renaissance. As shown in the last chapter, humanism in the North led to a renewed study of the Scriptures and a reform of ecclesiastical doctrines and abuses, and took on a moral and religious color. Reformers arose, like Wimpfeling and Erasmus, who, while remaining within the Church, sought to purify it of corruption and obscurantism. But the Church at first stubbornly resisted all efforts at internal A series of revolts from the Church accompanied Northern humanism. reform. Its immense wealth, large numbers, and training enabled it for a long time to thwart the spirit of the age, and a condition of ecclesiastical upheaval followed. Revolts against papal authority ensued in various parts of Europe north of Italy, and were furnished support by the awakened intellectual and social conditions of the sixteenth century. The result was the establishment of a church, or rather a set of churches, outside of Catholic Christianity. While each revolt had some peculiarities of its own, there were underlying them all certain general causes that indicated their relation to the Renaissance.
The Revolt and Educational Works of Luther.—Even the attitude of Martin Luther (1483-1546) seems to have been bound up with the tendencies of the day. Apparently he had at first no idea of breaking from the Church, and supposed that the ninety-five theses he nailed to the church door at Wittenberg (1517) were quite consistent with Catholic allegiance. But even before this he had In his revolt, Luther relied upon the individualistic spirit of the times. attacked Aristotle and scholasticism with great vigor, appealing to primitive Christianity and the right of free thought, and thus identified himself in spirit with the Northern Renaissance. And two years later, in his contest with Eck, when he was actually led to deny the authority of both pope and council, he was evidently relying upon the humanistic and individualistic atmosphere of the times.
When once he had revolted, Luther gave much of his time to promoting the reform and education of the masses by writing. All his works, whether religious or pedagogical, were clearly intended, in a broad sense, to be educational. After his condemnation at the Diet of His translation of the Bible Worms (1521), when he had taken refuge at the Wartburg, he undertook to awaken the minds and hearts of the common people by a translation of the Greek Testament. Contrary to general opinion, a large number of translations had preceded that of Luther, and their popularity must have proved suggestive to him, but his edition was unusually close to the colloquial language of the times. A dozen years later, he had completed a translation of the entire Bible, which contributed greatly to education by getting the masses to read and reflect. and his catechisms. For the further instruction of the people, he also followed the fashion of the day in producing two catechisms, one for adults and the other for children, together with many tracts, addresses, and letters, filled with allusions to the organization and methods of education. But the documents which most fully reveal his educational His Letter and Sermon. positions are his Letter to the Mayors and Aldermen of All Cities of Germany in behalf of Christian Schools (1524), and his Sermon on the Duty of Sending Children to School (1530).
Luther’s Ideas on Education.—The purpose of education, Luther everywhere holds, involves the promotion of the State’s welfare quite as much as that of the Church. Civic aim. The schools were to make good citizens as well as religious men. Educational institutions should, on that account, be maintained at public expense for every one,—rich and poor, high and low, boys and girls, alike, and attendance should be compelled by the civic authorities. Industrial and academic training. Realizing that some pupils may find it hard to give the time to school, Luther planned that “they should spend an hour or two a day in school, and the rest of the time in work at home, learn some trade and do whatever is desired, so that study and work may go on together.” But he also desired a more academic course “for the brightest pupils, who give promise of becoming accomplished teachers, preachers, and workers.” In any case, Luther naturally believed that the chief studies should be the Bible and the catechism. But, as a Northern humanist, he recommended the ancient languages—Latin, Greek, and Hebrew—for the light they would throw on the Scriptures and the patristic Enlarged content. writers. He likewise approved of rhetoric and dialectic, which were very valuable subjects in those days of controversy; and he made a decided advance in advocating history, natural science, vocal and instrumental music, and gymnastic exercises. History is advised, not only, as was common with the humanists, for the sake of illustrating moral truth, but also for the purpose of understanding social institutions. The study of nature was intended to reveal “the wonders of Divine Goodness and the omnipotence of God.” Gymnastics he considered of value both for the body and the soul, and music a means of “driving away all care and melancholy Rational methods. from the heart.” The methods he recommended were equally rational. He would utilize the natural activity of children and not attempt to repress them, and would make use of concrete examples, wherever possible. Languages he would teach less by grammar than by practice. This belief in the importance of selecting the proper content and method in education led him to rate the function of the teacher as higher, if anything, than that of the preacher.
The Embodiment of Luther’s Ideas in Schools by His Associates.—These recommendations of Luther were largely embodied in actual institutions by his associates. The year after his Letter to the Mayors was published, the Protestants were requested by the Count of Mansfeld to establish in Luther’s native town, Eisleben, a school that should put his educational theories into practice, Melanchthon and Sturm. and this was performed by Melanchthon. The subsequent organization of Latin schools throughout the Electorate of Saxony, and the foundation of the gymnasium of Sturm at Strassburg upon the Protestant basis have already been touched upon ([pp. 114] ff.). But of fully as much importance were the educational foundations Bugenhagen in Northern Germany. of Bugenhagen (1485-1558). While engaged in reorganizing the churches in the cities and states of Northern Germany, by his general ‘church orders’ to each, he made ample provision for schools of the Lutheran type. For instance, at Hamburg in 1520 he organized a single Latin school with a rector and seven teachers, together with a German school for boys and one for girls in every parish. Eight years afterward, the ‘church orders’ of Brunswick provided two classical schools, two vernacular schools for boys, and four for girls, so located in the city that all children could conveniently reach a school. Within a half dozen years he made similar requirements for Lübeck, Minden, Göttingen, Soest, Bremen, Osnabrück, and other cities, and throughout some entire states of Germany, such as Holstein and his Other associates. own native duchy of Pomerania. The educational theories of Luther were also put into practice in a number of schools taught by Trotzendorf, Neander, and other pupils of Melanchthon.
The Revolt and Educational Ideas of Zwingli.—The revolt under Zwingli (1484-1531) was more directly the Sprang from Northern humanism. outcome of Northern humanism than was that of Luther. Through Erasmus and others he had come to believe that there was little basis in the Bible for the traditional theology, and he carefully read the accounts himself in the original Greek and Hebrew. After he took charge of the cathedral at Zurich, he began his attack upon the dogmas and traditions of the Church, and, by securing the support of the town, managed in a fairly peaceful way to drop one form of the Church after another, until, within five years, he had abolished even the mass. Zwingli likewise made the extension of educational facilities a part of his reform. He founded a number of humanistic institutions, and introduced elementary schools into Switzerland. He also published a Brief Treatise on the Christian Education of Youth (1523), which recommended a course of studies not unlike that of Schools and course similar to Luther’s. Luther, except that, from his practical temperament, he did not mention history, but did add arithmetic and surveying.
Calvin’s Revolt and His Encouragement of Education.—While endeavoring to spread his reforms, Zwingli was slain in the prime of life. His positions were maintained by his successor in the cathedral, but the work was soon overshadowed and merged in the movement of Calvin (1509-1564). Calvin’s break with the Church, like that of French Protestants generally, also began Also began through Northern humanism. through the influence of Northern humanism and the study of the Greek Testament. He had, however, received an excellent legal and theological education, and did not content himself with merely attacking Catholic doctrine, but was the first Protestant to formulate an elaborate system of theology. The call of Calvin to reorganize the civil and religious administration of the city of Geneva gave him an excellent opportunity for working out his theories. Although he was much engrossed Calvin’s colleges in religious disputes, he established ‘colleges’ at Geneva and elsewhere, and in other ways undertook to found schools and promote education. He succeeded, and Corderius. too, in persuading his former teacher, Corderius (see p. 111), to come to Switzerland, and organize, administer, and teach in the reformed colleges.
The Colleges of Calvin.—Corderius here wrote four books of Colloquies, with the purpose of training boys by means of conversation on timely topics to speak Latin with facility, and from this work we can learn much of the character of the Calvinistic colleges. Clearly Aim, content, and organization. the ideal was the ‘learned piety’ of Melanchthon, Sturm, and the other Northern humanists and Protestants. An attempt seems to have been made to teach Latin in such a way as to cultivate a moral and religious life, and psalms were sung, public prayers offered, and selections from the Bible repeated each day. We also know that in the seven classes of a college at Geneva the pupils learned reading and grammar from the Latin catechism, and then studied Vergil, Cicero, Ovid, Cæsar, Livy, and Latin composition. Greek seems to have been begun in the fourth year, and, beside classical Greek authors, the Gospels and Epistles were read. Likewise, as in the other Reformation schools, logic and rhetoric were studied in the higher classes. The colleges of this type not Spread in Switzerland, France, Netherlands, England, and Scotland. only spread rapidly among Calvin’s co-religionists in Switzerland and France, but, as Geneva became a city of refuge for all the oppressed, a regard for humanistic, religious, and universal education was absorbed by the persecuted Netherlander, the English Protestants of Mary’s time, and the Scotch under the leadership of Knox in the days of Mary, Queen of Scots (1505-1572).