The History of Pedagogy

by Gabriel Compayré

92. General Characteristics of the Education of the Sixteenth Century.—Modern education begins with the Renaissance. The educational methods that we then begin to discern will doubtless not be developed and perfected till a later period; the new doctrines will pass into practice only gradually, and with the general progress of the times. But from the sixteenth century education is in possession of its essential principles. The education of the Middle Age, over-rigid and repressive, which condemned the body to a régime too severe, and the mind to a discipline too narrow, is to be succeeded, at least in theory, by an education broader and more liberal; which will give due attention to hygiene and physical exercises; which will enfranchise the intelligence, hitherto the prisoner of the syllogism; which will call into play the moral forces, instead of repressing them; which will substitute real studies for the verbal subtilties of dialectics; which will give the preference to things over words; which, finally, instead of developing but a single faculty, the reason, and instead of reducing man to a sort of dialectic automaton, will seek to develop the whole man, mind and body, taste and knowledge, heart and will.

93. Causes of the Renaissance in Education.—The men of the sixteenth century having renewed with classical antiquity an intercourse that had been too long interrupted, it was natural that they should propose to the young the study of the Greeks and the Romans. What is called secondary instruction really dates from the sixteenth century. The crude works of the Middle Age are succeeded by the elegant compositions of Athens and Rome, henceforth made accessible to all through the art of printing; and, with the reading of the ancient authors, there reappear through the fruitful effect of imitation, their qualities of correctness in thought, of literary taste, and of elegance in form. In France, as in Italy, the national tongues, moulded, and, as it were, consecrated by writers of genius, become the instruments of an intellectual propaganda. Artistic taste, revived by the rich products of a race of incomparable artists, gives an extension to the horizon of life, and creates a new class of emotions. Finally, the Protestant Reform develops individual thought and free inquiry, and at the same time, by its success, it imposes still greater efforts on the Catholic Church.

This is not saying that everything is faultless in the educational efforts of the sixteenth century. First, as is natural for innovators, the thought of the teachers of this period is marked by enthusiasm rather than by precision. They are more zealous in pointing out the end to be attained, than exact in determining the means to be employed. Besides, some of them are content to emancipate the mind, but forget to give it proper direction. Finally, others make a wrong use of the ancients; they are too much preoccupied with the form and the purity of language; they fall into Ciceromania, and it is not their fault if a new superstition, that of rhetoric, does not succeed the old superstition, that of the syllogism.

94. The Theory and the Practice of Education in the Sixteenth Century.—In the history of education in the sixteenth century, we must, moreover, carefully distinguish the theory from the practice. The theory of education is already boldly put forward, and is in advance of its age; while the practice is still dragging itself painfully along on the beaten road, notwithstanding some successful attempts at improvement.

The theory we must look for in the works of Erasmus, Rabelais, and Montaigne, of whom it may be said, that before pretending to surpass them, even at this day, we should rather attempt to overtake them, and to equal them in the most of their pedagogical precepts.

The practice is, first, the development of the study of the humanities, particularly in the early colleges of the Jesuits, and, before the Jesuits, in certain Protestant colleges, particularly in the college at Strasburg, so brilliantly administered by the celebrated Sturm (1507-1589). Then it is the revival of higher instruction, denoted particularly by the foundation of the College of France (1530), and by the brilliant lectures of Ramus. Finally, it is the progress, we might almost say the birth, of primary instruction, through the efforts of the Protestant reformers, and especially of Luther.

Nevertheless, the educational thought of the sixteenth century is in advance of educational practice; theories greatly anticipate applications, and constitute almost all that is deserving of special note.

95. Erasmus (1467-1536).—By his numerous writings, translations, grammars, dictionaries, and original works, Erasmus diffused about him his own passionate fondness for classical literature, and communicated this taste to his contemporaries. Without having a direct influence on education, since he scarcely taught himself, he encouraged the study of the ancients by his example, and by his active propagandism. The scholar who said, “When I have money, I will first buy Greek books and then clothes,” deserves to be placed in the first rank among the creators of secondary instruction.

96. The Education of Erasmus: the Jeromites.—Erasmus was educated by the monks, as Voltaire was by the Jesuits, a circumstance that has cost these liberal thinkers none of their independent disposition, and none of their satirical spirit. At the age of twelve, Erasmus entered the college of Deventer, in Holland. This college was conducted by the Jeromites, or Brethren of the Common Life. Founded in 1340 by Gerard Groot, the association of the Jeromites undertook, among other occupations, the instruction of children. Very mystical, and very ascetic at first, the disciples of Gerard Groot restricted themselves to teaching the Bible, to reading, and writing. They proscribed, as useless to piety, letters and the sciences. But in the fifteenth century, under the influence of John of Wessel and Rudolph Agricola, the Jeromites became transformed; they were the precursors of the Renaissance, and the promoters of the alliance between profane letters and Christianity. “We may read Ovid once,” said John of Wessel, “but we ought to read Virgil, Horace, and Terence, with more attention.” Horace and Terence were precisely the favorite authors of Erasmus, who learned them by heart at Deventer. Agricola, of whom Erasmus speaks only with enthusiasm, was also the zealous propagator of the great works of antiquity, and, at the same time, the severe critic of the state of educational practice of the time when the school was too much like a prison.