[CHAPTER VI.]
PROTESTANTISM AND PRIMARY INSTRUCTION. LUTHER AND COMENIUS.
ORIGIN OF PRIMARY INSTRUCTION; SPIRIT OF THE PROTESTANT REFORM; CALVIN, MELANCTHON, ZWINGLI; LUTHER (1483-1546); APPEAL ADDRESSED TO THE MAGISTRATES AND LEGISLATORS OF GERMANY; DOUBLE UTILITY OF INSTRUCTION; NECESSITY OF A SYSTEM OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION; CRITICISM OF THE SCHOOLS OF THE PERIOD; ORGANIZATION OF NEW SCHOOLS; PROGRAMME OF STUDIES; PROGRESS IN METHODS; THE STATES GENERAL OF ORLEANS (1560); RATICH (1571-1635); COMENIUS (1592-1671); HIS CHARACTER; BACONIAN INSPIRATION; LIFE OF COMENIUS; HIS PRINCIPAL WORKS; DIVISION OF INSTRUCTION INTO FOUR GRADES; ELEMENTARY INITIATION INTO ALL THE STUDIES; THE PEOPLE’S SCHOOL; SITE OF THE SCHOOL; INTUITIONS OF SENSE; SIMPLIFICATION OF GRAMMATICAL STUDIES; PEDAGOGICAL PRINCIPLES OF COMENIUS; ANALYTICAL SUMMARY.
122. Origin of Primary Instruction.—With La Salle and the foundation of the Institute of the Brethren of the Christian Schools, the historian of education recognizes the Catholic origin of primary instruction; in the decrees and laws of the French Revolution, its lay and philosophical origin; but it is to the Protestant Reformers,—to Luther in the sixteenth century, and to Comenius in the seventeenth—that must be ascribed the honor of having first organized schools for the people. In its origin, the primary school is the child of Protestantism, and its cradle was the Reformation.
123. Spirit of the Protestant Reform.—The development of primary instruction was the logical consequence of the fundamental principles of the Protestant Reform. As Michel Bréal has said: “In making man responsible for his own faith, and in placing the source of that faith in the Holy Scriptures, the Reform contracted the obligation to put each one in a condition to save himself by the reading and the understanding of the Bible.... The necessity of explaining the Catechism, and making comments on it, was for teachers an obligation to learn how to expound a thought, and to decompose it into its elements. The study of the mother tongue and of singing, was associated with the reading of the Bible (translated into German by Luther) and with religious services.” The Reform, then, contained, in germ, a complete revolution in education; it enlisted the interests of religion in the service of instruction, and associated knowledge with faith. This is the reason that, for three centuries, the Protestant nations have led humanity in the matter of primary instruction.
124. Calvin (1509-1564), Melancthon (1497-1560), Zwingli (1484-1532).—However, all the Protestant Reformers were far from exhibiting the same zeal in behalf of primary instruction. Calvin, absorbed in religious struggles and polemics, was not occupied with the organization of schools till towards the close of his life, and even the college that he founded at Geneva, in 1559, was scarcely more than a school for the study of Latin. Melancthon, who has been called “the preceptor of Germany,” worked more for high schools than for schools for the people. He was above all else a professor of Belles-Lettres; and it was with chagrin that he saw his courses in the University of Wittenberg deserted by students when he lectured on the Olynthiacs of Demosthenes. Before Calvin and Melancthon, the Swiss reformer Zwingli had shown his great interest in primary teaching, in his little book “upon the manner of instructing and bringing up boys in a Christian way” (1524). In this he recommended natural history, arithmetic, and also exercises in fencing, in order to furnish the country with timely defenders.