He speaks of the educational value not only of languages but of history, mathematics and the other arts, but above all of religion, which, now that the true Evangel is preached, must take root in the hearts of the young, but which could not be maintained unless care was taken to ensure a supply of future preachers.
He gives an excellent answer to the objection: “What is the good of going to school unless we are thinking of becoming parsons?” The wholesale secularisation of ecclesiastical benefices had resulted in a great falling off in the number of scholars, the parents often thinking too much of the worldly prospects of their children. Luther, however, points out that even the secular offices deserve to be filled with men of education. “How useful and called for it is, and how pleasing to God, that the man destined to govern, whether as Prince, lord, councillor or otherwise, should be learned and capable of performing his duty as becomes a Christian.”[4]
This booklet, which is of great interest for the history of the schools, was translated into Latin in the same year by Vincentius Obsopœus (Koch) and published at Hagenau, with a preface by Melanchthon.[5] It also became widely known throughout Germany, being frequently reprinted in the original tongue. As the title shows, Luther addressed himself in the work “To the Councillors of all the townships,” viz. even to the Catholic magistrates among whom he stood in disfavour. He declares that it was a question of the “salvation and happiness of the whole German land. And were I to hit upon something good, even were I myself a fool, it would be no disgrace to anyone to listen to me.”[6]
In thus calling for the founding of schools Luther was but reiterating the admonition contained in his writing “To the German Nobility.” Such exhortations were always sure to win applause, and served to recommend not only his own person but even, in the case of many, his undertaking as a whole.[7] In his rules for the administration of the poor-box at Leisnig Luther had been mindful of the claims of the schools, nor did he forget them in the other regulations he drew up later. In his sermons, too, he also dwelt repeatedly on the needs of the elementary schools; when complaining of the decay of charity he is wont to instance the straits, not only of the parsonages and the poor, but also of the schools. “Only reckon up and count on your fingers what here [at Wittenberg] and elsewhere those who bask in the Evangel give and do for it, and see whether, were it not for us who are still living, there would remain a single preacher or student.… Are there then no poor scholars who ought to be studying and exercising themselves in the Word of God?” But “hoarding and scraping” are now the rule, so that hardly a town can be found “that collects enough to keep a schoolmaster or parson.”[8]
Many wealthy towns had, however, to Luther’s great joy, taken in hand the cause of the schools. Their efforts were to prove very helpful to the new religious system.
In the same year that the above writing appeared steps were taken at Magdeburg for the promotion of education, and Cruciger, Luther’s own pupil, was summoned from Wittenberg to assume the direction. Melanchthon and Luther repaired to Eisleben in 1525, where Count Albert of Mansfeld had founded a Grammar School. In some towns the Councillors carried out Luther’s proposals, in others, where the town-council was opposed to the innovators and their schools, the burghers “set at naught the Council,” as Luther relates, and erected “schools and parsonages”; in other words, they established schools as the best means to further the new Evangel.[9] At Nuremberg Melanchthon, a zealous promoter of education, exerted himself for the foundation of a “Gymnasium” which was to serve as a model of the new humanistic schools of the Evangelicals, and which was generously provided for by the town. May 6, 1526, saw the opening of this new school. Learned masters were appointed, for instance, Melanchthon’s friend Camerarius, the poet Eobanus Hessus and the humanist Michael Roting. In 1530 Luther speaks of it in words meant to flatter the Nurembergers as “a fine, noble school,” for which the “very best men” had been selected and appointed. He even tells all Germany, that “no University, not even that of Paris itself, was ever so well provided in the way of lecturers”; it was in no small measure owing to this school that “Nuremberg now shone throughout the whole of Germany like a sun, compared with which others were but moon and stars.”[10]
Yet it was certain disagreeable happenings at Nuremberg itself which led him to write in 1530 his second booklet in favour of the schools. In the flourishing commercial city there were many wealthy burghers who refused to send their children to the “Gymnasium,” thinking that, instead of learning ancient languages, they would be more usefully occupied in acquiring other elements of knowledge more essential to the mercantile calling; by so doing they had raised a certain feeling against the new school. Many were even disposed to scoff at all book-learning and roundly declared, as Luther relates, “If my son knows how to read and reckon then he knows quite enough; we now have plenty German books,” etc.[11]
In July of the above year, Luther, in the loneliness of the Coburg, penned a sermon having for its title “That children must be kept at school.” The sermon grew into a lengthy work; Luther himself was, later on, to bewail its long-windedness.[12] This writing, taken with that of 1524, supplies the gist of Luther’s teaching with regard to the schools.