The History of Education Part 27

To make the instruction as practical as possible, and thus prepare the pupils for service as Latin scholars in public or scholarly pursuits, the ancient literature was studied in part as a storehouse of adequate and elegant expression, and numerous phrase books [17] were written for use in the schools. When we remember that Latin was still the language of all learned literature, of the university cla.s.sroom, of most diplomatic and legal doc.u.ments, and a practical necessity for travel or communication abroad, we can realize why so much emphasis was placed on the constant use of Latin as the language of the school. [18] As Leach [19] so well puts it:

"The learned professions required a competent knowledge of Latin far more directly then than now. A need for Latin was not confined to the Church and the priest. The diplomatist, the lawyer, the civil servant, the physician, the naturalist, the philosopher, wrote, read, and to a large extent spoke and perhaps thought in Latin. Nor was Latin only the language of the higher professions. A merchant, or a bailiff of a manor, wanted it for his accounts; every town clerk or guild clerk wanted it for his minute book. Columbus had to study for his voyages in Latin; the general had to study tactics in it. The architect, the musician, every one who was neither a mere soldier nor a mere handicraftsman, wanted, not a smattering of grammar, but a living acquaintance with the tongue, as a spoken as well as a written language."

THE SCHOOLS BECOME FORMAL. After the new learning had obtained a firm footing in the schools there happened what has often happened in the history of new educational efforts--that is, the new learning became narrow, formal, and fixed, and lost the liberal spirit which actuated its earlier promoters. In the beginning the Italian humanists had aimed at large personal self-culture and individual development, and the northern humanists at moral and religious reform and preparation for useful service, both using the cla.s.sics as a means to these new ends. After about 1500 in Italy, and 1600 in the northern countries, when the new-learning schools had become well established and thoroughly organized, the tendency arose to make the means an end in itself. Instead of using the cla.s.sical literatures to impart a liberal education, give larger vision, and prepare for useful public service, they came to be used largely for disciplinary ends. The teaching of Campion at Prague (1574) well ill.u.s.trates this degeneracy (R. 146). This change alienated practical men from the schools.

French now in turn became the language of the court and of diplomacy, and the work of the schools tended to be confined largely to preparing students to enter the universities or the service of the Church. Men of the world hence turned to a new type of schools which now arose (chapter xvii), and which made preparation for social efficiency in a modern world their aim.

In consequence the aim of the new humanistic education came in time to be thought of in terms of languages and literatures, instead of in terms of usefulness as a preparation for intelligent living, and educational effort was transferred from the larger human point of view of the early humanistic teachers to the narrower and much less important one of mastering Greek and Latin, writing verses, and cultivating a good (Ciceronian) Latin style. Sturm's school at Stra.s.sburg clearly shows the beginnings of such a transformation (R. 137). As Latin came to be less and less used by scholars in writing, pa.s.sed out of use as the language of government and of international communication, was replaced by French as the language of polite society, and was gradually superseded in the university lecture room by the vernaculars, the practical motive for learning Latin died out, except for service in the Church, and the disciplinary and cultural value of the study of the cla.s.sics alone remained. The disciplinary, being easier to give, and better within the understanding of most teachers, gradually won over the cultural. As a result, cla.s.sical education gradually became narrow and formal, and drill in composition and declamation and imitation of the style of ancient authors--particularly Cicero, whence the term "Ciceronianism" which came to be applied to it--grew to be the ruling motives in instruction. By the end of the sixteenth century this change had taken place in both the secondary schools and the universities, and this narrow linguistic att.i.tude continued to dominate cla.s.sical education, in German lands until the mid-eighteenth, and in all other western European countries and in America until near the middle of the nineteenth century. It was not until vigorously challenged by the enthusiasts for modern scientific studies that the teachers of the cla.s.sics awoke to the need of improving their instruction and restoring something of the old cultural value to what they were teaching.

The new learning in northern and western Europe was also much changed in character by the violent religious dissensions, following the Protestant Revolt, to a consideration of which we next turn.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Explain just what is meant by the statement that mediaeval education was narrowly technical.

2. State the educational ideals of the new secondary schools evolved by the Italian humanistic scholars, and show whether these ideals have been best embodied in the German _gymnasium_ or the English grammar school.

3. How do you explain the merchants and bankers and princes of Italy being more interested in the revival-of-learning movement than the Church and university scholars? Do such cla.s.ses to-day show the same type of interest in aiding learning?

4. What was the particular importance of the recovery of Quintilian's _Inst.i.tutes_? Of Cicero's _Orations_ and _Letters_?

5. What better methods could the Italian court schools have used to enable them to cover the university Arts course in shorter time? How would this have advanced the character of the instruction in Arts in the university?

6. Show how the type of education developed in the Italian court schools was superior to that of the best of the cathedral schools. To that developed by Sturm.

7. Show how the new type of secondary schools was naturally a.s.sociated with court and n.o.bility and men of large worldly affairs, and how in consequence the new secondary education became and for long continued to be considered as aristocratic education.

8. Explain how the terms _college_, _lycee_, _gymnasium_, _academy_, and _grammar school_ all came to be employed, in different countries, to designate about the same type of secondary school.

9. Had the purified Latin been restored, as the general international language of learning and government, would it have helped materially in bringing about the civilizing influences Erasmus saw in it?

10. Has the development of separate nationalities and different national languages aided in advancing international peace and civilization? Why?

11. Why should the new humanistic studies have developed religious fervor in Germany and England, in place of the patriotic fervor of the Italian scholars?

12. Was the struggle against the introduction of the new learning into the German universities parallel to the late struggle against the introduction of science into American universities?

13. Contrast the aim of Sturm's school with that of the Italian court schools, and the English grammar schools. Point out the new tendencies in his work.

14. Does the sentence quoted from Elyot's _Governour_ express well the changed conditions in England at the middle of the sixteenth century? Do such changed conditions always demand educational reorganizations?

15. What basis, if any, did the opponents of Colet's school have for denouncing it as a temple of idolatry and heathenism?

16. Show how it was natural that the first American school should have been a Latin grammar school in type.

17. Show that the new conception as to education, as expressed by the new humanism, found a public ready to support it. What was the nature of this public?

18. Show how the new schools were "close to the most progressive forces in the national life," and the influence of this, particularly in England and America, in fixing cla.s.sical training as the approved type of secondary education.

19. Explain how the written theme of to-day is the successor of the mediaeval disputation.

20. Show how the methods of instruction employed in the new Latin grammar schools have been pa.s.sed over to the native-language schools.

21. From the paragraph quoted from Leach (p. 282), explain why a knowledge of Latin was for so long regarded as synonymous with being educated.

22. Show how instruction in Latin, by being changed from cultural to disciplinary ends, made French the language of diplomacy and society, tended to elevate all the vernacular tongues, and marked the beginnings of the end of the importance of Latin as a school study except for the purposes of the Roman Catholic Church.

23. What was the purpose of the Latin instruction, as you received it?

24. Does it require a higher quality of teaching to impart the cultural aspect of a study than is required for the disciplinary?

SELECTED READINGS

In the accompanying _Book of Readings_ the following selections are reproduced:

135. Guarino: On Teaching the Cla.s.sical Authors.

136. Vinet: The College de Guyenne at Bordeaux.

137. Sturm: Course of Study at Stra.s.sburg.

138. Colet: Statutes for St. Paul's School, London.

(a) Religious Observances.

(b) Admission of Children.

(c) The Course of Study.

139. Ascham: On Queen Elizabeth's Learning.

140. Colet: Introduction to Lily's Latin Grammar.

141. William Sevenoaks: Foundation Bequest for Sevenoaks Grammar School.

142. John Percyvall: Foundation Bequest for a Chantry Grammar School.

143. Sandwich: A City Grammar School Foundation.

144. Eton: Course of Study in 1560.

145. Martindale: Course of Study in an English Country Grammar School.

146. Simpson: Degeneracy of Cla.s.sical Instruction.

QUESTIONS ON THE READINGS

1. Show the large scope of Grammar, as outlined by Guarino (135).

2. How generally was his dictum that a knowledge of Latin and Greek were essential for a well-educated gentleman (135) accepted?

3. Compare the course of study in Sturm's school (137) with that at Bordeaux (136), and with that at Eton (144) a little later.

4. From Ascham's statements (139), what do you infer as to the reception of the new learning at the English court?

5. Show how Colet (138 a) and William Sevenoaks (141) both aimed to provide for real teachers, specialized for the service, and not for teaching as an adjunct to priestly duties. What was the significance of these provisions?

6. Show that Colet (138 b) desired to train leaders, rather than followers.

7. Show that he clearly provided (138 c) for a humanistic school of the reformed type.