The History of Education Part 34

Children learned first to read, write, and spell French, and to do simple composition work in the vernacular. Those who mastered this easily were taught the Latin Psalter in addition. Much prominence was given to writing, the instruction being applied to the writing of bills, notes, receipts, and the like. Much free questioning was allowed in arithmetic and the Catechism, to insure perfect understanding of what was taught.

Religious training was made the most prominent feature of the school, as was natural. A half-hour daily was given to the Catechism, ma.s.s was said daily, the crucifix was always on the wall, and two or three pupils were always to be found kneeling, telling their beads. The discipline, in contradistinction to the customary practice of the time, was mild, though all punishments were carefully prescribed by rule. [18] The rule of silence in the school was rigidly enjoined, all speech was to be in a low tone of voice, and a code of signals replaced speech for many things.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 104. A SCHOOL OF LA SALLE AT PARIS, 1688 A visit of James II and the Archbishop of Paris to the School (From a bas- relief on the statue of La Salle, at Rouen)]

Though the Order met with much opposition from both church and civil authorities, it made slow but steady headway. At the time of the death of La Salle, in 1719, thirty-five years after its foundation, the Order had one general normal school, four normal schools for training teachers, three practice schools, thirty-three primary schools, and one continuation school. The Order remained largely French, and at the time of its suppression, in 1792, had schools in 121 communities in France and 6 elsewhere, about 1000 brothers, and approximately 30,000 children in its schools. This was approximately 1 child in every 175 of school age of the population of France at that time. While relatively small in numbers, their schools represented the best attempt to provide elementary education in any Catholic country before well into the nineteenth century. The distribution of their schools throughout France, by 1792, is shown on the map above. In 1803 the Order was reestablished, by 1838 it had schools in 282 communities, and in 1887, when La Salle was declared a Saint of the Church, it had 1898 communities on four continents, 109 of which were in the United States, and was teaching a total of approximately 300,000 primary children.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 105. THE BROTHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS BY 1792 Map, showing the locations of their communities]

5. _General Results of the Reformation on Education_

DESTRUCTION AND CREATION OF SCHOOLS. Any such general overturning of the established inst.i.tutions and traditions of a thousand years as occurred at the time of the Protestant Revolts, with the accompanying bitter hatreds and religious strife, could not help but result in extensive destruction of established inst.i.tutions. Monasteries, churches, and schools alike suffered, and it required time to replace them. Even though they had been neglectful of their functions, inadequate in number, and unsuited to the needs of a world fast becoming modern, they had nevertheless answered partially the need of the times. In all the countries where revolts took place these inst.i.tutions suffered more or less, but in England probably most of all. The old schools which were not destroyed were transformed into Protestant schools, the grammar schools to train scholars and leaders, and the parish schools into Protestant elementary schools to teach reading and the Catechism, but the number of the latter, in all Protestant lands, was very far short of the number needed to carry out the Protestant religious theory. This, as we have seen, proposed to extend the elements of an education to large and entirely new cla.s.ses of people who never before in the history of the world had had such advantages. Out of the Protestant religious conception that all should be educated the popular elementary school of modern times has been evolved. The evolution, though, was slow, and long periods of time have been required for its accomplishment.

In place of the schools destroyed, or the teachers driven out if no destruction took place, the reformers made an earnest effort to create new schools and supply teachers. This, though, required time, especially as there was as yet in the world no body of vernacular teachers, no inst.i.tutions in which such could be trained, no theory as to education except the religious, no supply of educated men or women from which to draw, no theory of state support and control, and no source of taxation from which to derive a steady flow of funds. Throughout the long Middle Ages the Church had supplied gratuitous or nearly gratuitous instruction.

This it could do, to the limited number whom it taught, from the proceeds of its age-old endowments and educational foundations. In the process of transformation from a Catholic to a Protestant State, and especially during the more than a century of turmoil and religious strife which followed the rupture of the old relations, many of the old endowments were lost or were diverted from their original purposes. As the Protestant reformers were supported generally by the ruling princes, many of these tried to remedy the deficiency by ordering schools established. The landed n.o.bility though, unused to providing education for their villein tenants and serfs, were averse to supplying the deficiency by any form of general taxation. Nor were the rising merchant cla.s.ses in the cities any more anxious to pay taxes to provide for artisans and servants what had for ages been a gratuity or not furnished at all.

NO REAL DEMAND OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. The creation of a largely new type of schools, and in sufficient numbers to meet the needs of large cla.s.ses of people who before had never shared in the advantages of education, in consequence proved to be a work of centuries. The century of warfare which followed the reformation movement more or less exhausted all Europe, while the Thirty Years' War which formed its culmination left the German States, where the largest early educational progress had been made, a ruin. In consequence there was for long little money for school support, and religious interest and church t.i.thes had to be depended on almost entirely for the establishment and support of schools. Out of the parish s.e.xtons or clerks a supply of vernacular teachers had to be evolved, a system of school organization and supervision worked out and added to the duties of the minister, and the feeling of need for education awakened sufficiently to make people willing to support schools. In consequence what Luther and Calvin declared at the beginning of the sixteenth century to be a necessity for the State and the common right of all, it took until well into the nineteenth century actually to create and make a reality.

The great demand of the time, too, was not so much for the education of the ma.s.ses, however desirable or even necessary this might be from the standpoint of Protestant religious theory, but for the training of leaders for the new religious and social order which the Revival of Learning, the rise of modern nationalities, and the Reformation movements had brought into being. For this secondary schools for boys, largely Latin in type, were demanded rather than elementary vernacular schools for both s.e.xes. We accordingly find the great creations of the period were secondary schools.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 106. TENDENCIES IN EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN EUROPE, 1500 to 1700]

LINES OF FUTURE DEVELOPMENT ESTABLISHED. Still more, certain lines of future development now became clearly established. The drawing given here will help to make this evident. It will be seen from this that not only was the secondary school still the dominant type, though elementary schools began for the first time to be considered as important also, but that the secondary schools were wholly independent of the elementary schools which now began to be created. The elementary schools were in the vernacular and for the ma.s.ses; the secondary schools were in the Latin tongue and for the training of the scholarly leaders. Between these two schools, so different in type and in clientele, there was little in common. This difference was further emphasized with time. The elementary schools later on added subjects of use to the common people, while the secondary schools added subjects of use for scholarly preparation or for university entrance. The secondary schools also frequently provided preparatory schools for their particular cla.s.ses of children. As a result, all through Europe two school systems--an elementary-school system for the ma.s.ses, and a secondary-school system for the cla.s.ses--exist to-day side by side. We in America did not develop such a cla.s.s school system, though we started that way. This was because the conception of education we finally developed was a product of a new democratic spirit, as will be explained later on.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Compare the attention to careful religious instruction in the secondary schools provided by the Lutherans, Calvinists, and English. What a.n.a.logous instruction do we provide in the American high schools? Is it as thorough or as well done?

2. Compare the scope and ideals of the educational system provided by the Calvinists with the same for the Lutherans and Anglicans.

3. Compare the characteristics of Calvinistic (Huguenot) education, as summarized by Foster, with present-day state educational purposes.

4. Just what kind of a school system did Knox propose (1560) for Scotland?

5. Show how the educational program of the Jesuits reveals Ignatius Loyola as a man of vision.

6. Viewed from the purposes the Order had in mind, was it warranted in neglecting the education of the ma.s.ses?

7. Does the success of the Order show the importance to society of finding and educating the future leader? Can all men be trained for leaders.h.i.+p?

8. What does the statement that the Jesuits were "too practical to make many changes," but had "a keen eye for what was best" in the work of others, indicate as to the nature of school administration and educational progress?

9. Indicate the advantages which the Jesuits had in their teachers and teaching-aim over us of to-day. How could we develop an aim as clearly defined and potent as theirs? Could we select teachers with such care?

How?

10. Compare the religious and educational propaganda of the Jesuits with the recent political propaganda of the Germans.

11. What is meant by the statement that the Jesuit teaching method, like that of the modern German _Volksschule_, was a teaching and not a questioning method?

12. Compare present American standards for teacher-training for elementary and secondary teaching with those required by the Jesuits:--(_a_) as to length of preparation; (_b_) as to nature and scope of preparation.

13. How do you explain the introduction of sewing into the elementary vernacular Catholic schools for girls, so long before handiwork for boys was thought of?

14. In schools so formally organized as those of La Salle, how do you explain the great freedom allowed in questioning on arithmetic and the Catechism?

15. Why should La Salle's work have been so opposed by both Church and civil authorities? Do you consider that his Order ever made what would be called rapid progress?

16. Why must the education of leaders always precede the education of the ma.s.ses?

17. Explain how European countries came naturally to have two largely independent school systems--a secondary school for leaders and an elementary school for the ma.s.ses--whereas we have only one continuous system.

18. Explain why modern state systems of education developed first in the German States, and why England and the Catholic nations of Europe were so long in developing state school systems.

SELECTED READINGS

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

175. Woodward: Course of Study at the College of Geneva.

176. Synod of Dort: Scheme of Christian Education adopted.

177. Kilpatrick: Work of the Dutch in developing Schools.

178. Kilpatrick: Character of the Dutch Schools of 1650.

179. Statutes: The Scotch School Law of 1646.

180. Pachtler: The _Ratio Studiorum_ of the Jesuits.

181. Gerard: The Dominant Religious Purpose in the Education of French Girls.

182. La Salle: Rules for the "Brothers of the Christian Schools."

QUESTIONS ON THE READINGS

1. Was the College at Geneva (175) a true humanistic-revival school?

2. Just what did the Synod of Dort provide for (176) in the matter of schools, school supervision, and ministerial duties?

3. Compare the work of the Dutch (177) and the Lutherans (159-163) in creating schools.

4. Just what type of school is indicated by selection 178?

5. Just what did the Scotch law of 1646 provide for (179)?

6. Characterize the schools provided for by La Salle (182).

7. Compare the religious care at Port Royal (181) with that suggested by Saint Jerome (R. 45).

SUPPLEMENTARY REFERENCES

Baird, C. W. _History of the Rise of the Huguenots of France_.