The History of Education Part 91

[1] Much as universities have contributed to intellectual progress, hostility to new types of thinking and to new subjects of study has been, through all time, a characteristic of many of their members, and often it has required much pressure from progressive forces on the outside to overcome their opposition to new lines of scholars.h.i.+p and public service.

[2] For a list of these treatises, see Monroe's _Cyclopedia of Education_, vol. v, p. 154.

[3] The distinguished author, Montaigne, was mayor in 1580.

[4] This order had begun as an inst.i.tution for the instruction of the poor, emphasizing the use of the Bible and the vernacular, but when the new learning came in from Italy, cla.s.sical learning was added and the instruction of the brotherhood became largely humanistic.

[5] The influence of the old Greek cla.s.sical terms in this connection is interesting, and is another evidence of the permanence of Greek ideas.

Sturm here adopted the Italian nomenclature, Vittorino da Feltre having called his school a _Gymnasium Palatinum_, or Palace School. Guarino wrote of _gymnasia Italorum_. Both derived the term from the _Gymnasia_ of ancient Greece, just as the academies of the Italian cities took their name from the _Academy_ of Plato at Athens (p. 44). Another famous Greek school was the _Lyceum_, founded by Aristotle (p. 44). All these names came in during the Revival of Learning in Italy, and were applied to the new cla.s.sical schools at a time when every term, and even the names of men, were given cla.s.sical form. As a result the Italian secondary schools of to-day are known as _ginnasio_, and the German cla.s.sical secondary schools as _gymnasia_. The French took their term from the _Lyceum_, hence the French _lycees_. The English named their cla.s.sical schools after the chief subject of study, hence the English _grammar schools_. In 1638 Milton visited Italy, and was much entertained in Florence by members of the academy and university there. In 1644 he published his _Tractate on Education_, in which he outlined his plan for a series of cla.s.sical _academies_ for England. Milton was a church reformer, as were the Puritans, and the Puritans, in settling America, brought over first the term _grammar school_, and later the term _academy_ to England.

[6] Melanchthon, in his famous Saxony plan of 1528, had provided for but three cla.s.ses (R. 161). The cla.s.s-for-each-year idea was new in German lands.

[7] This became a fixed practice, Latin being the one language of the school. A century later, when it was attempted by the Jansenists, in France, to teach Greek directly through the vernacular, the practice was loudly condemned by the Jesuits as impious, because it broke the connection between France and Rome.

[8] His phrase book, _De Copia Verborum et Rerum_, went through sixty editions in his lifetime, and was popular for a century after his death.

His book of proverbs, the _Adagia_, was in both Latin and Greek, and was widely used. His Book of Sayings from the Ancients (_Apophthegmata_) was a collection of little stories, much like some of our best modern books for elementary-school use. His _Colloquies_, or Latin dialogues, were widely used for two centuries in Protestant countries. These four were written between 1511 and 1519, and largely for use in Saint Paul's School. His Latin edition of Theodorus Gaza's Greek Grammar (1516) gave English schools for the first time a standard text.

[9] They were _On the First Liberal Education of Children_ (1529), and _On the Order of Study_ (1511).

[10] His _Praise of Folly_ (1509), and his _Ciceronian_ (1528).

[11] The introduction of the new learning into the English universities was easier than elsewhere, because the English universities had broken up into groups of residence halls, known as _colleges_. If the old colleges could not be reformed new ones could be created, and this took place.

Trinity College, at Cambridge, founded in 1540, was from the first a center of humanistic studies. That same year the King founded royal professors.h.i.+ps of Civil Law, Hebrew, and Greek at Cambridge.

[12] Elizabeth had had for her tutor Roger Ascham, author of _The Scholemaster_, and a teacher of Greek at Cambridge (R. 139).

[13] For generations this famous grammar was to England what Donatus was to mediaeval Europe. It was also used in the grammar schools of New England. Lily visited Jerusalem and studied under the best Latin teachers in Rome, so that he ranks with Linacre, Grocyn, and Colet as an introducer of cla.s.sical culture into England.

[14] Winchester was the first of the so-called "great public schools" of England, of which Eton, Saint Paul's, Westminster, Harrow, Charterhouse, Rugby, Shrewsbury, and Merchant Taylors' are the other eight. The foundation statutes of Winchester made elaborate provision for "a Warden, a Head Master, ten Fellows, three Chaplains, an Usher, seventy scholars, three Chapel Clerks, sixteen Choristers, and a large staff of servants,"

as did Henry VIII later on for Canterbury (R. l72 a). The Warden and Fellows were the trustees. In addition to the seventy scholars (Foundationers) other non-foundationers (Commoners) were to be admitted to instruction. The admission requirements were to be "reading, plain song, and Old Donatus," and the school was to teach Grammar, the first of the Liberal Arts. Except for the change in the nature of the instruction when the new learning came in, this and the other "public schools" remained almost unchanged until the second half of the nineteenth century.

[15] Statutes for this school had provided the following entrance regulations: "But first see that they can the Catechisme in English or Latyn, that every one of the said two hundred & fifty schollers can read perfectly & write competently, or els lett them not be admitted in no wise."

[16] His _The Positions_ (1581), and _The Elementarie_ (1582). See Chapter XVIII.

[17] Solomon Lowe, in his Grammar, published in 1726, gives a bibliography of 128 _Phrase Books_ which had appeared by that time. The following selection from the _Colloquies_ of Corderius (R. 136) ill.u.s.trates their nature:

Col. 7. Clericus Col. 7. Clericus, The Master. Magister.

C. Master, may not I and my uncle's Licetne, Magister, ut ego & son go home? patruelis eamus domom?

M. To what end? Quid eo?

C. To my sister's daughter's wedding. Ad nuptias consobrinae.

M. When is she to be married? Quando est nuptura?

C. To-morrow. Crastino die.

M. Why will you go so quickly? Cur tam cit vultis ire?

C. To CHANGE OUR CLOATHS. _Ut mutemus vestimenta_.

[18] Sturm, Trotzendorf, and Neander insisted on the use of Latin in all conversation in the school, and the Jesuits later on subjected boys to a whipping if reported as having used the vernacular.

[19] Leach, A. F., _English Schools at the Reformation_, p. 105.

CHAPTER XII

[1] Up to this time the only Latin Bible had been the _Vulgate_ (p. 131), translated by Jerome in the fourth century. Erasmus went back to and edited the original Greek ma.n.u.scripts, and then prepared a new parallel Latin translation, the two being printed side by side. He also added many explanations of his own which mercilessly exposed the mistakes of the theologians and the Church, and pointed out the errors in translation which were embodied in the _Vulgate_. This work pa.s.sed through numerous editions and sold in thousands of copies all over Europe.

So dangerous was this comparative method that "Greek was judged a heretical tongue. No one should lecture on the New Testament, it was declared, without a previous theological examination. It was held to be heresy to say that the Greek or Hebrew text read thus, or that a knowledge of the original language is necessary to interpret the Scriptures correctly."

[2] This was accomplished between 1382 and 1384. Wycliffe translated only a part of the Old Testament, and the Gospels of Saint Matthew and Saint Mark of the New. The remainder was done under his direction by others. The translation was from the Latin _Vulgate_, and was crude and imperfect. The large number of copies of parts of this translation which have survived, in ma.n.u.script form, to the present time show that it must have awakened much interest, and been widely copied and recopied during the century before the invention of printing.

[3] The heretic, it should be remembered, was the anarchist of the Middle Ages. The Church regarded heresy as a crime, worthy of the most severe punishments. The Church and the civil governments proceeded against the heretic as against an enemy of society and order. Heretics could not give evidence in a civil court, were prohibited from marrying or from giving a son or daughter in marriage, and even to speak with a heretic was an offense. Even torture and death were regarded as justified to stamp out heresy.

[4] "What would have been the result had the Council of Constance succeeded where it failed? It seems certain that one result would have been the formation of a government for the Church like that which was taking shape at the same time in England--a limited monarchy with a legislature gradually gaining more and more the real control of affairs.

It seems almost equally certain that with this the churches of each nationality would have gained a large degree of local independence, and the general government of the Church have a.s.sumed by degrees the character of a great federal and const.i.tutional State. If this had been the case, it is hard to see why all the results which were accomplished by the reformation of Luther might not have been attained as completely without the violent disruption of the Church." (Adams, G. B., _Civilisation during the Middle Ages_, p. 403.)

[5] In 1302 the first "Estates-General" of France supported the King, and denied the right of the Pope to any supremacy over the State in France. In England, about the same time, the right of the Pope to levy taxation on the English was disputed by King and Parliament. In 1446 William III of Saxony limited the powers of ecclesiastical courts, and forbade appeals from Saxon decisions to any foreign court.

[6] The London _Academy_, 1893, p. 197, published evidence to show that there was a widespread demand among the bishops of Spain for church reformation, during the fifteenth century, and along the same lines that Luther advocated later.

[7] "But all these attempts at reformation in the Church, large and small, had failed, as had those of the early fifteenth century to reform its government, leaving the Church as thoroughly mediaeval in doctrine and in practical religion as it was in polity. It was the one power, therefore, belonging to the Middle Ages which still stood unaffected by the new forces and opposed to them. In other directions the changes had been many; here nothing had been changed. And its resisting power was very great.

Endowed with large wealth, strong in numbers in every State, with no lack of able and thoroughly trained minds, its interests, as it regarded them, in maintaining the old were enormous, and its power of defending itself seemed scarcely to be broken....

"The Church had remained unaffected by the new forces which had transformed everything else. It was still thoroughly mediaeval. In government, in doctrine, and in life it still placed the greatest emphasis upon those additions which the peculiar conditions of the Middle Ages had built upon the foundations of the primitive Christianity, and it was determined to remain unchanged." (Adams, G. B., _Civilization during the Middle Ages_, pp. 406, 412.)

[8] Every reform movement produces two kinds of reformers, each seeking the same ultimate goal, but differing materially as to methods of work. In the religious conflict these two types are well represented by Erasmus and Luther. Erasmus was as deeply interested in religious reform as Luther and devoted the energies of a lifetime to trying to secure reform, but he believed that reformation should come from within, and that the way to obtain it was to remain within the old organization and work to reform it.

Luther represented the other type, the type which feels that things are too bad for mere reform to be effective, and that what is wanted is rebellion against the old. The two types seldom agree as to means, and usually part company. One is content to be known as a conservative or a conformer; the other delights in being cla.s.sed as a progressive or even as a radical.

[9] "The early Protestant theory was that an individual's Christian religious life, convictions, and salvation were to be worked out through a direct study of the Scriptures, acceptance of the obvious teachings of Christ as there presented, and direct appeal to G.o.d through prayer for help in leading a Christian life. The Catholic position, on the other hand, came to be that the individual's religious life was to be achieved through the intervention of the Church, which claimed on historical grounds to have been founded by Christ, and to be his official representative and mediator in the world. It was through the teachings of this Church that the individual was to receive his ideas of the Christian religion, to be stimulated to believe these, to be kept in the path of righteousness, and to obtain salvation." (Parker, S. C., _History of Modern Elementary Education_, p. 35.)

[10] Adams, G. B., _Civilization during the Middle Ages_, p. 413.

[11] A good ill.u.s.tration of the way parts of Germany and German Switzerland were divided by religious differences is to be found in the Canton of Appenzell, in northeastern Switzerland. As each small governmental division had to follow the religion of the ruling prince in Germany, so in Switzerland the cantons divided on religious lines. To compromise matters in Appenzell the canton was divided into two half cantons, following the religious wars of 1597--Inner Rhoden, of sixty- three square miles, exclusively Roman Catholic, and Outer Rhoden, of ninety-six square miles, entirely under the Swiss Reformed Church.

[12] Calvinism is also a product of the northern humanism, Calvin's difficulties with the Church arising out of his study of the Greek texts.

Calvin had received an excellent theological and legal education, and used the knowledge and training derived from both to help him formulate a comprehensive system of belief.

[13] Like the famous _Sentences_ of Peter Lombard (p. 171), it formed a splendid textbook of the new faith. Calvin based his work on the infallibility of the Bible, as against that of the Church and Pope, and presented, in a remarkably clear and logical manner, the principles of Calvinistic doctrine. Before 1630, as many as seventy-four full editions and fourteen partial editions of the _Inst.i.tutes_ had been printed, and in nine different languages.

[14] This went through seventy-seven editions (fourteen in English) before 1630, and in nearly all the languages of Europe, and was one of four Catechisms, one of which was required of all Oxford undergraduates in 1578. It was adopted by the Scotch, Huguenot, French-Swiss, and Walloon (Dutch) churches, and was widely used in Holland, England, and America.

(See "Calvin and Calvinism," in Monroe's _Cyclopedia of Education_, vol.

I.)

[15] By 1560 the Calvinists had two thousand houses for religious wors.h.i.+p in France, and demanded religious freedom. In 1562 the persecutions began in earnest, and for the next thirty-six years religious warfare ruled in France. In 1598 the Edict of Nantes established religious freedom, though this was revoked in 1685.

[16] Even the celebrated Peace of Augsburg (1555) which left to each German prince and each town and knight the liberty to choose between the beliefs of the Roman Church and the Lutheran, provided only for religious freedom for the rulers, and only one alternative. Calvinists, for example, hated equally by Catholic and Lutheran, were not included. So deeply was the idea of Church and State as inseparable embedded in the minds of men that no provision was made for the religious freedom of subjects. This was a much later evolution, coming first in America.

[17] In the proposals for the League of Nations Covenant, made at the conclusion of the World War, in 1919, religious freedom for all persons in any State in the League was finally decided to be a necessary principle for any world league.

[18] Paulsen, Fr., _German Education, Past and Present_, pp. 96-97.