A S H O R~T HISTORY OP EDUCATION BEING A REPRINT OF THE ARTICLE BY OSCAR BROWNING ON EDUCATION IN THE NINTH EDITION OF THE ENCYLOP^EDIA BRITANNICA Edited, with an Introduction, Notes and References, and some account of Comenius and his Writings, BY W . H . H A YF NASHVILLE. AUTHOR OF *" CHAPTERS ON SCHOOL SUPERVISION" ". " CONTRIIU' 1'IONS TO THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION ", ETC. SYRACUSE, N. Y. C. W. BARDEEN, PUBLISHER 1897 Copyright, 1881, by W. II. PAYNE; 1897. by C. W. BARDEEX JLAY3 PUBLISHER'S NOTE New plates being required for this little *book, it has been thought best with the approval of the au- thor to add illustrations, and accordingly thirty-six portraits and eleven other pictures have been in- serted, with a few additional notes, mostly biblio- graphical. SYRACUSE, April 16, 1897. A S HO R~T HISTORY OF EDUCATION 54 INTRODUCTION In this country the purpose of normal instruction seems to be to prepare young men and women in the shortest and most direct way for doing school-room work. The equipment needed for this work is a knowledge of subjects and an empirical knowledge of methods; and so the normal schools furnish sound academic training, and pupils are taught methods of instruction by actual practice in experi- mental schools. In all this, the mechanical, or em- pirical, element seems to be held uppermost in thought. Pupils must be trained for practical ends ; they must, so to speak, be converted into instru- ments for doing prescribed work by prescribed methods; and anything that promises to detract from their value as machines, must be studiously avoided. The artisan thus appears to be the ideal product of the normal school. I do not presume to say that this conception of the purpose of normal instruction is wrong. I claim only the right to think and to say that I hold an es- sentially different view, and that I am attempting to give professional instruction to teachers on a totally different hypothesis. I believe that the great bar to educational progress is the mechanical teaching that is so prevalent, and that is so fostered and encour- (ix) X SHORT HISTORY OF EDUCATION \ aged by normal schools. I believe that an intelli- gent scholar, furnished with a few clearly defined principles, and free to throw his own personality into his methods, is far more likely to grow into an accomplished teacher than one who goes to his work with the conviction that he must follow prescribed patterns, and has not that versatility that comes from an extension of his intellectual horizon. The value of a teacher depends upon his worth as a man, rather than upon his value as an instrument. Man becomes an instrument only by losing worth as a man. In normal instruction there is need of greater faith in the potency of ideas, and less faith in the value of drill, imitation, and routine. It is possible that in some grades of school work a purely mechanical teaching is best; that he is the best teacher who is most of an artisan, with whom teaching is most of a handicraft. But I do not be- lieve this. The rules that are best for working on wood and stone are not the best when applied to mind and character. Undoubtedly, there is a me- chanical element in the teaching art ; but this is sub- ordinate to that other element that wholly escapes mechanical measurements, because it has to do with the manifestations of free spirit. In other words, I am persuaded that a teacher is poor to the degree in which he is an artisan, and good to the degree in which he is an artist ; and that nothing is so much needed by teachers of every class as an infusion of that freedom and versatility that are possible only through an extension of the mental vision by means of a more liberal culture. INTRODUCTION XI While I may be wrong in the general hypothesis, 1 feel that I am right in the following particulars: There must be some teachers who are more than mere instruments, more than operatives, more than artisans ; there must be some who can see processes .as they are related to law, who, while obedient to law, can throw their own personality into their methods and can make such adaptations of them as varying circumstances may demand. If most teach- ers are doomed to be the slaves of routine, there must be some who have the ability to create and to control. In a word, along with the great multitude of mere teachers, there must be a growing body of educators. I cannot but think that in every normal school there are men and women who would love to walk upon these heights, to breathe this freer air, .and who would thus see in teaching a fair field for the exercise of their best gifts. The attention of such should be drawn somewhat away from the merely mechanical aspects of teaching, and fixed on those professional studies that will broaden the teacher's vision and give him the consciousness of some degree of creative power. The studies I mean .are EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE and EDUCATIONAL HIS- TORY. It has been said that a teacher who is wholly ignor- .ant of the history of education may still do excellent work in the school-room. This does not admit of the least doubt. It is also true that men attain long lives in complete ignorance of the laws of digestion, and that they become voters and office- holders while knowing nothing of their country's Xll SHORT HISTORY OF EDUCATION history; but it does not follow that physiology and history are needless studies. A fair knowledge of the history of one's own country is now thought to be an essential element in good citizenship; and I see no reason why a fair knowledge of the history of educational systems and doctrines should not form- a very desirable element in a teacher's education. He may teach well without this knowledge; but hav- ing it, he will feel an inspiring sense of the nobility of his calling, will teach more intelligently, and will give a richer quality to his work. Intelligent patri- otism is evoked by a vivid knowledge of Plymouth* Rock, of the American Revolution, and of Mount f Vernon ; and no teacher can think meanly of his- calling who has learned to trace his professional an- cestry through Plato, Comenius, Locke, Cousin, and Arnold. As exhibiting the general grounds on which the history of education should be made a topic of in- struction for at least a part of the teaching class, I> repeat some observations made on another occasion. " General history is a liberal study in the sense- that it greatly extends the horizon of our sympa- thies, widens our field of intellectual vision, and thus makes us cosmopolitan and catholic, true citi- zens of the world. Historical study has also a very great practical value. It gives us the benefit of col- lective human experience as exhibited under every variety of circumstances and conditions. It relates the origin, succession, and termination of all the marked events in human progress. It thus saves us from repeating experiments already tried, forewarns- INTRODUCTION Xlll us against dangers that ever beset the path of the inexperienced, and assures to each generation the results of the real additions made to the stock of human progress. " For the most part, the events recorded in history are the results of the unpremeditated actions of man Humanity at large seems to be impelled onward by an irresistible but unconscious impulse, just as a glacier moves over mountains and through valleys, with a silent yet irresistible might. This life of mere impulse is the lower life of nations and peoples, just as the period of impulse marks the lower and imperfect life of the individual. But in nations as well as in individuals, the period of reflection at last -comes, and this is the period when histories begin to be written and read. The effect of historical study is thus to check mere impulse, and to convert uncon- scious progress into self-conscious and reflective ^efforts towards determinate ends. " In all nations that have passed beyond the period of mere barbarism, there has been some degree of con- scious and intended effort after progress, some pre- paration for the duties of citizenship, some attempt to make the future better than the past has been. This conscious effort to place each generation on a vantage-ground, through some deliberate training or preparation, is, in its widest sense, education. " Now if history in general, as it records the uncon- scious phases of human progress, is a study of supreme value, that part of general history which records the reflective efforts of men to rise superior to their actual present, must teach lessons of even higher value. This is emphatically an educating age. The XIV SHORT HISTORY OF EDUCATION minds of the wisest and the best are intent on devis- ing means whereby progress may be hastened through the resources of human art. In the world of educa- tional thought, all is ferment and discussion. We are passing beyond the period of reckless experiment and are seeking anchorage in doctrines deduced from the permanent principles of human nature. Educa- tional Science is giving us a glimmer of light ahead, and we do well to shape our course by it. What ought to be should indeed be our pole-star; but until this has been defined with more precision, we should also shape our course by looking back on what has been. We should think of ourselves as moving through the darkness or over an unknown region, with a light before us and a light behind us. Our two inquiries should be. Whence have we come ? Whither are we going? Historical progress is tor- tuous, but its general direction is right. The history of what has been must therefore contain some elements of truth. The past at least foreshadows the future, and we may infer the direction of progress by comparing what has been with what is. In educa- tion, therefore, we need to know the past, both as a means'of taking stock of progress, and also of fore- shadowing the future. We should give a large place to the ideal elements in our courses of normal in- struction'; but we should also make a large use of the results of experience. All true progress is a transition. The past has insensibly led up to the present; let the present merge into the future. Let history foreshadow philosophy; and let philosophy introduce its corrections and ameliorations into the lessons of historv." INTRODUCTION XV An obstacle to the study of the history of educa- tion in this country, has been the lack of suitable books on this subject. In English we have only Schmidt's History of Education, and the History and Progress of Education by Philobiblius (L. P. Brock- ett). At best, these are mere outlines, and consid- ered as outlines, they are very imperfect and unsatis- factory. In seeking |or a text that I might make the basis of a short course of instruction for students in this university, I have found the article EDUCATION in the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica admirably adapted to my purpose ; and I have thought that a reprint of it, under the title of A Short History of Education might be acceptable to the general reader, to intelligent and progressive teachers, and to the members of the profession who are engaged in the education of teachers. To make this outline more useful to teachers and students, I have added a select list of educational works, and have arranged a list of more important topics suggested by this outline, with references to these authorities. By this means the course of study may be extended almost at will. It may J^ embrac^n merely this admirable outline, and thus occupy but a few days, or it may be pursued on the seminary plan, and thus indefinitely extended. I have considerably multiplied my notes and refer- ences on Comenius, in the hope of exciting an inter- est in the study of one of the greatest of the educa- tional reformers. W. H. PAYNE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, January 22, 1881. A Short History of Education This article is mainly concerned with the history of educational theories in the chief crises of their development. It has not been the object of the writer to give a history of the practical working of these theories, and still less to sketch the outlines of the science of teaching, which may be more con- veniently dealt with under another head. The earliest education is that of the family. The child must be trained not to interfere with its par- ents' convenience, and to acquire those little arts which will help in maintaining the economy of the household. It was long before any attempt was made to improve generations as they succeeded each other. The earliest schools were those of the priests. As soon as an educated priesthood had taken the place of the diviners and jugglers who abused the credulity of the earliest races, schools of the prophets became a necessity. The training required for ceremonials, the common life apart from the family, the accomp- lishments of reading and singing, afforded a nucleus for the organization of culture and an opportunity for the efforts of a philosopher in advance of his age. Convenience and gratitude confirmed the monopoly of the clergy. The schools of Judea and Egypt were ecclesiasti- l8 , . ( . ( , t .ANCIENT EDUCATION cal. The Jews had but little effect on the progress of science, but our obligations to the priests of the Nile valley are great indeed. Much of their learn- ing is obscure to us, but we have reason to conclude that there is no branch of science in which they did not progress at least so far as observation and care- ful registration of facts could carry them. They were a source of enlightenment to surrounding nations. Not only the great lawgiver of the Jews, but those who were most active in stimulating the nascent energies of Hellas were careful to train themselves in the wisdom of the Egyptians. Greece, in giving an undying name to the liter- ature of Alexander, was only repaying the debt which she had incurred centuries before. Educa- \ tion became secular in I countries where the priest- M hood did not exist as a m separate body. At Rome, until Greece took her con- queror captive, a child was ARISTOTLE, 384-332, B. c. trained for the duties of life in the forum and the senate house. The Greeks were the first to develop a science of education distinct from ecclesiastical training. They divided their subjects of study into music and gymnastics, the one comprising all mental, the other all physical training. Music was at first little more than the study of the art of expression. JUDEA, EGYPT, GREECE 19 But the range of intellectual education which had been developed by distin- guished musical teachers was further widened by the Sophists, until it received a new stimulus and direc- tion from the work of Soc- rates. Who can forget the picture left us by Plato of the Athenian palaestra, in SOCRATES, 470-399, B. c. which Socrates was sure to find his most ready listeners and his most ardent disciples ? In the intervals of running, wrestling, or the bath, the young Phaedrus or Theaetetus dis- coursed with the philosophers who had come to watch them on the good, the beautiful, and the true. The lowest efforts of their teachers were to fit them to maintain any view they might adopt with acuteness, elegance, readiness, and good taste. Their highest efforts were to stimulate a craving for the knowledge of the unknowable, to rouse a dissatisfaction with received opinions, and to excite a curiosity which grew stronger with the revelation of each successive mystery. Plato is the author of the first systematic treatise on education. He deals with the subject in his earlier dialogues, he enters into it with great fulness of detail in the Republic, and it occupies an important position in the Laws. The views thus expressed dif- fer considerably in particulars, -and it is therefore difficult to give concisely the precepts drawn up by him for our obedience. But the same spirit under 20 ANCIENT EDUCATION lies his whole teaching. He never forgets that the beautiful is undistinguishable from the true, and that the mind is best fitted to solve difficult problems which has been trained by the enthusiastic contem- plation of art. Plato proposes to intrust education to the state. He lays great stress on the influence of race and blood. Strong and worthy children are likely to spring from strong and worthy parents. Music and gymnastics are to develop the emotions of young men during their earliest years the one to strengthen their character PLATO, 429-847, B. c. for the contest of life, the other to excite in them varying feelings of resent- ment or tenderness. Reverence, the ornament of youth, is to be called forth by well-chosen fictions; a long and rigid training in science is to precede dis- cussion on more important subjects. At length the goal is reached, and the ripest wisdom is ready to be applied to the most important practice. The great work of Quintilian, although mainly a treatise on oratory, also contains incidentally a com- plete sketch of a theoretical education. His object is to show us how to form the man of practice. But what a high conception of practice is his ! He wrote for a race of rulers. He inculcates much which has been attributed to the wisdom of a later age. He urges the importance of studying individual dispo- ROME 21 sitions, and of tenderness in discipline and punish- ment. The Romans understood no systematic training except in oratory. In their eyes every citizen was a born commander, and they knew of no science of government and political economy. Cicero speaks slightingly even of jurisprudence. Any one, he says, can make himself a jurisconsult in a week, but an orator is the production of a lifetime. No statement can be less true than that a perfect orator is a perfect, man. But wisdom and philanthrophy broke even through that barrier, and the training which Quin- tilian expounds to us as intended only for the public speaker would, in the language of Milton, fit a man to perform justly, wisely, and magnanimously all the offices, both public and private, of peace and war. Such are the ideas which the old world has left us. On one side man, beautiful, active, clever, receptive, emotional, quick to feel, to show his feeling, to ar- gue, to refine; greedy of the pleasures of the world, perhaps a little neglectful of its duties, fearing re- straint as an unjust stinting of the bounty of nature, inquiring eagerly into every secret, strongly attached to the things of this life, but elevated by an unabated striving after the highest ideal ; setting no value but upon faultless abstractions, and seeing reality only in heaven, on earth mere shadows, phantoms, and copies of the unseen. On the other side, man, prac- tical, energetic, eloquent, tinged but not imbued with philosophy, trained to spare neither himself nor others, reading and thinking only with an apology ; best engaged in defending a political principle, in 22 CHRISTIAN EDUCATION - maintaining with gravity and solemnity the conser- vation of ancient freedom, in leading armies through unexplored deserts, establishing roads, fortresses, settlements, the results of conquest, or in ordering and superintending the slow, certain, and utter anni- hilation of some enemy of Rome. Has the modern world ever surpassed their type? Can we in the present day produce anything by education except by combining, blending, and modifying the self- culture of the Greek or the self-sacrifice of the Roman ? The literary education of the earliest generation of Christians was obtained in the pagan schools, in those great imperial academies which existed even down to the fifth century, which flourished in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and attained perhaps their highest development and efficiency in Gaul. The first attempt to provide a special education for Christians was made at Alexandria, and is illustrated by the names of Clement and Origen. The later Latin fathers took a bolder stand, and rejected the suspicious aid of heathenism. Tertullian, Cyprian, and Jerome wished the antagonism between Christi- anity and Paganism to be recognized from the earli- est years, and even Augustine condemned with harshness the culture to which he owed so much of his influence. The education of the Middle Ages was either that of the cloister or the castle. They stood in sharp contrast to each other. The object of the one was to form the young monk, of the other the young knight. We should indeed be ungrateful if we for- THE MIDDLE AGES 23 got the services of those illustrious monasteries, Monte Cassino, Fulda, or Tours, which kept alive the torch of learning throughout the dark ages, but it would be equally mistaken to attach an exagger- ated importance to the teachings which they pro- vided. Long hours were spent in the duties of the church and in learning to take a part in elaborate and useless ceremonies. A most important part of the monastery was the writing-room, where missals, psalters, and breviaries were copied and illuminated, and too often a masterpiece of classic literature was effaced to make room for a treatise of one of the fathers or the sermon of an abbot. The discipline was hard ; the rod ruled all with indiscriminating and impartial severity. How many generations have had to suffer for the floggings of those times ! Hatred of learning, antagonism between the teacher and the taught, the belief that no training can be effectual which is not repulsive and distaste- ful, that no subject is proper for instruction which is acquired with ease and pleasure all these idols of false education have their root and origin in monk- ish cruelty. The joy of human life would have been in danger of being stamped out if it had not been for the warmth and color of a young knight's boy- hood. He was equally well broken in to obedience and hardship; but the obedience was the willing ser- vice of a mistress whom he loved, and the hardship the permission to share the dangers of a leader whom he emulated. The seven arts of monkish training were Gram- mar, Dialectics, Rhetoric, Music, Arithmetic, Geom- 24 THE MIDDLE AGES etry, Astronomy, which together formed the trivium and quadrivium, the seven years' course, the divisions of which have profoundly affected our modern training. One of the earliest treatises based on this method was that of Martianus Capella, who in 470 published his Satyra, in nine books. The first two were devoted to the marriage between Philology and Mercury ; the last seven were each devoted to the consideration of one of these liberal arts. Cassiodorus, who wrote De Septcm Disciplinis about 500, was also largely used as a text-book in the schools. Astronomy was taught by the Cisio-Janus, a collection of doggrel hexameters like the Propria qua maribus, which con- tained the chief festivals in each month, with a memoria technica for recollecting when they occurred. The seven knightly accomplishments, as historians tell us, were to ride, to swim, to shoot with the bow, to box, to hawk, to play chess, and to make verses. The verses thus made were not in Latin, bald imita- tions of Ovid or Horace, whose pagan beauties were wrested into the service of religion, but sonnets, ballads, and canzonets in soft Proven9al or melodious Italian. In nothing, perhaps, is the difference between these two forms of education more clearly shown than in their relations to women. A young monk was brought up to regard a woman as the worst among the many temptations of St. Anthony. His life knew no domestic tenderness or affection. He was sur- rounded and cared for by celibates, to be himself a celibate. A page was trained to receive his best reward and worst punishment from the smile or CONTRAST BETWEEN MONKS AND KNIGHTS 25 frown of the lady of the castle, and as he grew to manhood to cherish an absorbing passion as the strongest stimulus to a noble life, and the contem- plation of female virtue, as embodied in an Isolde or a Beatrice, as the truest earnest of future immor- tality. Both these forms of education disappeared before the Renaissance and the Reformation. But we must not suppose that no efforts were made to improve upon the narrowness of the schoolmen or the idle- ness of chivalry. The schools of Charles the Great have lately been investigated by Mr. Mullinger, but we do not find that they materially advanced the science of education. Vincent of Beauvais has left us a very complete treatise on education, written about the year 1245. He was the friend and coun- sellor of St. Louis, and we may discern his influence in the instructions which were left by that sainted kingfor theguidanceof his son and daughter through life. The end of this period was marked by the rise of universities. Bologna devoted itself to law, and num- bered 12,000 students at the end of the i2th century. Salerno adopted as its special province the study of medicine, and Paris was thronged with students from all parts of Europe, who were anxious to devote themselves to a theology which passed by indefinite gradations into philosophy. The i4th and i5th cen- turies witnessed the rise of universities and acade- mies in almost every portion of Europe. Perhaps the most interesting among these precur- sors of a higher culture were the Brethren of the Common Life, who were domiciled in the rich 26 THE MIDDLE AGES meadows of the Yssel, in the Northern Netherlands. The metropolis of their organization was Deventer, the best known name among them that of Gerhard Groote. They devoted themselves with all humility and self-sacrifice to the education of children. Their schools were crowded. Bois-le-Duc numbered 1200 pupils, Zwolle 1500. For a hundred years no part of Europe shone with a brighter lustre. As the divine comedy of Dante represents for us the learning and piety of the Middle Ages in Italy, so the Imitation of Thomas a Kempis keeps alive for us the memory of the purity and sweetness of the Dutch community. But they had not sufficient strength to preserve their supremacy among the necessary developments of the age. They could not support the glare of the new Italian learning; they obtained, and it may be feared deserved, the title of obscurantists. The Epistolce Obscurorum Vir- orum, the wittiest squib of the Middle Ages, which was so true and so subtle in its satire that it was hailed as a blow struck in defence of the ancient learning, consists in great part of the lamentations of the brethren of Deventer over the new age, which they could not either comprehend or withstand. The education of the Renaissance is best repre- sented by the name of Erasmus, that of the Reforma- tion by the names of Luther and Melanchthon. We have no space to give an account of that marvellous resurrection of the mind and spirit of Europe when touched by the dead hand of an extinct civilization. The history of the revival of letters belongs rather to the general history of literature than to that of education. But there are two names whom we ought not to pass over. THE RENAISSANCE 27 Vittorino da Feltre was summoned by the Gon- zagas to Mantua in 1424 ; he was lodged in a spacious palace, with galleries, halls, and colonnades decorated with frescoes of playing children. In person he was small, quick, and lively a born schoolmaster, whose whole time was spent in devotion to his pupils. We are told of the children of his patron, how Prince Gonzaga recited 200 verses of his own composition at the age of fourteen, and how Prince Cecilia wrote elegant Greek at the age of ten. Vittorino died in 1477. He seems to have reached the highest point of excellence as a practical schoolmaster of the Italian Renaissance. Castiglione, on the other hand has left us in his Cortigiano the sketch of a cultivated nobleman in those most cultivated days. He shows by what pre- cepts and practice the golden youths of Verona and Venice were formed, who live for us in the plays of Shakespeare as models of knightly excellence. For our instruction, it is better to have recourse to the pages of Erasmus. He has written the most minute account of his method of teaching. The i child is to be formed into a good Greek and Latin scholar and a pious man. He fully grasps the truth that improvement must be natural and gradual. Let- ERASMUS, 1467-1536 ters are to be taught play- ing. The rules of grammar are ^to be few and 28 THE REFORMATION short. Every means of arousing interest in the work is to be fully employed. Erasmus is no Ciceronian. Latin is to be taught so as to be of use a living language adapted to modern wants. Children should learn an art painting, sculpture, or architecture. Idleness is above all things to be avoided. The education of girls is as necessary and important as that of boys. Much depends upon home influence; obedience must be strict, but not too severe. We must take account of individual peculiarities, and not force children into cloisters against their will. We shall obtain the best result by following nature. It is easy to see what a contrast this scheme pre- sented to the monkish training, to the routine of useless technicalities enforced amidst the shouts of teachers and the lamentations of the taught. Still this culture was but for the few. Luther brought the schoolmaster into the cottage, and laid the foundations of the system which is the chief honor and strength of modern Ger- I many, a system by which the child of the humblest peasant, by slow but certain gradations, receives the best education which the country MARTIN LUTHER, 1483-1546 can a ff orc ]. The precepts of Luther found their way into the hearts of his countrymen in short, pithy sentences, like the say- ings of Poor Richard. The purification and widen- ERASMUS, LUTHER, MELANCHTHON 2 9 PHILIPP MELANCHTHON, 1497-1560 ing of education went hand in hand with the puri- fication of religion, and these claims to affection are indissolubly united in the minds of his countrymen. Melanchthon, from his editions of school books - and his practical labors in education, earned the title of Praeceptor Germanae. Aristotle had been de- throned from his pre-emin- ence in the schools, and Melanchthon attempted to supply his place. He ap- preciated the importance of Greek, the terror of the ob- scurantists, and is the au- thor of a Greek grammar. He wrote elementary books on each department of the trivium grammar, dialect, and rhetoric. He made some way with the studies of the quadrivium, and wrote Inittd doctrines Physiccz, a primer of physi- cal science. He lectured at the university of Witten- berg, and for ten years, from 1519 to 1529, kept a schola privata in his own house. Horace was his favorite classic. His pupils were taught to learn the whole of it by heart, ten lines at a time. The tender refined lines of his well-known portraits show clearly the character of the painful, accurate scholar, and contrast with the burly power- ful form of the genial Luther He died in 1560, racked with anxiety for the church which he had helped to found. If he did not carry Protestantism 30 JOHN STURM into the heart of the peasant, he at least made it acceptable to the intellect of the man of letters. We now come to the names of three theoretical and practical teachers who have exercised and are still exercising a profound effect over education. The so-called Latin school, the parent of the gymnasium and the lycee, had spread all over Europe, and was especially flourishing in Germany. The pro- grammes and time tables in use in these establish- ments have come down to us, and we possess notices of the lives and labors of many of the earliest teach- ers. It is not difficult to trace a picture of the edu- cation which the Reformation offered to the middle classes of Europe. Ample material exists in Ger- man histories of education. We must confine our- selves to those moments which were of vital influence in the development of the science. One school stands pre-eminently before the rest, situated in that border city on the debatable land between France and Germany, which has known how to combine and recon- cile the peculiarities of French and German cul- ture. Strasburg, besides a , school of theology which I unites the depth of Ger- many to the clearness and vivacity of France, educated the gilded youth of the i6th century under Sturm, as it JOHN STURM, 1507-1589 trained the statesmen and dipliomatists of the i8th under Koch. John Sturm ROGER ASCHAM AND LADY JANE GREY 32 JOHN STURM of Strasburg was the friend of Ascham, the author of the Scholemaster, and the tutor of Queen Elizabeth. It was Ascham who found Lady Jane Grey alone in her room at Bradgate bending her neck over the page of Plato when all the rest of her family were follow- ing the chase. Sturm was the first great head-master, the pro- genitor of Busbys if not of Arnolds. He lived and worked till the age of \ eighty-two. He was a friend of all the most distinguished IJ men of his age, the chosen representative of the Prot- estant cause in Europe, the ambassador to foreign THOMAS ARNOLD, 1795-1842 powers. He was believed to be better informed than any man of his time of the complications of foreign politics. Rarely did an envoy pass from France to Germany without turning aside to profit by his experience. But the chief energies of his life were devoted to teaching. He drew his scholars from the whole of Europe; Portugal, Poland, England sent their con- tingent to his halls. In 1578, his school numbered several thousand students; he supplied at once the place of the cloister and the castle. What he most insisted upon was the teaching of Latin, not the conversational lingua franca of Erasmus, but pure, elegant Ciceronian Latinity. He may be called the introducer of scholarship into the schools, a scholar- ship which as yet took little account of Greek. His JOHN STURM 33 pupils would write elegant letters, deliver elegant Latin speeches, be familiar, if not with the thoughts, at least with the language of the ancients, would be scholars in order that they might be gentlemen. Our space will not permit us to trace the whole course of his influence, but he is in all probability as much answerable as any one for the euphuistic refinement which overspread Europe in the i6th century, and which went far to ruin and corrupt its literatures. Nowhere perhaps had he more effect than in England. Our older public schools, on breaking with the ancient faith, looked to Sturm as their model of Protestant education. His name and example became familiar to us by the exertions of his friend Ascham. Westminster, under the long reign of Busby, received a form which was gener- ally accepted as the type of a gentleman's education. The Public School Commission of 1862 found that the lines laid down by the great citizen of Stras- burg, and copied by his admirers, had remained unchanged until within the memory of the present generation. Wolfgang Ratke or Ratichius was born in Hoi- stein in 1571. He anticipated some of the best im- provements in the method of teaching which have been made in modern times. He was like many of those who have tried to improve existing methods in advance of his age, and he was rewarded for his labors at Augsburg, Weimar, and Kothen by perse- cution and imprisonment. ' Can we wonder that education has improved so slowly when so much pains has been taken to silence and extinguish those who have devoted themselves to its improvement? 34 WOLFGANG RATKE His chief rules were as follows : 1. Begin everything with prayer. 2. Do everything in order, following the course of nature. 3. One thing at a time. 4. Often repeat the same thing. 5. Teach everything first in the mother tongue. 6. Proceed from the mother tongue to other lan- guages. 7. Teach without compulsion. Do not beat chil- dren to make them learn. Pupils must love their masters, not hate them. Nothing should be learnt by heart. Sufficient time should be given to play and recreation. Learn one thing before going on to another. Do not teach for two hours consecutively. 8. Uniformity in teaching, also in school-books, especially grammars, which may with advantage be made comparative. 9. Teach a thing first, and then the reason of it. Give no rules before you have given the examples. Teach no language out of the grammar, but out of authors. 10. Let everything be taught by induction and experiment. Most of these precepts are accepted by all good teachers in the present day; all of them are full of wisdom. Unfortunately their author saw the faults of the teaching of his time more clearly than the means to remove them, and he was more successful in forming precepts than in carrying them out. Notwithstanding these drawbacks, he deserves an honorable place among the forerunners of a rational education. JOHN AMOS COMENIUS 35 John Amos Comenius was the antithesis to Sturm r and a greater man than Ratke. Born a Moravian^ he passed a wandering life, among the troubles of the I Thirty Years' War, in pov- erty and obscurity. But his ideas were accepted by the most advanced thinkers of the age, notably in many respects by our own Mil- JOHN AMOS COMENIUS, 1592-1671 ton> and by Qxenstiern, the chancellor of Sweden. His school books were spread throughout Europe. The J^anua Linguarum Reser- vata was translated into twelve European and several Asiatic languages. His works, especially the Dida- scalia magna, an encyclopaedia of the science of education, are constantly reprinted at the present day ; and the system which he sketched will be found to foreshadow the education of the future. He was repelled and disgusted by the long delays and pedantries of the schools. His ardent mind conceived that if teachers would but follow nature instead of forcing it against its bent, take full advan- tage of the innate desire for activity and growth, all men might be able to learn all things. Languages should be taught as the mother tongue is taught, by conversations on ordinary topics; pictures, object lessons should be freely used; teaching should go hand in hand with, a cheerful elegant, and happy life. Comenius included in his course the teaching of the mother tongue, singing, economy, and politics, the history of the world, physical geography, and a knowledge of arts and handicrafts. f A N U A LINGUA RUM RESERATA: S I VE, Omnium Scientiarum Si Linguarum SEMINARIUM: ID EST, Cosipendiofa Latinam 8c Anglicam 3 aliafque Linguas & Artiom euam fund Amenta addifcendi me- tbodu ; una cum ]anu2C Lacinuatis Veiiihulo. Antore Cl. Vitro J. A. C o M N I o. The GATE of LANGUAGES- UNLOCKED: Or 3 a SEED-PLOT of all Arts and Tongues 5 containing 2 ready way to learn the Latine and Englifh Tongue. Formerly tranflated by T H o. HORN: afterwards much correSed and amended by } o H. P\ o B o T H A M : now carefully reviewecf hv W. D. to which is prcmifcda PORTAL. As alfo 5 there is now newly added the Foundation to the Janu& 9 containing all or the chiefe Primitives of the Latine Tongue,drawn into Sentences, in an Alphabe- ts tirall order hyG.F. W , Printed by Edw.Grifjin y and Wil. Hunt, for ?hom& Slater, and art ro bs fold by the Company of Stationers, I 6 $ The Portal to fenfus,fcx profefti dies- Septem petitionesin Oratione Dominica* Qfto dies /unt feprimana. Ter tria funt norem* Deccm precepta Dei. Undecim Apoftoli, dempto Judi. Diiodecim fidci ardculi. Triginw dies funt mcnfis. Centum anni funt fcculum. Ssranas eft milk fraud-am ar- tifex. CAP. 4. Hereto* in fchol* SCholafticus freqentat fcholam. Qu6 in artibus erudiatur. Initiumeftiliteris- E fyllabis voces componuntur E diftionibus ferrno: Ex libro legimus tacit^. Aucrecitamus clare^ Involvjmus cum nnembrana Et ponimus in pulpito. Atramentum eft in atramenra rio,in quo tingimus calamum Scribimus co in charta, in utraque pagina. Si perperam, delcmus. EC fignamus denuo rcdc 5 vel in margins. Dpdor doccr Difcipulus dlfcic non c^inia fimul, fed per parces. Praeccptor prxcipic facicnda; R fftor wgu Acidcmtam r Four Ev&;geliftt 9 five ftnfetf fix " Seven petition* In Thnce th> (tare nine. Ten Commirndtmtmi ofGtct, f. , /i/ t i J L crasa ctpted. Supper rmh* Artistes of the Faith, divide* Thin? d&jes *n a mneth. 4 hundred ye&s are &n. >* Set&n it, the fo>'g$r of at' deceits. GHAP. 4. Of things in a fchool* A Scholty frcquentttb the ** fchoote. That he m*\kt infbu&dm tbt Arts. wds are compefed of bUMet. we regdflentfy out of A 0.' recite it