The History of Education

ULTIMATE CONSEQUENCES OF THE BREAK WITH AUTHORITY. That the Protestant Revolts in the different lands produced large immediate and permanent changes in the character of the education provided in the revolting States is no longer accepted as being the case. In every phase of educational history growth has proceeded by evolution rather than by revolution, and this applies to the Protestant Revolts as well as to other revolutions.

Many changes naturally resulted at once, some of which were good and some of which were not, while others which were enthusiastically attempted failed of results because they involved too great advances for the time.

Much, too, of the progress that was inaugurated was lost in the more than a century of religious strife which followed, and the additional century and more of suspicion, hatred, religious formalism, and strict religious conformity which followed the period of religious strife. The educational significance of the reformation movement, though, lies in the far-reaching nature of its larger results and ultimate consequences rather than in its immediate accomplishments, and because of this the importance of the immediate changes effected have been overestimated by Protestants and underestimated by Catholics.

The dominant idea underlying Luther's break with authority, and for that matter the revolts of Wycliffe, Huss, Zwingli, and Calvin as well, was that of subst.i.tuting the authority of the Bible in religious matters for the authority of the Church; of subst.i.tuting individual judgment in the interpretation of the Scriptures and in formulating decisions as to Christian duty for the collective judgment of the Church; and of subst.i.tuting individual responsibility for salvation, in Luther's conception of justification through personal faith and prayer, for the collective responsibility for salvation of the Church. [1] Whether one believes that the Protestant position was sound or not depends almost entirely upon one's religious training and beliefs, and need not concern us here, as it makes no difference with the course of history. We can believe either way, and the course that history took remains the same. The educational consequences of the position taken by the Protestants, though, are important.

Under the older theory of collective judgment and collective responsibility for salvation--that is, the judgment of the Church rather than that of individuals--it was not important that more than a few be educated. Under the new theory of individual judgment and individual responsibility promulgated by the Protestants it became very important, in theory at least, that every one should be able to read the word of G.o.d, partic.i.p.ate intelligently in the church services, and shape his life as he understood was in accordance with the commandments of the Heavenly Father.

This undoubtedly called for the education of all. Still more, from individual partic.i.p.ation in the services of the Church, with freedom of judgment and personal responsibility in religious matters, to individual partic.i.p.ation in and responsibility for the conduct of government was not a long step, and the rise of democratic governments and the provision of universal education were the natural and ultimate corollaries, though not immediately attained of the Protestant position regarding the interpretation of the Scriptures and the place and authority of the Church. This was soon seen and acted upon. The great struggle of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in consequence, became one for religious freedom and toleration; the great struggle of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has been for political freedom and political rights; to supply universal education has been left to the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries.

SCHOOLS AND LEARNING BEFORE THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. After the rise of the universities, as we have seen, many Latin secondary schools were founded in western Europe, and a more extensive development of the cathedral and other larger church schools took place. Rashdall (R. 154) thinks that by 1400 the opportunity to attend a Latin grammar school was rather common, an opinion in which Leach and Nohle concur. After the humanistic learning had spread to northern lands these opportunities were increased and improved. In England, for example, some two hundred and fifty Latin grammar schools are known to have been in existence by 1500. In Germany, as we have seen (chapter xi), many such schools were founded before the time of Luther. These offered a form of advanced education, in the language of the educated cla.s.ses of the time, for those intending to go to the universities to prepare for service in either Church or State, and for teaching. The Church had also for long maintained or exercised control over a number of types of more elementary schools--parish, song, chantry, hospital (chapter VII)--the chief purpose of which was to prepare for certain phases of the church service, or to enter the secondary schools.

These schools, too, were taught partly or wholly in Latin. In consequence, while Latin schools came to be rather widely diffused, schools in the vernacular hardly existed outside of a few of the larger commercial cities of the north. Even the burgh and guild schools (p. 205), established in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, were essentially Latin schools.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 6. EDUCATIONAL LEADERS IN PROTESTANT GERMANY (From a painting dated 1543, by Lucas Cranach, a German contemporary of both men, and now in the Uffizi Gallery, at Florence)

MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546) Professor of Theology at Wittenberg

PHILIPP MELANCHTHON (1497-1560) Professor of Greek at Wittenberg]

In the commercial cities of the North, however, though often only after quite a struggle with the local church authorities, which throughout the Middle Ages had maintained a monopoly of all instruction as a protection to orthodoxy, different types of elementary vernacular schools had been developed to meet local commercial needs, such as writing-schools to train writers, [2] and reckoning-schools to train young men to handle accounts.

[3] Reading, manners, and religion were also taught in these schools.

Other city schools, largely Latin in type, but containing some vernacular instruction to meet local business needs not met by the cathedral or parish schools of the city, were also developed. Up to the time of the Protestant Revolts, however, there was almost no instruction in the vernacular outside of the commercial cities, nor was there any particular demand for such instruction elsewhere. If one wished to be a scholar, a statesman, a diplomat, a teacher, a churchman, or to join a religious brotherhood, he needed to study the learned language of the time,--Latin.

With this he could be at home with people of his kind anywhere in western Europe. The vernacular he could leave to tradesmen, craftsmen, soldiers, laborers, and the servant cla.s.ses.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 92. TWO EARLY VERNACULAR SCHOOLS GERMAN (From a woodcut, printed at Nuremberg, 1505) FRENCH (After a drawing by Soquand, 1528)]

These people, on the other hand, had practically no need for a written language, aside from a very small amount for business needs. Even here the sign of the cross would do. There were but few books written in the vernacular tongues, and these had to be copied by hand and, in consequence, were scarce and expensive. There were no newspapers (first newspaper, Venice, 1563) or magazines. Spectacles for reading were not known until the end of the thirteenth century, and were not common for two centuries after that. There was little knowledge that could not pa.s.s from mouth to mouth. Such little vernacular literature as did exist was transmitted orally, and no great issue which appealed to the imagination of the ma.s.ses had as yet come to the front to create any strong desire for the ability to read. As a result, the education of the ma.s.ses was in hand labor, the trades, and religion, and not in books, and the need for book education was scarcely felt.

A NEW DEMAND FOR VERNACULAR SCHOOLS. The invention of printing and the Protestant Revolts were in a sense two revolutionary forces, which in combination soon produced vast and far-reaching changes. The discovery of the process of making paper and the invention of the printing press changed the whole situation as to books. These could now be reproduced rapidly and in large numbers, and could be sold at but a small fraction of their former cost. The printing of the Bible in the common tongue did far more to stimulate a desire to be able to read than did the Revival of Learning (Rs. 155, 170). Then came the religious discussions of the Reformation period, which stirred intellectually the ma.s.ses of the people in northern lands as nothing before in history had ever done. In an effort to reach the people the reformers originated small and cheap pamphlets, written in the vernacular, and these, sold for a penny or two, were peddled in the market-places and from house to house. While there had been imperfect translations of the Bible in German before Luther's, his translation (New Testament, 1522) was direct from the original Greek and so carefully done that it virtually fixed the character of the German language. [4] Calvin's _Inst.i.tutes of Christianity_ (French edition, 1541) in a similar manner fixed the character of the French language, [5] and Tyndale's translation of the New Testament (1526) was into such simple and homely language [6] that it fixed the character of the English tongue, and was made the basis for the later Authorized translation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 93. THE FIRST PAGE OF WYCLIFFE'S BIBLE Translated between 1382 and 1384. Facsimile of the first verses of Genesis]

The leaders of the Protestant Revolts, too, in a.s.serting that each person should be able to read and study the Scriptures as a means to personal salvation, created an entirely new demand, in Protestant lands, for elementary schools in the vernacular. Heretofore the demand had been for schools only for those who expected to become scholars or leaders in Church or State, while the ma.s.ses of the people had little or no interest in learning. Now a new cla.s.s became desirous of learning to read, not Latin, but the language which they had already learned to speak. Wycliffe, Huss, Zwingli, Luther, Calvin, and Knox alike insisted on the importance of the study of the Bible as a primary necessity in the religious life. In an effort to bring the Bible within reach of the people Wycliffe's followers had attempted the laborious and impossible task of multiplying by hand (p. 290) copies

1. _Lutheran School Organization_

EDUCATIONAL IDEAS OF LUTHER. Luther enunciated the most progressive ideas on education of all the German Protestant reformers. In his _Letter to the Mayors and Aldermen of all the Cities of Germany in behalf of Christian Schools_ (1524) (R. 156), and in his _Sermon on the Duty of Sending Children to School_ (1530), we find these set forth. That his ideas could be but partially carried out is not surprising. There were but few among his followers who could understand such progressive proposals, they were entirely too advanced for the time, there was no body of vernacular teachers [8] or means to prepare them, the importance of such training was not understood, and the religious wars which followed made such educational advantages impossible, for a long time to come. The sad condition of the schools, which he said were "deteriorating throughout Germany," awakened his deep regret, and he begged of those in authority "not to think of the subject lightly, for the instruction of youth is a matter in which Christ and all the world are concerned." All towns had to spend money for roads, defense, bridges, and the like, and why not some for schools? This they now could easily afford, "since Divine Grace has released them from the exaction and robbery of the Roman Church." Parents continually neglected their educational duty, yet there must be civil government. "Were there neither soul, heaven, nor h.e.l.l," he declared, "it would still be necessary to have schools for the sake of affairs here below.... The world has need of educated men and women to the end that men may govern the country properly and women may properly bring up their children, care for their domestics, and direct the affairs of their households." "The welfare of the State depends upon the intelligence and virtue of its citizens," he said, "and it is therefore the duty of mayors and aldermen in all cities to see that Christian schools are founded and maintained" (R. 156).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 94. LUTHER GIVING INSTRUCTION An ideal drawing, though representative of early Protestant popular instruction]

The parents of children he held responsible for their Christian and civic education. This must be free, and equally open to all--boys and girls, high and low, rich and poor. It was the inherent right of each child to be educated, and the State must not only see that the means are provided, but also require attendance at the schools (R. 158). At the basis of all education lay Christian education. The importance of the services of the teacher was beyond ordinary comprehension (R. 157). Teachers should be trained for their work, and clergymen should have had experience as teachers. A school system for German people should be a state system, divided into:

1. _Vernacular Primary Schools._ Schools for the common people, to be taught in the vernacular, to be open to both s.e.xes, to include reading, writing, physical training, singing, and religion, and to give practical instruction in a trade or in household duties. Upon this attendance should be compulsory. "It is my opinion," he said, "that we should send boys to school for one or two hours a day, and have them learn a trade at home the rest of the time. It is desirable that these two occupations march side by side."

2. _Latin Secondary Schools._ Upon these he placed great emphasis (R. 156) as preparatory schools by means of which a learned clergy was to be perpetuated for the instruction of the people. In these he would teach Latin, Greek, Hebrew, rhetoric, dialectic, history, science, mathematics, music, and gymnastics.

3. _The Universities._ For training for the higher service in Church and State.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 95. JOHANNES BUGENHAGEN (1485-1558) Father of the Lutheran _Volksschule_ in northern Germany]

THE ORGANIZING WORK OF BUGENHAGEN. Luther a.s.sisted in reorganizing the churches at Wittenberg (1523), Leipzig (1523), and Magdeburg (1524), in connection with all of which he provided for Lutheran-type schools. [9]

Luther, though, was not essentially an organizer. The organizing genius of the Reformation, in central and southern Germany, was Luther's colleague, Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560), Professor of Greek at the University of Wittenberg. In northern Germany it was Johannes Bugenhagen (1485-1558), another of Luther's colleagues at Wittenberg. More than any other Germans these two directed the necessary reorganization of religion and education in those parts of Germany which changed from Roman Catholicism to German Lutheranism. The churches, of course, had to be reorganized as Lutheran churches, and the schools connected with them refounded as Lutheran schools. For the reorganization of each of these a more or less detailed _Ordnung_ had to be written out (Rs. 159, 160). In this change cathedral and other large church schools became Latin secondary schools, while the song, chantry, and other types of parish elementary schools were transformed into Lutheran vernacular parish schools.

Bugenhagen was sent to reorganize the churches of northern Germany. Being in close sympathy with Luther's ideas, he made good provision for Lutheran parish schools in connection with each of the churches he reorganized. At Brunswick (1528), Hamburg (1529) (R. 159), Lubeck (1530), for his native State of Pomerania (1534), for Schleswig-Holstein (1537), and elsewhere in northern Germany, he drew up church and school plans (_Kirchen und Schule- Ordnungen_) which formed models (Rs. 159, 160) for many northern German cities and towns. Besides providing for a Latin school for the city, he organized elementary vernacular schools in each parish, for both boys and girls, in which instruction in reading, writing, and religion was to be given in the German tongue. He has been called the father of the German _Volksschule_, though probably much of what he did was merely the redirection of existing schools. In 1537 he was called to Denmark, by the Danish King, to reorganize the University of Copenhagen and the Danish Church and schools as Lutheran inst.i.tutions.

Efforts were also made to create Protestant schools in the Scandinavian countries. In Denmark writing-schools for both boys and girls were organized, and the s.e.xton of each parish was ordered to gather the children together once a week for instruction in the Catechism. In Sweden little was done before 1686, when Charles XI ordained that the sacristan of each parish should instruct the children in reading, while the religious instruction should be conducted by the clergy, and carried on by means of sermons, the Catechism, and a yearly public examination. The ability to read and a knowledge of the Catechism was made necessary for communion. A Swedish law of this same time also ordered that, "No one should enter the married state without knowing the lesser Catechism of Luther by heart and having received the sacrament." This latter regulation drove the peasants to request the erection of children's schools in the parishes, to be supported by the State, though it was not for more than a century that this was generally brought about. The general result of this legislation was that the Scandinavian countries, then including Finland, early became literate nations.

THE REORGANIZING WORK OF MELANCHTHON. Melanchthon, unlike Bugenhagen, was essentially a humanistic scholar, and his interest lay chiefly In the Latin secondary schools. He prepared plans for schools in many cities and smaller States of central and southern Germany, among which were Luther's native town, Eisleben (1525), and for Nuremberg (1526), Herzeberg (1538), Cologne (1543), and Wittenberg (1545) among cities; and Saxony (1528), Mecklenberg (1552), and the Palatinate (1556) among States. The schools he provided for Saxony may be described as typical of his work.

In 1527 he was asked by the Elector of Saxony to head a commission of three to travel over the kingdom and report on its needs as to schools. In his _Report, or Book of Visitation_, which was probably the first school survey report in history, he outlined in detail plans for school organization for the State (R. 161), of which the following is an abstract:

Each school was to consist of three cla.s.ses. In the first cla.s.s there was to be taught the beginnings of reading and writing, in both the vernacular and in Latin, Latin grammar (Donatus), the Creed, the Lord's prayer, and the prayers and hymns of the church service. In the second cla.s.s Latin became the language of instruction, and Latin grammar was thoroughly learned. Latin authors were read, and religious instruction was continued. In the third cla.s.s more advanced work in reading Latin (Livy, Sall.u.s.t, Vergil, Horace, and Cicero) was given, and rhetoric and dialectic were studied.

These were essentially humanistic schools with but a little preparatory work in the vernacular, and their purpose was to prepare those likely to become the future leaders of the State for entrance to the universities.

How different was Melanchthon's conception as to the needs for education from the conceptions of Luther and Bugenhagen may easily be seen. Yet, so great were his services in organizing and advising, and so well did such schools meet the great demand of the time for educational leaders that he has, very properly, been called "the Preceptor of Germany." His work was copied by other leaders, and the result was the organization of a large number of humanistic _gymnasia_ throughout northern Germany, in which the new learning and the Protestant faith were combined. Sturm's school at Stra.s.sburg (p. 272) was one of the more important and better organized of this type, many of which have had a continuous existence up to the present. By 1540 the process was begun of endowing such schools from the proceeds of old monasteries, confiscated by the State, and many German _gymnasia_ of to-day trace their origin back to some old monastic foundation, altered by state authority to meet modern needs and purposes.

EARLY GERMAN STATE SCHOOL SYSTEMS. Melanchthon's Saxony plan was put into partial operation as a Lutheran Church school system, but the first German State to organize a complete system of schools was Wurtemberg (R. 162), in southwestern Germany, in 1559. This marks the real beginning of the German state school systems. Three cla.s.ses of schools were provided for:

(1) Elementary schools, for both s.e.xes, in which were to be taught reading, writing, reckoning, singing, and religion, all in the vernacular. These were to be provided in every village in the Duchy.

(2) Latin schools (_Particularschulen_), with five or six cla.s.ses, in which the ability to read, write, and speak Latin, together with the elements of mathematics and Greek in the last year, were to be taught.

(3) The universities or colleges of the State, of which the University of Tubingen (f. 1476) and the higher school at Stuttgart were declared to be const.i.tuent parts.

Acting through the church authorities, these schools were to be under the supervision of the State.

The example of Wurtemberg was followed by a number of the smaller German States. Ten years later Brunswick followed the same plan, and in 1580 Saxony revised its school organization after the state-system plan thus established. In 1619 the Duchy of Weimar added compulsory education in the vernacular for all children from six to twelve years of age. In 1642, the same date as the first Ma.s.sachusetts school law (chapter XV), Duke Ernest the Pious of little Saxe-Gotha and Altenburg established the first school system of a modern type in German lands. An intelligent and ardent Protestant, he attempted to elevate his miserable peasants, after the ravages of the Thirty Years' War, by a wise economic administration and universal education. With the help of a disciple of the greatest educational thinker of the period, John Amos Comenius (chapter XVII), he worked out a School Code (_Schulmethode_, 1642) which was the pedagogic masterpiece of the seventeenth century (R. 163). In it he provided for compulsory school attendance, and regulated the details of method, grading, and courses of study. Teachers were paid salaries which for the time were large, pensions for their widows and children were provided, and textbooks were prepared and supplied free. So successful were his efforts that Gotha became one of the most prosperous little spots in Europe, and it was said that "Duke Ernest's peasants were better educated than n.o.blemen anywhere else."

By the middle of the seventeenth century most of the German States had followed the Wurtemberg plan of organization. Even Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria, which was a Catholic State, ordered the establishment of "German schools" throughout his realm, with instruction in reading, writing, and the Catholic creed, the schools to be responsible through the Church to the State.

PROTESTANT STATE SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. We see here in German lands a new, and, for the future, a very important tendency. Throughout all the long Middle Ages the Church had absolutely controlled all education. From the suppression of the pagan schools, in 529 A.D., to the time of the Reformation there had been no one to dispute with the Church its complete monopoly of education. Even Charlemagne's attempt at the stimulation of educational activity had been clearly within the lines of church control.

Until the beginnings of the modern States, following the Crusades, the Church had been the State as well, and for long humbled any ruler who dared dispute its power. In the later Middle Ages n.o.bles and rising parliaments had at times sided with the king against the Church--warnings of a changing Europe that the Church should have heeded--but there had been no serious trouble with the rising nationalities before the sixteenth century. Now, in Protestant lands, all was changed. The authority of the Church was overthrown. By the Peace of Augsburg (1555) each German prince and town and knight were to be permitted to make choice between the Catholic and Lutheran faith, and all subjects were to accept the faith of their ruler or emigrate.

This established freedom of conscience for the rulers, but for no one else. It also gave them control of both religious and secular affairs, thus uniting in the person of the ruler, large or small, control of both Church and State. This was as much progress toward religious freedom as the world was then ready for, as Church and State had been united for so many centuries that a complete separation of the two was almost inconceivable. It was left for the United States (1787) to completely divorce Church and State, and to reduce the churches to the control of purely spiritual affairs.

The German rulers, however, were now free to develop schools as they saw fit, and, through their heads.h.i.+p of the Church in their princ.i.p.ality or duchy or city, to control education therein. We have here the beginnings of the transfer of educational control from the Church to the State, the ultimate fruition of which came first in German lands, and which was to be the great work of the nineteenth century. It was through the kingly or ducal heads.h.i.+p of the Church, and through it of the educational system of the kingdom or duchy, that the great educational development in Wurtemberg, Saxony, and Gotha was brought about by their rulers, and it was through the ruling princes that the German Universities were reformed [10] and the new Protestant universities established. [11] Even in Catholic States, as Bavaria, the German state-control idea took root early. Many of the important features of the modern German school systems are to be seen in their beginnings in these Lutheran state-church schools.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 96. EVOLUTION OF GERMAN STATE SCHOOL CONTROL]

2. _Anglican foundations_

THE REFORMATION AND EDUCATION IN ENGLAND. The Reformation in England took a very different direction from what it did in Germany, and its educational results in consequence were very different. In England the reform movement was much more political in character than in German lands.

Henry VIII was no Protestant, in the sense that Luther or Calvin or Zwingli or Knox was. He distrusted their teachings, and was always anxious to explain objections to the old faith. The people of England as a body, too, had been much less antagonized by the exactions of the Roman Church and the immoral lives of the monks and Roman clergy; the new learning had awakened there somewhat less of a spirit of moral and religious reform; and the reformation movement of Luther, after a decade and a half, had roused no general interest. The change from the Roman Catholic faith to an independent English Church, when made, was in consequence much more nominal than had been the case in German lands. As a result the severance from Rome was largely carried out by the ruling cla.s.ses, and the ma.s.ses of the people were in no way deeply interested in it. The English National Church merely took over most of the functions formerly exercised by the Roman Church, in general the same priests remained in charge of the parish churches, and the church doctrines and church practices were not greatly altered by the change in allegiance. The changing of the service from Latin to English was perhaps the most important change. The English Church, in spirit and service, has in consequence retained the greatest resemblance to the Roman Catholic Church of any Protestant denomination.

In particular, the Lutheran idea of personal responsibility for salvation, and hence the need of all being taught to read, made scarcely any impression in England.

By the time of Elizabeth (1558-1603) it had become a settled conviction with the English as a people that the provision of education was a matter for the Church, and was no business of the State, and this att.i.tude continued until well into the nineteenth century. The English Church merely succeeded the Roman Church in the control of education, and now licensed the teachers (R. 168), took their oath of allegiance (R. 167), supervised prayers (R. 169) and the instruction, and became very strict as to conformity to the new faith (Rs. 164-166), while the schools, aside from the private tuition and endowed schools, continued to be maintained chiefly from religious sources, charitable funds, and tuition fees.

Private tuition schools in time flourished, and the tutor in the home became the rule with families of means. The poorer people largely did without schooling, as they had done for centuries before. As a consequence, the educational results of the change in the heads.h.i.+p of the Church relate almost entirely to grammar schools and to the universities, and not to elementary education. The development of anything approaching a system of elementary schools for England was consequently left for the educational awakening of the latter half of the nineteenth century. When this finally came the development was due to political and economic, and not to religious causes.