marked than in German lands, and took more the form of regulations to insure conformity to the new faith. Selections illustrating the careful church supervision of a teacher's acts and beliefs are given in 164; the type of penalties imposed on non-conforming schoolmasters by law in 165; a type of oath of fealty required of a grammar-school master is given in 167; an elementary-school teacher's license is reproduced in 168; and typical grammar-school statutes regarding prayers are given in 169. Reading 166 gives the essential features of the English Act of Conformity of 1662, an act which did much to drive good teachers from the work. One of the important results of the Reformation, in all Protestant lands, was that the people obtained the Bible in the vernacular, and selection 170 sets forth the great importance of this in educating the people in England, and in influencing English literary art. It is often said that the Reformation was destructive of schools, and this certainly was the case in England. The general results afterward were worse, in so far as numbers and opportunities were concerned, than before. That many of the schools abolished or re-founded needed reform may be seen from the extracts relating to the cathedral school at Canterbury (171, 172), the chief cathedral church in England. The details of the re-foundation by Henry VIII (172) give a clear idea of the type of reformed humanistic cathedral grammar school established there. Elementary education in England remained for the nineteenth century to establish, as the nation soon settled down to the nobusiness-of-the-State attitude which persisted up to modern times. The State was, however, early forced to give attention to the needs of the children of paupers. Due to the change of England from an agricultural to a manufacturing nation, numbers of poor from the rural districts flocked into the growing cities, and a long series of Poor-Law legislation ensued. This culminated in the famous Poor-Relief and Apprenticeship Law of 1601 (174), toward which England had for some time been tending (173). 154. Diffusion of Education in Medieval Times The following extract from Rashdall, an unusually careful scholar, dealing with the preparatory education of a mediæval university student, throws an interesting side light on mediaval education in general. There is no reason to believe that boys came to attend these inferior Grammar Schools in the University towns except from the immediate neighborhood. The majority of scholars must have learned reading, writing, and the rudiments of Grammar nearer home. As to where and how this knowledge was acquired, we have little detailed information. An investigation into the Grammar Schools of the Middle Ages would be a subject for a separate treatise. Suffice it to say that the old ecclesiastical Schools, in connexion with Cathedrals or other important Churches, were not destroyed by the growth of the Universities, and other Schools of the same kind were founded from time to time. Where the Universities were within easy reach, they were probably restricted for the most part to the study of Grammar, and sometimes the rudiments of Logic. In districts remote from Universities there were ec FIG. 34. A GERMAN FIFTEENTH- (Reproduced from a woodcut on the title- clesiastical Schools of a higher type, which certainly taught a full course of Logic as well as Grammar, and in some cases perhaps the whole range of a University Arts Course. In some countries the bulk of the inferior clergy must have received their education in such Schools. At Vienna, Erfurt, and elsewhere, Schools of this character became a nucleus for the later Universities. Where there was no Cathedral, Grammar Schools were attached to some Collegiate Church, or to ordinary Parish Churches. Sometimes there was an endowment for such schools: elsewhere they were supported by the Municipality, or, in places like Canterbury or Bury, taught by the Monastery. In other cases, no doubt, they were taught by some poor 'parochial chaplain' in return for the scholars' fees alone. Even in country parishes the Canon Law required that the parish clerk should be able to teach the boys to read as well as to sing their Psalter. How far such regulations were actually carried out, it is of course impossible to determine with pre cision. But it may be stated with some confidence that at least in the later Middle Ages the smallest towns and even the larger villages possessed Schools where a boy might learn to read and acquire the first rudiments of ecclesiastical Latin: while, except in very remote and thinly populated regions, he would never have had to go very far from home to find a regular Grammar School. That the means of education in reading, writing, and the elements of Latin were far more widely diffused in medieval times than has sometimes been supposed is coming to be generally recognized by students of medieval life. The knowledge of reading and writing and of the elements of Latin was by no means confined to the clergy: 'the bailiff of every manor kept his accounts in Latin.' A Grammar Master often formed part of the establishment of a great noble or prelate, who had pages of gentle family residing in his house for education. In other cases a boy of a well-to-do family no doubt received his earliest education from a chaplain or clerk' of his father, or from a private tutor or neighboring Priest engaged for the purpose. In the Grammar School the rudiments of a classical education were imparted in much the same way as at the present day. Donatus and Alexander de Villa Dei were the Grammars. After the Psalms had been learned (this much was taught in the most elementary Schools of all), Cato served for Delectus, after which the boy might be put into Ovid and possibly Vergil. In the absence of dictionaries the Master no doubt literally 'read' the book to the pupils, i.e. construed it to them and afterwards required them to do the same. In England books were construed into French as well as English. Questions were asked in parsing and exercises set in prose and verse. Disputations in Grammar... were also a favorite institution. After the boy had once entered the University all this ceased. No more classical books were construed, and we hear comparatively little of composition, though verse-making sometimes entered into University Examinations. Lectures in Grammar meant formal lectures on the elaborate grammatical treatises of Priscian and Donatus, or the more popular Alexander de Villa Dei. 155. The Vernacular Style of the Translations of the Bible (From an article in the Literary Supplement of the London Times, 1911) The following short extract from a very interesting article on the English Bible applies with almost equal force to Luther's German translation, in that each was couched in simple, homely phrases so unlike the language of the scholar of the day. This gave to each a strong appeal to the masses of the people, fixed the style of the vernacular, popularized religion, and greatly strengthened the Reformation cause. It was genuine enthusiasm for a high moral ideal which made the beauty. If Wyclif and his associates provided the seed, it was Tindale and Cloverdale who raised the plant; the revisers of 1611 only pruned and trained it. . . . While Tindale was working alone in exile there was no promise in English literature. Chaucer's light had set in darkness; tho he had died less than one hundred and fifty years before, he was not so easily read as he is to-day; and Wyclif's Bible, tho more vernacular in style than Chaucer, was suffering the same obsolescence. Shakspere, without whom we can reckon nothing, was unborn. It was unforeseen and unimaginable that at that time a book should arise unmatched in the world for its beauties and mastery of style. The style of prose eludes differentiation and description; it is one of the most complex and intangible of all phenomena that invite distinction, but its history in western Europe offers a simple classification into two main divisions, the Ciceronian and the non-Ciceronian or Romantic. These terms are not satisfactory, but they do indicate a real distinction. Cicero, founding himself on the Greek orators, perfected a manner of writing which, wherever it was known, affected European literature. Since he wrote in the language which was for centuries written and spoken by the learned all over Europe, we can not suppose that any one could wholly escape from some relics of his tradition; but his art was so elaborate that without familiarity and practice it could not be approached or attempted; and it is so far removed from colloquial speech and untrained expression as to be almost unintelligible and repulsive to the natural man. . . . Our Bible, then, is in the Romantic style of prose; and, comparing our literature with the one literature in the world with which we can feel pride in comparing it, we may say that to the Greeks Herodotus' history held something like the same literary position as our Bible holds with us an early and inimitable masterpiece of abounding natural grace, whose simple charm set it above the reach of the conscious rules of grammarians, a model which no one who had sufficient taste to admire would attempt to rival. . . . What England would have been if the Bible had never become a household book is a hypothetical problem for the moral philosopher; and if we ask how much we owe to the literary excellence of our translation, that question is not a wholly literary one, but it has a very important literary aspect, of which we may venture to speak without intruding upon morals or theology or the field of esoteric scholarship. For three hundred years, and we may almost say from the date of the first dissemination of Tindale's New Testament, the average Englishman has been subjected to an influence of incalculable magnitude, the greater because he has been unaware of its unusual character; for the Bible that he has read and revered has not only more beauty than any other vernacular rendering that any other nation has possessed, but it is in its vital parts more beautiful and intimate than its originals. 156. Luther to the Mayors and Magistrates of Germany (Martin Luther, Letter to the Mayors and Aldermen of all Cities of Germany in behalf of Christian Schools, 1524; trans. in Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. IV, pp. 429-30, 437-38) Luther issued this address to the rulers of the German cities. The following extracts from it show his reasoning, and reveal the spirit of the Address. His great belief in the study of the languages for the sake of understanding the Bible is also clearly demonstrated. To the Mayors and Councilmen of all the Towns of Germany: Grace and peace from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ. Beloved rulers, wise and sagacious men, . . . I would have you freely, cheerfully and in a spirit of love, give me your attention; since, doubtless, if ye obey me herein, ye obey not me, but Christ, and whoever does not follow my precepts, despises Christ, and not me. Wherefore I beseech you all, beloved rulers and friends, for the sake of God and of poor neglected youth, do not count this a small matter, as some do, who, in their blindness, overlook the wiles of the adversary. For it is a great and solemn duty that is laid upon us, a duty of immense moment to Christ and to the world, to give aid and council to the young. And in so doing we likewise promote our own best interests. And remember, that the silent, hidden and malicious assaults of the devil can be withstood only by manly Christian effort. Beloved rulers, if we find it necessary to expend such large sums, as we do yearly, upon artillery, roads, bridges, dykes, and a thousand other things of the sort, in order that a city may be assured of continued order, peace, and tranquillity, ought we not to expend on the poor suffering youth therein, at least enough to provide them with a schoolmaster or two? God, the Almighty, has, in very deed, visited us Germans with the small rain of his grace, and vouchsafed to us a right golden harvest. For we have now among us many excellent and learned young men, richly furnished with knowledge, both of the languages and of the arts, who could do great good, if we would only set them to the task of teaching our little folks. Do we not see before our very eyes, that a boy may now be so thoroughly drilled in three years, that, at fifteen or eighteen, he shall know more than hitherto all the high schools and cloisters put together have ever been able to impart? Yea, what other thing have the high schools and cloisters ever achieved, but to make asses and blockheads? Twenty, forty years would they teach you, and after all you would know nothing of Latin, or of German either; and then, too, there is their shameful profligacy, by which how many ingenuous youths have been led astray! But, now that God has so richly favored us, in giving us such a number of persons competent to teach these young folks, and |