to mould their powers in the best manner, truly it behooves us not to throw his grace to the wind, and not to suffer him to knock at our door in vain. . . . "This may be so," you reply; "but, though we ought to have schools, and must have them, still what will it profit us to have Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and your other liberal arts taught in them? Will not German suffice to teach us all of the Bible and the Word of God that is essential to salvation?" Alas, I fear me, that we Germans must ever be and continue to be mere brutes and wild beasts, as our neighbors with such good reason style us. . . . Surely, were there no other good to be got from the languages, the bare thought that they are a noble and a glorious gift from God, wherewith he has visited and enriched us, almost beyond all other nations, this thought, I say, ought to be a powerful motive, yea, an allurement to cultivate them. . . . For the prince of darkness is shrewd enough to know that, where the languages flourish, there his power will soon be so rent and torn that he cannot readily repair it. But now, since he cannot keep them from expanding into a vigorous growth, and from bearing fruit, he is at work, devising how he may render them dwarfed and sickly, if so be that they may decay and die of themselves. . . . . . . For, as the light of the sun dispels the shadows of the night, so do the languages render useless all the glosses of the Fathers. Since now, it becomes Christians to regard the Scriptures as the one only book, which is all their own, and since it is a sin and a shame for us not to be familiar with our own book, nor with the language and the word of our God; - so it is a still greater sin and shame, for us not to learn the languages, especially now that God is bringing to us and freely offering us learned men, and suitable books, and everything which we need for this purpose, and is, so to speak, urging us to the task, so desirous is he to have his book open to us. O, how joyful would those beloved Fathers have been, if they could have come to the knowledge of the Scriptures, and have learned the languages so easily as we now may do it. . . . But, you say, "we can not bring all our children up to be students; we can not spare them; we need them at home to work for us." I answer, "I do not ask for the establishment of such schools, as we have had hitherto, where our young men have spent twenty or thirty years over Donatus or Alexander, and yet have not learned anything at all. We have now another world, and things are done after a different pattern. And I ask no more than this, namely, that boys shall attend upon such schools as I have in view, an hour or two a day, and none the less; spend the rest of their time at home, or in learning some trade, or doing whatever else you will; thus both these matters will be cared for together, while they are young and opportunities are favorable. For else, they would haply spend tenfold this time in gunning and ballplaying. So, too, your little girls may easily find time enough to go to school an hour a day, and yet do all their household duties; for they now devote more than that to overmuch play, dancing, and sleep. It is very plain that all we need, is a cordial and earnest determination to train up our youth aright, and by this means furnish the world with wise and efficient men. For the devil is better pleased with coarse blockheads and with folks who are useful to nobody; because where such characters abound, then things do not go on prosperously here on the earth. Hence, there is great need, not for the sake of the young alone, but also for the welfare and stability of all our institutions, temporal and spiritual alike, that we should begin at once, and in good earnest, to attend to this matter. . . . Wherefore, dearly beloved rulers, bend yourselves to the work which God so strictly enjoins upon you, which your office involves, which our youth stand so much in need of, and which neither the world nor the spirit can afford to do without. We have lain, alas, too long in the darkness of corruption and death; too long have we been German beasts. Let us now act as becomes reasonable beings, so that God may mark our gratitude for the good things he has given us, and that other lands may see that we, too, are men; nay, more, that we are men who can either learn somewhat from them, or impart somewhat to them: so, through us, the world shall be made better. I have done my part; and with longing have I desired to bring aid and counsel to this German land.... 157. Luther's Conception of the Dignity and Importance of the Teacher's Work (Martin Luther, Sermon on the Duty of Sending Children to School; trans. in Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. IV, p. 441) Another extract from the same source as the preceding. Where were your supply of preachers, jurists, and physicians, if the arts of grammar and rhetoric had no existence? These are the fountain, out of which they all flow. I tell you, in a word, that a diligent, devoted school-teacher, preceptor, or any person, no matter what his title, who faithfully trains and teaches boys, can never receive an adequate reward, and no money is sufficient to pay the debt you owe him; so, too, said the pagan, Aristotle. Yet we treat them with contempt, as if they were of no account whatever; and, all the time, we profess to be Christians. For my part, if I were, or were compelled to leave off preaching and to enter some other vocation, I know not an office that would please me better than that of schoolmaster, or teacher of boys. For I am convinced that, next to preaching, this is the most useful, and greatly the best labor in all the world, and, in fact, I am sometimes in doubt which of the positions is the more honorable. For you can not teach an old dog new tricks, and it is hard to reform old sinners, but this is what by preaching we undertake to do, and our labour is often spent in vain; but it is easy to bend and train young trees, though haply in the process some may be broken. My friend, nowhere on earth can you find a higher virtue than is displayed by the stranger, who takes your children and gives them a faithful training, — a labor which parents very seldom perform, even for their own offspring. 158. Luther on the Duty of compelling School Attendance (Martin Luther, Sermon on the Duty of Sending Children to School; trans. in Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. IV, pp. 440-41) In a long sermon, written in 1530, to be preached in Lutheran churches throughout Germany, Luther admonishes the people to send their children to school. In the extract from this sermon given below Luther urges compulsion to attend, basing the right to compel attendance on the general right of the State to protect itself and advance its welfare. I hold it to be incumbent on those in authority to command their subjects to keep their children at school; for it is, beyond doubt, their duty to insure the permanence of the above-named offices and positions, so that preachers, jurists, curates, scribes, physicians, schoolmasters, and the like, may not fail from among us; for we cannot do without them. If they have the right to command their subjects, the able-bodied among them, in time of war, to handle musket and pike, to mount the walls, or to do whatever else the exigency may require; with how much the more reason ought they to compel the people to keep their children at school, inasmuch as here upon earth the most terrible of contests, wherein there is never a truce, is ever going on, and that with the devil himself, who is lying in wait, by stealth and unawares, if so be that he may drain city and kingdom, and empty quite out of them all the brave and good, even until he has removed the kernel utterly, and naught shall be left but a mere shell, full of idle mischief-makers, to be mere puppets in his hands to do his pleasure. Then will your city or your country suffer a true famine, and, without the smoke of conflict, will be silently destroyed from within, and that without warning. Even the Turk manages in another way; for he takes every third child throughout his empire, and trains him to some calling perforce. How much more, then, ought our rulers to put at least some children to school; not that I would have a boy taken away from his parents, only that he should be educated, for his own good and the general welfare, to some calling that shall yield him abundant fruits of his industry. Wherefore, let magistrates lay these things to heart, and let them keep a vigilant look-out; and, wherever they see a promising lad, have him pledged at school. 159. An Example of a Lutheran Kirchenordnung (Hamburg Kirchenordnung of 1529; trans. by Robbins) After the Reformation in Germany it was necessary to reorganize the churches and schools in the cities and towns as Lutheran churches and schools, and to provide a basis for such reorganizations a series of church and school ordinances were drawn up. These followed old established lines, but required changes to adapt themselves to the new faith. Several hundred of these Ordnungen are in existence, some being quite simple and others very comprehensive. An example of the latter is the one adopted for the city of Hamburg, in 1529. Its contents were as follows: 1. Of schools. 2. On the sifting of pupils by the teacher. 3. On the permanence of schools. 4. Public lectures. 5. The library. 6. German writing schools. 7. Girls' schools. 8. Students. 9. Pastors, chaplains, and other clergymen. 10. The superintendent and his assistant. II. Selection of teachers and predicants. 12. The reception of such persons into the work of the church. 13. The work of predicants. 14. Sermons on Sundays and feast days. 15. Preaching on Saturdays and Mondays. 16. Preaching on other week days. 17. Special times for instruction in the catechism. 18. The paschal season. 19. Sacred stories at other seasons. 20. On preaching in Lent. 21. Confession and sacrament. 22. Visitation of sick and 26. poor. 23. Matrimony. 24. The bans. 25. Consecration. Visitation of criminals. 27. Children baptized at home. 28. Baptism of children according to our "use." 29. Support of predicants. 30. Sextons. 31. Organists. 32. Midwives. 33. Pictures and images. 34. Ringing the call to prayer for peace. 35. Festivals. 36. Business to be avoided on the afternoon of the holy day. 37. Singing and reading by pupils in the parish churches. 38. The Mass. 39. Administration of the Mass. 40. The "Common Chest" and the deacon in charge of it. 41. Administration of funds for the poor. 42. Administration of funds. 43. The deacon in charge of the funds. 44. The four councillors. 45. General accounting of the stewards. 46. Stewards. 47. Of stewards in general. 48. Miscellaneous. 49. Conclusion. 160. An Example of a Lutheran Schuleordnung (Brieg, Schuleordnung of 1581; trans. by Robbins) The following selection is an example of the more comprehensive Schuleordnung of the Lutheran sixteenth-century period. Its contents are as follows: Part I 1. Introductory. General need and purpose of education. 2. Class division and basis of division. Each class is treated separately and work is prescribed for each day of the week. Thus, for the Fourth Class the following is prescribed for Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays: At six o'clock: Catechism. At seven o'clock: Reading. At eight o'clock: Presentation of dialogues by boys in pairs. At twelve o'clock: Writing and correction of exercises (Latin At one o'clock: Declensions, conjugations, etc. At two o'clock: Exercises for increasing vocabulary, — with short statement of method. 3. Disputations and declamations. 4. Holidays. 5. Examinations and promotions. Part II 1. The rector: Duties and jurisdiction. 2. Duties of professors and associates. 3. Duties of pupils in general. 4. Piety. 5. Duties of pupils to teachers. 6. Duties of pupils in school. 7. Instruction in regard to study, style, and memory work. (11 rules.) 8. Dismissal. (Four rules in regard to leaving school and going home.) 9. Conduct on the street. (10 rules.) 10. Conduct and service at home. (10 rules.) II. Duties to strangers. (11 rules.) 12. Duties of pædagogi and assistants. (13 rules governing the con duct of those, who, while students, are private instructors.) 13. Duties of those who live in the halls. (12 rules.) 14. School employees. (10 rules.) 15. Funerals. (10 rules.) 16. Punishments. (10 rules.) 17. Duties of decurions and monitors. (10 rules.) 18. Disputation and declamation. (10 rules.) 19. The poor and the holders of stipends. (10 rules.) 20. Recreation and refreshment. (21 rules.) Conclusion. Admonition to teachers and pupils to keep the rules. |