161. Melanchthon's Saxony Plan

(From Melanchthon's Book of Visitation; trans. in Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. IV, pp. 749-51)

In 1527 Melanchthon was requested by the Elector of Saxony to head a commission of three to travel over the kingdom and report on its needs as to schools. It was probably the earliest of the school surveys. In 1528 the Report, or Book of Visitation, was published. This contained the following plan for the organization of schools throughout the kingdom. The great importance attached by Melanchthon to the Latin grammar school, and especially to the study of Latin grammar, will be evident to the reader.

School Plan

Preachers also should exhort the people of their charge to send their children to school, so that they may be trained up to teach sound doctrine in the church, and to serve the state in a wise and able manner. Some imagine that it is enough for a teacher to understand German. But this is a misguided fancy. For he, who is to teach others, must have great practice and special aptitude; to

gain this, he must have studied much, and

from his youth up. . . .

... In our day there are many abuses in children's schools. And it is that these abuses may be corrected, and that the young may have good instruction, that we have prepared this plan. In the first place, the teachers must be careful to teach the children Latin only, not German, nor Greek, nor Hebrew, as some have heretofore done, burdening the poor children with such a multiplicity of pursuits, that are not only unproductive, but positively injurious. Such schoolmasters, we plainly see, do not think of the improvement of the children at all, but undertake so many languages solely to increase their own reputation. In the second place, teachers should not burden the children with too many books, but should rather avoid a needless variety. Thirdly, it is indispensable that the children be classified into distinct groups.

The First Group.

FIG. 35.

The first group shall consist of those children who are learning to read. With these the following method is to be adopted: They are first to be taught the child's-manual, containing the alphabet, the creed, the Lord's prayer, and other prayers. When they have

learned this, Donatus and Cato may both be given them; Donatus for a reading-book, and Cato they may explain after the following manner: the schoolmaster must give them the explanation of a verse or two, and then in a few hours call upon them to repeat what he has thus said; and in this way they will learn a great number of Latin words, and lay up a full store of phrases to use in speech. In this they should be exercised until they can read well. Neither do we consider it time lost, if the feebler children, who are not especially quick-witted, should read Cato and Donatus not once only, but a second time. With this they should be taught to write, and be required to show their writing to the schoolmaster every day. Another mode of enlarging their knowledge of Latin words is to give them every afternoon some words to commit to memory, as has been the custom in schools hitherto. These children must likewise be kept at music, and be made to sing with the others, as we shall show, God willing, further on.

The Second Group. The second group consists of children who have learned to read, and are now ready to go into grammar. With these the following regulations should be observed: The first hour after noonevery day all the children, large and small, should be practiced in music. Then the schoolmaster must interpret to the second group the fables of Æsop. After vespers, he should explain to them the Pædology of Mosellanus; and, when this is finished, he should select from the Colloquies of Erasmus some that may conduce to their improvement and discipline. This should be repeated on the next evening also. When the children are about to go home for the night, some short sentence may be given them, taken perhaps from a poet, which they are to repeat the next morning, such as, "Amicus certus in re incerta cerniture." - A true friend becomes manifest in adversity. Or "Fortuna, quem nimium foret, stultum facit." — Fortune, if she fondles a man too much, makes him a fool. Or this from Ovid: "Vulgus amicitias utilitate probat." The rabble value friendships by the profit they yield.

In the morning the children are again to explain Æsop's fables.✔ With this the teacher should decline some nouns or verbs, many or few, easy or difficult, according to the progress of the children, and then ask them the rules and the reasons for such inflection. And at the same time when they shall have learned the rules of construction, they should be required to construe, (parse,) as it is called; this is a very useful exercise, and yet there are not many who employ it. After the children have thus learned Æsop, Terence is to be given to them; and this they must commit to memory, for they will now be older, and able to work harder. Still the master must be cautious, lest he overtask them. Next after Terence, the children may take hold of such of the comedies of Plautus as are harmless in their tendency, as the Aulularia, the Trinummus, the Pseudolus, etc.

The hour before mid-day must be invariably and exclusively devoted to instruction in grammar: first etymology, then syntax, and lastlyprosody. And when the teacher has gone thus far through with the grammar, he should begin it again, and so on continually, that the children may understand it to perfection. For if there is negligence here, there is neither certainty nor stability in whatever is learned beside. And the children should learn by heart and repeat all the rules, so that they may be driven and forced, as it were, to learn the grammar well.

If such labor is irksome to the schoolmaster, as we often see, then we should dismiss him, and get another in his place, one who will not shrink from the duty of keeping his pupils constantly in the grammar. For no greater injury can befall learning and the arts, than for youth to grow up in ignorance of grammar. . .

The Third Group. Now, when these children have been well trained in grammar, those among them who have made the greatest proficiency should be taken out, and formed into a third group. The hour after mid-day they, together with the rest, are to devote to music. After this the teacher is to give an explanation of Vergil. When he has finished this, he may take up Ovid's Metamorphoses, and the latter part of the afternoon Cicero's "Offices," or "Letters to Friends." In the morning, Vergil may be reviewed, and the teacher, to keep up practice in the grammar, may call for constructions and inflections, and point out the prominent figures of speech.

The hour before mid-day, grammar should still be kept up, that the/ scholars may be thoroughly versed therein. And when they are perfectly familiar with etymology and syntax, then prosody (metrica) should be opened to them, so that they can thereby become accustomed to make verses. For this exercise is a very great help toward understanding the writings of others; and it likewise gives the boys a rich fund of words, and renders them accomplished in many ways. In course of time, after they have been sufficiently practiced in the grammar, this same hour is to be given to logic and rhetoric. The boys in the second and third groups are to be required every week to write compositions, either in the form of letters or of verses. They should also be rigidly confined to Latin conversation, and to this end the teachers themselves must, as far as possible, speak nothing but Latin with the boys; thus they will acquire the practice by use, and the more rapidly for the incentives held out to them.

162. The School System established in Würtemberg (Digest of an article by Karl von Raumer; trans. by Barnard, in his American Journal of Education, vol. VI, pp. 426–34)

The first German State to organize a complete system of schools was Würtemberg, in southwestern Germany.

This

marked the real beginning of the German system, and the example of Würtemberg was copied throughout Germany. The School Code, first issued in 1559 by the reigning Duke, and approved by the Diet of the State in 1565, provided for a state school system designed "to carry youth from the elements through the successive grades to the degree of culture demanded for offices in the Church and in the State." The Code, in outline, provided for the following schools:

1. Teutsch (German) Schools

Beginning school. Boys and girls separate. Instruction in reading and writing German, religion, and music. Such schools to be set up in every little village and hamlet. Teachers in such schools to be relieved from beadle and mass services in the churches. These schools free, and for the masses.

2. Latin Schools

A fully equipped school to have six classes, but many had less. These known as private schools. They were divided into six classes, as follows:

First or Lowest Class. (9 to 11 years of age.) Pupils in this class learned to pronounce and read Latin and began building up a vocabulary. Readings from Cato.

Second Class. (10 to 12 years of age.) Cato continued. Declensions and conjugations. Grammar studied. Vocabulary enlarged. Translation from the Latin catechism. Much drill on phrases. Music taught.

Third Class. (11 to 13 years of age.) Much drill on phrases. Reading of fables and dialogues. Letters of Cicero begun. Readings from Terence for elegance and purity. Syntax begun. Music continued.

At close of this year might be transferred to the Cloister Schools (3). Fourth Class. (12 to 14 years of age.) Cicero's "Letters to his Friends"; his treatises on "Friendship" and "Old Age"; and Terence to be read. Syntax finished; prosody begun.

Music continued.

Greek grammar begun, with readings from the smaller Greek catechism of Brentius.

ces.

Fifth Class. (13 to 15 years of age.) All previous work to be perfected. In this class read Cicero's "Familiar Letters" and his "OffiAlso Ovid's de Tristibus, and the Gospels in Greek and Latin. Much attention to prosody and to exercises in style. Music continued. Sixth Class. (14 to 16 years of age.) Cicero's "Speeches," Sallust, and the Æneid of Vergil to be read. Much attention to the elegancies of the Latin tongue, and to pure poetical diction. Successful imitation of the idiom and phraseology of Cicero the aim.

In Greek to complete the grammar, and to read Xenophon's Cyropædia and the larger catechism of Brentius.

Music, especially sacred, to be practiced, and the recitations of the day to be begun by singing either the Veni sancte Spiritus or the Veni Creator Spiritus.

Conversation, both in and out of school, to be in Latin.

Logic and Rhetoric to be read in this class.

3. The Lower Cloister or Grammar Schools

Could be entered after completing the Third Class, at 12 to 14 years of age. Designed for selected boys, who were to be trained for the service of the Church.

Course of study paralleled the three upper classes of the Latin Schools, but with much more emphasis on theological doctrine.

4. The Higher Cloister Schools

Entered at 15 to 16 years of age, to prepare for the University, which was usually entered at about 16 or 17.

Read Cicero and Vergil. Continued emphasis on style and purity and elegance of diction. Phrase book constructed.

Continue Greek grammar, and read Demosthenes.
Continue music, and study musical theory.

Continue Logic and Rhetoric.

Begin Arithmetic and Astronomy.

Disputations fortnightly on questions of grammar, logic, rhetoric, or the sphere.

Strict discipline, and emphasis on theology.

5. The State University at Tübingen

Studies: Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Logic, Rhetoric, Mathematics, and Theology.

This Code laid the foundation for the school system which continued to the present century. For example, Barnard reports that, in 1832, there was in the State a complete system of vernacular elementary schools, eighty-three Latin schools, four cloister schools, and the University at Tübingen.

163. The Schulemethode of Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (Digest of a description by Barnard, in Am. Jour. of Educ., vol. xx, pp. 576-84) One of the most wonderful pieces of educational work carried out in any German State in the seventeenth century was that of Ernest the Pious, who was the ruling prince of the little state of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, in Thuringia, from 1640 to 1675. The Thirty