THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES HARVARD STUDIES IN EDUCATION PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE DIVISION OF EDUCATION VOLUME I THE OBERLEHRER A STUDY OF THE SOCIAL AND PROFESSIONAL EVOLUTION OF THE GERMAN SCHOOLMASTER BY WILLIAM SETCHEL LEARNED, PH.D. OF THE CARNEGIE FOUNDATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF TEACHING CAMBRIDGE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1914 COPYRIGHT, 1914 HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS Education Library ! A 72.5' U> M'lo FOREWORD WITH this volume the Division of Education at Harvard University inaugurates a series of publications to be called the HARVARD STUDIES IN EDUCATION. It is a happy cir- cumstance that Dr. Learned's study of the social and pro- fessional evolution of the German schoolmaster should be the first contribution to this series; for the series has no other aim than to forward in some measure among American teachers that ideal of professional freedom through pro- fessional mastery which Dr. Learned here discloses as the goal of the long upward struggle of the Oberlehrer. The volumes of the HARVARD STUDIES IN EDUCATION will be chosen for their probable usefulness to those teachers, school officers, and others who are trying to win intelligent control over the complex and difficult problems of American Edu- cation. HENRY W. HOLMES PAUL H. HANUS ERNEST C. MOORE Committee on Publication. 873271 TO MY SISTER THIS LITTLE BOOK A BY-PRODUCT OF HER FAITH IS INSCRIBED WITH ALL AFFECTION INTRODUCTION IT is probably true that the greatest desire of every serious student of American education is to see the business of teach- ing American youth placed on an unquestioned professional basis. His vision is of a time when the teacher who shapes our careers shall be even more rigorously selected, more amply and purposefully trained, and more highly responsible for his performance than he who mends our bodies or un- tangles our personal relations. And this is no utterly forlorn hope. To be sure, such a consummation awaits not only the gradual unfolding and organization of our knowledge for the purpose; it awaits also that slow shift hi judgment and conviction that marks the spiritual growth and refinement of a people. Happily both of these movements are to-day in unmistakably vigorous career in this country. From the one there is steadily gathering a conclusive content for training; a settled, scientific technique capable of producing definite and reliable results; from the other is rising with marked rapidity and certainty a general public sanction which alone, by provision for adequate reward, can make a high standard for the preparation of teachers effective. In view of such evident progress at home, it is cheering and instructive to follow a similar and already more complete evolution in another nation where conditions of growth have favored a more normal development than in this country. It was the writer's privilege to spend somewhat less than two years in the German states of Prussia, Saxony, and Baden under circumstances that brought him into frequent and ultimate contact with many representative secondary x INTRODUCTION schools and school-teachers. The experience impressed upon him, as it has upon many other American observers, some astonishing, and at first frankly discouraging, contrasts. As his stay was prolonged, however, increased acquaintance had indeed the effect of deepening his admiration for the great and thoroughly sincere achievement of German educa- tion, but it also disclosed the whole history of that achieve- ment as possessing extraordinary interest and no little inspiration for America. The brief account here presented makes no pretension of adding material details to the Ameri- can student's knowledge of German education. The writer has tried rather to seize, in but one of its phases, the signifi- cance of the German development, to interpret its spirit, and to discern its more general applications, having ever hi mind the contribution that he would gladly make to the better understanding and guidance of our own educational future. Of obligations to be acknowledged in the preparation of this monograph the foremost is due to the dean of educational historians and philosophers, the late Friedrich Paulsen. Familiarity with his written works had long been a satisfac- tion, and his death shortly before the author's arrival hi Berlin came as an irreparable disappointment. In his Ges- chichte des gelehrten Unterrichts Paulsen has followed the course of German education with most remarkable lucidity through a wealth and pertinence of illustration that furnishes a continual surprise. From these, appropriate selections have here been freely borrowed, whenever, as often occurred, the sources themselves were inaccessible. It is a matter for regret that at least a portion of this illuminating and wholly readable book has not been made generally available hi translation. Professor Otto Michael of Berlin and Professor Alexander Bennewitz of Leipsic gave timely suggestions and assistance INTRODUCTION xi that are gratefully acknowledged. In revising the manu- script and preparing it for printing Professor Henry W. Holmes of Harvard University has given generously both indispensable criticism and advice; to him and to my friend Mrs. Harriet White Blake of Providence the treatment owes much of whatever comeliness it may possess. WILLIAM S. LEARNED. CONTENTS CHAPTER I FIRST PERIOD, TO 1750; THE SCHOOLMASTER PAGE 1. THE SCHOOLMASTER BEFORE 1500 3 2. THE REFORMATION SCHOOLMASTER, 1500-1600 14 3. THE PEDANT SCHOOLMASTER, 1600-1750 26 CHAPTER II SECOND PERIOD, 1750-1871; THE NEW-HUMANIST OBERLEHRER 1. THE GREEK REVIVAL 31 2. REMAKING THE SCHOOLMASTER 38 3. BEGINNINGS OF AN OBERLEHRERSTAND 42 4. THE NEW-HUMANIST OBERLEHRER 51 5- PmLOLOGIE UNO PmLOLOG 55 6. " FORMAL DISCIPLINE " 63 CHAPTER III THIRD PERIOD, SINCE 1871; THE PROFESSIONAL OBERLEHRER 1. NEW MOTIVES 67 2. EDUCATIONAL READJUSTMENT 73 3. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL ADVANCEMENT 86 CHAPTER IV THE SOLIDARITY OF THE OBERLEHRER AND ITS PROFESSIONAL SIGNIFICANCE 1. FEATURES OF PRUSSIAN SCHOOL ORGANIZATION THAT PROMOTE SOLIDARITY 94 2. PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATION 101 CHAPTER V SUMMARY 120 tffl xiv CONTENTS CHAPTER VI AMERICAN APPLICATIONS PAGE 1. PROFESSIONAL TRAINING 124 2. CONDITIONS OF SERVICE 132 3. PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATION AND ADVANCEMENT 141 BIBLIOGRAPHY '. 146 THE OBERLEHRER THE OBERLEHRER CHAPTER I FIRST PERIOD, TO 1750 THE SCHOOLMASTER i. The Schoolmaster before 1500 EDUCATION since the Middle Ages owes the initial forms of its organization to the church. The life of a human insti- tution as of a human individual presses instinctively and persistently toward self-preservation. The church is no ex- ception; she early found the perpetuation of her doctrines and traditions the capital problem of her existence, and devised a system of schooling that served her purpose and became an indispensable phase of her activity. It was natural, there- fore, that when all spiritual institutions but the church had been swept away in the flood of a vigorous but untutored humanity bursting in from the North, she should cling with especial tenacity to her schools as to the very condition of her life. Hence we find in the monk or canon who taught the language and mysteries of the church to rough novitiates, a figure of unusual dignity and significance. Representative of a powerful and well-organized institution wielding the supreme authority of earth and heaven, his position was secure and influential, and his prospects for promotion and honors unsurpassed. As higher instruction was gradually developed and organized into universities, the old cathedral schools over which the ancient scholasticus or cathedral schoolmaster had presided, assumed little by little the role of secondary and 4 THE OBERLEHRER preparatory institutions. As their relative prestige de- clined, however, their number largely increased. With the growth of population churches multiplied rapidly, and with each church a school was usually established, subject, like the church, to the central control of the cathedral. Thus by the fifteenth century Cologne had as many as eleven such schools enough to constitute a respectable school-system. 1 In the process of this transition the powers of the scholasticus were steadily enlarged until that dignitary appears clothed in all the prerogatives of the modern school superintendent, with jealously guarded rights of supervision, certification, and appointment. A liberal share of the tuition of each boy in the schools under his charge flows into his private purse. On the other hand he remains a permanent and distinguished official of the church. He is even eligible to the bishopric in his diocese, and not seldom receives it. Between the per- sonage the scholasticus has now become and the schoolmaster who is the subject of this chapter there is little in common. The latter is rather the humble appointee who bears the burdens, but passes on an undue portion of the reward to his patron above. In addition to the cathedral schools, two other slightly varying types of school were available to satisfy the me- diaeval demand for instruction. Of these the cloister schools were similar in spirit and program to the cathedral schools, but remained single institutions attached to the monastic foundations. The second type, the town schools, like the universities, were the creation of the later Middle Ages. They rose from small beginnings in the thirteenth century in all centres where growing commercial and secular interests stimulated the impulse toward independent control of com- mon education. They, too, were closely similar to the church schools in character, but were likely to be more 1 Kaemmel, Gesch. d. d. Schulwesens, pp. 17, 18, 120 ff. THE SCHOOLMASTER 5 elementary. Their chief importance lies in the fact that over them was fought out the struggle between the town and church authorities. This crucial question of control and supervision, of nomination and appointment of teachers, involved very many German cities in the bitterest dissension for many years, though in the end the town almost invariably made good its claim. These three types of school, the cathedral or church school, the monastery school, and the town school, are the institu- tions in which the youth of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries received its preparation for the university. The lower classes in each supplied those not destined for advanced studies with whatever general education they received. Schools for teaching the vernacular alone also existed, 1 and constituted the beginning of the elementary school system, but with these we are not here concerned. With this brief orientation in mind let us proceed to note the particular conditions that a fourteenth century scholar- schoolmaster was called upon to satisfy, and then observe the kind of individual available to fill the position. TTtc TTinr > 'Hrvna TTTOI-O -f/^iTr* o/^mimef ret tiirf* ai"i/Yn>l ^^^^ His functions were four: administrative, educational, disciplinary, and religious. As ^administrator) he was in fact " master " of the school. Appointed by'thsscholasticus, or hi the case of the town school, by the town council for a single year or even for but three months, he was hi the posi- tion rather of a concessionaire having well-defined rights, than of a public servant pledged to certain duties. The school was his enterprise to be carried on under given regulations for the profit there was in it, much as one might hire and operate a public mill. So long as the social order was pre- served and he proved tolerable to the parents he was usually undisturbed by inspection. To be sure, he received a small salary which, if from the town council, might be considered 1 Lewin, Gesch. d. Ent. d. preus. Volksschule, p. 2. 6 THE OBERLEHRER a return for his services as town clerk; if paid by the scholas- ticus, it pledged him to diligent cooperation in the service of the church. In either case this salary was insignificant, as he was likely to have been the lowest bidder. His further revenue came from the school entirely, either in fees or in tuition. Toward the close of the period the authorities took a hand in the internal affairs of the school through Schul- ordnungen and the appointment of inspectors, but this indicates the growing influence of Humanism. As propri- etor, then, the rector scholarum, as he was usually called, presided over the school-house, together with the rooms above where he and his assistants made their home. The latter, he hired and paid himself, with the exception of the cantor who because of his intimate connection with the church services was usually appointed by the church or town council. Subject to certain conditions laid down by his superiors, he regulated the internal affairs of the school; he collected fees and tuition, attended to repairs and improve- ments, and was the responsible head of the business. Educationally his task was a simple one compared with that of securing a favorable balance in cash. The latter required skill; the former did not. Latin was almost the sole subject of study. It was the language of the church and of the university; therefore the aim of the school was fundamentally to put a boy into possession of a reasonable facility in the use of this medium of all his subsequent learn- ing. In the total absence of printed text-books, the method resolved itself into a verbal memorization of the grammar, a vigorous drill in examples of the rules, and transcription of the text from dictation. Anyone who had been through the performance, who had memorized the grammar and examples, and had transcribed sufficient texts, was beyond doubt familiar with the method and could " teach," i. e. pronounce the matter, either from memory or from the book, THE SCHOOLMASTER 7 and hear his words come back to him. To hasten the pro- cess, German was forbidden in the schoolroom. Conse- quently, no one could fail to work out a Latin dialect of some degree of intelligibility. Such was the procedure, and whether it were the " tabulistae " at their first lines of the Lord's Prayer in the lowest class, or the " Alexandristae " finishing the Doctrinale in the upper, it was always the same. With a bit of versification achieved by the older boys with the help of word lists and syllabaries, and a taste of arith- metic for the sake of reckoning church festivals, the curri- culum was complete. No German, no history, no geography, no nature-study appears, except as the rare contribution of some unusually original and gifted master. In respect to discipline, the duties of the master were more exacting. The harshness of the times, the lack of genuine intellectual training, the absence of any appeal to interest or self-control on the part of the pupil, all appear strikingly in the severity of punishment to which apparently even the best masters resorted. Martin Luther reports having been soundly thrashed fifteen times in one day. 1 He could with reason, therefore, cry out against the numbers of " bungling schoolmasters who with their storming and blustering, their cuffs and blows ruined fine natures, and treated children as the jailer treats thieves." 2 A passage in the Stuttgart Schulordnung for 1501, provides that fresh rods be brought in by the children from the forest every week. 3 For these there was doubtless abundant need in settling up the daily and weekly accounts of the " asinus " and " lupus." The former was a wooden image of an ass hung about the neck of the class dunce in the morning and passed by him to any one heard to talk German; this meant a whipping for the 1 Schmidt, Gesch. der Padagogik, iii, p. 26. 1 Ibid. 3 Miiller, Vor-und friih-reformatorische Schulordnungen, p. 133. 8 THE OBERLEHRER one in whose possession it remained at the end of that day. The lupus was a pupil especially appointed to watch for those guilty of the same offence and to report them to the master. The necessity for strenuous measures of discipline appears in the provisions for the assistance of the master by the town constables in time of need. 1 Punishments for parents and others who injure or insult the schoolmaster point to the same conditions. 2 But the supervisory duty of the rector scholarum was not confined to the school. Day and night the pupils were subject to his authority, especially such as were not at home in the town a condition applying to an astonishing number of " wandering scholars " who begged their way from town to town seeking shelter and support with the citizens or actually living in the school. This was an energetic and often troublesome element. The fourth phase of the schoolmaster's activity, men- tioned above, was the religious. This feature is, perhaps the most difficult for one with the modern point of view to reconstruct. The original nucleus of the church schools, and of the town schools as well, had been the choir which at- tended the numerous religious services and contributed indispensable assistance. As the school developed, its exercises remained inextricably involved with those of the church. Its continued practice of singing under the charge of a special officer, the cantor, was solely for the church's benefit. The hours for school exercises were carefully planned, and often greatly curtailed, to suit the needs of the church. The claims of weddings, funerals, masses and so on, were for centuries given precedence in the school program. Tradition was here the more binding because upon these performances there depended no inconsiderable portion of the rector's income, as well as that of his assistants. It 1 Fischer, Geschkkte des deutschen Volksschullehrerstandes, i, p. 29. * M tiller, op. tit., pp. 131 ff. THE SCHOOLMASTER 9 became his personal duty, then, to marshal his boys and teachers for the processions, and to arrange for their singing at all festivals as well as to appear as disciplinarian at the regular services. An extract given by Kaemmel, from an en- dowment of 1449 for the church of Mary Magdalene at Breslau, indicates what the extraordinary demands on the choir of a popular church might amount to, even in the case of a single foundation. Of the rector and his assistants it was required : that on the day before Corpus Christi they and their pupils should sing the vespers and matins complete, including the thanksgiving hymns; on Saturday of that week, and on the day before the feast of John the Baptist, when on a week-day, they should sing matins complete; it was expected further that on Corpus Christi, on the Sunday following, and on the Johannistag falling within this octave, they should sing the third horary service, and on every day of this week, a complete mass. 1 It might be added that this church had fifty-eight altars and one hundred and twenty-four chaplains, and that the number of masses to be said was unusually large. This program indicates that the life of a successful school- master of this period would not, at least, be lacking in variety. We now proceed to note what manner of man fills this posi- tion. First, as to training. Kaemmel estimates 2 that after the fourteenth century, about one third of these school- masters possessed the degree of magister from some univer- sity, another third had reached the preliminary title of baccalareus, while the remainder had had little or no univer- sity instruction. In the cities, certainly by 1500, the higher degree was very generally required for an appointment as rector. 3 This meant that for the space of from three to four 1 Kaemmel, op. cit., p. 126. * Op. cit., p. 125. 3 Paulsen, Geschichte des gelekrten Unterrichts, i, p. 19. 10 THE OBERLEHRER years its possessor had listened to the exposition of the Aristotelian philosophy, comprising logic and physics for the degree of baccalareus, natural science, psychology, meta- physics, ethics, and politics for the magister artium; that he had participated in the customary disputations, and displayed his skill and erudition hi a final exhibition which constituted the examination. 1 The classical literature had been practically untouched, and even the study of grammar had ceased with his own school preparation for the sciences of the university. The mistake of thus abandoning subjects that he would later undertake to teach was not recognized. The magister was a theologue, and if he had completed his two years of teaching at the university, as was often required, he had doubtless done advanced work at the same time in the theological faculty. His occupation as rector scholarum in a city Latin school was a purely secondary consideration, undertaken to bridge the gap between his university course and his expected appointment to a parish where he would enter upon his proper career. It was natural for him, therefore, even while schoolmaster, to take an active part in the services of the church, and in case he had received the preliminary consecration, to perform also the function of priest. In the larger schools the rector might require several assistants, baccalarii, soccii, locati collaboratores, as they are variously called. The baccalarii, as the name indicates, would be such as had attained the first degree at a university, and might be waiting for a favorable opportunity to continue. The locati had rarely seen a university; if not simply older pupils receiving instruction in the higher classes at the same time, they were likely to be chosen from the numerous class of strolling scholars, seeking to turn their scanty acquire- ments to account. These sub-masters were naturally hired 1 Norton, Mediaeval Universities, pp. 135 ff. THE SCHOOLMASTER II at a minimum salary; they were housed with the rector in the school building, and might be boarded at the home of some citizen. They were generally of an unreliable character, were continually changing, and not seldom required dis- ciplinary treatment at the hands of the rector or town authorities. The income attached to the teacher's position in this period appears to have been universally small and uncertain. The only guaranteed amount was the appropriation for the scholasticus or the Schulrat as mentioned above; by far the larger portion had to be painfully collected as it trickled in, a groschen at a time, in fixed tuition charges, customary fees, or alms thrown to the choir boys in the street. Cost of tuition varied greatly. In Liineburg, 1482, the wealthy paid fourteen shillings, or about twenty-eight cents, a year; the poor, half as much. 1 At Hanover four shillings sufficed. 2 In Frankfort-on-the-Oder, the wealthy brought two gro- schen per quarter (not over four cents) to the schoolmaster, and as much to the locati. In Nuremberg in 1485 all special fees were commuted to a cash payment of twenty-five pfennige (about six cents) in place of the previous fifteen pfennige for tuition alone; the town authorities agreed at the same time to furnish the wood for heating. 3 The fees that thereby disappeared were a general tradition and were not peculiar to Nuremberg. They included sums brought by the pupil in substitution for the still earlier offering of a candle, a stick of wood, or a piece of paper to repair the window; further, there was the fee for the New Year, for the cherry-stones brought to the master to put in his beer, and, finally, the Austreibgeld, a fee in honor of an approach- ing vacation, which was acknowledged by the master with a friendly spank as the child crawled between his legs after the 1 Kaemmel, op. cil., p. 127. * Ibid. 1 Miiller, op. cit., p. 104. 12 THE OBERLEHRER final session. 1 This host of petty payments must have made the master's bookkeeping a complicated task. His board he frequently had with the parish priest, or with a citizen of the town, or he supplied his table from payments in food as commutation for tuition. The endowments of the church that were available as fees for regular and special services often proved more profitable than any other source of revenue, and of course served to bind the school closely to its parent institution. In respect to social position the standing of the teacher was in a sense neutral. An able rector, teaching for a few years until he received his appointment to the secure and respected office of priest, was not altogether to be pitied. Many of the apparently forlorn conditions of the position were characteristic of the time as a whole. Still the work was not enviable, as is shown by the continual change in personnel; and when engaged in permanently by disappoin- ted aspirants to the priesthood, or by non-clerical teachers who sought thus to support their families, it was commonly associated with poverty, if not utter misery. Thus Thomas Platter found it quite insufficient for his maintenance, and resorted to his rope-making and printing instead. The excessive publicity of the post, its exposure to criticism, and its uncertain returns made an early change desirable, and this very instability of tenure reacted in still further reducing the position in public esteem. Now and then fortune seems to have furnished a favorable exit, through the schoolmas- ter's position as town clerk, into the service of the city, and there appear occasional cases of schoolmasters who ulti- mately became the mayors of their towns. 2 The question of what might be termed, in a modern sense, the inner efficiency of the teacher, does not exist at this period. To the modern view, all the conditions under which 1 Kacmmel, op. cit., pp. 127 ff. * Op. til., p. 130. THE SCHOOLMASTER 13 he worked should have made him as weak, unhappy, and inefficient as possible. Yet it cannot be said that they did. The modern organic, subjective, ideal view of the world must give place here to the completely static, objective, and mechanical constitution of things as they appeared to the mediaeval mind. As has been pointed out, the school- master was, in a sense, the proprietor of a purely business undertaking. The knowledge he had to dispense was doled out in easily measured quantities of a recognized standard quality, and could be passed over the counter by a diligent locatus almost as well as by the rector himself. For his profession the schoolmaster had no abstract ideals and needed none. As Paulsen remarks of the university teacher: " He had learned the trade as apprentice and journeyman, and had become a master mechanic; it was now his business to teach what he had learned." l The details of this early period have been surveyed in somewhat greater fullness than the relative importance of the period itself would warrant. There appear here, however, in their elementary and crudest form, certain features in the relations of the person and function of the schoolmaster that persist, with slight variations, well into ^ "(/ the eighteenth century, and become characteristic oJL_the entire early portion of his career. The first of these is the teacher's connection with the church and his dependence (\\ upon it. It was Friedrich August Wolf who put an end to this in 1783, and the separation was given the official seal in the examination ordinance of 1810. By reason of this connection throughout the intervening period, the school is an appendage to the church, an appropriate ante-room for trying out the qualities of the future priest. As might be expected under such circumstances, the work of the teacher is laborious and aimless, commanding slight recognition for 1 Op. dt., i, p. 32. 14 THE OBERLEHRER its inherent dignity. So Luther regarded it, and advised against it as a permanent calling; " for the labor involved is very hard and is esteemed of little worth." l The second feature is the mechanical, memoriter method of instruction. This undergoes many modifications, and the content of the curriculum changes and broadens somewhat, but the essen- tial spirit of the Latin instruction of the eighteenth century is strongly reminiscent of the Doctrinale. The form of discipline, too, remains practically unchanged. The rod rules supreme here until the apostles of New Humanism see the shame of it and put it away. Further, the relation of university studies to school subjects remains the same. What a man studies in the university is of no use in the school, and what he does in the school he abandons entirely when he goes to the university. The importance of this fact for those who prepare to teach is, of course, obvious. Finally, the social position of the schoolmaster remains in all important respects the same. The reforms of the late eighteenth century lift him from a level that is nearly as low as was that which he occupied in the fifteenth. It is remark- able to note how slightly these characteristics alter through nearly four hundred years. It will be sufficient, therefore, with this background and outline to go rapidly over the next two centuries or more, introducing certain new elements, and modifying details as they vary with new conditions. 2. The Reformation Schoolmaster, 1500-1600 The movements that did most to change the situation already described, followed hard upon the date that has been arbitrarily used to mark the close of the Middle Ages. One of these, the humanistic revival of learning, had already reached its zenith outside of Germany, and within the next twenty years came into full possession of the leading German 1 Forstemann, Luther's Tischreden 7, 2d Pt., p. 406. THE SCHOOLMASTER 15 universities. Just as the promise of a day of finer and freer intellectual ideals seemed about to be fulfilled, the new light was all but extinguished in the sudden religious paroxysm which seized Germany. For a tune the country seemed lost to the cause of the new learning, but the peril was not real, and Humanism and Reformation merged into a great intellectual, social, and religious upheaval that turned up rich soil for the seeds of a later and finer culture. What con- version meant for Teutonic tribes a purely formal initia- tion which, in later centuries, brought forth scholastic universities that this double movement meant for Ger- many, and its true fruit appeared in the New Humanism of the nineteenth century. With this in mind it is easier to explain the relatively low degree of educational progress with which Germany emerges from the years of confu- sion. The earlier "poet-humanists" and scholars who came north were too restless, too individual, or too unwilling to meet existing conditions, to be of immediate use to the schools. The feeling of one of the best of them was doubt- less typical. When offered a fine school hi Antwerp, Rudolf Agricola replied to his friend Barbirianus who conveyed the senate's proposal : This school you offer is a bad business, both perplexing and dis- tressing; the very sight of a school as one approaches is depressing and cruel, for what with its floggings, its tears, and the continual wail- ings that proceed from it, it invariably suggests a prison. What a- misnomer is " school " ! The name seems to have been given because of its utter contrast. For the Greeks mean by " schola," leisure, and the Latins, " sport " in an intellectual sense but never was any- where less of " leisure " or any greater contrast to " sport ". The Greek comic poet Aristophanes hit it much more nearly when he called it phrontisterion, that is to say, a " house of cares ". School for me ? Hardly ! l 1 Agric. Opera ed. Alardus Koln, 1539, ii, pp. 208, 215. Cf. Kaemmel, op. tit., p. 411. 1 6 THE OBERLEHRER Only after the delicate and elusive product of Italian Hu- manism had been toughened by the Reformation into stout German school-stuff, did the new culture successfully make its way in the hands of a set of brilliant organizers and schoolmen, Trotzendorf hi Goldberg, Neander in Ilfeld, Sturm in Strassburg, Wolf in Augsburg, and many others. The man who did most to give a humanistic form to the education that his suspicious and reactionary friend Luther was urging upon the German cities, was Melanchthon. It is especially instructive to note with what clearness this keen-minded pioneer grasped the fundamentally progres- sive ideas of the new pedagogy ideas of which only the few finest spirits, a Vittorino or an Erasmus, felt the significance, and which the mechanical, immature psychology of the tune was unable to seize upon and develop. He says hi his preface to Hesiod's " Works and Days ": I have always endeavored to place before you such authors as increase one's knowledge of things at the same time that they contri- bute largely to enrich expression. For these two elements go together, and, as Horace says, have entered into a sworn friendship, so that the one stands and is supported by the help of the other; for no one can express himself effectively if he has not equipped his thought with the knowledge of the best things, and knowledge halts without the light of appropriate expression. 1 This recognition of the value of an education received through contact with the material world became official in Prussia in 190x3. To just what length Melanchthon him- self would have carried it is uncertain, but the formula is correct. A great world of new ideals had been discovered in the languages and literatures of ancient peoples, and these, seized upon and worked over, however narrowly, by the novel personal and religious motives bred in the Reforma- tion, produced a new conception of education and a new pres- 1 Corpus Reformatorum, xi, p. 112. THE SCHOOLMASTER IJ sure toward it. Luther's incessant appeal for more exten- sive popular instruction, as well as for the formal education of a new and efficient class of state officials, is an expression of this new attitude. The gradual extension of the course of study in schools to include subjects formerly given only in the university dialectics, physics, geography, mathematics, - thus opening the way for the modern school organization, is further evidence. In some of the schools, a few courses of university grade were added for the benefit of the lower clergy, and in process of tune a higher institute or even a university might appear. Thus the time was full of educa- tional incentive and inspiration which hi some respects con- siderably affected the teacher's task and position. His vocation became somewhat less a mechanical craft, some- what more an intellectual profession. With Humanism came inspection, perhaps the result of reasonable solicitude as to how the erratic " poet-school- masters " would get on. With the Reformation, concern for " sound doctrine " hi the troublous times intensified the demand for supervision, and Schulordnungen, the country over, regulated both teacher and instruction hi minute detail. Inspectors, chiefly priests, were appointed, and re- quired to make regular visits. So in the Wiirttemberg Schulordnung of 1559, it is ordered that the priest shall, either alone, or, if necessary, with the bailiff and regular inspectors, visit the school at least once a month, and see how, and to what extent, these school-regulations of ours are carried out. l They were required also to hold an examination and super- vise promotions. In the Kursachsische Schulordnung of 1580, the examination prescriptions are carried to great length. 2 It is apparent that the schoolmaster is no longer master within his own domain, but has become a public servant in a minutely regulated public institution. 1 Vormbaum, Evangdische Schidordnungen, i, p. 97. * Ibid., p. 264. 1 8 THE OBERLEHRER Educationally his task is more complicated than in the simple times of the previous century. A new pedagogical principle has appeared which demands the co-operation of the pupil. Thus, whereas before the boy had learned his Doctrinale passively so as to be able to take apart or recon- struct, piece by piece, the logical frame-work into which formal grammar had been fashioned, his business was now to produce real speeches on familiar topics; to imitate, that is, in new combinations of his own, the form and style of the classical writer put into his hand. This was undoubtedly a gain. Here was at least the possibility of introducing an aesthetic aim, and the process was attended by all the enrich- ment of actual knowledge which might come with the wealth of fresh information in these classical sources. Such was Melanchthon's ideal, but a method which he could vitalize became in the average school a mere formula. The language of the Middle Ages had given place to classical Latin and Greek, but catechism, grammars, and rhetorical text books were still committed bodily to memory. Even the reading of authors came to the same thing. The tea- cher's exposition was followed by its repetition by the pupil, as nearly as possible word for word, on the following day; choice words and phrases were carefully culled and memo- rized, and later used as so many blocks in imitative rebuild- ing. According to the skill and fertility of the master, interesting information could be brought out by the way, but this never formed a necessary feature of instruction. Allowing, then, for the improvement of the intellectual conditions in general, a schoolmaster could be successful and still occupy relatively the same ground on which he had stood in the fourteenth century. The tools had changed, but the new required scarcely more intelligent handling than the old. A continuation and development of the correct principles of teaching, as advocated by Erasmus for example, THE SCHOOLMASTER 19 became therefore less and less the motive of settled practice. Even Sturm could see no objection to training young stu- dents in Demosthenes and St. Paul whether they understood or not. And Hieronymus Wolf stated the mournful con- viction which, in general, has sheltered educational failure up to this day when he concluded: Do what you will, the roots of learning will be bitter, and the sweetness of the fruit will be appreciated only in the ripeness of time. 1 It would be wrong, however, to conclude that even the masters themselves did not at times find the process intol- erable. The sensitive Melanchthon wrote quite at length " De miser Us paedagogorum" drawing a distressing picture in great detail; he declares convict labor to be less wretched than that of the schoolmaster, and teaching to be a better symbol of fruitlessness than the task of Sisyphus; to teach a camel to dance or an ass to play the lyre were more profit- able, as boys prefer digging in the ditch to studying Latin; and he closes too weary to enumerate the many evils left unmentioned. 2 And Wolf, the martinet mentioned above, breaks out hi the essay there referred to: Fortunate Romans, who had but one foreign language, Greek, to learn, and that not by instruction, but by intercourse with the Greeks the easiest possible way. And still more fortunate Greeks, who, quite content with their own tongue, could, after a fair amount of practice in speaking and writing it, give themselves wholly to the study of the liberal arts and philosophy. But we have good reason to curse our luck, since a large number of our allotted years slip by while we are studying foreign languages, and all these obstacles and delays keep us from the Temple of Wisdom itself for as a matter of fact Latin and Greek are not in themselves culture, but the gate- way to it.* As a relief from the relentless grinding at grammar, as well as to enliven the pupils' sense of classical form and style, 1 Vormbaum, op. cit., i, p. 465. Augsbwger Schulord., 1558, Anhang. * Corpus Reformalorum, xi, pp. 121 ff. * Vormbaum, op. cit., i, p. 457. 2O THE OBERLEHRER dramatic productions and declamations from old authors were introduced, and formed a permanent feature of school life until the eighteenth century. In them the master found his one productive sphere, and worked over a large part of classical and Biblical literature for material with which to enforce the lessons of Christian virtue and wisdom. The pupils were the performers, and pupils and master shared in the financial profits which came from an appreciative public. The abolition of the "begging scholars", after 1520, brought some improvement to the discipline of the school, but the rod seems still to have been unmercifully applied. Trotzendorf made even bearded seniors tremble before his whip. Brunswick schools were permitted to use corporal punishment only on pupils below the age of seventeen; penalties were then commuted to money. The Schulord- nung for Kursachsen, 1580, gives the following grades of punishment : (i) The culprits shall be solemnly examined and warned of punish- ment; (2) they shall eat on the ground; (3) their usual food and drink shall be forbidden; (4) they shall be whipped; (5) they shall be placed in the dungeon; and finally, (6) they shall be expelled from school. 1 And the city of Brunswick puts in the regulations for its Latin school of 1535, the direction that each master shall " with rod in hand," take his place among the choir boys at church and maintain good order. The religious duties of the rector and his assistants were increased, if anything, by the influences of the Reformation. With a readiness springing, perhaps, from the traditional hostility between the ill-yoked authorities of church and town the master of the town school was frequently the first to abandon the old doctrine and to help establish the new. The persistence, too, with which the new leaders preached 1 Op. tit., i, p. 292. THE SCHOOLMASTER 21 the need of schools and the value of the schoolmaster's work helped to win the latter to the new movement. Luther labored continually for a truer appreciation of the teaching class : It requires a peculiarly gifted individual to teach and train chil- dren properly; a diligent and conscientious schoolmaster who educates and instructs boys faithfully can never be sufficiently rewarded or paid in money. 1 To maintain its doctrinal issue, therefore, and to protect its future, the church now became more vigorous than ever in its guardianship of the school. The priests were quite generally given the power of inspection, of direction, and even of con- firmation in the appointment of teachers. The latter continued as before to pass from the school into the service of the church, and frequently began their clerical duties before they had abandoned their teaching. Under these circumstances, it will be readily understood that the employ- ment of the pupils in the service of the church not only con- tinued but increased. The daily sermon in the church was part of the instruction in the school. Emphasis on the church music contributed by the school boys was redoubled. Even the single lessons were opened with song and prayer. " The school was the church of the young, as the church was the school of the old." The new dispensation looked closely to its teachers. Bugenhagen's series of Schulordnungen was the first to specify a schoolmaster's qualifications, and shortly thereafter each candidate for a rector's or sub-rector's position was expected to supply credentials and undergo an examination in true modern fashion. After depositing true and legal testimonials and proofs of his birth, training, character, and manner of life, he shall conduct a lesson or two, as directed, in the leading Latin school of the consistory. When he has proven him- 1 Luther, Sermon, Doss man die Kinder zur Schule halten soil. 22 THE OBERLEHRER self capable, especially hi grammar, he shall thereupon be examined with particular thoroughness by the consistory in regular order, on Dr. Luther's catechism as contained in the church regulations, to test his religion and Christian faith; especially on the main paragraphs and the disputed articles, to see whether, hi one or more, he be not perchance entangled in false doctrine and opinion. 1 This ordeal over, he was sent to the local school authority, and after reading the Schulordnung, was duly appointed. This is in Kursachsen in 1580, but similar provisions obtained in other states. The emphasis here reflects the time: sound doctrine at any cost; as for intellectual ability, a magister artium is expected. The rector's minor assistants, the " paedagogi ", he himself appoints as he chooses. Tenure of position is still relatively short, for the master's attention is naturally on his future interests which are wholly with the church, beyond its tedious vestibule the school. Fischer gives evidence to show a general tendency to lengthen the term of appointment. Thus in Frankfort- on-the-Main a schoolmaster was appointed in 1523 for three years, in Wesel, 1521, for eight, and in Zwickau in the same year even for twelve, but the figures in other places show that these latter were very unusual terms of tenure, and that a rapid change still prevailed. 2 For two of the leading schools of the time, Grauen Kloster at Berlin and the Gym- nasium at Flensburg, Paulsen gives some significant figures. 3 The first had twenty directors in less than one hundred years, 1574-1668. Of these eleven became priests, four took another school, one went to the university and three died in office. In the two centuries following, 1668-1867, there were altogether but twelve changes, giving an average of sixteen and one-half years to each, as compared with less than five years in the preceding period. All twelve ended their careers in office. At Flensburg, between 1 566 and 1 795, 1 Vormbaum, op. cit., i, p. 251. 2 Fischer, op. cit , i, p. 48. 1 Paulsen, op. cit., i, p. 327. THE SCHOOLMASTER 2$ there were nineteen rectors, the first twelve of whom had an average tenure of five years, and the last seven (1627-1795) of twenty-four years. Of the first twelve, six surely, and probably more, became priests, some even in villages; of the last seven only one did so, and the last rector had left a professorship hi the University of Copenhagen to take the position. The period, therefore, at which a good school rectorate became an independent profession is clear; it was a hundred and fifty years longer before this could be said of the work of the rector's assistants. In respect to income the condition of the schoolmaster in the late fifteenth century is somewhat unproved in com- parison with the century previous. The vexing minor fees were abolished, as in the case of Nuremberg already cited. But the schoolmaster still collects tuition, takes fees accord- ing to the rank of the deceased for attendance of his boys at funerals, accepts gifts and donations made on festival occasions, and even shares the profits of the children from their street-singing. If enterprising he may derive some- thing from his theatrical efforts or private tutoring. In the master's relations with the town authorities, the new Schul- ordnungen seem to have tried to effect a change. Thus Bugenhagen's Schulordnung for Braunschweig, 1528, con- tains a long section fixing salaries and obligations; it binds the Stadtrat not to desert the schoolmaster in illness, provides that one of his assistants shall collect the tuition fees, and if a master wishes to marry, it pledges the town to provide a house. 1 The social position of the sixteenth century schoolmaster was a sorry one from his own point of view as well as in the eyes of others. It was deplored in one continuous wail of unappreciated worth which resounded through the next two hundred years. This is not surprising. Both Humanism 1 Vormbaum, op. cit., i, p. 12. 24 THE OBERLEHRER and Reformation had laid unmeasured emphasis on the culture for which the schoolmaster stood. Humanism, furthermore, had given him a voice and a passion for elo- quence. The trouble was that the thing for which he stood bore no direct relation to the thing he did, nor to the way in which he did it. The Humanist schoolmaster, imbued with the new ideals of his new world, whether these were sincere, as at first, or artificial, as they soon became, was the sure prey to an inward struggle between work and worth. It was the same struggle that has constituted the teacher's tragedy from that tune to this, and is only now beginning to yield to the general insight that worth must somehow be expressed in terms of work to command its proper valuation. Society in the long run appraises a ser- vice rendered at its actual significance, and does not willingly make up irrelevant arrears, however much it may pity or admire the creditor. So here, men who felt themselves to be the successors of Greek and Roman poets, were performing with natural disdain what a very much humbler individual could have done quite as well. Melanchthon's friend, Eobanus Hessus, might perhaps better have ascribed his feelings to causes more within his control than to the humbleness of his position as rector at Erfurt, but his words are expressive: And what is the reward of all our pains ? Fasting, affliction, im- poverishment, sickness, and never-ceasing grief. Every other pur- suit sustains its man; but the school teacher is weighed down with shocking poverty, and the wanton pride of others prostrates him completely. Every common clerk, pettifogger, and beggar-monk has or claims precedence. So in the bloom of our years whitened age overtakes us. Oh, better death than this profession ! 1 One is more impressed with Melanchthon's own complaint: We are objects of the most arrogant contempt, not only from the ignorant, the commercial class, who rail at all education, but also from those demi-gods that sit on high at the courts. 2 1 Schmidt, Gesch, d. Padagogik, ii, p. 481. 2 Corpus Reformatorum, xi, p. 299. THE SCHOOLMASTER 2$ From a later period, 1577, Janssen quotes the words of a preacher in Jena : Who can deny the truth of the taunt flung by the papists, that among the protestants all charity has as good as disappeared, and that preachers, teachers, and schoolmasters are so lightly esteemed that they can find no support for wife and child, and even by begging are often unable to keep soul and body together. 1 This whole chapter of Janssen is full of instances showing the savagery of the schools, and the want and destitution of the masters. Possibly his Catholic point of view leads him to undervalue material that gives Fischer's account a more cheerful tone. Unforeseen by Luther, an important factor operated from the tune of the Reformation on, to reduce the social prestige of the schoolmaster and of the clergy as well. When the break in the church came, the old clerical nobility, recruited through the cloister schools from the first blood of the land, withdrew. The princes of the church went over to the state on which the church was now dependent, and the lower clergy alone remained, drawn largely from the lower classes and accustomed to small esteem. In the school this occasioned a loss not fully retrieved until the nineteenth century. From now on, the governing classes received their education either through specially favored institutions, through the later Ritteracademieen, or through private in- structors. In view of the generally accepted German principle: "As the pupil, so the master," in respect to gentility, the effect of this change on the schoolmaster's social position was considerable. This loss of prestige was partly atoned for by the establishment of several great state schools out of confiscated church property. Here, if any- where, the nobility still appeared, and here are to be found also the beginnings of that state over-sight and control which 1 Janssen, Gesch. d. d. Volkes, vii, p. 74. 26 THE OBERLEHRER developed later such conditions as were needed for a homo- geneous Oberlehrerstand. These schools were able to select the best masters, and their operation could be maintained at a high standard. A position here was among the few to give that social standing which a capable man, inclined to the profession from inward motives, would find agreeable for life. Finally a passage or two may be cited from Ebner, who, in his little book Magister, Oberlehrer, Professoren, has sought to trace the figure of the schoolmaster through German literature. He says of this and the period immediately following: It is the same figure recurring again and again the schoolmaster continually bursting into lamentations, chiefly in Latin. Between the stupidity of the parents and the rebelliousness of the pupils he wages an exhausting warfare; the demons of the school-room beset him sorely, and his mournful existence is lightened only on the rare occasion when some parent invites him out to dine. 1 Typical, too, is the following extract from a Komb'die vom Schulwesen by Georg Mauritius, rector in Nuremberg, 1606; The Magister Christianus speaks: Am I not a wretched man ? Endure such weary toil, none can; Neither day nor night brings rest, And mighty meagre thanks at best. A match for me ne'er lived, I know; Nor tossed in such a sea of woe; Was ne'er by toil so overborne, Nor thus of all life's best powers shorn. 3. The Pedant-Schoolmaster, 1600-1750 The most characteristic features of school-teaching before 1600 have been outlined. They continue for a hundred and fifty years almost without change, touched in the larger 1 Ebner, Magister, Oberlehrer, Professoren, p. 67. THE SCHOOLMASTER 27 schools of the eighteenth century, by the beginnings of better things, and giving place generally in the nineteenth to a new spirit and new conditions. The fervor of humanistic ideals was rapidly exhausted in a dogmatic age concerned with nerving all parties to religious wars; but the withered prac- tices remained. Against these the progressive spirits of the seventeenth century, Ratichius, Comenius, Leibnitz, and others carried on a derisive and relentless, but largely fruitless struggle. Stirred by influences from without, where forces were in motion that left the German scholar-world almost untouched, the governing classes broke entirely with the old system, and devised one new and up-to-date in the brilliant but superficial Ritterakademieen or schools for noble- men. Nevertheless the old persisted. Greek, to be sure, had everywhere given way, and its study was reduced chiefly to a formal handling of the New Testament for the sake of the future students of theology. Between 1600 and 1775, there appeared scarcely a single new edition of a Greek classic author, though an exceedingly active period of publication had preceded. 1 Latin, on the contrary, held its ground in aim, method, and amount; its gradual devitalization ap- peared in the abandonment of the classical writers, and a more or less complete return to the philosophical and theo- logical Latin which in the seventeenth century had com- pletely remastered the universities. Toward the end of the century, the reform ideas of Rati- chius, that had received tentative expression in the short- lived institutions of the Thuringian duke of Gotha as early as 1640, found a permanent and popular embodiment at Halle, in the Paedagogium of A. H. Franke, a former pupil at Gotha. This school, widely influential through its pupils, incorporated in its curriculum French, German, geometry, trigonometry, algebra, history, and geography, beside Latin 1 Paulsen, op, tit., i, p. 475. 28 THE OBERLEHRER and Greek. 1 This sounds revolutionary but the change is seen to be more apparent than real when it is observed that to Latin alone was assigned three and a half hours daily except on the review days, Wednesday and Saturday. German, and all the non-linguistic work, was given in a single afternoon period ! 2 So firm was the grip of formalism even in that model centre of the new tendencies. The new subjects rapidly found their way into the larger and better schools, but as private, extra, and voluntary subjects for which a special fee was charged. Not until J. M. Gesner's genius later transformed the old Latin instruction, and gave it rational relations to life and reality did the new ideas com- pletely break through or receive genuine recognition in the plan of studies. As the old regime ran its course, the schoolmaster appeared in an increasingly unfavorable light. His training was still that of the church. In the edict of Frederick William I, 1718, the examination requirements of the priest and school- master are treated as fully identical, and one is expected to appreciate and supplement the work of the other. 3 Consider, furthermore, that, by the eighteenth century, classical studies had practically disappeared from the universities, here and there absolutely. In respect to real preparation for his work, therefore, the magister artium was as badly off as his predecessor of the Middle Ages. What he had received in the school before going to the university became his complete professional stock-in-trade when he returned as rector of the institution; should he pass on into the priest- hood as he expected, another, as badly off as he, took his place; should fate leave him with the class of unsuccessful remnants to spend his life in teaching, the effect upon the school may be imagined. One is not surprised, therefore, 1 Vormbaum, op. tit., iii, pp. 214 ff. 2 Ibid., p. 240. J Heubaum, Gesch. d. d. Bildungswesens, i, p. 161. THE SCHOOLMASTER 29 to find that even at the famous Halle Paedagogium, impres- sions were current like the following from the autobiography of one who was there from 1728 to 1732: In no schools is one likely to find the teachers properly selected; exceedingly few are really fit for their profession, and at Halle the arrangements are such that almost every hour and every half-year one gets not only different but new teachers. At Halle, therefore, I had the misfortune to be, for the most part, under masters who were no students of literature, who were in fact not teachers at all. They could not get at the kernel of Cicero for me, and as a result, I conceived a loathing for the old Latin authors whom I could not understand. That was bad luck for me. 1 A few passages may serve, in closing, to illustrate the con- sensus of opinion in regard to the work and position of the schoolmaster during or at the end of the period under dis- cussion. Setting forth the causes for poor schools, the Schulordnung of Braunschweig- Wolf enbiittel, 1651, proceeds: The prime cause is undeniably the fact that the instructors have not enjoyed sufficient pay to cover their necessities of food and drink, to say nothing of clothing and other indispensable requirements. From this and other causes mentioned it ensues that he who undertakes an appointment to instruct youth in school must count on no other reward for his severe pains and labor, than a rigorous life, passed in hunger, thirst, exposure, and lack of every necessity; and, in addition, he must expect to be scorned by everyone and trodden under foot. 2 From the verdict of German literature Ebner reports: The scholar-humanist of the early sixteenth century becomes little by little the Latin-spouting pedant, the " Schulfitchs," as the seven- teenth century calls him, over whom it is the fashion to joke. The professional prestige, which we can still clearly discern in the literary remains of the Reformation period think of Macropedius crum- bles away bit by bit. The teacher grows powerless with the parents, dependent upon them as he is for his pittance for tuition. That this dependence reacts injuriously upon his character is obvious. Thus 1 Reiske's Selbstbiographie. Cf. Paulsen, op. tit., i, p. 595. J Vormbaum, op. tit., ii, pp. 410 ff. 30 THE OBERLEHRER with the advancing seventeenth century, the figure of the teacher becomes more and more deplorable; indeed, actually vulgar. 1 And their condition in the eighteenth century he finds more dismal and pitiful, if possible, than we discovered it to be in the seventeenth. 2 Finally to sum up with Paulsen's words: When, in the schools, both teachers and pupils are forced hi daily toil to pursue occupations to which beyond school walls no significance is longer attached, the result cannot be other than discontent. It is my belief that at no time has the school work in secondary schools been performed with less pleasure and spontaneity than at the beginning of the eighteenth century. 3 What busied them counted no longer in the world without; what counted without, that was hardly as yet their business. 4 1 Ebner, Magister, Oberlehrer, Professoren, p. 68. 2 Ibid., p. 99. * Paulsen, op. cit., i, p. 592. 4 Ibid., i, p. 607. CHAPTER II SECOND PERIOD, 1750-1871 THE NEW-HUMANIST OBERLEHRER i. The Greek Revival THE spirit and ideals of higher instruction may or may not reflect directly the best insight of the time. Periods of such coincidence alternate with long intervals of transition and maladjustment. The years between 1650 and 1800 seem to constitute such an interval, after which the school in Germany represents the dominant spiritual forces hi society more perfectly than at any preceding time. To appreciate the change it is indispensable to observe these guiding intellectual and spiritual forces more closely. In the face of what gave every promise of being certain oblivion, Greek and Roman studies were rescued during the eighteenth century by a movement that carried them to the zenith of their influence in western Europe. This move- ment was essentially of a twofold character. In its method and mental attitude it represented fully the purpose and scope of that idea which had been approached, indeed, in the earlier Humanism, but which had first found emphatic apostles in Ratichius and Comenius; namely, content as well as form, and content first. In its spirit and direction, on the other hand, it assumed the proportions of a veritable religion, nourished in the hitherto almost unknown Greek civilization. It is difficult, in a brief statement, to set such a movement in the frame of its necessary surroundings, but it cannot be considered out of connection with the profound mental release which had occurred in theology, law, medicine, and 31 32 THE OBERLEHRER philosophy. It gathered up into itself all those instincts for scientific and aesthetic satisfaction which the discovery of the world of things had brought. It offered at the same time a peculiarly welcome refuge in its glowing ideals for those more ardent and creative spirits who could feel only aversion for the coldness of Rationalism or the rigors of Pietism. The first of these characteristics will appear below when the specific changes in the methods of instruction are pointed out. The second is of perhaps greater fundamental import- ance because it seems to contain the secret of that over- powering self-confidence and enthusiasm with which the New Humanism set to work, and which completely 'trans- formed the life and mission of the German schoolmaster. An ideal that could captivate the minds of a group of men like Johann Winckelmann, Lessing, Herder, Humboldt, Goethe, and Schiller, and lead to a series of artistic perform- ances that with scarcely diminished power still signalize a great epoch, could hardly fail to arouse the fervor of those men who found the means to reach it directly in their path. To the restless Winckelmann " the noble simplicity and calm greatness " of Greek beauty had become a controlling passion. Schiller, commiserating Goethe for the roundabout path his northern spirit must follow in reaching its ideal, laments : Had you been born a Greek, or even an Italian, and been sur- rounded from the cradle up with the flower of Nature's forms and an Art dedicated to the Ideal, your path thither had been infinitely shortened, possibly wholly done away. For so the first vision of things would have revealed to you their necessary form, and the mighty style would have risen in .you with your earliest experiences. 1 And Herder in one of his Brief e zur Beforderung der Hu- manitat (No. 66) utters the dominating conception of the whole band : 1 Vollmer, Briefwechsel zw. Schiller u. Goethe, i, p. 5. Brief wm 23 Aug., 1794. THE NEW-HUMANIST OBERLEHRER 33 With solemn reverence we ascend to Olympus, and there behold the forms of gods in the likeness of men. The Greeks deified Hu- manity. Other nations debased the thought of God and made it monstrous; but this one elevated the divine in man to deity. Paulsen's summary of the results of this train of thought ought also to be given: In this world of thought and feeling the German people lived and labored during the next two generations that portion of the German people, at least, which attended the secondary schools and univer- sities. Among the Greeks the idea of Man became flesh; to lift our- selves to the true, the ideal manhood through reflection upon that idea that is henceforth the task. It becomes the duty of the secondary school to serve as means to this end. The school is, as it were, the temple of Hellenism upon earth, whither the youth of all peoples shall be led to acquire for themselves the idea of Humanity. In place of the old " sapiens atque eloquens pietas " stands now " sa- piens atque eloquens humanitas." * In the same direction worked Rousseau's influence, especially powerful in Prussia, in so far as it overthrew out- worn conventions, and sought to make the spirit free to develop from within. Spontaneous activity and self-discov- ery in the fresh, untrammelled play of a healthy human nature is the keynote. Heralding his ideas, the Philan- thropinists caught the ear of the German public. The attention they were given and the expectations they aroused are most significant indications of the appearance of new educational aspirations. The expression of this movement in an effective educa- tional practice was the work primarily of three men, Johann Gesner, Christian Heyne, and Friedrich Wolf, who gave the technique of classical studies the form that it has retained to the present time. The new treatment that these men inaugurated and developed was simple but radically different from the old, and as suggested above seems best regarded as a satisfaction of the demand of their time that at last the 1 Paulsen, op. cit., ii, p. 198. 34 THE OBERLEHRER