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 poor. 23. Matrimony. 24. The bans. 25. Consecration. 26. 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.
After that follow exercises in Latin forms.

At twelve o'clock: Writing and correction of exercises (Latin
and German).

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.)

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.

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 noon every 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 lastly prosody. 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