dicated by the following "Circular of the Consistory of Gotha" regarding teachers, under date of September 11, 1741. We have, with great displeasure, perceived that a great many persons make teaching their profession without sufficient cultivation of their faculties. Many of the teachers have employed incapable masters to teach them a little instrumental and vocal music, which is not an important requisite, but they are unable to awaken in the children's heads a true understanding of the Catechism, unable to jot down the sermon, to hear the children recite, much more unable to give instruction about any thing in nature. They know little of penmanship and arithmetic, and yet, in spite of their ignorance, twenty apply for one vacancy in a school, because, as they say, they have learned nothing else by which to make a living. They do so from love of a comfortable life, and from fear of the plough; but this must and shall be stopped, and our most gracious duke has therefore pleased to decree that you (superintendents) are required to select teachers from young men of ability, who will devote themselves for life and with enthusiasm to this work, and to reject bungling boys, &c. How little such decrees effected, and how little power the consistory possessed to give force to such decrees, is shown by the number of monitory decrees of October 11, 1746; July 7, 1750; October 2, 1750; April 16, 1760. The chairs of the teachers remained occupied by the poorest pupils of the gymnasium, discharged corporals, bankrupt tradesmen, and, above all, by servants of the household of a count (patron of a school) who had outlived their usefulness in the family. These brought the oncecelebrated Gotha schools into discredit. 232. Description of an Eighteenth-Century Swedish People's School (From the German of Karl von Raumer; trans. in Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. XXII, p. 701) The following selection, taken from an article on the history of education in Sweden, describes the elementary vernacular school of that country at the close of the seventeenth century. The description also remained true of such schools well through the eighteenth century. Educational reform in Sweden did not begin until after 1800, and came in part as a result of the introduction of the English monitorial system into the schools of neighboring Denmark The leaders of the so-called Period of Freedom manifested much interest in popular enlightenment. In a letter dated February 19, 1768, the governors of the provinces and the consistories were called on to suggest how the instruction of the peasant children could be better organized, how school-houses could be erected, the support of schoolteachers obtained, and good school regulations generally could be drawn up. These suggestions, such as they were, were not carried out, for during the whole eighteenth century not more than one hundred and sixty-five stationary schools were established; the instruction outside of their localities being imparted in village schools (Dorfschulen) which had no abiding place, the teachers being often very ignorant, and not unfrequently graceless scamps, drunkards, or ruined people, and both subjects and methods being extremely limited and defective. However, the school fees were very small, being two, three, or four skillings a week for children learning to read, and six to eight for those who studied writing and ciphering. A Swedish popular school in the seventeenth century presented a peculiar aspect. The discipline was rough, the punishments barbarous. The school was gathered in an ordinary peasant's room, where the occupants carried on their domestic occupations; at the end of the great dining-table sat the teacher, called "master," and near by sat the little children, or "A B C pupils," on stools or benches without any backs, while a little farther away, according to their proficiency, sat the other scholars with their books in their laps; only the few who were learning to cipher and write sat at the master's table. The text-books consisted of the Horn-Book, the Greater and the Lesser Catechisms, together with the Hymn-Book. When the pupil had mastered the art of reading in these three books, and had learned the Catechism by heart — without any test of his understanding it he was ready to graduate, and the teacher was dispensed with. Occasionally children of bright parts or whose parents were in better circumstances, were taught to write and cipher, but copies and manuals, with the proper solutions, were not used, which occasioned great waste of time. This picture is dark, but accurate, even far into the present century. 233. Schools of Frankfurt-am-Main during the Eighteenth Century (From the German of Karl von Raumer; trans. in Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. XXII, p. 736) The following extract from a history of education in Frankfurtam-Main, one of the "Free Hanseatic German Cities," gives an interesting picture of the schools and of the limited educational conditions which must have existed in the eighteenth century in one of the important cities in German lands. In this form (1591) the Frankfort school system remained, in all essential points unchanged till the re-organization of Frankfort as a free city, in 1815. During this time the number of teachers varied from sixteen to thirty-two, each school being limited to a single assistant and hence restricted to a moderate number of scholars. The schools were sometimes under the charge of female teachers, which is explained by the fact that the school privilege was a real right, transferable by inheritance or sale. The course of study was probably extended so as even sometimes to include French, but there were special charges for instruction in all branches beyond the elementary ones of reading and writing. That this arrangement, as carried out, was by no means satisfactory, is evident from a reform document by one of the teachers, J. M. Schirmer, in the middle of the 18th century. He proposed that the number of schools should be limited, the teachers paid by the State, a revival of the regulation requiring visitation of the schools, and that all teacherships should be made hereditary. He was especially opposed to the numerous "hedge" schools which had again arisen, kept by "school disturbers" and various kinds of strollers, "lackeys, tailors, shoemakers, stocking weavers, wig makers, journeymen printers, invalid soldiers, and sewing and knitting women," who managed to gain a subsistence by means of instruction in German and the Catechism. But his criticism met with slight response and no attempt at a reorganization was made until within the present century. 234. A Swiss Teacher's Examination, in 1793 (Krüsi, Hermann, Recollections of my Pedagogical Life, pp. 2-4. Stuttgart, 1840. Trans. in Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. v, pp. 162–63) Hermann Krüsi (1775-1844), who became a schoolmaster at eighteen, and at twenty-five joined Pestalozzi and was for sixteen years his main reliance and helper, has left the following account of how he happened to become a teacher, and the nature of the examination he was required to pass to obtain the appointment. It throws much light on the character of popular education in German Switzerland near the close of the eighteenth century. At the highest point of the pass, where the road turns away from toward Trogen, my life also took another direction. While earning my living as day laborer and errand-man, I was carrying, one warm day in 1793, to the establishment of Zellweger, with which I afterward came into very different relations, a great bundle of yarn from the mountain. As I stopped to rest, all dripping with sweat, at the very summit, a relative met me, who was then treasurer of the town, one Herr Gruber. After the usual greetings, the following conversation ensued, which I yet remember as the turning point of my life. Gruber. "Now that schoolmaster Hörler is going away from Gais, you have a chance to earn your bread a little more easily. Have you no desire to offer yourself for his place!" Myself. "Wishing will not help me much. A schoolmaster must have knowledge; and I have none." Gruber. "What a schoolmaster among us needs to know, you at your age can very soon learn." Myself. "But how, and where? I see no possibility of it." Gruber. "If you wish it, the means will be easily found. Consider the matter and decide upon it." He left me. I now had abundance of matter for reflection. But no ray of light came into my mind, although the natural sunlight surrounded my body with brightness and warmth. I scarcely felt my load as I proceeded along the ascents and steeps of the road. Whatever has fallen to my lot since that moment, I look upon as the fruit of this conversation. Since my leaving the day school, where I had learned and practiced only reading, learning by rote, and mechanical copying, and while I was growing up to adult age, I had so far forgotten to write that I no longer knew how to make all the capital letters; my friend Sonderegger therefore procured me a copy from a teacher in Altstättin, well known as a writing-master. This single copy I wrote over as often as a hundred times, for the sake of improving my handwriting. I had no other special preparation for the profession; but, notwithstanding, I ventured, when the notice was given from the pulpit, to offer myself as a candidate for the place. with but small hopes of obtaining it, but consoling myself with the thought that at least I should come off without shame. The day of examination came. An elder fellow-candidate was first called before the committee. To read a chapter in the New Testament and to write a few lines, occupied him a full quarter of an hour. My turn now came. The genealogical register, from Adam to Abraham, from the first book of Chronicles, was given me to read. After this, chairman Schläpfer gave me an uncut quill, with the direction to write a few lines. "What shall I write?" I said. "Write the Lord's Prayer, or whatever you like," was the answer. As I had no knowledge of composition or spelling, it may be imagined how my writing looked. However, I was told to retire. After a short consideration, I was, to my wonder and pride, recalled into the room. Here chairman Schläpfer informed me that the whole committee were of the opinion that both candidates knew little; that the other was best in reading, and I in writing. The other, however, being over forty years old, and I only eighteen, they had come to the conclusion that I should learn what was necessary sooner than he, and as moreover my dwelling-house (the commune had then no school-house of their own) was better adapted for a schoolhouse than his, I should receive the appointment. I was dismissed with friendly advice, and encouraging hopes of increased pay, if my exertions should be satisfactory. Much attention was excited by the fact that my fellow-candidate, eight days afterward, took a situation as policeman, in which he received three gulden a week, while the schoolmaster, who was obliged to furnish his own school-room, had to satisfy himself with two and a half. 235. The English Dame School described (Poems by the Reverend George Crabbe, 1754-1832; Henry Kirke White, 17851806; and William Shenstone, 1714-63) The English poet Crabbe was essentially a poet of the homely life of the people. In his description of the Borough, in speaking of the "Poor and their Dwellings," he pays a passing tribute of respect and gratitude to his first teacher, in the following lines describing the Dame School he attended: At her old house, her dress, her air the same, I see mine ancient letter-loving dame: "Learning, my child," said she, "shall fame command; Learning is better than house or land For houses perish, lands are gone and spent; In learning then excel, for that's most excellent." "And what her learning?"—"T is with awe to look In every verse throughout one sacred book From this her joy, her hope, her peace is sought; If aught of mine have gained the public ear; Shall I not grateful still the dame survey, But half our bench of wealthy, weighty men, |