tians might teach. To secure these ends suitable means of church inspection of schools were devised. By the time of this synod the church had not only thoroughly organized its system of parochial schools, but

through the requirement of creed subscription had reached out its hand to all educational institutions of whatever grade.

But it must not be supposed that the Church alone was interested in education. From an early date the Dutch had taken an increasing interest in the public control and support of education. In Haarlem the "city school" existed certainly as early as 1461. In the same city, in 1522, we find the burgomasters guaranteeing a salary of 200 carolus guilders to the rector of the school. The Hague in 1536 had a "great school" with a rector and three masters, supported in part by a per capita levy of 2 carolus guilders upon all the pupils in the private schools of the city. To this income the city added for the rector "a yearly pension of four or five great pounds." Utrecht, both city and Province, may be taken as typical of public secular interest in schools. As early as 1522 is found a payment by the municipal authorities to the "rector scolarium" on account of a chorus. In 1567 the city paid an item of 4 pounds for "the benches for the school children in Jesus School." Some years later a similar appropriation was made for the free instruction of poor young children. In 1576 it was resolved by the city thenceforth to maintain the Saint Jerome School "with adequate salaries." Numerous records of instructions issued in the seventeenth

century to rectors and masters of this school give a very good account of the inner working of the Latin school among the Dutch of that period. A church order for the whole Province of Utrecht was issued in 1590, and another in 1612. In the latter were included directions for schools, schoolmasters, and sextons. Schools of four kinds were recognized, public or trivial, parochial, private, and schools for the country districts. The selection of instructors, the fixing of curricula, and the general supervision were given to the municipal authorities, with varying degrees of participation in control granted to the church. In 1644 the city of Utrecht adopted a detailed plan for the free instruction of the poor by apportioning them among its four parochial schools. The country schools of the Province were regulated separately in an order of 18 sections, issued in 1654, one of the best available accounts of Dutch school management of the seventeenth century. In matters of education, there is no reason to suppose that Utrecht was in advance of other Provinces of the United Netherlands. Before the Reformation public schools were found in individual cities. Beginning about 1580 the Provinces took up the work, making general regulations for the control of schools everywhere. By the middle of the seventeenth century the whole country rural districts as well as cities and towns appears to have been well provided with schools of various grades, controlled and often also supported by the public secular authorities.

178. Character of the Dutch Schools of 1650, as shown by the Textbooks used

(Kilpatrick, Wm. H., The Dutch Schools of New Netherland and Colonial New York, p. 34. Washington, 1912)

The great purpose of all vernacular schooling, following the Reformation, was the teaching of religion. The ordinary subjects of the elementary school were taught from books the content of which was almost entirely religious. This may be illustrated by the following list and description of the texts adopted for the Dutch province of Utrecht, in 1650.

The textbooks used in the better elementary schools are probably pretty well represented by the list officially promulgated at Utrecht, in 1650.

Het groot en kleyn A.B.C. boeck;

De Heydelberchse Catechismus;

De Evangelien ende Epistelen;

De Trap der Jeugt;

De Historien van David;

Proverbia Salomonis;

De spiegel der Jeugt van de Nederlandse oorlogen;

De sendbrieven van de nieuwe editie met eenige stichtelyke dichten daar achter.

The first three of these are sufficiently indicated by their translated titles: The Great and Small A B C Book, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Gospels and Epistles. The alphabet books were generally called "cock books," from the picture of a crowing cock found thereon. On the title page of one of these appeared:

"We must know the alphabet very well

Before we can readily read any book."

In addition to the alphabet, these books contained the Lord's Prayer, the commandments, and the prayers. The Heidelberg Catechism was the authoritative catechism of the Reformed Dutch Church. The Gospels and the Epistles served as a reading book. "De Trap der Jeugt" means literally "The Stairway of Youth," but the writer has not been able to find any indication of its contents. The Proverbs of Solomon is again a reading book. "De Spiegel der Jeugt," literally "The Mirror of Youth," treated of the wars of the Dutch people. "De Sendbrieven," etc., are the Epistles of the New Testament.

179. The Scotch School Law of 1646

(Acts of Parliaments of Scotland, II Februarii, 1646. Report of Record Commission, vol. VI, p. 216)

The Reformation in Scotland dates from 1560. In 1616 the Privy Council ordered each church parish to assume the obligation of supporting a school. This was ratified by an Act of the Scotch Parliament in 1633, and in 1646 more definite legislation was approved, the important portions of which read:

The Estates of Parliament now conveened, in the fifth session of this first Triennall Parliament, Considering how prejudiciall the want of Schools in many congregations hath been, and how beneficiall the founding thereof in every congregation will be to this Kirk and Kingdom; Do therefore Statute and Ordain, That there be a Schoole founded, and a Schoole master appointed in every Parish (not already provided) by advice of the Presbyterie: And to this purpose, that the Heritors in every congregation meet among themselves, and provide a commodious house for a Schoole, and modifie a stipend to the Schoole master, which shall not be under Ane hundred Merks, nor above Tua hundred Merks, to be paid yeerly at two Terms: And to this effect that they set down a stent upon every ones rent of stock and teind in the Parish, proportionally to the worth thereof, for maintenance of the Schoole, and payment of the Schoole masters stipend; Which stipend is declared to be due to the Schoole masters by and attour the casuali

ties which formerly belonged to Readers and Clerks of Kirk Sessions. And if the Heritors shall not conveene, or being conveened shall not agree amongst themselves, Then, and in that case the Presbyterie shall nominate twelve honest men within the bounds of the Presbyterie, who shall have power to establish a Schoole, modifie a stipend for the Schoole master, with the latitude before expressed, and set down a stent for payment thereof upon the Heritors, which shall be as valide and effectuall as if the same had been done by the Heritors themselves.

180. The Ratio Studiorum of the Jesuits

(Pachtler, G. M., Ratio Studiorum; in Monumenta Germania Pædagogica, 4 vols. Berlin, 1886-1900)

Great care was exercised by the Jesuits in working out their outlines of instruction, known as the Ratio Studiorum. The Society was sanctioned in 1540, and the first Constitution of the Order was issued that year. The first edition of the Ratio, however, was not issued until 1586, and this was subject to experiment and trial until 1599, when the final Ratio was issued. This then remained unchanged until 1832, when some modern studies were added.

Their schools were divided into two courses, the studia inferiora, covering six years, beginning at about the age of ten; and the studia superiora, or philosophical course, covering two to three years. A theological course of four to six years completed the program. For all these years the Ratio made detailed provision; allowed for the adjustment of the instruction to meet local needs; enjoined the use of Latin as the language of the classroom and the school; regulated the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly programs of work; provided for the careful regulation of the lives of the students; declared Saint Thomas Aquinas the true teacher to be followed; and instructed the teachers to draw their history from unadulterated sources, to defend the Vulgate Bible, and to refute the errors of all other translations.

A brief digest of the 1686 edition may be found in Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. xxvii, pp. 165-75; and a digest of the more important educational regulations of the 1699 edition in F. V. N. Painter's Great Pedagogical Essays (American Book Company, New York, 1905), pp. 188-202. Both are too long tc quote here.

181. The Dominant Religious Purpose in the Education of

French Girls

(Gréard, V. C. O., Mémoire sur l'enseignement secondaire des filles, p. 55; trans. by Compayré)

The following description of the oversight of the education of girls at Port Royal (1643-60), which bears on the training of girls generally in the seventeenth century, reveals something of the intense religious nature of school and conventual education of that time. The chief education of girls in Catholic lands was given in the convents, where the emphasis was laid on preparation for another world than this.

A strange emotion, even at the distance of centuries, is caused by the sight of those children keeping silent or speaking in a whisper from rising till retiring, never walking except between two nuns, one in front and the other behind, in order to make it impossible, by slackening their pace on the pretext of some indisposition, for them to hold any communication; working in such a way as never to be in companies of two or three; passing from meditation to prayer, and from prayer to instruction; learning, beside the catechism, nothing but reading and writing; and, on Sunday, "a little arithmetic, the older from one to two o'clock, and the younger from two to half past two"; the hands always busy to prevent the mind from wandering; but without being able to become attached to their work, which would please God as much the more as it pleased themselves the less; opposing all their natural inclinations, and despising the attentions due the body “destined to serve as food for worms"; doing nothing, in a word, except in the spirit of mortification. Imagine those days of fourteen and sixteen hours, slowly succeeding one another, and weighing down on the heads of those poor little sisters, for six or eight years in that dreary solitude, where there was nothing to bring in the stir of life, save the sound of the bell announcing a change of exercise or of penance, and you will comprehend Fénelon's feeling of sadness when he speaks of the shadows of that deep cavern in which was imprisoned and, as it were, buried the youth of girls.

182. Rules of the Order "Brothers of the Christian Schools 99 (From The Conduct of Schools, 1811 edition; trans. by Barnard, in American Journal of Education, vol. xxx, pp. 930–31)

The Conduct of Schools, based on rules originally drawn up by La Salle in 1681, and originally issued in 1720, was to this Order what the Ratio Studiorum was to the Jesuits. The details were so wisely drawn that but little change is noted between the 1720