One after another stepped up to the table where the master sat. He pointed out one letter at a time, and named it; the child named it after him; he drilled him in recognizing and remembering each. Then they took letter by letter of the words, and by getting acquainted with them in this way, the child gradually learned to read. This was a difficult method for him; a very difficult one. Years usually passed before any facility had been acquired; many did not learn in four years. It was imitative and purely mechanical labor on both sides. To understand what was read was seldom thought of. The syllables were pronounced with equal force, and the reading was without grace or expression. Where it was possible, but unnaturally and mechanically, learninį by heart was practiced. The children drawled out texts of Scripture, Psalms, and the contents of the Catechism from the beginning to end; short questions and long answers alike, all in the same monotonous manner. Anybody with delicate ears who heard the sound once, would remember it all his life long. There are people yet living, who were taught in that unintelligent way, who can corroborate these statements. Of the actual contents of the words whose sounds they had thus barely committed to memory by little and little, the children knew absolutely almost nothing. They learned superficially and understood superficially. Nothing really passed into their minds; at least nothing during their school years. The instruction in singing was no better. The master sang to them the psalm-tunes over and over, until they could sing them, or rather screech them, after him. Such was the condition of instruction in our schools during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and two-thirds of the eighteenth centuries; confined to one or two studies, and those taught in the most imperfect and mechanical way. It was natural that youth endowed, when healthy, with an ever increasing capacity for pleasure in living, should feel the utmost reluctance at attending school. To be employed daily, for three or four hours, or more, in this mechanical toil, was no light task; and it therefore became necessary to force the children to sit still, and study their lessons. During all that time, especially in the seventeenth century, during the fearful Thirty Years' War, and subsequently, as the age was sunk in barbarism, the children of course entered the schools ignorant and untrained. "As the old ones sung, so twittered the young." Stern severity and cruel punishments were the order of the day; and by them the children were kept in order. Parents governed children, too young to attend, by threats of the schoolmaster and the school; and when they went, it was with fear and trembling. The rod, the cane, the raw-hide, were necessary apparatus in each school. The punishments of the teacher exceeded those of a prison. Kneeling on peas, sitting on the shame-bench, standing in the pillory, wearing an ass-cap, standing before the school door in the open street with a label on the back or breast, and other similar devices, were the age de remedies which the rude men of the vised. To name a single example of a boy whom all have heard of, of high gifts, and of reputable family, Dr. Martin Luther reckoned up fifteen or sixteen times that he was whipped upon the back in one forenoon. The learning and training corresponds; the one was strictly a mechanical process; the other, only bodily punishment. What wonder that from such schools there came forth a rude generation; that men and women looked back all their lives to the school as to a dungeon, and to the teacher as a taskmaster, and jailer; that the schoolmaster was of a small repute; that understrappers were selected for school duty and school discipline; that dark, cold kennels. were used for school FIG. 59. AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY (Reproduction of an engraving by J. Mettenleiter, rooms; that the schoolmaster's place, especially in the country, was assigned him amongst the servants and the like. This could not last; it has not, thank God! When and by what efforts of admirable men the change took place, I shall relate a little later on. 245. English Free-School Rules, 1734 The following rules and regulations were recently printed in an English periodical, as of the date of 1734, but without stating the school for which they were framed. They may be regarded, though, as authentic, and fairly representative of educational conditions in an age when corporal punishment was the ruling feature of the school. They were evidently framed for some Latin Grammar School of the time. Imprimis, Whatsoever Boy comes to School past 7 o' th' Clock In the Morning In Summer time, and past 8 o' th' Clock In ye Winter time [without Shewing good reason] Shall receive 3 Lashes. Item, Whosoever absents himself from School, Either by Truantry, by trying to stay at home, or otherwise; Shall incurr his Master's highest displeasure, Suffer the hissing and Scoffing of ye whole School, Tarry behind the Rest one hour at Night for a week, and besides [as a suitable Reward for his -] shall suffer 12 Lashes. Item, Whatsoever Boy shall at any time Curse, Swear, or take the Lord's Name in vain, Shall assuredly suffer for such offence, 15 Lashes. Item, What Boy soever addicts himself to Obscene Talking or foolish Jesting, shall Suffer for each such Transgression. Item, What Boy soever absents himself from the Service of Almighty God on the Sabbath day, and spends that Day in a wicked man'er In playing & running about, Shall receive 20 Lashes. Item, Whosoever steals from or defrauds his School-fellow of Ink, Pens, Paper, Quills, or any Other Thing Whatsoever, Shall certainly. when found out and detected, receive 9 Lashes. 246. A New Jersey School Lottery (Murray, David, History of Education in New Jersey, pp. 123-24. Washington, 1899) The lottery was a very common means, during the latter half of the eighteenth century and the first quarter of the nineteenth, for obtaining money to found or endow churches, colleges, and schools. The following advertisement, under date of July 2, 1753, to establish and maintain a school at Trenton, in New Jersey, is typical of these early means for raising money for a common school. We, whose names are hereunto subscribed, sons of some of the principal families in and about Trenton, being in some measure sensible of the advantages of learning, and desirous that those who are deprived of it through the poverty of their parents might taste the sweetness of it with ourselves, can think of no better or other method for that purpose than the following scheme of a Delaware-Island lottery1 for raising 225 pieces of eight (Spanish dollars) toward building a house to accommo 1 Lotteries were at that time forbidden in New Jersey, and in order to evade the law they were held on Fish Island, in the river, and were termed Fish-Island, or Delaware-Island lotteries. date an English and grammar school and paying a master to teach such children whose parents are unable to pay for schooling. It is proposed that the house be 30 feet long, 20 feet wide, and one story high, and built on the southeast corner of the meetinghouse yard in Trenton, under the direction of Messrs. Benjamin Yard, Alexander Chambers, and John Chambers, all of Trenton aforesaid. The managers are: . . . The drawing was to take place on Fish Island, in the river Delaware, oppo-site to the town of Trenton, and the morey raised by this lottery shall be paid into the hands of Moore Furman, of Trenton, who is under bond for the faithful laying out the money for the uses above. And we, the managers, assure the adventurers, upon our honor, that this scheme in all its parts shall be as punctually observed as if we were under the formalities used in lotteries; and we flatter ourselves the public, considering our laudable design, our age, and our innocence, will give credit to this, our public declaration. CHAPTER XIX THE EIGHTEENTH A TRANSITION CENTURY THE Readings of this chapter deal with the great transition movements which characterized the eighteenth century and made of it a transition century. They cover the political and religious conditions obtaining at the time; the attack on the ancient privileges of both Church and State; the liberalizing movements of the century; the demands for reform in France; the rise of democratic government in England and America; and the sweeping away of the old abuses in France. Only a few of the large number of possible Readings illustrative of eighteenth-century conditions are reproduced in this chapter. The first (247) gives an interesting picture of the results of ecclesiastical despotism on a nation fast attaining a national consciousness, and contrasts well the outcome of larger religious freedom in England with the lack of it in France. The eighteenth century became one of open rebellion in France. In England reforms were granted, and the evolution in consequence was slower but more peaceful. The outstanding intellectual genius of the eighteenth century was Voltaire. He attacked privilege in every direction, but particularly the privileges and abuses of the greatest and most powerful institution of his day the Church. He contributed many articles to the famous Encyclopédie edited by Diderot, and one of these, setting forth what he conceived to be the proper relations between Church and State, is here (248) reproduced. The two extracts from the Social Contract of Rousseau (249 a-b) are given to show the nature of the warfare he declared on organized society, and also the fervid character of his reasoning. This book depicted so well the abuses of his age that it became "the Bible of the French Revolutionists." The writings of Buckle represent extended research, and the selection reproduced (250) from his great history gives an interesting description of the eighteenth-century intellectual progress of the English people. The Bill of Rights reproduced from the 1776 Pennsylvania |