Their synods made liberal appropriations for the universities, while munic.i.p.alities provided for colleges and elementary education. They emphasized, in the lower schools, the study of the vernacular and arithmetic, and in the colleges Greek and the New Testament. The long list of famous teachers found in their universities reveals the character of their instruction. Foster has well summarized the distinguishing characteristics of Huguenot education in France, before they were driven from the land, as follows: [4]
The significant characteristics of Huguenot education were: an emphasis on the education of the laity; training for "the republic"
and "society" as well as for the Church; insistence upon virtue as well as knowledge; the wide-spread demand for education, and a view of it as essential to liberty of conscience; a comprehensive working system of elementary, collegiate, and university training for all, poor as well as rich; an astonishing familiarity with Scripture, even among the lowest cla.s.ses; utilization of representative church organization for founding, supporting, and unifying education; readiness to sacrifice for education, a spirit of carrying a thing through at any cost; business-like supervision of money, and systematic supervision of both professors and students; a notable emphasis on vernacular, arithmetic, Greek, use of full texts, and libraries; and finally a progressive spirit of inquiry and investigation.
In the Palatinate (see map, Figure 88) some progress in founding churches and schools was made, especially about Stra.s.sburg, and the universities of Heidelberg and Marburg became the centers of Huguenot teaching. In the Dutch Netherlands, and in that part of the Belgian Netherlands inhabited by the Walloons, Calvinist ideas as to education dominated. The universities of Leyden (f. 1575), Groningen (f. 1614), Amsterdam (f.
1630), and Utrecht (f. 1636) were Calvinistic, and closely in touch with the Calvinists and Huguenots of German lands and France. Popular education was looked after among these people as it was in Calvinistic France and Geneva. The Church Synod of The Hague (1586) ordered the establishment of schools in the cities, and in 1618 the Great Synod held at Dort (R. 176) ordered that:
Schools in which the young shall be properly instructed in piety and fundamentals of Christian doctrine shall be inst.i.tuted not only in cities, but also in towns and country places where heretofore none have existed.
The Christian magistracy shall be requested that honorable stipends be provided for teachers, and that well-qualified persons may be employed and enabled to devote themselves to that function; and especially that the children of the poor may be gratuitously instructed by them and not be excluded from the benefits of schools.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 99. A DUTCH VILLAGE SCHOOL (After a painting by Adrian Ostade, dated 1662, now in the Louvre, at Paris)]
Further provisions were made as to the certificating of schoolmasters, and the pastors were made superintendents of the schools, to visit, examine, encourage, advise, and report (R. 176). Provision for the free education of the poor became common, and elementary education was made accessible to all. The careful provision for education made by the province of Utrecht (1590, 1612) (R. 178) was typical of Dutch activity. The province of Drenthe ordered (1630) a school tax paid for all children over seven, whether attending school or not. The province of Overyssel levied (1666) a school tax for all children from eight to twelve years of age. The province of Groningen const.i.tuted the pastors the attendance officers to see that the children got to school. Amsterdam and many other Dutch cities demanded an examination of all teachers before being licensed to teach. By the middle of the seventeenth century a good system of schools seems to have been provided generally [5] by the Dutch and the Belgian Walloons (R.
178). That the teaching of religion was the main function of the Dutch elementary schools, as of all other vernacular schools of the time, is seen from the official lists of the textbooks used (R. 178).
John Knox, the leader of the Scottish Reformation (1560), who had spent some time at Geneva and who was deeply impressed by the Calvinistic religious-state found there, introduced the Calvinistic religious and educational ideas into Scotland. His _Book of Discipline for the Scottish Church_ (1560), framed closely on the Genevan model, contained a chapter devoted to education in which he proposed:
That everie severall churche have a school-maister appointed, such a one as is able at least to teach Grammar and the Latin tung, yf the Town be of any reputation. Yf it be upaland ... then must either the Reider or the Minister take cayre over the children ... to instruct them in their first rudementie and especially in the catechisme.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 100. JOHN KNOX (1505?-72)]
The educational plan proposed by Knox would have called for a large expenditure of money, and this the thrifty Scotch were not ready for. Knox and his followers then proposed to endow the new schools from the old church and monastic foundations, but the Scottish n.o.bles hoped to share in these, as had the English n.o.bility under Henry VIII, and Knox"s plan was not approved. This delayed the establishment of a real national system of education for Scotland until the nineteenth century. The new Church, however, took over the superintendence of education in Scotland, and when parish schools were finally established by decree of the Privy Council, in 1616, and by the legislation of 1633 and 1646 (R. 179), the Church was given an important share in their organization and management. These schools, while not always sufficient in number to meet the educational needs, were well taught, and have deeply influenced the national character.
4. _The Counter-Reformation of the Catholics_
THE JESUIT ORDER. The Protestant Revolt made but little headway in Italy, Spain, Portugal, much of France, or southern Belgium (see map, p. 296).
Italy was scarcely disturbed at all, while in France, where of all these countries the reform ideas had made greatest progress, nine tenths of the people remained loyal to Rome. In a general way it may be stated that those parts of western Europe which had once formed an integral part of the old Roman Empire remained loyal to the Roman Church, while those which had been the homes of the Germanic tribes revolted. Now it naturally happened that the countries which remained loyal to the old Church experienced none of the feelings of the necessity for education as a means to personal salvation which the Lutherans and Calvinists felt. There, too, the church system of education which had developed during the long Middle Ages remained undisturbed and largely unchanged. The Church as an inst.i.tution, though, learned from the Protestants the value of education as a means to larger ends, and soon set about using it. [6]
After the Church Council of Trent (1545-63), where definite church reform measures were carried through (p. 303), the Catholics inaugurated what has since been called a counter-reformation, in an effort to hold lands which were still loyal and to win back lands which had been lost. Besides reforming the practices and outward lives of the churchmen, and reforming some church practices and methods, the Church inaugurated a campaign of educational propaganda. In this last the chief reliance was upon a new and a very useful organization officially known as the "Society of Jesus," but more commonly called the "Jesuit Order." This had been founded, in 1534, by a Spanish knight, pilgrim, man of large ideas, and scholar by the name of Ignatius Loyola, and had been sanctioned as an Order of the Church by Pope Paul III, in 1540. It was organized along strictly military lines, all members being responsible to its General, and he in turn alone to the Pope. The quiet life of the cloister was abandoned for a life of open warfare under a military discipline. The Jesuit was to live in the world, and all peculiarities of dress or rule which might prove an obstacle to worldly success were suppressed. The purposes of the Order were to combat heresy, to advance the interests of the Church, and to strengthen the authority of the Papacy. Its motto was _Omnia ad Majorem Dei Gloriam_ (that is, All for the greater glory of G.o.d), and the means to be employed by it to accomplish these ends were the pulpit, the confessional, the mission, and the school. Of these the school was given the place of first importance. Realizing clearly that the real cause of the Reformation had been the ignorance, neglect, and vicious lives of so many monks and priests and the extortion and neglect practiced by the Church, and that the chief difficulty was in the higher places of authority, it became the prime principle of the Order to live upright and industrious lives themselves, and to try to reach and train those likely to be the future leaders in Church and State. With the education of the ma.s.ses of the people the Order was not concerned. [7] Our interest lies only with the educational work of this Order, a work in which it was remarkably successful and through which it exercised a very large influence.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 101. IGNATIUS DE LOYOLA (1491-1556)]
GREAT SUCCESS OF THE ORDER. The service of the Order to the Church in combating Protestant heresies was very marked. Beginning in a small way, the Order, by 1600, had established two hundred colleges (Latin secondary schools), universities, and training seminaries; by 1640, 372; by 1706 (150 years after the death of its founder), 769; and by 1756, 728. In 1773, when the Order was for a time abolished, [8] after it had been driven out of a number of European countries because of the unscrupulous methods it adopted and the continual application of its doctrine that the end justifies the means, the Order had 22,589 members, about half of whom were teachers. Its colleges (secondary schools) and universities were most numerous and its work most energetically carried on in northern France, Belgium, Holland, the German States, Austria, Poland, and Hungary. Here was the great battle line, and here the Jesuits deeply entrenched themselves. In these portions of Europe alone there were, in 1750, 217 colleges, 55 seminaries, 24 houses for novitiates, and 160 missions. In France alone there were 92 colleges. They did much, single-handed, to roll back the tide of Protestantism which had advanced over half of western Europe, and to hold other countries true to the ancient faith.
The colleges were usually large and well-supported inst.i.tutions, with dormitories, cla.s.srooms, dining-halls; and play-grounds. The usual number of scholars in each was about 300, though some had an attendance of 600 to 800, and a few as high as 2000. At their period of maximum influence the colleges and universities of the Order probably enrolled a total of 200,000 students. Their graduates were prominent in every scholarly and governmental activity of the time. As far as possible the pupils were a selected cla.s.s to whom the Order offered free instruction. The children of the n.o.bility and gentry, and the brightest and most promising youths of the different lands were drawn into their schools. The children of many Protestants, also, were attracted by the high quality of the instruction offered. There they were given the best secondary-school education of the time, and received, at an impressionable age, the peculiar Jesuit stamp.
[9] Bacon gave his opinion as to the success of their instruction in the following sentence: "As for the pedagogical part, the shortest rule would be, Consult the schools of the Jesuits; for nothing better has been put in practice." (_De Augmentis_, VI, 4.) [10]
SUCCESS OF THE JESUIT SCHOOLS. Displaying a genius for organization worthy of Rome, Loyola and his followers absorbed the best educational ideas of the time as to school organization and management and curriculum, and incorporated these into their educational plan. Too practical to make many changes, but with a keen eye for what was best, they accepted the best and used it much as others had worked it out. From the munic.i.p.al college of Guyenne, the colleges of Calvin, and Sturm"s organization at Stra.s.sburg, they adopted the plan of cla.s.s organization, with a teacher for each cla.s.s. From the Calvinists they obtained the idea of the careful supervision of instruction, which was worked out in the Prefect of Studies for their colleges. In their course of study they incorporated the Ciceronian ideal of the humanistic learning, and as careful religious instruction as was provided by any of the reformers. From the Italian court schools they took the idea of physical training. The method of instruction and cla.s.sroom management which they worked out was detailed, practical, and for their purposes excellent. The reasons for their educational work gave them a clearly defined aim and purpose. The military brotherhood type of organization, the lifetime of celibate service, and the opportunity to sort the carefully selected members according to their ability for service in the different lines of the Order gave them the best-selected teaching force in Europe, and these men they trained for the teaching service with a thoroughness unknown before and seldom equaled since. Knowing why they were at work and what ends they should achieve, intolerant of opposition, intensely practical in all their work, and possessed of an indefatigable zeal in the accomplishment of their purpose, they gave Europe in general and northern continental Europe in particular a system of secondary schools and universities possessed of a high degree of effectiveness, which, combined with religious warfare and persecution, in time drove out or dwarfed all competing inst.i.tutions in the countries they were able to control.
That their educational system, viewed from a modern liberal-education standpoint, equaled in effectiveness for liberal-education ends such inst.i.tutions as the court schools of Vittorino da Feltre, Battista da Guarino, or other Italian humanistic educators of the Renaissance (p.
267); the French and Swiss colleges of Calvin (p. 331); Colet"s school at Saint Paul"s (p. 275), and the better English grammar schools; or the schools of the Brethren of the Common Life in the Netherlands (p. 271); would hardly be contended for to-day. Such, though, was not their purpose.
To proselyte for the Church rather than to liberalize--from their point of view there had been too much liberalizing already--was their ultimate aim, and their educational work was organized to suppress rather than to awaken more Protestant heresy. The work of this Order was so successful, and for two centuries so dominated secondary and higher education in Europe, that it will pay us to examine a little more closely their educational organization to see more fully the reasons for their large success. In so doing we will examine three points--their school organization, their methods of instruction, and the training of their teachers.
JESUIT SCHOOL ORGANIZATION. Each college was presided over by a _Rector_, who was in effect the president of the inst.i.tution, and a _Prefect of Studies_, who was the superintendent of instruction. Below these were the _Professors_ or teachers, the _House Prefect_, the official disciplinarian of the inst.i.tution, known as the _Corrector_, the monitors, and the students. There were two cla.s.ses of students, interns and externs. Their schools were divided into two courses. The _studia inferiora_, or lower school, which covered the six years from ten to twelve years of age up to sixteen to eighteen; and the _studia superiora_, which followed, and included the higher college and university courses, with philosophy and theology as the important subjects. For the whole, there was a very carefully worked-out manual of instruction (R. 180) known as the _Ratio Studiorum_. [11]
The boy entering a Jesuit college was supposed to have previously learned how to read Latin. The first three years were given to learning Latin grammar and a little Greek. In the fourth year Latin and Greek authors were begun, and in the fifth and sixth years a rhetorical study of the Latin authors was made. Latin was the language of the cla.s.sroom and the playground as well, the mother tongue being used only by permission. Greek was studied through the medium of the Latin. The retention of Latin as the language of all scholarly and political intercourse, and the cultivation of the style and speech of Cicero as the standard of purity and elegance, were the ends aimed at. Careful attention was given to the health and sports of the pupils, and special regard was paid to moral and religious training.
Following this lower school of six years came the so-called philosophical course of three years (sometimes two). The study of the Latin cla.s.sics and rhetoric was continued, and dialectics (logic) and some metaphysics were added. The nine years together covered about the same scope as Sturm"s school (R. 137) at Stra.s.sburg (p. 273), but was more formal in character and partook more of the nature of the later formalized humanistic schools.
Slight variations were allowed in places, to meet particular local needs, but this course of study remained practically unchanged until 1832, when some history, geography, and elementary mathematics and science were added to the lower schools, and advanced mathematics and science to the philosophical course. In 1906 each Province of the Order was permitted to change the _Ratio_ further, if necessary to adjust it better to local needs. Above the philosophical course a course of four or six years in philosophy and theology prepared for the higher work of the Order, the four-year course for preaching and the six-year course for teaching.
JESUIT SCHOOL METHODS. The characteristic method of the schools was oral, with a consequent closeness of contact of teacher and pupils. This closeness of contact and sympathy was further retained by the system whereby all punishment was given by the official Corrector of the inst.i.tution. Their method, like that of the modern German _Volkschule_, was distinctly a teaching and not a questioning method. The teacher planned and gave the instruction; the pupils received it. In the upper cla.s.ses the teacher explained the general meaning of the entire pa.s.sage; then the construction of each part; then gave the historical, geographical, and archaeological information needed further to explain the pa.s.sage; then called attention to the rhetorical and poetical forms and rules; then compared the style with that of other writers; and finally drew the moral lesson. The memory was drilled; but little training of the judgment or understanding was given. Thoroughness, memory drills, and the disciplinary value of studies were foundation stones in the Jesuit"s educational theory. Repet.i.tion, they said, was the mother of memory. Each day the work of the previous day was reviewed, and there were further reviews at the end of each week, month, and year.
To retain the interest of the pupils amid such a load of memorizing various school devices were resorted to, chief among which were prizes, ranks, emulations, rivals, and public disputations. The system of rivals, whereby each boy had an opponent constantly after him, as shown in Figure 102, was one of the peculiar features of their schools. While the schools were said to have been made pleasant and attractive, the idea of the absolute authority of the Church which they represented pervaded them and repressed the development of that individuality which the court schools of the Italian Renaissance, the schools of the northern humanists, and the Calvinistic colleges had tried particularly to foster. This, however, is a criticism made from a modern point of view. That the school represented well the spirit of the times is indicated by their marked success as teaching inst.i.tutions.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 102. PLAN OF A JESUIT SCHOOLROOM The pupils were arranged in equal numbers in opposite rows, known as _decuriae_, and designated by the numbers. Each boy in each row had a "rival" in the similarly numbered opposite row (one pair is designated by dots), who rose whenever he was called on to recite, and who tried to correct him in some error. A monitor for each group sat at _C_, and the regular teacher at _B. A, D, E, i, o_, and _x_ represent various student officials.]
TRAINING OF THE JESUIT TEACHER. The newest and the most distinguishing feature of the Jesuit educational scheme, as well as the most important, was the care with which they selected and the thoroughness with which they trained their teachers. To begin with, every Jesuit was a picked man, and of those who entered the Order only the best were selected for teaching.
Each entered the Order for life, was vowed to celibacy, poverty, chast.i.ty, uprightness of life, and absolute obedience to the commands of the Order.
The six-year inferior course had to be completed, which required that the boy be sixteen to eighteen years of age before he could take the preliminary steps toward joining the Order. Then a two-year novitiate, away from the world, followed. This was a trial of his real character, his weak points were noted, and his will and determination tested. Many were dismissed before the end of the novitiate. If retained and accepted, he took the preliminary vows and entered the philosophical course of study.
On completing this he was from twenty-one to twenty-three years of age. He was now a.s.signed to teach boys in the inferior cla.s.ses of some college, and might remain there. If destined for higher work he taught in the inferior cla.s.ses for two or three years, and then entered the theological course at some Jesuit university. This required four years for those headed for the ministry, and six for those who were being trained for professorships in the colleges. On completing this course the final vows were taken, at an age of from twenty-nine to thirty-two. The training to- day is still longer. To become a teacher in the inferior cla.s.ses required training until twenty-one at least, and for college (secondary) cla.s.ses training until at least twenty-nine. The training was in scholarship, religion, theology, and an apprenticeship in teaching, and was superior to that required for a teaching license in any Protestant country of Europe, or in the Catholic Church itself outside of the Jesuit Order.
With such carefully selected and well-educated teachers, themselves models of upright life in an age when priests and monks had been careless, it is not surprising that they wielded an influence wholly out of proportion to their numbers, and supplied Europe with its best secondary schools during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In the loyal Catholic countries they were virtually the first secondary schools outside of the monasteries and churches, and the real introduction of humanism into Spain, Portugal, and parts of France came with the establishment of the Jesuit humanistic colleges. For their schools they wrote new school books --the Protestant books, the most celebrated of which were those of Erasmus, Melanchthon, Sturm, and Lily, were not possible of use--and for a time they put new life into the humanistic type of education. Before the eighteenth century, however, their secondary schools had become as formal as had those in Protestant lands (R. 146), and their universities far more narrow and intolerant.
The elements of strength and weakness in the Jesuit system of education has been well summarized by Dabney, [12] in the following words:
The order of the Jesuits was anti-democratic, and was founded to uphold authority, and to antagonize the right of private judgment.
With masterly skill they ruled the Catholic world for about two centuries; and, in the beginning of their activity, performed services of great value to mankind. For, although they aimed, in their system of education, to fit pupils merely for so-called practical avocations, and to avoid all subjects likely to stimulate them to independent thought, it was nevertheless the best system which had then appeared.
In dropping the old scholastic methods, and teaching new and fresher subjects, although with the intention of perverting them to their own ends, they sowed, in fact, the germs of their own decay. In spite of their wonderful organization, and their indefatigable industry as courtiers in royal palaces, as professors in the universities, as teachers in the schools, as preachers, as confessors, and as missionaries, they were utterly unable to crush the spirit of doubt and inquiry. During the first half century of their existence they were intellectually in advance of their age; but after that they gradually dropped behind it, and, instead of diffusing knowledge, saw that the only hope of retaining their dominion was to oppose it with all their might.
THE CHURCH AND ELEMENTARY EDUCATION. As was stated on a preceding page, the countries which remained loyal to the Church experienced none of the Protestant feeling as to the necessity for universal education for individual salvation. In such lands the church system of education which had grown up during the Middle Ages remained undisturbed, and was expanded but slowly with the pa.s.sage of time. The Church, never having made general provision for education, was not prepared for such work. Teachers were scarce, there was no theory of education except the religious theory, and few knew what to do or how to do it. Many churchmen, too, did not see the need for doing anything. Nevertheless the Church, spurred on by the new demands of a world fast becoming modern, and by the exhortations of the official representatives of the people, [13] now began to make extra efforts, in the large cathedral cities, to remedy the deficiency of more than a thousand years. In Paris, for example, which was typical of other French cities, the Church organized a regular system of elementary schools, with teachers licensed by the Precentor of the cathedral of Notre Dame and nominally under his supervision, in which instruction was offered to children of the artisan and laboring cla.s.ses, of both s.e.xes, "in reading, writing, reckoning, the rudiments of Latin Grammar, Catechism, and singing." By 1675 these "Little Schools" in Paris came to contain "upwards of 5000 pupils, taught by some 330 masters and mistresses." All such schools, of course, remained under the immediate control of the Church, and modern state systems of education in the Catholic States are late nineteenth-century productions. In Spain, Portugal, Poland, and the Balkan States, general state systems of education have not even as yet been evolved.
The general effect of the Reformation, though, was to stimulate the Church to greater activity in elementary, as well as in secondary and higher education. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries we find a large number of decrees by church councils and exhortations by bishops urging the extension of the existing church system of education, so as to supply at least religious training to all the children of the faithful. As a result a number of teaching orders were organized, the aim of which was to a.s.sist the Church in providing elementary and religious education for the children of the laboring and artisan cla.s.ses in the cities.
TEACHING ORDERS ESTABLISHED. The teaching orders for elementary education, founded before the eighteenth century, with the dates of their foundation, were:
* 1535-The Order of Ursulines. (U.S., 1729.) 1592--The Congregation of Christian Doctrine.
* 1598--The Sisters of Notre Dame. (U.S., 1847.) * 1610--The Visitation Nuns. (U.S., 1799.) 1621--Patres piarum scholarum (Piarists). First school opened in 1597; authorized by the Pope, 1662.
1627--The Daughters of the Presentation.
* 1633--The Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul. (U.S., 1809.) 1637--The Port Royalists (Jansenists). (Suppressed in 1661.) 1643--The Sisters of Providence.
* 1650--The Sisters of Saint Joseph. Rule based on Jesuits. (U.S., 19th C.) 1652--The Sisters of Mary of Saint Charles Borromeo.
1684--The Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin.
* 1684--The Brothers of the Christian Schools. (U.S., 1845.)
* Have communities in the United States, the date being that of the first one established. See _Cyclopedia of Education_, vol. v, p.
528.
All of these, except the Ursulines and the Piarists, were founded in France, many of them originating in Paris. The first has long been prominent in Italy, and is now found in all lands. The second was founded by Father Cesar de Bus, at Cavaillon, Avignon, in southern France, and its purpose was to teach the Catechism to the young. The catechetical schools of this Order were prominent in southern France up to the time of the French Revolution. The third was founded by the Blessed Peter Fourier (1565-1640), in 1598, and played an important part in the education of girls in France, particularly in Lorraine, where Calvinism had made much headway. This noted Order offered free instruction to tradesmen"s daughters, not only in religion but in "that which concerns this present life and its maintenance" as well. The girls were taught "reading, writing, arithmetic, sewing, and divers manual arts, honorable and peculiarly suitable for girls" of their station of life. At a time when handwork had not been thought of for boys, the beginnings of such work were here introduced for girls. In 1640 Fourier gave the sisterhood a const.i.tution and a rule, which were revised and perfected in 1694. In this he laid down rules for the organization and management of schools, methods of teaching the different branches, and provided for a rudimentary form of cla.s.s organization. The following extract from the Rule ill.u.s.trates the approach to cla.s.s organization which he devised:
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 103. AN URSULINE Order founded, 1535]
The inspectress, or mistress of the cla.s.s, shall endeavor, as far as it possibly can be carried out, that all the pupils of the same mistress have each the same book, in order to learn and read therein the same lesson; so that, whilst one is reading hers in an audible and intelligible voice before the mistress, all the others, following her and following this lesson, in their books at the same time, may learn it sooner, more readily, and more perfectly. [14] The Piarists were established in Italy, the first school being opened in Rome, in 1597, by a Spanish priest who had studied at Lerida, Valencia, and Alcala. Being struck by the lack of educational opportunities for the poor, he opened a free school for their instruction. By 1606 he had 900 pupils in his schools, and by 1613 he had 1200. In 1621 Pope Gregory XV gave his work definite recognition by establishing it a teaching Order for elementary (reading, writing, counting, religion) education, modeled on that of the Jesuits. The Order did some work in Italy and Spain, but its chief services were in border Catholic lands. In 1631 it began work in Moravia, in 1640 in Bohemia, in 1642 in Poland, and after 1648 in Austria and Hungary. The members wore a habit much like that of the Jesuits, had a scheme of studies similar to their _Ratio_, and were organized by provinces and were under discipline as were the members of the older Order.
The Jansenists, founded by Saint Cyran, at Port Royal, conducted a very interesting and progressive educational experiment, and their schools have become known to history as the "Little Schools of Port Royal." The congregation was a reaction against the work and methods of the Jesuits.
It included both elementary and secondary education, but never extended itself, and probably never had more than sixty pupils and teachers. After seventeen years of work it was suppressed through the opposition of the Jesuits, and its members fled to the Netherlands. There they wrote those books which have explained to succeeding generations what they attempted, [15] and which have revealed what a modern type of educational experiment they conducted. The progressive and modern nature of their teaching, in an age of suspicion and intolerance, condemned them to extinction. Yet despite the progressive nature of their instruction, the intense religious atmosphere which they threw about all their work (R. 181) reveals the dominant characteristic of most education for church ends at the time.
THE BROTHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS. The largest and most influential of the teaching orders established for elementary education was the "Inst.i.tute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools," founded by Father La Salle at Rouen, in 1684, and sanctioned by the King and Pope in 1724. As early as 1679 La Salle had begun a school at Rheims, and in 1684 he organized his disciples, prescribed a costume to be worn, and outlined the work of the brotherhood (_R. 182_). The object was to provide free elementary and religious instruction in the vernacular for the children of the working cla.s.ses, and to do for elementary education what the Jesuits had done for secondary education La Salle"s _Conduct of Schools_, first published in 1720, was the _ratio studiorum_ of his order. His work marks the real beginning of free primary instruction in the vernacular in France. In addition to elementary schools, a few of what we should call part-time continuation schools were organized for children engaged in commerce and industry. Realizing better than the Jesuits the need for well-trained rather than highly educated teachers for little children, and unable to supply members to meet the outside calls for schools, La Salle organized at Rheims, in 1685, what was probably the second normal school for training teachers in the world. [16] Another was organized later at Paris. In addition to a good education of the type of the time and thorough grounding in religion, the student teachers learned to teach in practice schools, under the direction of experienced teachers.
The pupils in La Salle"s schools were graded into cla.s.ses, and the cla.s.s method of instruction was introduced. [17] The curriculum was unusually rich for a time when teaching methods and textbooks were but poorly developed, the needs for literary education small, and when children could not as yet be spared from work longer than the age of nine or ten.