5 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



killeth. Here was the principle which worked all mischief. Let man 

 keep himself from everything not avowedly and directly religious. 

 The application of this principle separated man more and more from 

 real life, and, in the place of that very spirit to be brought out and 

 cherished, there was left to these schools of the pietists a vicious form. 

 The outward posture became the essential thing. A spiritual police 

 system was introduced, all schools and families were constantly searched 

 in quest of the chief means of instruction — the Bible and the cate- 

 chism. It came to be believed that the young people, if left to them- 

 selves, would go to destruction. Accordingly, the pupils were never 

 left alone, not even for a moment ; exercises for worship were multi- 

 plied, praying and preaching never ceased. Here was an educational 

 system originated to develop true piety, and actually producing lying, 

 hypocrisy, and contemptible Phariseeism. Here was an educational 

 system designed in the interests of spirituality, and at the same time 

 working a twofold evil — crushing out in weaker natures all fresh, in- 

 dividual life -power; repressing in stronger natures those passions 

 which fed upon themselves for the years of school-life only to break 

 forth at last with destructive fury. 



We may realize the fearful state to which pietism came by noting 

 the condition of the orphan-schools and poor-schools. These houses 

 were originally the result of Christian sympathy ; they became " in- 

 struments for a kind of soul-cure." The prayers of the orphans were 

 solicited and published on the doers of the buildings. " Four groschen 

 to pray for a man with bad eyes." " One groschen to be freed from 

 the toothache." "Eight groschen, pray God, dear orphans, on ac- 

 count of my sinful thoughts." " Four groschen that God may send 

 me belief on the Son of God." Spener did not recognize the truth 

 he proclaimed — he was never entirely free from the formalism he 

 opposed. He felt the deadness of the Church, and at the same time 

 believed that salvation was necessarily bound up with certain forms of 

 dogmatical teaching. He desired a true and living piety, but did not 

 believe this was anywise possible except for those who accepted, with- 

 out question, the visible, literal form of faith. Piety, thus confined, 

 could not develop otherwise than as it did with Spener and his asso- 

 ciates. This striking movement in the history of education and its 

 disastrous outcome might well lead the thoughtful mind to inquire 

 whether religion is a matter that can be taught. It may lie in the 

 very nature of this subject that it can not be communicated from the 

 professorial chair, however wonderfully endowed. Upon the suppo- 

 sition (an hypothesis far beyond the territory of hope) that all educators 

 could agree as to what make up the fundamentals of religion, it might 

 be found that the best, the only, method of imparting them would be 

 by example, by a deportment sincerely in harmony with them.* 



* Sec, in this connection, that delightful little work, "An Attic Philosopher," by 

 6mile Souvestre. 



