SCHOOLS. 



127 



been stated in the article Jesuits, to which we must 

 refer our readers, they were yet more calculated for 

 the children of the wealthy, or those of uncommon 

 talent among the poorer classes, than for the gene- 

 ral education of the people. In Spain and Italy, 

 their schools were long the best ; in Hungary and 

 Poland, they were the only ones excepting the con- 

 ventual schools and the colleges of the Piarists; and 

 even in America and Asia, they contributed zea- 

 lously, by their missions, to the diffusion of Europ- 

 ean civilization. But a variety of circumstances 

 contributed to produce degeneracy in these latter 

 schools as well as in those of the Protestants. The 

 former became again confined to a fixed routine ; the 

 latter passed from the strictness of the conventual 

 schools to licentiousness, through the influence of 

 the privileged universities. To this was added, in 

 Germany, the thirty years' war, in which fanaticism 

 on both sides destroyed what had been judiciously 

 established. Yet, about this time, some great men 

 distinguished themselves as writers on education, as 

 lord Bacon, and the exiled bishop of the Moravians, 

 Amos Comenius. 



Considerable influence was exerted upon the sys- 

 tem of education, towards the end of the seventeenth 

 century, by the principles of Pietism and Quietism, 

 established by Fenelon and Spener, which was the 

 basis of the instructions of A. H. Franke. Instruc- 

 tors in his spirit spread themselves, in the first half 

 of the eighteenth century, from Halle, over the 

 whole of Northern Germany. Yet the lower schools 

 were bad in comparison to the higher ; and in these, 

 Latin and Greek seem to have been the only thing 

 considered essential. The idea of an education 

 adapted to the nature and general destination of 

 man, suggested by Bacon and Montaigne, received, 

 about this time, a more complete development from 

 Locke and Rousseau ; and the Philanthropinism* of 

 Basedow and his friends introduced it, in the se- 

 cond half of the eighteenth century, into Germany. 

 Schools were now instituted, in which, besides lan- 

 guages and history, natural history, technology, 

 civil arithmetic, &c., were taught. They held an 

 intermediate place between the primary schools and 

 the gymnasia. In 1807 and 1808, the Bavarian 

 government established, besides the gymnasia for 

 classical education, seminaries, called Real-institu- 

 ten, where young persons who intended to become 

 merchants, apothecaries, miners, manufacturers, ar- 

 tists, &c., were instructed in that knowledge which 

 is of most general utility in history, religion, mo- 

 dern languages, mathematics, and the natural 

 sciences. The trivial schools, which continued to 

 exist, both in the larger and smaller towns, were 

 changed, after the end of the eighteenth century, 

 into public schools, both common and high, and 

 many schools were established for paupers. In fact, 

 every where in Protestant Germany, and in some 

 other countries, effectual steps were taken for the 

 advancement of school instruction ; but the Catho- 

 lic countries took little part in this advancement. 

 The Catholic governments trusted implicitly to the 

 Jesuits, Piarists, Ursulines, and some other orders, 



* The system of Pliilanthrojiinism was directed against the 

 prevailing faults, both of school instruction and of domestic 

 education, atrninst the tyranny of the rod, the stiffness of the 

 ordinary discipline, the inconvenient and preiudidaljiature of 

 children's dress, the want of proper bodily exercise, the system 

 of loading the memory without exercising the active faculties, 

 &c. The object was to develope the energies of children in a 

 more natural way, and with less constraint and hardship. Se- 

 veral institutions, called " Philanthropins," were established, of 

 which that of Sal/.mann was the only one which survived to 

 tbe nineteenth century. 



unconcerned whether the instruction which they 

 afforded did or did not correspond to the demands 

 of the time. By the abolition of the Jesuits, in 

 1773, moreover, a chasm was produced, which the 

 schools of the Piarists, mostly of the trivial kind, 

 were unable immediately to supply. Austria felt 

 this abolition less than other Catholic countries, on 

 account of her normal schools for the lower orders, 

 intended to serve as a pattern for all the common 

 schools in the empire. Her school system, how- 

 ever, was far from perfect. Under the late em- 

 peror, professorships of pedagogics (for the instruc- 

 tion of teachers) were established in the uni- 

 versities and episcopal seminaries. Many gymnasia, 

 common schools, Sunday schools, &c., have likewise 

 been instituted in Austria. The normal schools were 

 imitated by most of the Catholic states of Germany. 

 Italy, Portugal, and Spain continued inactive, as 

 they had been for a long series of years : they left 

 instruction to the clergy and to chance. They 

 have only episcopal seminaries and the Piarist and 

 conventual schools. The institutions of Leopold 

 in Tuscany, for popular education, after the Aus- 

 trian model, were disturbed by the wars of the revo- 

 lution. The French had not time to do a great 

 deal for the education of the people ; and, in fact, 

 education had not made any great advances among 

 themselves ; and when in Spain and Italy, the old 

 rulers again took possession of the country, they 

 considered education dangerous, as productive of 

 a revolutionary spirit. The Jesuits, since their re- 

 vival, have as yet been too ujiimportant to produce 

 any great effect. In those countries of Europe 

 where they have exerted an influence on instruction 

 of late, it has been an injurious influence, intended 

 to counteract the spirit of the time. 



In France, much remains to be done for educa- 

 tion. Before the revolution there were, besides the 

 episcopal seminaries and conventual schools, lyceums 

 and colleges in the cities, where young persons were 

 prepared, under a system of monastic discipline, 

 for the higher seminaries. The government did 

 nothing for the education of the people at large, 

 and the clergy, though possessing so large a propor- 

 tion of all the property in France, and having the 

 instruction of the people under their especial 

 care, left them in abominable ignorance; whence 

 the horrid outrages that disfigured the early 

 part of the revolution. Some elementary schools 

 were supported here and there, by religious orders, 

 or private persons ; but the instruction was scanty, 

 and in all the institutions of education was behind 

 the age. During the revolution, the schools were 

 declared to be under the care of the state. It was 

 not to be expected that a good plan could be adop- 

 ted immediately. The polytechnic school, how- 

 ever, was excellently arranged. Napoleon estab- 

 lished several military schools, and others for 

 instruction in trades and arts, and an imperial uni- 

 versity was created, to have the supreme direc- 

 tion of instruction in France. But the plan was on 

 a military principle, and as little fitted to promote 

 the true purposes of education as the monastic nar- 

 rowness of former ages. Academies (schools for 

 the different professions) and lyceums, on an en- 

 tirely military plan, were introduced. The "se- 

 condary schools" actually went into operation in 

 but very few places, and the " primary schools," 

 (elementary and village schools) hardly any where. 

 The instruction in private establishments was sub- 

 jected to much restriction, except in regard to ma- 

 thematics and the natural sciences. The religious 



