THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN ENGLAND. 



255 



system, what England did possess was the ideal of a liberal as. 

 education. But none of these three forms of intellectual Liberal 



cation. 



training neither the scientific in Paris, nor the classical 

 in Germany, still less the liberal in England touched 

 the great masses of the people. They all did good work 

 in their respective lines ; but they left, or would by them- 

 selves have left, the country in darkness. The begin- 

 nings of general popular education are to be traced 

 independently in Switzerland, in Scotland, and in many 

 of the small States of Germany. 1 The great scientific 



candidates to the competition (April 

 1874, p. 342). " Nothing about uni- 

 versity life was more striking " to 

 the Edinburgh Reviewer "than the 

 contrast between the efforts and 

 the high aims of the few, the 

 culture and solid result achieved 

 by them and the utter uselessness 

 of it to the many " (p. 354). The 

 'Quarterly Review' of June 1826 

 notes " a growing taste for the 

 cultivation of physical science as 

 characteristic of the state of the 

 public mind in England" (p. 159), 

 and refers to the " measures which 

 have been carried into effect 

 throughout the country with great 

 harmony of design, although chiefly 

 by the unassisted exertions of pri- 

 vate individuals, . . . the recent 

 establishment of numerous literary 

 and philosophical institutions in our 

 metropolis and many of our pro- 

 vinces " (ibid., p. 154). 



1 The great Reformers Luther, 

 Melanchthon, Zwingli, and Calvin 

 alike took a great interest in educa- 

 tion, which they intended to be uni- 

 versal and popular. But their suc- 

 cess, so far as the education of the 

 people was concerned, remained 

 everywhere very partial. A real or- 

 ganisation of primary schools was 

 not attained. They prepared for 

 it by introducing the vernacular 



languages, the reading of the Bible, 

 the popular hymns. Their main 

 efforts lay in the training of good 

 teachers for church and schools in 

 the reorganisation of what were 

 called the Latin schools. In the 

 course of the sixteenth and seven- 

 teenth centuries the smaller Protes- 

 tant States of Germany especially 

 Saxony, Wiirtemberg, Brunswick, 

 the northern cities Hamburg and 

 Liibeck received under various 

 forms what was called " Eine Kir- 

 chen- und Schulordnung." Luther's 

 tract of the year 1524, addressed 

 to the "burgomasters and coun- 

 cillors of all towns of the German 

 land, that they should found and 

 maintain Christian schools," was 

 the beginning of this movement. 

 In Scotland burgh schools, also 

 grammar (or Latin) schools and 

 lecture schools, "in which the 

 children were instructed to read 

 the vernacular language," existed 

 long before the Reformation. But 

 to John Knox is due the scheme 

 for popular education contained in 

 the ' First Book of Discipline.' The 

 parochial schools were started in 

 many instances by voluntary or ec- 

 clesiastical assessment through the 

 efforts of the Reformed clergy. 

 The foundation of the subsequent 

 system of parochial schools was laid 



