Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/330

 326 Gilbert ing, debating, and privately admonishing 22 which he advises. He evidently felt that students needed personal attention from their teachers, demanded much activity from the pupils them- selves, and was far from content with public lectures alone, wishing to be sure that students had not merely learned what was said, but had really understood it, and were able in the disputations or debates to make use of it. He furnishes an inspiring example of a man devoted to the subject he taught, and yet aware that the end of teaching was to develop the living minds under his care. With his zeal, his learning, and his mas- tery of method, he must indeed have been, as his pupil Nicholas arr says, 'a master by whom it was profitable to be taught.' 23 Bucer was not only himself a university teacher of unusual power and understanding of his art, but he took an active part in the foundation of schools for children a work for which his ability as an organizer 24 well fitted him. In 1524, soon after he went to Strassburg, he was one of the leaders among the Reformed clergy who, with the Reformers' usual perception of the value of generally diffused education, petitioned the magis- trates to establish elementary free schools for the people. 25 This proposal was well received, especially by the magistrate Jacob Sturm, who was for many years a powerful friend of education. Such schools were soon organized, though the magistrates did not establish any until 1528. 26 The chief subjects taught were the reading and writing of German, and the catechism. In 1525 Bucer and Capito proposed that there be a committee of three or four magistrates and two clergymen to open and take charge of elementary schools, and also Latin schools. The money for their support was to come from the revenues of the religious orders, now modified by the Reforma- tion; Bucer believed that these revenues should be used for the aid and education of the poor, and not for the ordinary expenses of the town. 27 Latin schools were organized in 1625 and follow- .,.. 23 Scripta Anglicana, p. 870. 24 Baum, op. cit., pp. 489, 536. 25 Ib., p. 308. Schmidt, op. cit., p. 23. 26 Schmidt, op. cit., p. 27. 27 Baum, op. cit., pp. 307.