Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/333

 Martin Bucer on Education 329 with Melanchthon, Pistorius, Hedio, and Sarcerius, composed Regulations for Church Government for the city of Cologne. As might be expected from such men, these Regulations include directions for schools. 39 They declare that every town ought to have its Latin school, properly supported, and provided with devoted, learned, and pious teachers. These institutions are chiefly for instruction in Latin, and thoroughness in the teaching of grammar is repeatedly urged. In the fourth and highest class, the curriculum includes also Dialectic, with a work by Sturm as a possible textbook, and Greek. Throughout the course much attention is given to religious instruction, and to music. A moderate amount of composition in Latin, for the older boys in verse, is required, and all the pupils are often to be asked to repeat and explain what they have learned. In addition to this elementary school, an advanced school, primarily for theological and Biblical training, but far from confined to it, is described. Of the seven professors whose duties are given in some detail, two are concerned with theology and the Bible, including Hebrew. The other five are not directly engaged in religious teaching, their provinces being Dialectic and Greek, Rhetoric, Grammar, Mathematics and Physics (including Astronomy and Cosmography), and Law. The students are to present for examination their compositions, and disputations are to be held at monthly intervals, in which the teachers and selected pupils are to take part. Provision is made for the support of poor students. It is natural to suppose that Melanchthon, the Praeceptor Germaniae, bore the chief part in the preparation of this plan, 40 but Bucer, after his share in the organization of the schools at Strassburg, must have been listened to with great respect. Certainly the scheme contains ideas such as appear in Bucer 's own writings, and must have been heartily approved of by him. Bucer did not compose any work wholly on education, yet, holding the opinion of its importance common to the Reformers, as he manifested by his zeal in its cause at Strassburg, he 39 Printed by Vormbaum, in Evangelische Schulordnungen, Giitersloh, 1860; pp. 403 ff. 40 It somewhat resembles Melanchthon's Kursachsische Schulordnung of 1528 (Vormbaum, p. 1).