Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/342

 338 Gilbert In using the Platonic model, he makes education an impor- tant matter in the administration of the state. Indeed, he outdoes Plato, for the Greek gave attention to educating rulers and guardians, but the modern believes in universal education, and bases his provision for the conduct of all the business of the country on selections made in the schools. Nor is it merely imitation of Plato that leads Bucer to involve problems of education with those of the Church and the nation. He saw clearly that both were dependent on the character of the men who composed them, and that unless men one by one were properly trained for their positions in Church and state, neither would bear much resemblance to the ideal state which is the Kingdom of Christ on earth. This partly explains also Bucer's concern with marriage and divorce, which is treated in De Regno Christi at almost as great length as all the other thirteen heads taken together. Bucer knew the importance of the family in the state, writing more than once in the following strain: How much it concerns the honor and safety of the commonwealth that marriages, according to the will of Christ, be made, maintained, and not without just cause dissolved, who understands not? For unless that first and holiest society of man and woman be purely constituted, that household discipline may be upheld by them according to God's law, how can we expect a race of good men? Let Your Majesty therefore know that this is your duty, and in the first place, to reassume to yourself the just ordering of matrimony, and by firm laws to establish and defend the religion of this first and divine society among men, as all wise lawgivers of old and Christian emperors have carefully done. 54 Bucer fully appreciated that proper training of the young was essential to the prosperity of the Church and the state, and should be made one of the chief concerns of spiritual and temporal statesmen and rulers. We naturally expect to find in Bucer's writings on education reminiscences of the Strassburg schools which he so powerfully influenced, and similarities to the theory and practice of John Sturm indications of the mutual influence of the two men. First, some connection appears in Bucer's practice as a teacher. It has been observed that one of his virtues was his ability to present to his pupils what they were prepared to grasp. Simi- 54 Scripta Anglicana, p. 86, trans. Milton, op. cit., p. 307.