Page:Thirty-five years of Luther research.djvu/139

Rh is the Latin School that Luther desired to be erected and safeguarded first of all — and the present writer knows of three hundred German cities that between 1524 and 1600 erected new schools or rearranged them on new principles — but that Luther also referred to the common school, at least in the cities, is indicated by his demand for a minimum instruction of two hours per day for boys and one hour for girls. The "Kuesterschule" of the Reformation period is the kernel out of which is grown of whatever we have to-day of Christian common schools.

It was in his "German Mass" that Luther declared catechetical instruction of the young a necessary part of an evangelical Divine Service. "One of the principal parts of a right German order of worship is a plain and good instruction of the youth," he said. Here he also illustrated in a remarkable manner, in which way children could be brought to a correct understanding of the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer. It is the merit of Ferdinand Cohrs"69 and the Society for the History of Education in Germany that more than thirty catechisms published between 1522 and 1528 were again made accessible, the majority of which was brought forth by this appeal of Luther.

Buchwald has shed new light on Luther's own catechetical work.69 We now can follow his endeavors on this line from 1516 up to 1529, and must be astonished over the amount of time and work Luther devoted to the instruction of the young and the uneducated. He explained to them the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, later on also the Sacraments in sermons and in writings of all kind; he even gathered them in his house in the evening and expounded to them the meaning of these texts in such a plain and simple way