Page:Jesuit Education.djvu/56

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
36
JESUIT EDUCATION.

fined to the learning of the languages, but should be the means of strengthening and disciplining thought, true gymnastics of independent judgment.[1]

There are many names of great educators and scholars of this time which deserve at least to be mentioned: Pirkheimer in Nuremberg, Cochlaeus, professor of classics and director of the school of poetry in the same city, Murmellius, co-rector of the Cathedral school in Münster, Count Moritz von Spiegelberg, provost at Emmerich.

But we must leave this interesting subject, however reluctantly, and refer the reader to Janssen's first volume. From contemporary sources this author has drawn the following conclusions: "Outside the Mark of Brandenburg, there was scarcely a single large town in Germany in which, at the end of the fifteenth century, in addition to the already existing elementary national schools, new schools of higher grade were not built or old ones improved."[2] The control of these schools was in the hands of the Church, and most of the masters were clerics. School rates were unknown. The schools were kept up by frequent legacies; for the education of the young was counted among the works of mercy, to which money was liberally given in loyal obedience to the Church's doctrine of good works. Libraries were also founded in the same spirit.[3]

All over Europe we find, therefore, a great, yea

  1. Ib., p. 80.
  2. L. c., pp. 80-81. Erasmus wrote to Luiz Vives: "In Germania tot fere sunt academiae quot oppida. Harum nulla paene est, quae non magnis salariis accersat linguarum professores." Opera, III, 689.
  3. Janssen, l. c., p. 81.