§ 1. the history of education in the fifteen hundreds tells chiefly of two very different classes of men. first we have the practical men, who set themselves to supply the general demand for instruction in the classical languages. this class includes most of the successful schoolmasters, such as sturm, trotzendorf, neander, and the jesuits. the other class were thinkers, who never attempted to teach, but merely gave form to truths which would in the end affect teaching. these were especially rabelais and montaigne.
§ 2. with the sixteen hundreds we come to men who have earned for themselves a name unpleasant in our ears, although it might fittingly be applied to all the greatest benefactors of the human race. i mean the name of innovators. these men were not successful; at least they seemed unsuccessful to their contemporaries, who contrasted the promised results with the actual. but their efforts were by no means thrown away: and posterity at least, has acknowledged its obligations to them. one sees now that they could hardly have expected justice in their own time. it is safe to adopt the customary plan; it is safe to speculate how that plan may and should be altered; but it is dangerous[104] to attempt to translate new thought into new action, and boldly to advance without a track, trusting to principles which may, like the compass, show you the right direction, but, like the compass, will give you no hint of the obstacles that lie before you.
the chief demands made by the innovators have been: 1st, that the study of things should precede, or be united with, the study of words (v. appendix, p. 538); 2nd, that knowledge should be communicated, where possible, by appeals to the senses; 3rd, that all linguistic study should begin with that of the mother-tongue; 4th, that latin and greek should be taught to such boys only as would be likely to complete a learned education; 5th, that physical education should be attended to in all classes of society for the sake of health, not simply with a view to gentlemanly accomplishments; 6th, that a new method of teaching should be adopted, framed “according to nature.”
their notions of method have, of course, been very various; but their systems mostly agree in these particulars:—
1. they proceed from the concrete to the abstract, giving some knowledge of the thing itself before the rules which refer to it. 2. they employ the student in analysing matter put before him, rather than in working synthetically according to precept. 3. they require the student to teach himself and investigate for himself under the superintendence and guidance of the master, rather than be taught by the master and receive anything on the master’s authority. 4. they rely on the interest excited in the pupil by the acquisition of knowledge, and renounce coercion. 5. only that which is understood may be committed to memory (v. supra, p. 74, n.)
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§ 3. the first of the innovators was wolfgang ratichius, who, oddly enough, is known to posterity by a name he and his contemporaries never heard of. his father’s name was radtké or ratké, and the son having received a university education, translated this into ratichius. with our usual impatience of redundant syllables, we have attempted to reduce the word to its original dimensions, and in the process have hit upon ratich, which is a new name altogether.
ratke (to adopt the true form of the original) was connected, as basedow was a hundred and fifty years later, with holstein and hamburg. he was born at wilster in holstein in 1571, and studied at hamburg and at the university of rostock. he afterwards travelled to amsterdam and to england, and it was perhaps owing to his residence in this country that he was acquainted with the new philosophy of bacon. we next hear of him at the electoral diet, held as usual in frankfurt-on-main, in 1612. he was then over forty years old, and he had elaborated a new scheme for teaching. like all inventors, he was fully impressed with the importance of his discovery, and he sent to the assembled princes an address, in which he undertook some startling performances. he was able, he said: (1) to teach young or old hebrew, greek, and latin, or other languages, in a very short time and without any difficulty; (2) to establish schools in which all arts should be taught and extended; (3) to introduce and peaceably establish throughout the german empire a uniform speech, a uniform government, and (still more wonderful) a uniform religion.
§ 4. naturally enough the address arrested the attention of the princes. the landgraf lewis of darmstadt thought the matter worthy of examination, and he[106] deputed two learned men, jung and helwig, to confer with ratke. their report was entirely favourable, and they did all they could to get for ratke the means of carrying his scheme into execution. “we are,” writes helwig, “in bondage to latin. the greeks and saracens would never have done so much for posterity if they had spent their youth in acquiring a foreign tongue. we must study our own language, and then sciences. ratichius has discovered the art of teaching according to nature. by his method, languages will be quickly learned, so that we shall have time for science; and science will be learned even better still, as the natural system suits best with science, which is the study of nature.” moved by this report the town council of augsburg agreed to give ratke the necessary power over their schools, and accompanied by helwig, he accordingly went to augsburg and set to work. but the good folks of augsburg were like children, who expect a plant as soon as they have sown the seed. they were speedily dissatisfied, and ratke and helwig left augsburg, the latter much discouraged but still faithful to his friend. ratke went to frankfurt again, and a commission was appointed to consider his proposals, but by its advice ratke was “allowed to try elsewhere.”
§ 5. he would never have had a fair chance had he not had a firm friend in the duchess dorothy of weimar. then, as now, we find women taking the lead in everything which promises to improve education, and this good duchess sent for ratke and tested his method by herself taking lessons of him in hebrew. with this adult pupil his plans seem to have answered well, and she always continued his admirer and advocate. by her advice her brother, prince lewis of anhalt-koethen, decided that the great discovery should not be lost for want of a fair trial; so he called ratke to koethen[107] and complied with all his demands. a band of teachers sworn to secrecy were first of all instructed in the art by ratke himself. next, schools with very costly appliances were provided, and lastly some 500 little koetheners—boys and girls—were collected and handed over to ratke to work his wonders with.
§ 6. it never seems to have occurred either to ratke or his friends or the prince that all the principles and methods that ever were or ever will be established could not enable a man without experience to organize a school of 500 children. a man who had never been in the water might just as well plunge into the sea at once and trust to his knowledge of the laws of fluid pressure to save him from drowning. there are endless details to be settled which would bewilder any one without experience. some years ago school-buildings were provided for one of our county schools, and the council consulted a master of great experience who strongly urged them not to start as they had intended with 300 boys. “i would not undertake such a thing,” said he. when pressed for his reason, he said quietly, “i would not be responsible for the boots.” i have no doubt ratke had to come down from his principles and his new method to deal with numberless little questions of caps, bonnets, late children, broken windows, and the like; and he was without the tact and the experience which enable many ordinary men and women, who know nothing of principles, to settle such matters satisfactorily.
§ 7. years afterwards there was another thinker much more profound and influential than ratke, who was quite as incompetent to organize. i mean pestalozzi. but pestalozzi had one great advantage over ratke. he attached all his assistants to him by inspiring them with[108] love and reverence of himself. this made up for many deficiencies. but ratke was not like the fatherly, self-sacrificing pestalozzi. he leads us to suspect him of being an impostor by making a mystery of his invention, and he never could keep the peace with his assistants.
§ 8. so, as might have been expected, the grand experiment failed. the prince, exasperated at being placed in a somewhat ridiculous position, and possibly at the serious loss of money into the bargain, revenged himself on ratke by throwing him into prison, nor would he release him till he had made him sign a paper in which he admitted that he had undertaken more than he was able to fulfil.
§ 9. this was no doubt the case; and yet ratke had done more for the prince than the prince for ratke. in koethen had been opened the first german school in which the children were taught to make a study of the german language.
ratke never recovered from his failure at koethen, and nothing memorable is recorded of him afterwards. he died in 1635.
§ 10. much was written by ratke; much has been written about him; and those who wish to know more than the few particulars i have given may find all they want in raumer or barnard. the innovator failed in gaining the applause of his contemporaries, and he does not seem to stand high in the respect of posterity; but he was a pioneer in the art of didactics, and the rules which raumer has gathered from the methodus institutionis nova ... ratichii et ratichianorum, published by rhenius at leipzig in 1626, raise some of the most interesting points to which a teachers attention can be directed. i will therefore state them, and say briefly what i think of them.
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§ 11. i. in everything we should follow the order of nature. there is a certain natural sequence along which the human intelligence moves in acquiring knowledge. this sequence must be studied, and instruction must be based on the knowledge of it.
here, as in all teaching of the reformers, we find “nature” used as if the word stood for some definite idea. from the time of the stoics we have been exhorted to “follow nature.” in more modern times the demand was well formulated by picus of mirandola: “take no heed what thing many men do, but what thing the very law of nature, what thing very reason, what thing our lord himself showeth thee to be done.” (trans. by sir thomas more, quoted in seebohm, oxford reformers.)
pope, always happy in expression but not always clear in thought, talks of—
“unerring nature, still divinely bright,
one clear, unchanged, and universal light.”
(essay on c., i, 70.)
but as dr. w. t. harris has well pointed out (st. louis, mo., school report, ’78, ’79, p. 217), with this word “nature” writers on education do a great deal of juggling. some times they use it for the external world, including in it man’s unconscious growth, sometimes they make it stand for the ideal. what sense does ratke attach to it? one might have some difficulty in determining. perhaps the best meaning we can nowadays find for his rule is: study psychology.
§ 12. ii. one thing at a time. master one subject before you take up another. for each language master a single book. go over it again and again till you have completely made it your own.
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in its crude form this rule could not be carried out. if the attempt were made the results would be no better than from the six months’ course of terence under ratke. it is “against all nature” to go on hammering away at one thing day after day without any change; and there is a point beyond which any attempt at thoroughness must end in simple stagnation. the rule then would have two fatal drawbacks: 1st, it would lead to monotony; 2nd, it would require a completeness of learning which to the young would be impossible. but in these days no one follows ratke. on the other hand, concentration in study is often neglected, and our time-tables afford specimens of the most ingenious mosaic work, in which everything has a place, but in so small a quantity that the learners never find out what each thing really is. school subjects are like the clubs of the eastern tale, which did not give out their medicinal properties till the patient got warm in the use of them.
when a good hold on a subject has once been secured, short study, with considerable intervals between, may suffice to keep up and even increase the knowledge already obtained; but in matters of any difficulty, e.g., in a new language, no start is ever made without allotting to it much more than two or three hours a week. it is perhaps a mistake to suppose that if a good deal of the language may be learnt by giving it ten hours a week, twice that amount might be acquired in twenty hours. it is a much greater mistake if we think that one-fifth of the amount might be acquired in two hours.
§ 13. iii. the same thing should be repeated over and over again.
this is like the jesuits’ repetitio mater studiorum; and the same notion was well developed 200 years later by jacotot.
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by ratke’s application of this rule some odd results were produced. the little koetheners were drilled for german in a book of the bible (genesis was selected), and then for latin in a play of terence.
unlike many “theoretical notions” this precept of ratke’s comes more and more into favour as the schoolmaster increases in age and experience. but we must be careful to take our pupils with us; and this repeating the same thing over and over may seem to them what marking time would seem to soldiers who wanted to march. even more than the last rule this is open to the objections that monotony is deadening, and perfect attainment of anything but words impossible. in keeping to a subject then we must not rely on simple repetition. the rule now accepted is thus stated by diesterweg:—“every subject of instruction should be viewed from as many sides as possible, and as varied exercises as possible should be set on one and the same thing.” the art of the master is shown in disguising repetition and bringing known things into new connection, so that they may partially at least retain their freshness.
§ 14. iv. first let the mother-tongue be studied, and teach everything through the mother-tongue, so that the learners attention may not be diverted to the language.
we saw that sturm, the leading schoolmaster of renascence, tried to suppress the mother-tongue and substitute latin for it. against this a vigorous protest was made in this country by mulcaster. and our language was never conquered by a foreign language, as german was conquered first by latin and then by french. but “the tongues” have always had the lion’s share of attention in the schoolroom, and though many have seen and milton has said that “our understanding cannot in this body found itself[112] but on sensible things,” this truth is only now making its way into the schoolroom. hitherto the foundation has hardly been laid before “the schoolmaster has stept in and staid the building by confounding the language.”[57] ratke’s protest against this will always be put to his credit in the history of education.
§ 15. v. everything without constraint. “the young should not be beaten to make them learn or for not having learnt. it is compulsion and stripes that set young people against studying. boys are often beaten for not having learnt, but they would have learnt had they been well taught. the human understanding is so formed that it has pleasure in receiving what it should retain: and this pleasure you destroy by your harshness. where the master is skilful and judicious, the boys will take to him and to their lessons. folly lurks indeed in the heart of the child and must be driven out with the rod; but not by the teacher.”
here at least there is nothing original in ratke’s precept. a goodly array of authorities have condemned learning “upon compulsion.” this array extends at least as far as[113] from plato to bishop dupanloup. “in the case of the mind, no study pursued under compulsion remains rooted in the memory,” says plato.[58] “everything depends,” says dupanloup, “on what the teacher induces his pupils to do freely: for authority is not constraint—it ought to be inseparable from respect and devotion. i will respect human liberty in the smallest child.” as far as i have observed there is only one class of persons whom the authorities from plato to dupanloup have failed to convince, and that is the schoolmasters. this is the class to which i have belonged, and i should not be prepared to take plato’s counsel: “bring up your boys in their studies without constraint and in a playful manner.” (ib.) at the same time i see the importance of self-activity, and there is no such thing as self-activity upon compulsion. you can no more hurry thought with the cane than you can hurry a snail with a pin. so without interest there can be no proper learning. interest must be aroused—even in latin grammar. but if they could choose their own occupation, the boys, however interested in their work, would probably find something else more interesting still. we cannot get on, and never shall, without the must.
§ 16. vi. nothing may be learnt by heart.
it has always been a common mistake in the schoolroom to confound the power of running along a sequence of sounds with a mastery of the thought with which those sounds should be connected. but, as i have remarked elsewhere (supra, p. 74, note), the two things, though different, are not opposed. too much is likely to be made of learning by heart, for of the two things the pupils find it the[114] easier, and the teacher the more easily tested. we may, however, guard against the abuse without giving up the use.
§ 17. vii.[59] uniformity in all things.
both in the way of learning, and in the books, and the rules, a uniform method should be observed, says ratke.
the right plan is for the learner to acquire familiar knowledge of one subject or part of a subject, and then use this for comparison when he learns beyond it. if the same method of learning is adopted throughout, this will render comparison more easy and more striking.[60]
§ 18. viii. the thing itself should come first, then whatever explains it.
to those who do not with closed eyes cling to the method of their predecessors, this rule may seem founded on common-sense. would any one but a “teacher,” or a writer of school books, ever think of making children who do not know a word of french, learn about the french accents? and yet what ratke said 250 years ago has not been disproved since: “accidens rei priusquam rem ipsam quaerere prorsus absonum et absurdum esse videtur,” which i take to mean: “before the learner has a notion of the thing itself, it is folly to worry him about its accidents or even its properties, essential or unessential.” ne modus rei ante rem.[61]
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this rule of ratke’s warns teachers against a very common mistake. the subject is to them in full view, and they make the most minute observations on it. but these things cannot be seen by their pupils; and even if the beginner could see these minuti?, he would find in them neither interest nor advantage. but when we apply ratke’s principle more widely, we find ourselves involved in the great question whether our method should be based on synthesis or analysis, a question which ratke’s method did not settle for us.
§ 19. ix. everything by experience and examination of the parts. or as he states the rule in latin: per inductionem et experimentum omnia.
nothing was to be received on authority, and this disciple of bacon went beyond his master and took for his motto: vetustas cessit, ratio vicit (“age has yielded, reason prevailed”); as if reason must be brand-new, and truth might wax old and be ready to vanish away.
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§ 20. from these rules of his we see that ratke did much to formulate the main principles of didactics. he also deserves to be remembered among the methodizers who have tackled the problem—how to teach a language.
at k?then the instructor of the lowest class had to talk with the children, and to take pains with their pronunciation. when they knew their letters (ickelsamer’s plan for reading ratke seems to have neglected) the teacher read the book of genesis through to them, each chapter twice over, requiring the children to follow with eye and finger. then the teacher began the chapter again, and read about four lines only, which the children read after him. when the book had been worked over in this way, the children were required to read it through without assistance. reading once secured, the master proceeded to grammar. he explained, say, what a substantive was, and then showed instances in genesis, and next required the children to point out others. in this way the grammar was verified throughout from genesis, and the pupils were exercised in declining and conjugating words taken from the book.
when they advanced to the study of latin, they were given a translation of a play of terence, and worked over it several times before they were shown the latin.
the master then translated the play to them, each half-hour’s work twice over. at the next reading, the master translated the first half-hour, and the boys translated the same piece the second. having thus got through the play, they began again, and only the boys translated. after this there was a course of grammar, which was applied to the terence, as the grammar of the mother-tongue had been to genesis. finally, the pupils were put through a course of exercises, in which they had to turn into latin sentences[117] imitated from the terence, and differing from the original only in the number or person used.
raumer gives other particulars, and quotes largely from the almost unreadable account of kromayer, one of ratke’s followers, in order that we may have, as he says, a notion of the tediousness of the method. no doubt anyone who has followed me hitherto, will consider that this point has been brought out already with sufficient distinctness.
§ 21. when we compare ratke’s method with ascham’s, we find several points of agreement. ratke would begin the study of a language by taking a model book, and working through it with the pupil a great many times. ascham did the same. each lecture according to his plan would be gone over “a dozen times at the least.” both construed to the pupil instead of requiring him to make out the sense for himself. both ratke and ascham taught grammar not by itself, but in connection with the model book.
but the points of difference are still more striking. in one respect ratke’s plan was weak. it gave the pupils little to do, and made no use of the pen. ascham’s was better in this and also as a training in accuracy. ascham was, as i have pointed out, a “complete retainer.” ratke was a “rapid impressionist.” his system was a good deal like that which had great vogue in the early part of this century as the “hamiltonian system.” from the first the language was to be laid on “very thick,” in the belief that “some of it was sure to stick.” the impressions would be slight, and there would at first be much confusion between words which had a superficial resemblance, but accuracy it was thought would come in time.
§ 22. the contest between the two schools of thought of which ascham and ratke may be taken as representatives[118] has continued till now, and within the last few years both parties have made great advances in method. but in nothing does progress seem slower than in education; and the plan of grammar-teaching in vogue fifty years ago was inferior to the methods advocated by the old writers.
