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alone; so that it was counted a reproach to a learned man, if he was married; and such an one was told, "you are of the world, for you have severed yourself from our order entirely;" as if the spiritual order alone were pleasing in the sight of God, while the temporal, (as they style it,) was given over to the devil and Anti-Christ. It is needless for me here to argue, that all temporal government is of Divine origin and authority; for on this point I have spoken elsewhere, and that so fully that no one, I hope, will venture to deny it; but, the question now is, how to provide able and competent men to govern us. And in his the heathen might justly put us to shame and confusion of face; for they, the Greeks and Romans especially, gave diligent heed to the teaching and training of boys and girls, to fit them for all the various stations of temporal trust and authority, and yet they were entirely ignorant whether this was pleasing in the sight of God or not; so that I blush for our Christians, when I think of it, and for our Germans, above all, who are clowns; yea, brute beasts, one might call them. For they say, of what use are schools, unless you intend to enter the service of the church?" But surely we know, or ought to know, how necessary, how proper, and how pleasing in the sight of God it is, for a prince, a lord, a magistrate, or any one in authority, to excel in learning and in wisdom, so that he may discharge the duties of his office in a Christian manner. If now, as for argument's sake, I have supposed there were no soul, and if we had no need at all of schools or of the languages for the sake of the Scriptures, or of God, yet it would be a sufficient reason for establishing in every place the very best of schools, both for boys and girls, that the world, merely to maintain its outward prosperity, has need of shrewd and accomplished men and women. Men to pilot state and people' safely, and to good issues; women to train up well and to confirm in good courses both children and servants. Now, such men must first be boys, and such women, girls. Hence, it is our duty to give a right training and suitable instruction to these boys and girls. "Yes," you will say, "but every one can do this for himself, and can teach his sons and daughters, and bring them up under a good discipline." I answer, verily we see but too well, what sort of teaching and discipline this is. For where it is carried to the farthest extent, and turns out well besides, it does not go any further than this, to impart an easy air, and respectful carriage; otherwise, the children appear to no more advantage than so many machines, who do not know how to converse well upon a variety of topics, and who are the very farthest from being able to give aid and counsel to others. But, if they were taught and trained in schools or elsewhere, where the masters and mistresses were learned and discreet, and could instruct them in the languages, arts, and histories, they would thus become familiar with the great deeds and the famous sayings of all times; would see how it fared with such a city, kingdom, province, man, or woman, and would bring before their eyes, as it were in a mirror, the whole world from the beginning, with all its character and life, its plans and achievements, its successes and failures: by all this they would shape their sentiments, and to all this conform the course of their life in the fear of God. From the same histories, too, they would gain wit and wisdom, and learn what to pursue and what to avoid in life, and so, by and by, be able to counsel or to govern others. But, the instruction which is imparted at home, without such schools, will make us wise only through our own experience. And before we get wisdom thus, we shall be an hundred times dead, and shall have passed our lives in folly; for, to perfect our experience, we need a long series of years. Since, then, young people are always full of frolic and life, and always seeking something to do, and finding their pleasure in action; and since you can not curb their spirits, nor would it be a good thing even if you could; why should we not establish such schools, and unfold before them such arts? For now, by God's grace, matters have taken such a turn, that children are enabled to learn by means of pleasure, and, in sport, as it were, every thing, whether it be languages, arts, or histories. And our schools are no longer hells and purgatories, as they once were, where a boy was forever tormented with their cases and their tenses, and where he learned nothing, absolutely nothing, by reason of ceaseless flogging, trembling, woe and anguish. If,now, we take so much time and trouble to teach children to play at cards, to sing and to dance, why shall we not also spend time enough to teach reading and the other arts, while they have youth and leisure, and while they show both an aptness and a fondness for such things?

As for myself, if I had children and were able, I would teach them not only the languages and history, but singing likewise; and with music I would combine a full course of mathematics. For what would it all require but a mere child's play, as the Greeks brought up their children of old? And what a wonderful people they were, and how well-fitted for all manner of occupations. And alas! how often do I lament my own case, in that I read so few of the poets and historians when I was young, and that there was no one to direct me to them. But, in their place, I was compelled to flounder in all manner of vain philosophies and scholastic trash, true Serbonian bogs of the devil, and with much cost and care, and vast detriment besides, so that I have had enough to do ever since, in undoing the harm they did me.

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But, you say, we can not bring all our children up to be students; we can not spare them; we need them at home to work for us." I answer, "I do not ask for the establishment of such schools, as we have had hitherto, where our young men have spent twenty or thirty years over Donatus or Alexander, and yet have not learned any thing at all. We have now another world, and things are done after a different pattern. And I ask no more than this, namely, that boys shall attend upon such schools as I have in view, an hour or two a day, and none the less; spend the rest of their time at home, or in learning some trade, or doing whatever else you will; thus both these matters will be cared for together, while they are young and opportunities are favorable. For else, they would haply spend tenfold this time in gunning and ball-playing. So, too, your little girls may easily find time enough to go to school an hour a day, and yet do all their ⚫ household duties; for they now devote more than that to over-much play, dancing, and sleep.

It is very plain that all we need, is a cordial and earnest determination to train up our youth aright, and by this means furnish the world with wise and efficient men. For the devil is better pleased with coarse blockheads and with folks who are useful to nobody; because where such characters abound, then things do not go on prosperously here on the earth.

Now, as for the most promising children, those who we may hope will become fitted for the position of teachers, either male or female, or of preachers, or whom we shall look to to fill other offices in the world and in the church; these we should leave more and longer at schools, or perhaps keep them there altogether: as we read concerning the blessed martyrs, who educated St. Agnes, Agatha, Lucia, and the like. For this purpose, too, were cloisters and monasteries first founded; but now, they have been turned aside to subserve other and most unholy uses. And perhaps it must needs have been so; for the shorn flock are well-nigh fleeced altogether: they have become for the most part wholly unfit either to teach or to guide, for they know nothing except how to pamper their bodies; and this is no wonder, for no one thing besides have they ever learned. But, verily, we must have men of another sort; men who shall dispense to us God's word and his ordinances, and who shall watch for the souls of the people. Such men, however, it will be in vain for us to look for, if we suffer our present schools to decay, without establishing other and Christian schools in their place. And though the schools, as hitherto kept, may be still in existence, yet they can only furnish us with blind guides, perverse and corrupt in all their

ways.

İlence, there is great need, not for the sake of the young alone, but also for the welfare and the stability of all our institutions, temporal and spiritual alike, that we should begin at once, and in good earnest, to attend to this matter. For, if we delay too long, we may haply find no place for effort, however much we shall desire it, and our most poignant regrets will then be unavailing forever. Consider, for example, the great diligence that King Solomon exercised in this matter, and the interest that he shewed in the young, in that, amid all his royal occupations, he found time to compose a book for their special instruction, viz: the Book of Proverbs. Consider Christ himself: how he called little children to him; with what care he commended them to us, telling us withal that angels wait upon them.-Matt. 18: 2. And in this, he shews us how great a service it is to bring them up well, and, on the other hand, that he is ever exceedingly angry when we offend or pervert them.

Wherefore, dearly beloved rulers, bend yourselves to the work which God so strictly enjoins upon you, which your office involves, which our youth stand

so much in need of, and which neither the world nor the spirit can afford to do without. We have lain, alas! too long in the darkness of corruption and death; too long have we been German beasts. Let us now act as becomes reasonable beings, so that God may mark our gratitude for the good things he has given us, and that other lands may see that we, too, are men; nay, more, that we are men who can either learn somewhat from them, or impart somewhat to them: so, through us, the world shall be made better. I have done my part; and with longing have I desired to bring aid and counsel to this German land. That some, who ought to know better, detest me for it, and throw my faithful counsel to the wind, all this I must let pass. I well know that others might have done better than I; but, since these have remained silent, I have spoken out, as well as it lay in me to do. Poorly though it has been said, it were better thus, than had I held my peace. And I am in hopes that God will awaken some of you, so that my true admonitions shall not be spilt upon the ground; and that, taking no thought of him who speaks, you may be moved, by the things spoken of, to bestir yourselves.

Finally, it is well for all those who eagerly desire to see such schools and studies established and sustained over Germany, to bear in mind the importance of sparing neither trouble nor expense, to the end that good libraries may be founded, especially in the large cities; since in them both means and opportunities are greater than elsewhere. For if the gospel, together with all the arts and sciences, are to be perpetuated, they must be enclosed and bound up in books and writings. And the prophets and apostles themselves, as I said before, did this very thing. And this was not only that those who minister to us both in temporal and in spiritual things might have wherewithal to read and to study; but also that good books themselves should be preserved and not be lost, so that we might have that knowledge of the languages, which now, by God's grace, we possess. We see, too, the importance that St. Paul attaches to this matter, where he commands Timothy, (1st. Ep. 4: 13,) "to give attendance to reading;" and also where he bids him, (2nd Ep., 4: 13,) bring with him when he came the parchments that he left at Troas. Yea, all nations eminent in history have paid attention to this matter; the Israelites more than all. Moses, who made their first record, commanded the book of the law to be preserved in the ark of God, and committed it to the keeping of the Levites. And, whoever desired it, could there have a copy made for himself; Moses, also, laid his prophetic injunction on the king that was to come, to obtain such copy from the Levites. Thus we see clearly that God ordained the Levitical priesthood, that they might, in connection with their other duties, keep and guard the books of the law. Afterward, the collection was enriched and rendered more complete by Joshua, Samuel, David, Solomon, Isaiah, and other kings and prophets. Hence, arose the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament, which would never have been brought together or preserved, had not God so solemnly and repeatedly commanded it to be done. With this example in view, the monasteries and cloisters in former times founded libraries, albeit they contained but few good books. And what a pity it was, that more pains had not been taken to collect good books, and form good libraries, at the proper time, when good books and able men were in abundance; but, alas, we know too well that, in the gradual lapse of time, all the arts and the languages went to decay, and, instead of books having the ring of the true metal, the devil brought in upon us a flood of uncouth, useless, and pernicious monkish legends; the " Florista," "Græcista," "Labyrinthus," "Dormi Secure," and the like; by the means of which the Latin tongue has become corrupt, and there are nowhere any good schools, doctrines, or systems of study remaining. But now, in these latter times, as it has been told us, and as we ourselves may see, there have arisen men who have restored, though as yet in a very imperfect manner, the languages and arts; having picked them out of a few pieces and fragments of old books, that had long been given over to the dust and worms; nor have they yet ceased from their labors, but are renewing them daily. So we search for gold or jewels amid the ashes of some ruined city. In this matter it would be right, and God would justly punish our ingratitude, in not acknowledging his bounty, and taking means in time, and while we can, to keep good books and learned men among us, (but letting them pass by, as though they did not concern us ;) it would be right, I say, if he should suffer all this to leave us, and instead of the Holy Scriptures and good books, should bring us Aristotle back again, together with other pernicious books, which

serve only to lead us ever further away from the Bible, that so we might be delivered over again to the monks, those minions of the devil, and to the vain mummeries of the scholastic. Was it not a burning shame that formerly a boy must needs study twenty years or longer, only to learn a jargon of bad Latin, and then to turn priest and say mass? And he, who finally arrived at this pinnacle of his hopes, was accounted happy; and happy was the mother who had borne such a son. But, for all this, he remained a poor illiterate man all his days, and was neither good to cluck nor to lay eggs. Such are the teachers and guides that we have had to put up with, who knew nothing themselves, and accordingly were unable to teach any thing that was either good or true. Yea! they did not even know how to learn any more than they did how to teach. And, why was this so? It was because there were no other books accessible, save the barbarous productions of the monks and sophists. Of course, in such a state of things, we could not look for any thing else than scholars and teachers as barbarous as the books which taught them. A jackdaw hatches never a dove; neither will a fool make a wise man. Such is the reward of our ingratitude, in not using diligence in the establishment of libraries, and in leaving good books to perish, while we have cherished and preserved useless ones. But, my advice is, that you do not carry home all sorts of books, without distinction, thinking of numbers only. I would have a choice exercised in this matter, so that we should not heap together the commentaries of all the jurists, the writings of all the theologians, the researches of all the philosophers, nor the sermons of all the monks. Nay, I would banish all such muck and mire, and provide me a library that should contain sterling books,-books commended to me by learned men. In the first place, the Holy Scriptures should be there, both in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and German; also in all other languages in which they might be contained. Next, I would have those books which are useful in learning the languages; as, for instance, the poets and orators, and that without inquiring whether they are Pagan or Christian, Greek or Latin. For, from all such are we to learn grammar and style. Next, there should be books pertaining to the liberal arts; and likewise treatises on all the other arts, and on the sciences. And lastly, books on jurisprudence and medicine; though here, too, a wary choice is to be exercised. But, foremost of all, should be chronicles and histories, in whatever languages we could procure them; for these are of singular usefulness, to instruct us in the course of the world, and in the art of government; and, in these, too, we may see the manifestation of God's wonderful works. Oh! how many a worthy saying, how many a noble deed, said and done here in Germany, might we now have had, if they had not, alas! passed clean out of the memory of man! And this, for the reason that there was no one to record them; or, if they were recorded, that no one has preserved the record. This, too, is the reason that they know nothing of us in other lands; and all the world must fain call us German beasts, who only know how to get substance, and then consume it in gluttony and riotous living. But the Greeks and the Romans, and, for the matter of that, the Hebrews, too, have described the events that took place in their midst so minutely and faithfully, that, if but a woman or a child said or did any thing worthy of note, forthwith it was chronicled, so that all the world should read it and know of it; and yet, we Germans remain bound up in ourselves, having neither a thought nor a wish that looks beyond our own interests.

But since, now in these days, God has so graciously come to our aid with all fullness both of art, learned men and books, it is time that we should reap and gather in of the choicest that we can find, and lay up great store of treasure, that we may have wherewith to maintain ourselves in the future out of these golden years, by reason of having improved the opportunity of this rich harvest. For there is danger that it may finally come to this, (and already things are tending that way,) that, through the agency of the devil, good books, which have been restored to us by the art of printing, shall be submerged under a flood of dissolute and pernicious works, in which there is neither sense nor reason; a flood that shall pour in again, as aforetime, and fill every nook and corner of the land. For the devil is surely plotting to bring back the former state of things, so that men shall again painfully stagger under a load of "catholicons," "floristas," "modernistas," and all the vile and abominable trash of the monks and sophists; so we shall again be ever learning, and never coming to the knowledge of the truth.

Wherefore, I beseech you, my beloved rulers and friends, let this my faithfulness and diligence bear fruit in you. And, though there be some who deem me of too little consequence to give heed to my counsel, and despise me as one under the ban of tyrants, yet, I hope that one day they will see that I did not seek my own, but only the welfare and the happiness of the entire German nation. And though I were a fool, and yet should light upon some good path, it would be no disgrace to a wise man to follow me. And though I were a Turk and a heathen, yet, should Christians perceive that what I had said was not to my own profit but to that of others, even thus, they could not justly despise my efforts to serve them. There are times, too, when a fool may give better advice than a whole army of counselors. Moses suffered himself to be taught by Jethro.-Exodus, 18: 17.

Now, I commend you all to the grace of God, and I pray him to soften your hearts, so that you may right earnestly espouse the cause of poor, needy, forsaken youth, and through Divine help assisting you, and for the sake of a good and a Christian government here in our Germany, that you may aid and counsel them, in body and in soul, with all fullness and superfluity, to the praise and glory of God the Father, through our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen."

VIII. DUTY OF SCHOOL ATTENDANCE OF CHILDREN.

In his sermon, "On keeping children at school," Luther says: God has given you children and the means of their support, not that you should idolize them, or lead them into the vanities of the world. But he has laid his most solemn injunctions upon you, to train them up for his service.

He speaks in terms of praise of the learned classes, especially the clerical, and presses conviction upon consciences of parents, when, out of avarice, they withhold from study a boy who is strongly bent upon. learning.

Cheerfully let thy son study, and should he the while even be compelled to earn his bread, yet remember that you are offering to our Lord God a fine little block of marble out of which he can hew for you a master-piece. And do not regard the fact that in these days the lust for gain is everywhere throwing learning into contempt; nor say, in your haste, "If my son can write and read German and keep accounts, it is enough; I will make a merchant of him ;" for they will soon be brought to such a pass, that they would gladly dig ten ells deep in the ground with their fingers, if, by so doing, they could find a learned man; for a merchant, methinks, would not be a merchant long, should law and theology perish. Of this I am full sure, we theologians and jurists must remain with you, or the whole world will go to ruin together, and that without remedy. If theologians turn aside, then the word of God will come to naught, and we shall all become heathen, yea, very devils; if jurists turn aside, then law will fly away, bearing peace with it; and, amid robbery, murder, outrage, and all manner of violence, we shall sink below the beasts of the forest. But, how much the merchant will make and heap together, when peace shall have fled from the earth, his ledger will tell him better than I; and how much good his possessions will do him, when preaching shall be no more, this let his conscience declare.

Luther did not mean, however, to insist that all boys should go through a complete course of study, as we may perceive from the "Letter to the German nobles." He expresses himself in the most decided terms, on the duty of magistrates to compel the attendance of children at school.

I hold it to be incumbent on those in authority to command their subjects to keep their children at school; for it is, beyond doubt, their duty to insure the permanence of the above-named offices and positions, so that preachers, jurists, curates, scribes, physicians, schoolmasters, and the like, may not fail from among