M.'s Life and Writings.

forgotten; but when the history of education in England comes to be written, the historian will show that few schoolmasters in the fifteen hundreds or since were so enlightened as the first headmaster of Merchant Taylors'.*

* All we know of his life may soon be told. Richard Mulcaster was a Cumberland man of good family, an "esquier borne," as he calls himself, who was at Eton, then King's College, Cambridge, then at Christ Church, Oxford. His birth year was probably 1530 or 1531, and he became a student of Christ Church in 1555- In 1558 he settled as a schoolmaster in London, and was elected first headmaster of Merchant Taylors' School, which dates from 1561. Here he remained twentyfive years, ¿.e., till 1586. Whether he then became, as H. B. Wilson says, surmaster of St. Paul's, I cannot determine, but "he came in " highmaster in 1596, and held that office for twelve years. Though in 1598 Elizabeth made him rector of Stanford Rivers, there can be no doubt that he did not give up the highmastership till 1608, when he must have been about 77 years old. He died at Stanford Rivers three years later. While at Merchant Taylors', viz., in 1581 and 1582, he published the two books which have secured for him a permanent place in the history of education in England. The first was his Positions, the second "The first part (and, as it proved, the only part) of his Elementarie. Of his other writings, his Cato Christianus seems to have been the most important, and a very interesting quotation from it has been preserved in Robotham's Preface to the Janua of Comenius; but the book itself is lost: at least I never heard of a copy, and I have sought in vain in the British Museum, and at the University Libraries of Oxford and Cambridge. His Catechismus Paulinus is a rare book, but Rev. J. H. Lupton has found and described a copy in the Bodleian.

IX.

RATICHIUS.

(1571-1635.)

§ 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

Principles of the Innovators.

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 : Ist, 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).

R.'s Address to the Diet.

83. 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

At Augsburg. At Koethen.

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 bond. age 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