Ratich applied the Baconian method to the problems of education,

especially language teaching.

CHAPTER III

RATICH AND HIS EDUCATIONAL CLAIMS

Wolfgang von Ratke (1571-1635), generally called Ratich from an abbreviation of his Latinized name,1 was born in Wilster, Holstein, and first studied for the ministry at the University of Rostock. Later, he continued his studies in England, where he probably became acquainted with the work of Bacon. Before long, realizing that he had an incurable defect in speech which would keep him from success in the pulpit, he decided to devote himself to educational reform. He planned to apply the principles of Bacon to the problems of education in general, but he intended especially to reform the methods of language teaching.

Ratich's Attempts at School Reform

In 1612 Ratich memorialized the imperial diet, while it was sitting at Frankfurt, and asked for an investigation of his methods. Two professors from the University of Giessen were commissioned to examine his propositions, and afterward the University of Jena similarly had four

1 I.e. Ratichius.

His attempts to apply his

principles

were uni

of its staff look into the matter, and in each case a favorable, not to say enthusiastic, verdict was reached. When, however, on the strength of such reports, the town coun- formly unsuccil of Augsburg gave him control of the schools of that cessful. city, he was not able to justify his claims, and the arrangement was abandoned at the end of a year. Having appealed to the diet again without encouragement, Ratich began traveling from place to place, trying to interest various princes or cities in his system. He was befriended by Dorothea, Duchess of Weimar, who induced her brother, Prince Ludwig of Anhalt-Köthen, to provide a school for Ratich. This institution was furnished with an expensive equipment, including a large printing plant; a set of teachers that had been trained in the Ratichian methods and sworn to secrecy, were engaged; and some five hundred school children of Köthen were started on this royal road to learning. The experiment lasted only eighteen months, and, largely owing to Ratich's inexperience as a schoolmaster, was a dismal failure. The prince was so enraged at his pecuniary loss and the ridiculous light in which he was placed that he threw the unhappy reformer into prison, and released him at the end of three months only upon his signing a statement that he had undertaken more than he could perform. After this, Ratich tried his hand at Magdeburg, where he failed again, mostly as the result of theological differences, and then was enabled to pre

sent his principles to Oxenstiern, the chancellor of Sweden, but he never really recovered from his disappointment in Köthen, and died of paralysis in Erfurt before he could hear from Stockholm.

Ilis claims concerning

His Claims and Methods

Although there was considerable merit in the printhe teaching ciples of Ratich, he had many of the ear-marks of a mounof languages, tebank. Such may be considered his constant attempts sciences, and to keep his methods a profound secret, and the spec

the arts and

uniformity,

gant, but

seem extrava- tacular ways he had of presenting the ends they were were in keep- bound to accomplish. In writing the diet, he promised ing with realism. by means of his system: first, to teach young or old Hebrew, Greek, and Latin without difficulty, and in a shorter time than was ordinarily devoted to any one language; secondly, to introduce schools in which all arts and sciences should be thoroughly taught and extended; and, lastly, to establish uniformity in speech, religion, and government. As Ratich stated them, these claims seemed decidedly extravagant, but as far as he expected to carry them out, they were but the natural aims of an education based upon realism and the Baconian method.

"First study

the vernacu

The rules of procedure used by Ratich and his disciples have been extracted by Von Raumer from a work on "one thing at the Ratichian methods published after the system had

lar" and

the printhe ciples upon

which his

practice at

Köthen was

based.

become somewhat known.1 In linguistic training he a time" were insisted, like all realists, that one "should first study vernacular" as an introduction to other languages. He also held to the principle of "one thing at a time and often repeated." By this he meant that, in studying a language, one should master a single book. At Köthen, as soon as the children knew their letters, they were required to learn Genesis thoroughly for the sake of their German. Each chapter was read twice by the teacher, while the pupils followed the text with their finger. When they could read the book perfectly, they were taught grammar from it as a text. The teacher pointed out the various parts of speech and made the children find other examples, and then had them decline, conjugate and parse. In taking up Latin, a play of Terence was used in a similar fashion. A translation was read to the pupils several times before they were shown the original; then the Latin was translated to them from the text; next, the class was drilled in grammar; and finally, the boys were required to turn German sentences into Latin after the style of Terence. This method may have produced a high degree of concentration, but it was liable to result in monotony and want of interest, unless skilfully administered.

Another formulation of Ratich's, whereby he insisted

1 Methodus Institutionis Nova Ratichii et Ratichianorum, published by Johannes Rhenius at Leipzig in 1626.

His other principles were similarly realistic.

upon "uniformity and harmony in all things," must have been of especial value in teaching the grammar of different languages, where the methods and even the terminology are often so diverse. Similarly, his idea that one should "learn first the thing and then its explanation," which was his way of advising that the details and exceptions be deferred until the entire outline of a subject is well in hand, would undoubtedly save a pupil from much confusion in acquiring a new language. And some of his other principles, which applied to education in general, are even more distinctly realistic. For example, he laid down the precept, "Follow the order of nature." Although his idea of 'nature' was rather hazy, and his methods often consisted in making fanciful analogies with natural phenomena, yet his injunction to make nature the guide seems to point the way to realism. Moreover, his attitude on "everything by experiment and induction," which completely repudiates all authority, went even farther and quite out-Baconed Bacon. And his additional recommendation that "nothing is to be learned by rote" looked in the same direction. Finally, these realistic methods were naturally accompanied by the humane injunction of "nothing by compulsion."