512 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 1580.
Henry Mills,! John Kelly,? not to mention many others whe have furnished admirable translations of one or more hymns for public or private hymnological collections.
English and American hymnody began much later than the German, but comes next to it in fertility, is enriching itself constantly by transfusions of Greek, Latin, and German, as well as by original hymns, and may ultimately surpass all hymnodies.
§ 88. Common Schools.
LUTHER: An die Rathsherren aller Stadte deutschen Landes, dass sie christliche Schulen aufrichten und halten sollen. Wittenberg, 1524, The book appeared in the same year in Latin (De constituendis scholis), with a preface of Melanchthon, the probable translator, at Hagenau. In WALCH, x. 533; in the Erlangen. ed., xxii. 168-199.
Church and school go together. The Jewish synagogue was a school. Every Christian church is a school of piety and virtue for old and young. The medieval church was the civilizer and instructor of the barbarians, founded the convent and cathedral schools, and the great universities of Paris (1209), Bologna, Padua, Oxford, Cambridge, St. Andrews, Glasgow, Salamanca, Alcala, Toledo, Prague (1848), Vienna (1365), Heidelberg (1886), Cologne (1388), Erfurt (1893), Leipzig (1409),- Basel (1460), Ingolstadt (1472), Tubingen (1477), Wittenberg (1502), ete. But education in the middle ages was aristocratic, and confined to the clergy and a very few laymen of the higher classes. The common people were ignorant and superstitious, and could neither
His translations were first published in Schaff’s ‘‘ Kirchenfreund’’ for 1849- ’51 (with the originals), then in the ‘‘ Mercersburg Review”’ for 1869, pp. 304 sqq-, 414 sqq., and have since passed into many American hymn-books.
1 Horae Germanice, Auburn and New York, 1845, 2d ed. 1856. Mills was professor of biblical criticism in the Presbyterian Theol. Seminary at Auburn, N.Y., and died 1867.
2 Paul Gerhardt’s Spiritual Songs, London, 1867.
3 e. g., for Schaff’s Christ in Song, New York, 1868, and London, 1870. In my German Hymn-book (Philad. 1859, revised and enlarged ed., 1874), I have noted the English translations as far as 1 knew them.
§ 83. COMMON SCHOOLS. 513
read nor write. Even noblemen signed their name with a cross. Books were rare and dear. The invention of the printing-press prepared the way for popular education. The Reformation first utilized the press on a large scale, and gave a powerful impulse to common schools. The genius of Protestantism favors the general diffusion of knowledge. It elevates the laity, emancipates private judgment, and stimulates the sense of personal responsibility. very man should be trained to a position of Christian freedom and self-government.
Luther discussed this subject first in his Address to the German Nobility (1520). In 1524 he wrote a special book in which he urged the civil magistrates of all the cities of Germany to improve their schools, or to establish new ones for boys and girls; this all the more since the zeal for monastic institutions had declined, and the convents were fast getting empty. He wisely recommended that a portion of the property of churches and convents be devoted to this purpose, instead of being wasted on secular objects, or on avaricious princes and noblemen. He makes great account of the study of languages, and skillfully refutes the objections. A few extracts will give the best idea of this very useful little book on a most important subject.
‘Grace and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ... . Although I am now excommunicated for three years, and should keep silent if I feared men more than God, . . . I will speak as long as I live, until the righteousness of Christ shall break forth in its glory. . . . I beg you all, my dear lords and friends, for God’s sake to take care of the poor youth, and thereby to help us all. So much money is spent year after year for arms, roads, dams, and innumerable similar objects, why should not as much be spent for the education of the poor youth? . .. The word of God is now heard in Germany more than ever before. But if we do not show our gratitude for it, we run the risk of sinking back into a worse darkness.
‘Dear Germans, buy while the market is at the door. Gather while the sun shines and the weather is good. Use God’s grace and word while it is at hand. For you must know that God’s grace and word is a travelling shower, which does not return where once it has been. It was once with