Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/86

74 HISTORY OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE 1496, and in company with several canons pursued daily studies in Hebrew, for which his friend, Sebastian Murrho, a most accomplished Hebrew scholar, pro- cured him books from Colmar. Later on, Potken was appointed professor of Greek at one of the eleven Latin schools of Cologne, which were connected with the eleven foundations there, and often numbered some of the ablest men among their teachers. While at Cologne he lodged with his relative, Johann Potken, provost of St. George's, a learned Orientalist, who had learned the Ethiopian language in Borne, and was the author of the first book printed in Europe in Ethiopian characters. Pupils made early and rapid progress in their studies ; for instance, Adam Potken read Virgil's ' iEneid ' and Cicero's speeches with scholars of twelve years old. Johann Eck (born in 1466) went through a comprehensive Greek and Latin course in the school- house of his uncle, a simple country pastor, between his ninth and twelfth years. The particulars that have come down to us relative to his school instruction are of general interest and value to educationalists. The old and the new writers were all in turn explained to the boy — the fables of iEsop, a comedy from Aretinus, an elegy of Alda (?), a treatise, attributed to Seneca, on the four cardinal virtues, Gasperin's letters, a hymn of Gerson's in honour of St. Joseph, two works of Boethius, St. Jerome's preface to the Bible, Terence, and the first six books of the ' iEneid.' He was even expected at this early age to acquire some knowledge of philosophy and jurisprudence. He tells that he was ' put through the five treatises. After dinner,' he writes, ' I used to read to my uncle from the books of Moses and the historical books of the Old Testament,