grammar schools, and what method they follow.[1] In Germany, at a rather later date, the Arithmetic[2] of Christopher Clavius, a Jesuit priest, went through many editions, though it is difficult to say if it was used outside the Jesuit schools. It is worth noting that Alsted, Comenius’ teacher at Herborn, wrote several works on mathematics,[3] though these were for more advanced scholars.
The question now arises, “By what method or system of teaching were these books backed up? What pains were taken to ascertain the difficulties of the individual school-boy and remove them by timely explanation?”
The answer is as simple as it is unsatisfactory. In every difficulty or dilemma the one resource of the schoolmaster was the stick. Between recalcitrant school-boys and ignorant teachers the friction was great, and the sturdy use of the cane proved the readiest way to disperse the evil humours of the master. Witness the complaint of Ascham: “The scholar is commonly beat for the making, when the master were more worthy to be beat for the mending or rather marring of the same: the master being many times as ignorant as the child what to say to the matter.”[4] In France the same complaint was made. “Those daily and severe floggings,” wrote Maturin Cordier, “deter simple-minded youths from the study of letters to such an extent that they hate school worse than a dog or a snake.”[5] From time to time protests were raised against this process of brutalising children; but the general tendency of the age was to believe that a little physical
- ↑ ‘Petri Rami Professoris Regii, Præfationes, etc. Parisiis, 1577. P. 204. Petrus Ramus, Joan. Dio Londinensi.’ “Itaque gemino pignore amoris erga me tui obligatus mihi videbor, si hoc utrumque abs te impetravero, et qui sunt e veteribus in bibliotheca tua scriptores mathematici, et quinam in vestris gymnasiis, quaque authoritate mathematicas artes profiteantur.”
- ↑ Christopheri Clavii Bambergensis e Societate Jesu, Epitome Arithmeticæ practicæ,’ 1st ed. 1583 (the edition before me is of 1607).
- ↑ ‘Methodus admirandorum Mathematicorum, novem libris exhibens universam Mathesin.’ Herborn, 1641. (De Morgan.)
- ↑ Ascham, Scholemaster.
- ↑ ‘De corrupti sermonis emendatione.’ Paris, 1530. Preface.
