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An Excerpt from Johann Sturm on Education

Johann Sturm (1507–1589), the consummate educator of the Reformation period, wrote volumes of material as he set out to reform the schools of Strasbourg according to his Christian humanist educational ideas. His educational thought influenced many in the Protestant areas of Europe, including Martin Luther and Roger Ascham, the tutor of Queen Elizabeth I. Following are his thoughts, as expressed in a letter (circa 1569) to Karl Mieg, a "councilor and scholarch" (Board of Education member), on how teachers and faculties could become knowledgeable enough to “teach everything.” See if his idea would work for you and your faculty! You can become more familiar with Johann Sturm’s contributions to education and read more of his writings in Lewis W. Spitz's and Barbara Sher Tinsley's, Johann Sturm on Education: The Reformation and Humanist Learning (Concordia Publishing House, 1995) (53-1013).

To Karl Mieg, Councilor and Scholarch

Since it is the program of our academy that we try to teach everything that the human spirit can grasp, we teachers ought to have learned everything—something that we have not yet achieved. I do not see that any one of us could promise this for himself and, as I perceive it, no one has promised it. Or if he promised it, he did this more from zeal or eagerness than from an understanding of the difficult and arduous task.

If someone should read all the books of Plato, Aristotle, and Plutarch, would not all but a few think that they had not heard, examined, and understood everything? How many important subjects did they miss? I believe, and truly believe, if all the philosophers, whether they are Epicureans, Academicians, of the old or new Academy, or Stoics—I say of them all and of the other wise men of all Greece—if any one collects their teachings and puts them in a sequence, he will see, nevertheless, that they made more categories than they explained—whatever their philosophy claims!

Most of all, surely, they were able to say nothing about God, nothing about the creation of the world, nothing about the nature of man, nothing about the retrun of men to life. The poets ventured to name the sons and daughters of Jupiter. But how much they and the philosophers erred in the search for the true Son—to say nothing about their understanding of Him! Now many things have been discovered in the natural sciences and mathematics by later generations that were unknown to the earliest wise men. Even though this is so, nevertheless, since one philosopher professes, as it were, all subjects and all have struggled to achieve this so that they may know all subjects and hand them on, why should not the same be granted to us as them? Or why should not we, no less than they, be able with industriousness to succeed? Do we lack books? Or leisure? Or stipends, or abilities or, finally, intellect? For if we yield to the ancients in this, the corruption of learning would occur more from our own faint-heartedness than from our natural capability, the excellence of which is no less a gift and benefit from God than are fruits and the annual supply of food. Obviously ages have advanced, some in one way and others in another, and men are more numerous and keener witted and more learned just as some years are surpassed by one year and other years by another in regard to fruitfulness. The Arabs may have more men of genius than Germany may have, yet the benevolence of God must not be denied, for He is the Illuminator of the human mind. For every light of genius comes from God.

So Athens was a learned city and poets, mathematicians, and philosophers prospered there. Nevertheless they did not always prosper in the same way. Since that was granted to them before us, it does not mean that it is forbidden to us. They left us monuments of literature that teach us how many important subjects they encompassed in their teachings. Learned men know these subjects and how much has been added to the earliest posterity and how much can be contributed to posterity by us. There are those who consider and reflect by what road may one come to this ability. “Two walking together,” as that famous man says, there is need of joint inquiry. And as that famous man says, “In an evil situation, let us talk as if in a good situation,” the efforts must be made by us mutually so that if we individually cannot achieve everything thoroughly, nevertheless individually we can achieve individual things in an ordinary way. Let each one carefully cultivate set individual tasks according to his own talent. Let him engage in as much as he can and learn from his other colleagues so that all together may possess what they do not have as individuals. Therefore, if you would wish to be advisors to me and my colleagues, you would be able to bring it about that we divide up among ourselves the arts and books that we read so that in a few years, everything would be apportioned among us not in books and libraries but in our minds and memories and we would possess as understood and learned what the theological writers whom they read at home be divided up among them whether they be Greek as are the church historians like Chrysostom, Basil or Gregory of Nazianen and others, or Latin, like Tertullian, Lactantius, Cyprian, Jerome, Augustine.

Let the mathematicians and natural scientists do the same with their writers. I shall this year willingly use in comparison to the precepts of speaking and in comparison to Cicero and Demosthenes, the books of Plato and Aristotle on the republic and on the laws, and what they have handed down on morals. Likewise others should work hard on historians and poets so that having been instructed by them, they make known, in meetings and daily conversations, in disputations and in schools in rhetorical declamations, as many important subjects as the human mind can grasp, if it tries. If the mind of man enters upon the right method and plan, what great advances it is able to make by sharing studies, by dividing up the work, by distinct divisions of hours, in sum, by a reasonable method and a good plan!

From Johann Sturm on Education © 1995 CPH.

Regular Price: $25.99 Binding: Hardback with Jacket Author(s): Spitz, Lewis W; Tinsley, Barbara S. Age(s): Adult Item Number: 53-1013 Number Of Pages: 430 ISBN: 0570042534   Learn More