schools
I came across this looong text. Once more, you'll have to make do with my limited translation abilities...
What would it help if we otherwise had everything and did everything and were like pure saints, if we would neglect that for which we mainly live, which is taking care of the young people? I also believe that the world is not burdened as heavily by any outward sin and deserves such cruel punishment than with this and for this that we do commit against the children by not educating them.
That it isn't done by the parents has many reasons. For one thing, many are simply not so righteous and dutiful to do it, even though they could. But like the ostriches they become hard against their young and leave it at that, that they threw the eggs away from themselves and fathered children - they don't do more. Well, these children still are supposed to live among us and with us in a common town. How then should reason and even more Christian love allow that they grow up uneducated and are poison and vermin for the other children, through which eventually the whole town perishes, as it happened with Sodom and Gomorra and Gibea and several other towns?
Secondly, the large majority of parents is unfortunately unable to do it and doesn't know how to educate and teach children. For they haven't learnt anything themselves but to take care of their stomachs; but it needs special people to teach and educate children well and right.
Thirdly: Even if parents were able and willing to educate their children, their many other businesses and housework doesn't leave them time and room for it, so that necessity requires they together employ an instructor. It might be that each would like to employ one himself, but that would be hard for a simple man and still many a good boy would be neglected because of poverty.
Therefore it is the council's and authorities' due to devote the greatest care and diligence to the young people. Because the whole town's property, honour, body and life has been trusted to their hands, they wouldn't act responsibly before God and the world if they wouldn't daily and nightly pursue the town's prosperity and advantage to the best of their abilities. Now, the town's prosperity isn't only in collecting large treasures, making strong walls, beautiful houses, many cannons and armours. Rather, where there is a lot of these and it falls into the hands of crazy fools, this is a much worse and greater damage for the town. Rather, the best and most beautiful prosperity of a town, its welfare and strength, is having many good, educated, sensible, honourable, mannerly citizens, who then well may collect treasures and all manner of goods, keep them in good shape and use them well.
Because a town needs and must have people, and because the greatest grievance, lack and complain is that people are lacking, it cannot be waited for them to grow up by themselves. They won't be worked from stone or cut from wood. Equally, God will not do wonders as long as the problem can be solved with the goods He provided. Therefore we have to do our part and invest effort and money to educate them and make something of them. For whose fault is it that there are so few able people in all towns nowadays?
There has to remain a worldly regiment. Should it be allowed that we be governed by nothing but churls and brutes, if it very well can be done better? That would be a barbaric, unreasonable beginning. In that case one might as well make sows and wolves the masters and put them above those who don't want to consider how they are governed by humans. Also it is inhuman evilness to think no further than this: We want to rule now. Why should it concern us how those will fare who come after us? Not over people, but over sows and dogs should these people govern, who don't look for more in their government than their own advantage and honour.
The world needs, just for outwardly preserving its worldly state, good and able men and women, so the men can rightly govern the land and the people and the women can rightly educate and preserve house, children and servants.
If the strict discipline is carried to extremes and succeeds, it won't lead further than to some little forced outward decorum - otherwise they will remain plain fools who can't say anything about this or that and can't guide and help anyone. But if they would be taught and educated in schools or where else well-learned and mannerly male and female teachers are, who would teach them the languages and other sciences as well as history, then they would hear the happenings and sayings of all the world, how it went with this town, this empire, this prince, this man, this woman. Thus they could in a short time imagine like in a mirror the life and doings of downright the whole world from the beginning on, the thoughts and plans, the accomplishments and failures. From this they could then come to a decision and find their place in the course of the world with godliness, furthermore become knowing and prudent from these stories of history (concerning what should be searched and avoided in this outward life) and able to guide and govern others. The education, however, that is done at home without such schools, wants to make us wise through our own experience. Before this happens, we're dead a hundred times and used our life unthinkingly, for personal experience takes a long time.
Now, the young people need to skip and jump and anyway do something they enjoy, and they shouldn't be kept from this; it wouldn't be good to forbid everything. But why shouldn't such schools be created for them and such sciences taught, especially now that through God's grace everything has been made so that children can learn with fun and games, be it languages or other sciences or history? There is no more the hell and purgatory of our schools, where we were tortured with declination and conjugation exercises, where we didn't learn anything with so much beating, trembling, fear and misery. If so much time is taken to teach the children card games, singing and dancing, why isn't the time taken to teach them to read and other arts while they are young and free of work, and have the ability and joy for learning? I say of myself: If I had children and could do it, they wouldn't only have to learn languages and history but also singing and music together with mathematics.
I had to read the devil's dirt, the philosophs and sophists, with great cost, work and damage, so I had enough cleaning to do there.
It would be my wish that boys would be sent to such a school for one or two hours a day, but would still be made to work at home for the rest of the time, to teach them a craft or what other things they are needed for, so that both things go together, while the people are young and can make an effort. They use ten times the time for playing ball, running and tussling.
Equally a girl can have enough time to go to school for an hour each day and can still do her housework; she sleeps and dances and plays away more time than that.
The only thing that is lacking is that there is no wish and determination to educate the young people, especially not for helping the world with good people. The devil prefers coarse chumps and useless people, so that humans won't live too well on this earth.
Therefore it is highly necessary, not just for the young people, but also to preserve both our estates, the religious and the worldly, to do our part in this with determination and soon, so we won't later, when we neglected it, need to leave it even though we might like to do it and will be helplessly tortured by our pangs of conscience.
We have been rotting and decaying in darkness for far too long. We have been German beasts for too long. Let us finally use reason, so that God will recognise our thanks for his benefaction and other countries will see that we are humans and people who can either learn something useful from them or teach them something useful, so that the world will be made a better place through us as well. I have done my share. I wanted to at least advise and help the German land, even though many look down at me for it and ignore such true advice and want to know better - I need to let that be. I know that others might have done this better, but as they are silent, I do it as well as I can.
Except for the old-fadshioned language which I didn't want to change too much, and the clear division between the estates and the sexes, this is a surprisingly modern text.
Anybody want to guess who wrote it?
What would it help if we otherwise had everything and did everything and were like pure saints, if we would neglect that for which we mainly live, which is taking care of the young people? I also believe that the world is not burdened as heavily by any outward sin and deserves such cruel punishment than with this and for this that we do commit against the children by not educating them.
That it isn't done by the parents has many reasons. For one thing, many are simply not so righteous and dutiful to do it, even though they could. But like the ostriches they become hard against their young and leave it at that, that they threw the eggs away from themselves and fathered children - they don't do more. Well, these children still are supposed to live among us and with us in a common town. How then should reason and even more Christian love allow that they grow up uneducated and are poison and vermin for the other children, through which eventually the whole town perishes, as it happened with Sodom and Gomorra and Gibea and several other towns?
Secondly, the large majority of parents is unfortunately unable to do it and doesn't know how to educate and teach children. For they haven't learnt anything themselves but to take care of their stomachs; but it needs special people to teach and educate children well and right.
Thirdly: Even if parents were able and willing to educate their children, their many other businesses and housework doesn't leave them time and room for it, so that necessity requires they together employ an instructor. It might be that each would like to employ one himself, but that would be hard for a simple man and still many a good boy would be neglected because of poverty.
Therefore it is the council's and authorities' due to devote the greatest care and diligence to the young people. Because the whole town's property, honour, body and life has been trusted to their hands, they wouldn't act responsibly before God and the world if they wouldn't daily and nightly pursue the town's prosperity and advantage to the best of their abilities. Now, the town's prosperity isn't only in collecting large treasures, making strong walls, beautiful houses, many cannons and armours. Rather, where there is a lot of these and it falls into the hands of crazy fools, this is a much worse and greater damage for the town. Rather, the best and most beautiful prosperity of a town, its welfare and strength, is having many good, educated, sensible, honourable, mannerly citizens, who then well may collect treasures and all manner of goods, keep them in good shape and use them well.
Because a town needs and must have people, and because the greatest grievance, lack and complain is that people are lacking, it cannot be waited for them to grow up by themselves. They won't be worked from stone or cut from wood. Equally, God will not do wonders as long as the problem can be solved with the goods He provided. Therefore we have to do our part and invest effort and money to educate them and make something of them. For whose fault is it that there are so few able people in all towns nowadays?
There has to remain a worldly regiment. Should it be allowed that we be governed by nothing but churls and brutes, if it very well can be done better? That would be a barbaric, unreasonable beginning. In that case one might as well make sows and wolves the masters and put them above those who don't want to consider how they are governed by humans. Also it is inhuman evilness to think no further than this: We want to rule now. Why should it concern us how those will fare who come after us? Not over people, but over sows and dogs should these people govern, who don't look for more in their government than their own advantage and honour.
The world needs, just for outwardly preserving its worldly state, good and able men and women, so the men can rightly govern the land and the people and the women can rightly educate and preserve house, children and servants.
If the strict discipline is carried to extremes and succeeds, it won't lead further than to some little forced outward decorum - otherwise they will remain plain fools who can't say anything about this or that and can't guide and help anyone. But if they would be taught and educated in schools or where else well-learned and mannerly male and female teachers are, who would teach them the languages and other sciences as well as history, then they would hear the happenings and sayings of all the world, how it went with this town, this empire, this prince, this man, this woman. Thus they could in a short time imagine like in a mirror the life and doings of downright the whole world from the beginning on, the thoughts and plans, the accomplishments and failures. From this they could then come to a decision and find their place in the course of the world with godliness, furthermore become knowing and prudent from these stories of history (concerning what should be searched and avoided in this outward life) and able to guide and govern others. The education, however, that is done at home without such schools, wants to make us wise through our own experience. Before this happens, we're dead a hundred times and used our life unthinkingly, for personal experience takes a long time.
Now, the young people need to skip and jump and anyway do something they enjoy, and they shouldn't be kept from this; it wouldn't be good to forbid everything. But why shouldn't such schools be created for them and such sciences taught, especially now that through God's grace everything has been made so that children can learn with fun and games, be it languages or other sciences or history? There is no more the hell and purgatory of our schools, where we were tortured with declination and conjugation exercises, where we didn't learn anything with so much beating, trembling, fear and misery. If so much time is taken to teach the children card games, singing and dancing, why isn't the time taken to teach them to read and other arts while they are young and free of work, and have the ability and joy for learning? I say of myself: If I had children and could do it, they wouldn't only have to learn languages and history but also singing and music together with mathematics.
I had to read the devil's dirt, the philosophs and sophists, with great cost, work and damage, so I had enough cleaning to do there.
It would be my wish that boys would be sent to such a school for one or two hours a day, but would still be made to work at home for the rest of the time, to teach them a craft or what other things they are needed for, so that both things go together, while the people are young and can make an effort. They use ten times the time for playing ball, running and tussling.
Equally a girl can have enough time to go to school for an hour each day and can still do her housework; she sleeps and dances and plays away more time than that.
The only thing that is lacking is that there is no wish and determination to educate the young people, especially not for helping the world with good people. The devil prefers coarse chumps and useless people, so that humans won't live too well on this earth.
Therefore it is highly necessary, not just for the young people, but also to preserve both our estates, the religious and the worldly, to do our part in this with determination and soon, so we won't later, when we neglected it, need to leave it even though we might like to do it and will be helplessly tortured by our pangs of conscience.
We have been rotting and decaying in darkness for far too long. We have been German beasts for too long. Let us finally use reason, so that God will recognise our thanks for his benefaction and other countries will see that we are humans and people who can either learn something useful from them or teach them something useful, so that the world will be made a better place through us as well. I have done my share. I wanted to at least advise and help the German land, even though many look down at me for it and ignore such true advice and want to know better - I need to let that be. I know that others might have done this better, but as they are silent, I do it as well as I can.
Except for the old-fadshioned language which I didn't want to change too much, and the clear division between the estates and the sexes, this is a surprisingly modern text.
Anybody want to guess who wrote it?