Painter further says: “The schools, which stand in close relation to religion, were naturally influenced in a large measure by the theological tendencies of the age. Theological interests imposed upon the schools _a narrow range of subjects, a mechanical method of instruction_, and a cruel discipline. The principle of authority, _exacting_ a blind submission of the pupil, prevailed in the schools of every grade. The young were regarded not as tender plants to be carefully nurtured and developed, but as untamed animals to be repressed or broken.”[133] Notice the creeping in of those very characteristics of papal education so often referred to heretofore: 1, narrow range of subjects; 2, mechanical instruction,—memory work devoid of understanding; 3, arbitrary government, as seen in the matter of discipline. To this we must add that which is the natural accompaniment in papal instruction—the teaching of Latin. Says Painter, quoting Dittes: “‘In the higher institutions, and even in the wretched town schools, LATIN WAS THE MOLOCH to which countless minds fell an offering in return for the blessing granted to a few. _A dead knowledge of words took the place of a living knowledge of things._ Latin schoolbooks supplanted the book of nature, the book of life, the book of mankind. And in the popular schools youthful minds were tortured over the spelling book and catechism. The method of teaching was almost everywhere, in the primary as well as in the higher schools, a mechanical and compulsory drill in unintelligible formulas. The pupils were obliged to learn, _but they were not educated to see and hear, to think and prove_, and were not led to a true independence and personal perfection. THE TEACHERS FOUND THEIR FUNCTION IN TEACHING THE PRESCRIBED TEXT, not in harmoniously developing the young human being according to the laws of nature—a process, moreover, that lay under the ban of ecclesiastical orthodoxy.’”[134] [Sidenote: Cramming system and memory work] That there was a cramming process followed equal to any twentieth-century school, is evident. “The discipline answered to the content and spirit of the instruction.... The principle was to tame the pupils, not to educate them. They were to hold themselves motionless, that the school exercises might not be disturbed. What took place in their minds, and how their several characters were constituted, the school pedants did not understand and appreciate.” [Sidenote: Sturm’s school a compromise]