From all the above it is plain that there is good reason for not accepting the extravagant statement that Luther’s writings on education constitute the “charter of our national schools.” Others have extolled him as the founder of the “Gymnasium” on account of his reference in these works to the Latin schools. But even this is scarcely true, for, in them, the author either goes beyond the field covered by the Gymnasium or else fails to reach it. The Protestant pastor, Julius Boehmer, says in the popular edition of Luther’s works:[63] “It will not do to regard the work (”An die Radherrn“) as the ‘Charter of the Gymnasium,’ as has often been done, seeing that, as stated above, it is concerned with both the Universities and the lower-grade schools.”[64] As to attendance at the Universities, of which Luther also speaks, he asks the authorities to forbid the matriculation of any but the “clever ones,” though among the masses “every fellow wanted a doctorate.”[65] What he says of the various Faculties at the Universities is also noteworthy. With the object of reforming philosophy and the Arts course he wishes that of all the writings of Aristotle, that blind heathen master, who had hitherto led astray the Universities, only the “_Logica_,” “_Rhetorica_” and “_Poetica_” should be retained; “the books: ‘_Physicorum_,’ ‘_Metaphysicæ_,’ ‘_De anima_’ and ‘_Ethicorum_’ must be dropped”; curiously enough these are the very works on which Melanchthon was later on to bestow so much attention. We know how hateful Aristotle was to Luther, because, in his heathen way, he teaches nothing of grace and faith, but, on the other hand, extols the natural virtues. Luther’s impulsive and unmethodical mode of thought was also, it must be said, quite at variance with the logical mind of the Stagirite. According to Luther “artistic education must be wholly rooted out as a work of the devil; the very most that can be tolerated is the use of those works which deal with form, but even these must not be commented on or explained.”[66]