In these schools, found in most of the larger and sometimes also in the
smaller towns, the teachers were usually clergymen, who received
annually a moderate salary and a coat from the public treasury, or
oftener still from the revenues of pious foundations. For their better
maintenance, where the foundation could not give them a full support,
they were permitted to accept school-money and even provisions. The
poor scholars earned this money by singing in companies before houses
on new-year and other holidays.
The course of instruction embraced three branches: Latin Grammar,
Music, (especially the art of singing,) and Logic. The study of the
latter, which ought to teach how to give clear expression to thought,
was for the most part time wasted amid useless subtleties and verbiage.
The reputation of the school depended altogether on the character of
the teacher. As soon as he had made himself master of the prescribed
course, he either added to it new branches, or at least understood how
to render it profitable. But his main endeavor was to stimulate the
youthful mind by his own mental activity. To such a teacher hundreds of
scholars flocked from all quarters.
The following regulations, taken from one at Bruck, will give us some
insight into the state of discipline among schools of this kind.
"The schoolmaster shall take in school at five o'clock in the morning,
in summer, and at six in the winter,[1] give lessons to each one
according to his rank, age and capacity, and explain them well and
mannerly, hearing them at the proper time, and pointing out to the boys
their mistakes and failures, so that by this means they may acquire
skill and honor. After lunch, he shall come to school at eleven
o'clock, except on festival days, and then at twelve, to give lessons
and instruction till four, if that be the usual hour of leaving off
work for the day. In the evenings he shall teach them Latin and
penmanship faithfully and modestly, and keep them as busy as possible,
so that they may get a good and gentle training and be preserved from
idle talk, quarrels, and brawls. He shall charge them to talk little
and use few words, and when in and out of school to speak with each
other in Latin; but with their parents and the people at home they may
talk German. He shall teach them the cantum in verse, antiphonies
(alternate chanting in choirs), intonations (singing along with the
priest), hymns and requiems in various ways, suited to the time and
occasion. He shall earnestly exhort them to behave with decorum in the
church, the choir, the church-yard and the belfry, to abstain from
disputing, shouting, huzzaing and bell-ringing, either in, upon or
around the church, and also not to touch the bells, at peril of being
stripped and flogged soundly from top to toe. When school is out they
shall go together before the charnel-house and each one shall repeat
with devotion a pater noster, an ave maria or the psalm _de profundis_
and then return home quietly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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