Erasmus is usually considered as a scholar, a humanist, and as a Renaissance figure. And this estimation is, given our modern penchant for dividing up the world, a reasonable view. Noted for bringing philological methods to bear on scripture, and for work treating the ancient authors, he was not what has come to be known as the Educational Reformer. Yet, in his time, people were not so pigeon-holed, and education, as a realm of consideration, belonged to whomever concerned themselves with it. And Erasmus was very much concerned with education.
Erasmus was most likely born in 1469; yet 1466 or 1467 may serve as well.1 His mother was a woman from Gouda, and his father a priest, called either Gerard or Gerrit. Pieter, Erasmus' older brother, was likewise a child of this priest. While not a particularly unusual situation, Erasmus was embarrassed and sought to hide pieces of his past. Born in Rotterdam, he was schooled for a time in Gouda and then later at the school of the Brethren of the Common Life in Deventer. For a short time, Alexander Hegius was his teacher and here, also, he met Rodolfus Agricola.2 In 1487, both Pieter and Erasmus were sent to monasteries.
Erasmus found monastic life hard; sleep, interrupted by the call to prayer, he found himself unable to resume. Digestion disturbed by fast and feast unsettled him, and the general rigors weighed heavy on a man not strongly constituted. Yet, despite his complaints against the lack of an intellectual life around him, he was part of a circle, moved by the literature of antiquity, bonae litterae . It is clear from his letters during this time that he was well acquainted with a number of Latin authors, and more than a few Italian humanist authors.
In 1493 Erasmus became secretary to Hendrik van Bergen, the bishop of Cambrai. Yet, instead of traveling to Rome, Erasmus found himself touring the southern Netherlands (modern Belgium and Luxembourg) in the entourage of a prince of the Church. He found this disagreeable with time, as he desired to pursue his studies in earnest, which, at the time, meant Paris.
1495 found him liberated from service, though not from harsh conditions, as his first quarters were poor and the presiding head over the Coll*ge de Montaigu cruel. While his housing improved through moving, his days in Paris were marked with want and the need to take up tutoring to make up the shortfalls of his bursary. This was his practical exposure to teaching, which he found himself unsuited to. Yet it is from notes, and other preparations that he worked up during this period of Latin teaching, that many of his latter educational works were founded. 1499 saw him finish his course, though not his learning.
England became his next destination, where he found the recognition he had wished, as well making acquaintance of Thomas More, John Colet, William Grocyn, and Thomas Linacre. After this, his life becomes one of frequent travel, until his settling close to his publisher. The specifics of his life beyond this do not particularly shed light on his works treating with education.
Before we explore what Erasmus wrote about education, we must be quite clear what Humanism was. First of all, Humanism followed in the wake of Scholasticism, which had withdrawn from the world, and related everything in it to a higher, supernatural sphere. Humanism, however, sees Man as the measure of the world, and resists seeing phenomena only as a metaphor for something much more sublime. The Humanist, for scholarly purposes, treats nearly exclusively with the classics. "His ideals are the educated Greek aristocrat of the classical period, who considered as the main purpose of his life the development of his individual talents to their fullest extent, and the well-educated Roman citizen of Cicero, who added to the ideal of individual development that of service to the state."3 John Dewey defined it as
...the conviction that spiritual and ideal values are of supreme rank in the make-up of reality, and that these values are most adequately expressed in the great and classic achievements of humanity in literature and art, particularly in literature.4
The course of studies included philosophy, particularly Stoicism, and literature by Vergil, Ovid, Horace, Plautus, Plutarch, and the Fathers of the Church. It was considered that the course of instruction should be carefully structured, each piece flowing into the next logically. The very young child was to learn from its mother proper behavior, speech and personal habits of dining. Its playmates should also have these traits, and the various surrounding adults should be good examples. By ten, the pupil should be enrolled in formal instruction, with a skilled teacher not overburdened with too many charges. Those of "normal intellect" were to study classical literature, and the works of the Christian Fathers, mathematics, astronomy, music and rhetoric.
Furthermore, at this period, Latin was in use as a language of learning and international affairs throughout Europe. It was vital to be able to use the language, and skillfully. Erasmus himself refused to write in any vernacular language, considering it hazardous to the unity of Christendom. Because this aim for a fluency, and sense of style, with Latin was so important, Erasmus believed studies should be started earlier than many of his contemporaries, with the main aim being a distinction between good Latin and 'dog Latin'.
For the sake of convenience, it may be best to consider his educational works first as a group, and then dwell on them in more length afterwards. The first published, in 1511, was the De ratione studii, 1512 De copia verborum ac rerum, 1515 De constructione, 1519 Colloquirum formulae, 1522 De conscribendis epistolis, 1529 De pueris instituendis, 1530 De ciuilitate, 1531 Paraphrase of Valla's Elegantiae.
There are two kinds of knowledge: the knowledge of truths and the knowledge of words. True education includes what is best in both kinds of knowledge, taught . . . under the best guidance.6
I have no patience with the stupidity of the average teacher of grammar who wastes precious years in hammering rules into children's heads. For it is not by learning rules that we acquire the power of speaking a language, but by daily intercourse with those accustomed to express themselves with exactness and refinement, and by the copious reading of the best authors....7
These come from De ratione studii which was written as a guide for a friend who had just started a boys' school in England. He furthermore instructed that the teacher must be knowledgeable in his subject, including philological issues, archaeology, history, and many other related areas, so as to be able to properly answer questions.
De copia verborum ac rerum was a text of Latin usage, providing vocabulary, grammar, and rhetorical and stylistic tricks, whereas De conscribendis epistolis deals with educating older students, concerned not only with epistolography, but also the mastery of literary form, teaching and learning. He specifically discusses how to assign practice themes, including the need to: supply sources for reference, and guidance to appropriate passages in classical authors; review the structure of different types of theme; and the use of occasionally assigning 'disagreeable' topics. He further goes on to note the importance of not discouraging students by showing all their flaws at once, but rather taking care in apportioning both blame and praise.
De pueris statim ac liberaliter instituendis was published as a pamphlet for parents, and must be thought of as a published sermon. The title was translated in the sixteenth century as "That Children Ought to be Taught and Brought Up Gently in Virtue and LearningÑand That Even Forthwith from Their Nativity." He urged that instruction begin early and to "educate the child while his age is tender and tractable, and his mind flexible and ready to follow everything."8 He points that this should be accomplished through play, and that, at first, the teacher cannot expect too much.
Wholly wrong are those masters who expect their little pupils to act as though they were but diminutive adults, who forget the meaning of youth, who have no standard of what can be done or be understood except that of their own minds.9
Instead, learning should be fun, noting that Horace favored baking cookies in the form of letters, which the child had to identify to receive. But he further relates how a friend, aware his son preferred archery to Greek, had targets made in the form of letters which the child had to name before trying to hit them.
It was by means of this stratagem that the boy in question learnt in a few days of fun and play to identify and pronounce his lettersÑsomething which the majority of teachers, with all their beatings, threatenings, and insults, could scarcely have accomplished in three years.10
Erasmus was most adamant that corporal punishment not be overused. He considered it to impede learning and maintained
...that nothing is more damaging to young children than constant exposure to beatings. When corporal punishment is applied too harshly, the more spirited children are driven to rebellion while the more apathetic ones are numbed into despair.11
Above all, it was teacher's responsibility not to make the child consider learning a labor to be endured. "For there is nothing worse than when the waywardness of a teacher causes children to hate learning before they know why it should be loved. . . ."12 As a footnote, De civilitate morum puerilium was intended merely as a handbook of manners for boys, but became widely used as a drill-book for younger pupils.
Clearly, Erasmus was concerned with a certain sort of education, one he, himself, was master of. Sure in what this education was to produce, he was just as certain in what would assist its being carried out successfully. First of all, there was the matter of the teacher himself, who Erasmus desired to be: learned; not too old; perhaps with children of his own; capable of taking the interests of his charges to heart. As to the pupil, "as soon he is able to speak, he is ready for learning his letters."13 Yet the child learns through play, so he suggests giving pupils
lettershapes to hold or pin to their clothes. Looking at them, handling them, guessing their right names will all be fun. At that age they enjoy recognizing the picture of a man or an animal or anything else and telling its name.14
The intended education was one based in Latin, and, if possible, Greek, and concerned heavily with classical literature, including history, but also encompassing astronomy, music and certain forms of outdoor activities. The aim of these was to produce a rational, public man, capable of discharging his duties to the world with skill and elˆn. Yet Erasmus did not consider education to belong only to an elite of birth or genius, but, rather, that some knowledge was needful for true piety, regardless of one's station in this life. Therefore, both the ploughman and the housemaid should know gospel and psalm.
Erasmus, as an intellectual, was famous even in his own day; so much so that he was known as the "Prince of Humanists", and remains so, among those of this modern day that trouble themselves with the matters of times past. Yet, his effectiveness as an educational reformer was... mixed. Many of his works were used as textbooks long after his lifetime, and, in the case of the Colloquies, down into the eighteenth century, even being used in Catholic schools after being placed on the list of forbidden books.
Yet, in so many matters, we can not help but think that we still must profit from his message. From studies done on elementary students, it is clear that many pupils have their curiosity quelled, if not extinguished, reduced to a single coal, by fifth-grade. And, is it not that long ago when his statement that "there is none so vile, naughty, and wretched whom the common people do not consider sufficient enough to teach grammar school"15 could have been considered widely applicable? Even more crushing of an admission is that, as of late, we don't seem to have any idea of what school means other than football.
Such circumstances, in the academy, certainly were never envisioned by Erasmus. Others of his envisioned ideas influenced certain notables of the period. They were approved of by both the Lutheran Philipp Melanchthon and the Jesuit Father Jerome Nadal. His theories were ascribed to by the German Johann Sturm, the Spaniard Juan Luis Vives, and the Englishman Sir Thomas Elyot. Roger Ascham, Elizabethan teacher-scholar, went so far as to deem Erasmus "the honor of learning of all our time."16 It is hard to determine to what extent afterwards it was Erasmus' ideas that moved other reformers, or whether they independently came upon the same theories on their own. It would not be surprising, however, to find that Erasmus' writings were among their studies.
For myself, I find a piece of advice Erasmus wrote to Christian Northoff to be of most use to the older student, no longer of an age to study through pastry simulacrum of subject matter. Written almost exactly five-hundred years ago, I think the following words are as true today as ever. "Avoid working late at night and studying at unsuitable times. These habits exhaust the mind and seriously affect one's health."17
