Friday, March 3, 2023

It is the 3rd of March 2023 Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org, I’m Dan van Voorhis.

I have a 10-year-old in the 5th grade. He does well at school, but he’s not a huge fan. He wondered, why do we have to go to school? And without a lecture on the Industrial Revolution and modern capitalism and the 8-hour work day and the need for childcare… well, I can go back to the Reformation no less and the roots of our modern education system in the 16th century.

Some sharp-eared listeners might be thinking, yes! Philip Melanchthon- Luther’s sidekick and the so-called “teacher of Germany.” Well, yes, and no. To find the roots of modern secondary education, we head to Strasbourg and the life and work of Johannes Sturm. Now, be careful, this isn’t Jakob Sturm, who also lived in Strasbourg at this time and was a friend of Johannes, and it isn’t a different Johann Sturm, born in 1635. This is Johannes Sturm, born in 1507 and died on this the 3rd of March in 1587. Sturm was born in Westphalia and, by the first generation of the Reformation, was studying at Liege and Louvain. By 1529 he was sympathetic to the Reformation cause but was appointed to the College Royal in France by the Catholic king Francis I.

Sturm wanted to reconcile the Protestants and Catholics in France and sought the help of German Lutherans to weigh in on the side of the Reformed in France. This bridge was too far for the Lutherans, who saw the Reformed as a threat. And that Johannes sought Lutheran aid made him suspect amongst the Catholics in Paris. And so, in 1538, he was called to Strasbourg, an early center of toleration, to reorganize the secondary school system.

While Sturm was a proponent of the Reformation, he was first and foremost a humanist- that is, he saw education as the key to human flourishing- and that education should be rooted in the classical tradition with an emphasis not only on Latin but also Greek and Hebrew. And thus, the rebirth of the “Gymnasium”- yes, where we get the word “gymnasium” and “gym”- although they would come to represent places for academic exercises, not just physical exercises.

For what it’s worth, “gymnasium” comes from the Greek word for naked: those greeks and their fascination with nudity.

Sturm’s Gymnasium would separate pupils by age and have special textbooks designed to help with learning and memorization. The school would emphasize learning for its own sake, vocational training, and community service. Furthermore, he emphasized the role of teaching- being a scholar was not enough. One must also have a zeal for transmitting knowledge to the pupil.

This gymnasium style that would develop across Europe and then the rest of the world was also secular. Schools had been associated with cathedrals, but the 16th century saw schools opened for the masses. Here, Humanism and the reformation were of a similar mind to educate the masses and thus turn the role of education over to secular officials. But secular did not mean devoid of religious instruction- in fact, Sturm believed that religious instruction was central to education, along with a grounding in the classics. But education was about religious vocations- whether the priesthood or canon law- and secular vocations.

Martin Bucer invited Sturm to Strasbourg at the age of 27 to reform the educational system, and it is Bucer to whom we might best link Sturm’s reformist impulses. Sturm believed the doctrine of justification by faith alone through grace alone was the foundational doctrine of the church but saw the churches of the Reformation as unnecessarily divided. This would put him right at home in Bucer’s Strasbourg, but upon Bucer’s death and that of another Sturm, Jakob, the Reformation in Strasbourg would take another turn. By 1581 he would be relieved of his duties in a Strasbourg now overtaken by Lutherans. Still, his model for the gymnasium, which would remain, would spread across Germany and then into France and England, would be his legacy.

Johannes Sturm, humanist and Reformer and the father of modern secondary education, would die on the 3rd of March in 1589. Born in 1507, he was 71 years old.

The last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and Romans 3:

21 But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 3rd of March 2023, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who always thought gym was awkward but nowhere near as much as if he was in ancient Greece. He is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man wondering how dodgeball and rope climbing went in those greek gyms. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.