File:Philip Melanchthon, the Protestant preceptor of Germany, 1497-1560 (1898) (14586182030).jpg

Identifier: philipmelanchth00rich (find matches)
Title: Philip Melanchthon, the Protestant preceptor of Germany, 1497-1560
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Richard, James William, 1843-1909
Subjects: Melanchthon, Philipp, 1497-1560
Publisher: New York and London, G.P. Putnam's sons
Contributing Library: Princeton Theological Seminary Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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eidelberg — Scholasticism — Melanchthon Matricu-lates at Heidelberg—His Studies—His Companions—The New Learning—Becomes Bachelor of Arts. AT the beginning of the sixteenth century the German universities were by no means what they are now, the seats of the highest culture and of the most advanced methods of instruction. In the grade of their scholarship and in the characterof the work done by them, they were about equal in the department of arts to the middle and upperclasses in the German gymnasia of the present time. Boys then went to the university to learn what they are now required to carry thither with them. All the instruction was given in the Latin language;but it was chiefly, if not exclusively, the corrupt monks Latin of the Middle Ages. The Latin classics were but little read. Greek and Hebrew were almost entirely ignored, and in some places violently opposed. The philosophy taught was that of Aristotle, exhibited for the mostpart by means of defective and barbarous Latin 12
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The Castle at Heidelberg, from a drawing by Merian, 1620 - 9 EHI •>!^ < < u 2 I5I2) Student at Heidelberg 13 translations; and theology had not yet been emancipated from the scholastic method. The old contests between Realism and Nominalism were still raging, and when these contests could not be settled in the lecture-room, they were fought out by the students on the streets with their fists and canes. Then little attention was given to composition and rhetoric. Logic was studied, not so much as an instrument for finding out truth, as for use in subtle and hair-splitting disputations. The manners of the students were coarse, and their morals corrupt. So much may be said of the universities in general. Of Heidelberg in particular, though it was the oldest university in Germany west of Vienna and Prague, having been founded in 1386, it must be said that in learning and culture its relative rank was not high. The Elector Philip, who had been quickened by the rising spirit of humanistic culture, had indeed sought to awaken a new intellectual life in

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