Henrik the Great asked me to dust off what I know about the curriculum and practice of private tutoring. While I don’t know much, I do know the basics and the big names.

I assume you read my excerpts from Jesuit educational ideals already. which offers some pointers.

For a detailed example of an entire curriculum see Jesuit Education: Its History and Principles (1904) which, while a lackluster book for several reasons, does include a detailed course of study which would be fairly standard not just among Catholic but also Anglican and Lutheran teachers during the 17th – 19th century. For example, John Stuart Mill’s early education was very much in the same vein.

Here are the big works on pedagogy and curriculum:

Aristotle (all, but especially)

On Rhetoric

Roman

Cicero, Ad Herrenium, which lays out the entire course rhetoric and persuasion for the next 1800 years. It is also the first place that the use of deep memory techniques is briefly discussed. 

Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, which reviews Cicero’s course and extends the ideas and practice.

Marcus Aurelius mentions in his meditations mentions the quality of teaching of many of his tutors, especially the method of writing dialogues on alternate positions. This method was popular enough that many early Christian writings are in dialogue form as well. 

Cassiodorus, Institutes of Secular Learning

Medieval

Peter Lombard’s Sentences were the standard method and textbook for 400 years.

Aquinas On the Teacher. Of course, Aquinas’s Summae tried to make a replacement for the sentences, but was not successful until well after his death (three centuries!).

John Buridan’s Summulae de Dialectica was a standard textbook on Logic and logical method for a couple hundred years.

I do not know of any medieval source who discussed and presented scholastic pedagogical method explicitly, although it was very influential. I need to check what would have been the standard reference.

Renaissance

Petrus Paulus Vergilius, De Ingenuis Moribus frequently translated as The New Education. Refocuses education on service to civic life.

Aeneas Silvius, On Education 

Erasmus De Ratione Studii, On the Method of Study, and Ciceronianus, which covers how he thinks schooling can excel beyond mere memorization and imitation.

I think it is easy to underestimate how much sway these older authors had on 17th-19th century education. They were giants.

I have some takeaways from these readings and my own experience being classically educated but am not yet able to fully articulate them.

Enlightenment

I am not well aware how tutoring curricula changed in the Enlightenment. I wouldn’t count the differences in method to be great, although the content certainly shifted to include more mathematics. The personal libraries of the great thinkers reflect remarkably little change from the interests of the Renaissance Humanists, as far as I know. Though, I am happy to be corrected.

The following notes are from the book Ignatius’ Idea of a Jesuit University by Ganss 1957 without amendment, comment, or much formatting.

“Now we shall take up the advantages for the Society herself, for the extern students and for the nation or province where the college is situated. This is the utility which has been found through experience in colleges of this type. Even though part of this can be gathered from what has already been said:

1. First of all, in the case of our own numbers, those who lecture gain profit for themselves and learn much by teaching others and become more confidently the masters of what they know.
2. Our own members who hear their lectures gain profit to the care and continuous diligence which the teachers display in fulfilling their office.
3. They profit not merely in regard to letters, but generally also in preaching, and the teaching of Christian doctrine. And they exercise themselves in the use of the means by which they must help their neighbors later on. And they are encouraged through seeing the fruit, which God our Lord allows them to see.
4. Although no one may induce the students, especially when they are young to enter the Society. Nevertheless, they can win esteem for themselves by good example, conversation, and the Latin declamations about the virtues, which are delivered on Sundays, and they can gain many laborers in the vineyard of Christ, our Lord. These advantages are for the society itself.

The benefits for the extern students who come to profit from the lectures are the following:

5. They’re occupied to a sufficient extent with their lessons. much care is taken that all learn through lectures disputations and compositions. Thus provisions are made for them to reap great fruit of letters.
6. The poor who lack the means to pay the ordinary teachers or private tutors in the homes here find free, what they can only get with great cost and difficulty in their desire to become educated men.
7. They provide profit in spiritual matters, through learning Christian doctrine and grasping from the sermons and customary exhortations, that which is conducive to their eternal salvation.
8. They make progress in purity of conscience and consequently in all virtue, through confession every month and through the care taken, that they be decent in their speech and virtuous in their entire lives.
9. In their studies, they draw much greater merit and fruits, since they’re accustomed to bring all persons to the service of God from the time when they begin to learn just as they are taught.

There are also the following benefits for the inhabitants of the country or province where these colleges are established.

10. In temporal matters, parents relieved of the expensive of having teachers to instruct their children in letters and virtues.
11. They keep their consciences free in the matter of instructing their children. Those who only with difficulty will find someone to whom they can entrust their children, even at their own expense. Will with all security find instructors in these colleges
12. In addition to learning, they also have in the colleges, someone who can preach both among the people and within the monasteries, and who through administering the sacraments can very fruitfully supply great help, as is evident.
13. They themselves and the members of their household will devote themselves to spiritual matters, with good example to their children. Likewise, they will grow fond of confessing more frequently and of living as Christians.
14. They will have in our own members inhabitants of the country to inspire and aid them towards undertaking good works, such as hospitals, houses of reformed women, and such like matters. Their bestowing charity upon our members also entails their having a care of such good works.
15. From among those who are at present merely students, in time, some will depart to play diverse roles, one to preach and carry on the care of souls, another to the government in the land and the administration of justice, and others to other occupations.
16. Finally, since young boys become grown men, their good education in life and doctrine will be beneficial to many others, with the fruit expanding more widely every day.

I could elaborate this further, but this will suffice to set forth what is perceived here in regard to colleges of this common.

May Christ, the Eternal Life, guide us to serve him better. Amen.”

St. Ignatius to Father Antonio Araoz from Rome, December 1, 1551.

Pages 25 and 26.

The result which Ignatius aimed to produce in the students was manifestly, a carefully reasoned and therefore scientifically grounded Catholic outlook on life, which would enable and inspire them to contribute intelligently and effectively to the welfare of society. That outlook was the focal point towards which Ignatius directed all the branches in the curriculum, and all the elements his school contained. Since theology imparts whatever can be known from divine revelation about God and His creatures, especially man and his duties and destiny, it is the foremost indispensable source of this outlook. But obviously, it must be studied thoroughly and scientifically. So the student grasps the integration of its major sections and its subsidiary branches. Quite as one who has had a college major in physics must know all the principal phases of his subject.

PAGE 54.

Since schools have always been an extension of the home throughout their history, they too, no less than parents, have been concerned to teach something helpful towards a livelihood and towards satisfying intellectual curiosity. Their professors have noticed that their students are more strongly and spontaneously motivated to study hard a subject, which while being truly cultural, was simultaneously useful for living in a way characteristically and satisfyingly human and even for earning a livelihood.

PAGE 127.

Enthusiasm for Plato and for Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian, and his successors, in whom many of his ideas reappeared with various modifications, was high among the Christian educators of the early Renaissance, such as Petrus Paulus Vergilius, Vittorino da Feltre, and Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini. Hence, they revived the ancient ideal of liberal education, Christianized it, and adapted it to their own age.

They conceived the aim of education to be that of producing the perfect man fitted to participate well in the activities of his day. As a means to train him, they worked into their theories of liberal education, numerous elements, the physical, the intellectual, the aesthetic, the literary with stress upon eloquence, the moral, the religious, and the social. As will be shown in greater detail, the ideals or models of education took the forms of the complete citizen and Christian gentlemen of Vittorino da Feltre, the perfection of the man as a Christian citizen of Vagarius, the Courtier of Castiglione, and in the northern countries of the Christian scholar of Erasmus. Other noteworthy ideals more or less outside the Christian current of the Renaissance were the prince of Machiavelli, the gentleman scholar of Thomas Elyot, Montaigne, and later on, after Ignatius’ death, of John Locke, still another ideal was the experimental scientist of Francis Bacon.

PAGE 140.

The means to produce this developed citizen are the liberal studies, which Vagarius defines as follows.

“We call those studies liberal which are worthy of a free man, those studies by which we attain and practice virtue in wisdom, that education which calls forth, trains, and develops those highest gifts of body and mind, which ennoble men and which are rightly judged to rank next in dignity to virtue only. For to the vulgar temper gain and pleasure are the one aim of existence, to the lofty nature, moral worth and fame.”

Vagarius lists the subjects which he thinks can properly be classified as liberal.

“Amongst these I record the first place to history, on grounds both of its attractiveness and of its utility. Qualities which appeal equally to the scholar and to the statesman. Next, in importance ranks moral philosophy, which indeed in a peculiar sense is a liberal art, in that its purpose is to teach men the secret of true freedom. History then gives us the concrete examples of the precepts inculcated by philosophy. The one shows what men should do. The other what men have said and done in the past, and what practical lessons may draw therefrom for the present day. I would indicate as the third main branch of study, eloquence, which indeed holds a place of distinction among the refined arts. By philosophy, we learn the essential truth of things, which by eloquence we saw exhibit in orderly adornment as to bring conviction to differing minds. And history provides the light of experience, a cumulative wisdom, but to supplement the force of reason, and the persuasion of eloquence. For we allow that soundness of judgment, wisdom of speech, integrity of conduct, are the marks of a truly liberal temper.”

Other studies which he regarded as liberal are letters, especially poetic art and rhetoric, which lead to eloquence, disputation, or logical argument, gymnastics, music, arithmetic and astronomy.

PAGE 141.

Although it may seem at first a paradox or even a contradiction, it is now certain that during the Renaissance, the humanists as a body regarded classical and liberal studies as eminently practical. These subjects were indeed cultural, but they were simultaneously as practical as curricula in engineering, journalism or commerce are today. The humanists went to the ancient authors to find guidance for practical everyday life. Vagarius envisaged a practical objective, the citizen taking capable part in the affairs of the day, training for practical life was the leading purpose of Vittorino da Feltre, who approved Cicero’s statement, Virtutis laus omnis in actione consistit. Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini. himself, a practical man of action and affairs, approvingly quoted the same statement, and pointed out from the examples of Demosthenes, Aristotle, Caesar and Pliny that the study of literature develops administrative capacity. The study of antiquity, completed by its final course of ancient philosophy, was regarded as the finest preparation for law, medicine, or theology.

The Latin language too was learned primarily for utilitarian purposes, as it was during the Middle Ages. Further even skill in producing stylistic elegance in Latin had its utilitarian and economic values for two functions, the handling of official correspondence and the writing of speeches on solemn occasions. The humanists are indispensable as Latin secretaries to the multitudinous princes, nobles and civil officials and republics, and to bishops, Cardinals and Popes. Hence proficiency in Latin was the means enabling anyone, no matter how poor or from how lowly a social class to obtain the most coveted, honored and lucrative employments of the day. As we saw above, on page 39, the highest salaries in the Papal University of Rome paid to the professors of medicine and of rhetoric, subjects then studied only in Latin. Also, the humanists of Florence deemed the learning of literature, the best preparation for a career as a merchant or banker.

Page 164.

We shall spare ourselves much time and useless twinges of conscience by a resolution which would run somewhat as follows. There is no possibility of completely divorcing a liberal education from material considerations. In the light of a record which goes back to antiquity, it would be undesirable to make the attempt, for if it succeeded, it would result in a dilettantism, which would be denial of what a liberal education aims to do.

From James Marshall Campbell, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences of the Catholic University of America

PAGE 171

The whole of the thought of the earlier humanistic educators is this that the people should be developed into the complete man those faculties trained to excellence or virtue in order that he may capably benefit the society of his day. The same central thought is present in Ignatius’ constitutions and procedures There is concern for the bodily health (this is gymnastic, at least in germ). There is training of the intellect through the whole curriculum of grammar, the arts, and theology. There is constant exercise in self-expression or eloquence and in disputation to meet the tastes and needs of the age. There is training of the aesthetic faculties and emotions through the study of ancient literature, including rhetoric, poetry, and history. If training in the vernacular languages and literatures had been part of the educational systems of the day from which Ignatius drew, he would no doubt have approved this training along with his other borrowings. It was not merely training of mind concomitantly acquired through mastering these studies but also through the crowning courses in philosophy and theology, the imparting of extensive body of knowledge which makes up a scientifically grounded theistic philosophy of life, a philosophy which gives true significance and worthwhile meaning to the life of man both in this world and the next.

There is constant encouragement of the student not only to moral and sacramental living, but also to the exercise of all the supernatural virtues which lead to the highest union with God. There’s constant insistence on the social purposes of education. There’s the equipping of the man not only to live as a Christian gentlemen, but also to earn his living in a way satisfying to himself and beneficial to society. For as we have seen the subjects taught in Ignatius’ curriculum in his day the surest road for a poor boy to achieve economic security and without such security even a highly trained man is little likely to function as a leader.

Page 176.

In this curriculum he made theology the most important and crowning branch and philosophy an aid to it, and the languages an aid to the learning and use of both. This last point was particularly true of Latin, but some attention was also given to Greek, Hebrew, and the vernaculars. Since the educated men of this period at a high admiration for Ciceronian Latin, Ignatius stressed practice and Ciceronian style. Since he wished the students to form their personal convictions, through much self-activity rather than through a passive absorbing of the professor’s views, and since his times were filled with public disputations in Latin, which Catholics held either with Protestants or among themselves, Ignatius stressed practice in declamation, disputations, and “circles” in which small groups of students held “repetitions.” Also in his curriculum, Ignatius did not limit the interests of his students in one area such as classical antiquity, or medieval culture, or the speculative genius of scholasticism, or the Renaissance, with its preoccupation with style and form. Rather, he widened the student’s vision to take in the hole of Christian culture. In his curriculum, there were not only Latin and Greek, and Aristotelian philosophy and Scholastic theology, but also scripture and positive theology, which included the Fathers of the Church. Hence his schools were a home in which the whole heritage of Christian culture was made an object of study, and was transmitted to future generations, with at least as much efficiency as in any other schools of the era. He was indeed eminently a practical organizer, choosing what was particularly useful to his end in his own times. All the elements in his system conspired to prepare the students to be and to do what they should to live well throughout this life and the next.

Page 178

1. He regarded education as a means of attaining the end of his Society, the salvation and perfection of the students, in order that they in turn might promote the salvation and perfection of their fellow man, and thus vigorously and intelligently leaven the society with the spirit of the Kingdom of Christ. He hoped that the students will learn how to live well, in this life and the next.
2. In intellectual order, the end towards which Ignatius wished his curriculum to lead was a scientifically reasoned Catholic outlook on life. That is one which the student has thought through to his own personal conviction, in contrast to the memorized knowledge, which is characteristic of a child. That outlook was the focus of integration of all other elements in his system. It was what would enable as well as inspire the students to perfect themselves to contribute intelligently and effectively to the welfare of society.

Page 182

If I were placed in history entirely by what courses I taught each year I would be a different person. Consider the courses that this teacher marshaled on the field of battle last year: Latin, Geometry, Church History, Medieval History, Writing, Logic, Rhetoric. Why wasn’t I wearing one of these?

Sounds like a Late Medieval University Professor. I should have worn a robe and cap like so…

This next year I am either moving into further into the future or deeper into the past. With Ancient History, Latin, Geometry, Morality, and Economics, I would think one of two things must be true. Either this person is a juggler fit for the circus, or he is literally from the school of Stoics.

Now the stoics had a great porch-game.

But perhaps I am actually reenacting the life of someone at the other end of history, an Adam Smith who wrote on morality and economics and certainly knew his ancient history, or a statesman like John Stuart Mill, whose father forced him to learn Greek by age 12 and carved out from ancient philosophy and personal experience modern theories of liberty, economy, and ethics.

To follow in the footsteps of these greats is good, but to pass on the best that I have discovered in my own life to others is an honor. Perhaps laboring in the human flourishing mines is the best one can do.

I get a lot out of it.