=Luther’s Ideas on Education.=--The purpose of education, Luther everywhere holds, involves the promotion of the State’s welfare quite as much as that of the Church. The schools were to make good citizens as well as religious men. Educational institutions should, on that account, be maintained at public expense for every one,--rich and poor, high and low, boys and girls, alike, and attendance should be compelled by the civic authorities. Realizing that some pupils may find it hard to give the time to school, Luther planned that “they should spend an hour or two a day in school, and the rest of the time in work at home, learn some trade and do whatever is desired, so that study and work may go on together.” But he also desired a more academic course “for the brightest pupils, who give promise of becoming accomplished teachers, preachers, and workers.” In any case, Luther naturally believed that the chief studies should be the Bible and the catechism. But, as a Northern humanist, he recommended the ancient languages--Latin, Greek, and Hebrew--for the light they would throw on the Scriptures and the patristic writers. He likewise approved of rhetoric and dialectic, which were very valuable subjects in those days of controversy; and he made a decided advance in advocating history, natural science, vocal and instrumental music, and gymnastic exercises. History is advised, not only, as was common with the humanists, for the sake of illustrating moral truth, but also for the purpose of understanding social institutions. The study of nature was intended to reveal “the wonders of Divine Goodness and the omnipotence of God.” Gymnastics he considered of value both for the body and the soul, and music a means of “driving away all care and melancholy from the heart.” The methods he recommended were equally rational. He would utilize the natural activity of children and not attempt to repress them, and would make use of concrete examples, wherever possible. Languages he would teach less by grammar than by practice. This belief in the importance of selecting the proper content and method in education led him to rate the function of the teacher as higher, if anything, than that of the preacher.