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with the "trivium," which together with the "quadrivium" made up the seven liberal arts of the Middle Ages. The trivium consisted of grammar, rhetoric, and logic. Grammar at this time, when all learning was in Latin, included those elementary studies of the school which were designed to give a mastery of that language for the sake of subsequent study. Schools in which such language study was given were called sometimes grammar schools, sometimes trivial schools.

In England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and in the early English colonies of America, the "grammar school" was conducted in the Latin tongue (at least in theory), and was designed to give a practical mastery of the Latin language with some knowledge of the Greek. At the present time in America the expression "grammar school" usually means a school above the primary school and below the high school, in which no language other than English is found, and the grammar of that, even, need not be stressed. As the term grammar school has thus, in America, so widely departed from its original meaning; so in certain parts of Europe, in Austria for example, has the expression "trivial school" come to mean not a Latin grammar school, but the ordinary elementary vernacular school.

If, then, the "trivial school" has anywhere gone the way of the "grammar school" in America,' the interpretation of the passage at hand becomes a matter of nicer study. Before we can say what Stuyvesant and the Lords Directors intended, we must ascertain the current meaning of the expression "trivial school" in Holland at that time. An exhaustive study of original sources alone could answer our question definitely and finally.

We shall present a number of independent references in the endeavor to fix the meaning of the word. (a) In a dictionary of middle age Latin' under the word trivium we read, Triviales dicuntur qui docent, vel qui student in Trivio, sicut Quadriviales, qui in Quadrivio. (They are called "triviales" who either teach or study the trivium, and similarly with "quadriviales" and the quadrivium.) This reference does nothing more than tend to corroborate what is undisputed, that the name of the trivial school is derived from the trivium. (b) Foster Watson quotes the title of a book by one John Stockwood, which indicates something of the curriculum of the trivial school of England in the early seventeenth century: Disputatiuncularum Grammaticalium libellus ad puerorum in scholis trivialibus exacuenda ingenia primum excogitatus, 1607.3 The Latin title and the use of the disputation show that "trivial school" was still for Stock

1 See p. 211 below for a similar change in meaning of "trivial school" in America.

2 Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae Latinitatis. Editio nova. Basiliae, MDCCLXII. The English Grammar Schools to 1660, p. 96. Watson elsewhere (p. xxii of Beginnings of Modern School Subjects, London, 1909) quotes a 1663 writer who calls Eton, Winchester, and Westminster "trivial schools."

wood fairly close to its original meaning. (c) Bishop Hall (15741656) thus uses the word in English:

Whose deep seen skill

Hath three times construed either Flaccus o'er,
And thrice rehearsed them in his trivial floor.1

The reference to construing Horace shows unmistakably that the bishop's idea of a trivial school included Latin. (d) The Synod of Dort (1619) presented to the States General a petition that "some general rules for the government" of the "trivial or inferior schools" might be drawn up in order that a "uniform method of teaching be established, especially in the principles of grammar, logic, and rhetoric." Here we have the three studies of the old trivium still holding sway. (e) The particular Synod of South Holland meeting in Dort, 1627, discussed whether it was advisable that the elements of Hebrew be taught in the trivial schools (in scholis trivialibus fundamenta Hebraicae linguae). Evidently no one would think of putting Hebrew into anything less than a Latin grammar school. (f) In 1634 the same synod discussed the inquiry of a rector schola trivialis as to whether the pupils should, as a school exercise, present comedies. Here two things indicate a Latin school, the use of the word rector and the reference to the presentation of the classic comedies, as of Terence, for example. (g) In the minutes of the same synod from 1634 to 1637 are three other references to rector scholæ trivialis, and one to rectoren in triviale schoolen.5 (h) At Utrecht from a very early date was a city school called the St. Jerome School. During the seventeenth century it was of the gymnasium type, being sometimes called the "Jerome Gymnasium." It had eight classes, and, as was common with the schools of the kind, forbade the pupils to "speak Dutch." In the instructions issued by the common council this school is in 1634 referred to as "the aforesaid trivial school called the Jerome (Hieronimi) School," and again in 1640 as "the trivial or Jerome (Hieronimi) School."7 Two clear cases in which "trivial school" was equivalent to "gymnasium." (i) Douma, writing of Holland in the seventeenth century, speaks of "the triviale or Latin schools (de triviale or Latynsche scholen), which were found in nearly all of the cities" of Holland, saying: "These schools were not always higher (boven) than the ordinary elementary school, but for the most part stood on the same level as (naast) the

6

1 Satires IV, i, 173. (Quoted in Century Dictionary under Trivial.)

2 Brandt, History of the Reformation, iii, 326. The Dutch original says "de triviale schoolen;" quoted from Wilten's Kerkelijk Plakaet boek (i, 144) by Woltjer, op. cit., p. 76.

a Acta, etc., i, 220.

4 Acta, etc., ii, 32.

Ibid., pp. 30, 65, 97, 132.

• Van Flensburg, op. cit., vii, 370, 381, 383.

1 Ibid., pp. 368, 376.

28311°-12-7

latter The pupils were often admitted in their eighth year." He refers to Leges Schola Leovardiensis (1638, reprinted 1701) as typical. In these we have: "On the whole no pupils were admitted who did not know how to read; declining and conjugating are the chief subjects, and then come explanations of passages from Latin and Greek authors." So far everything seems to point to the use of the word trivial to indicate a Latin school."

That in Holland no change had come in the signification of the word even as late as the middle of the eighteenth century seems to be indicated in the following extract from a letter read in the Classis of Amsterdam in 1751. It tells of the education of an applicant for ordination to the ministry.

"He in order to have him study Latin and Greek, had placed him in the trivial school at Utrecht, with the co-rector there, until the time that he should publicly graduate. Subsequently he was placed at the house of Rev. Peter Wynstok at Harderwyk, in September, 1736." 3

These references seem to show clearly that the seventeenth century school was a Latin school, probably attended not only by boys in their teens, as in our present American Latin schools, but quite as likely by boys from 8 years of age and upward. This, then, is what we should naturally and normally understand to be the school contemplated by Stuyvesant and the Lords Directors in 1652.

Let us now examine the general situation for confirmation or contradiction. Even a casual reading of the letter of the directors, as given above, makes it clear that some new kind of school had been recommended by Stuyvesant and accepted by the Lords Directors. It was yet to be "established," and "a beginning might be made with one schoolmaster." Clearly the elementary school of which Vestensz had charge was not a triviale school, else some such word as "other" or "second" would have been used in connection with the proposed school.

Thus since the original trivial school of the Middle Ages was undoubtedly conducted in Latin exclusively for instruction in grammar, etc., since all the accessible contemporary records indicate substantially a continuance of the same instruction, since the eighteenth century reference explicitly asserts that Latin was then taught in the Utrecht trivial school, and since the only pertinent document is otherwise unintelligible, we seem not only authorized, but compelled, with the present lights before us, to conclude that this 1652 school in New Amsterdam was an elementary Latin school designed probably to

1 Op. cit., pp. 94, 95.

2 Other references pointing in the same direction are found in Buddingh, op. cit., pp. 27, 37, 38, 93; Monumenta Germaniæ Pedagogicæ, vol. 2, pp. 116, 374, 377, 381, 388, 621; ibid., vol. 38, pp. 68, 241; ibid., vol. 41, pp. 34-5. Reitsma and Van Veen, op. cit., vii, 237–238.

Eccl. Rec., p. 3182. This is almost certainly the Jerome School above referred to

teach the rudiments of that language to the boys of the more aristocratically conditioned of the New Amsterdam settlers.

Of the subsequent history of the school thus provided we know next to nothing. That it was actually established, we presume from the following council minute of date December 9, 1652:

On the petition of Jan Monjoer de la Montagne, director general and council order the receiver general, Cornelis van Tienhoven, to pay the petitioner three or four months wages.1

Should any object that "three or four months" is not enough to bridge over the gap between April 4th (the date of the letter authorizing the school) and December 9th (the date of the minute), the answer appears easy. The letter might take a month or two, or even more to arrive. Another month might be required to put the school into operation. The indefiniteness of "three or four months wages" sounds as if the authorities did not care to keep exactly abreast of their accounts. In short, in view of what has gone before, and in the absence of any other known reason why the younger Montagne should receive wages, the coincidences are so great as practically to compel belief that the school was begun and that it did continue for at least "three or four months." How much longer the school continued can not be stated. As Montagne left for Holland in the summer of 1654, we have no difficulty in concluding that the school did not last longer than two years, at the most.2

That the "city tavern" housed this school may well be true, though there is no evidence other than the letter quoted. Later, this building became the stadhuys or city hall. There is good reason to suppose that in 1652-53, it was not used as a tavern, but had become a public storehouse for old lumber and a lodging house for chance unfortunates. Certainly the evidence does not warrant the slur sometimes cast that New Amsterdam schools were kept in taphouses.

3

The establishment of the next Latin school was due to the persistence of one of the ministers, Domine Drisius, who as the Lords Directors wrote to Stuyvesant (1658)-"has repeatedly expressed to us his opinion that he thought it advisable to establish there a Latin school." The Lords Directors further said they had "no objection to this project * * * but you must not fail to inform us how such an institution can be managed to the best advantage of the community and kept up with the least expense to the company. (The Lords Directors always expected Stuyvesant to report on details and keep down expenses.)

Domine Drisius, as we may well believe, also stirred up the city fathers. At any rate, on September 19 of the same year, the burgo

1 N. Y. Col. MSS., v, 95.

2 Riker's History of Harlem, p. 786.

3 See Rec. of N. A., i, 146, 219, 291-2, 308.

4 N. Y. Col. Doc., xiv, 419.

masters and schepens petitioned the Lords Directors in behalf of the proposed school: "The burghers and inhabitants are inclined to have their children instructed in the useful languages, the chief of which is the Latin tongue." The nearest such school is "at Boston, in New England, a great distance from here." The petitioners further state their belief that if a suitable master be sent, "many of the neighboring places would send their children hither to be instructed." They hoped that the school thus established "increasing from year to year" might "finally attain to an academy [university], whereby this place arriving at great splendor, your honors shall have the reward and praise next to God the Lord." They close by saying, "on your honors sending us a schoolmaster we shall endeavor to have constructed a suitable place or school." This last clause fits well with the practice before seen of the city's furnishing the school building. The Lords Directors wrote, February 15, 1659, that "the arguments brought forward * have induced us to decide" that "a fit and honest man" shall be sent "to instruct the children in the elements and foundations of the [Latin] language," care being taken that he writes a good hand, to teach the children calligraphy."

* *

The following extract from the minutes of the Amsterdam Chamber shows in detail the selection of the rector for the school, his salary, the custom of furnishing the books, the "gratuity" and how it was profitably invested, and permission to give private instructions. The reference to the garden or orchard is probably in view of the fact that De Curtius was a physician, and needed a herbarium.

Thursday, the 10th of April, 1659.

Before the board appeared Alexander Carolus Curtius, late professor in Lithuania, mentioned in former minutes, who offered his services. After a vote had been taken he was engaged as Latin schoolmaster in New Netherland at a yearly salary of 500 fl., of which one-quarter shall be paid to him in advance, that he may procure what books he requires. The board further grants him a gratuity of 100 fl., which the company will lay out in available merchandise to be used by him upon his arrival in New Netherland, where a piece of land convenient for a garden or orchard shall be allotted to him by the director general. He shall also be allowed to give private instructions, as far as this can be done without prejudice to duties for which he is engaged.3

The new master sailed in the Bever on April 25, but "the books required by the schoolmaster now coming over for the instruction of the young people in Latin could not be procured in the short time before the sailing of these ships. They will be sent by the next opportunity.'

3

Curtius arrived, opened his school, and afterwards appeared before the burgomasters on July 4. He was "informed that 200 fl. are allowed him as a yearly present from the city; an order on the treasurer is also handed him for fl. 50, over and above." From this distance the court seems generous; but Curtius was not easily pleased.

1 Rec. of N. A., iii, 15–6.

2 N. Y. Col. Doc., xiv, 430.

3 Ibid., p. 437.

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