Education (Geneva 1541-1608)

As early as 1541 the Ecclesiastical Ordinances had declared that it was desirable that schools should be established to provide an education in Christian piety and eloquence and to produce a supply of godly men for the ministry and for leading positions in public life. It was not until 1559 that Calvin’s detailed plans became a reality. In the preparatory school pupils were to read morally acceptable classical texts, gaining thereby a general literary education and an introduction to rhetoric. This in turn was to lead to logic and dialectic. In the more advanced schola publica, students were to be given long hours of daily tuition in Latin, Green [sic, i.e., Greek], and Hebrew for the purpose of the close textual study of the Old and New Testaments. The preaching of dogmatics was not a separate item. It was incorporated into the teaching of exegesis (Gillian Lewis’ “Geneva 1541-1608” in International Calvinism 1541-1715, edited by Menna Prestwich, 63).