ucing an original literature in
the German language. The movement had its effect on the schools by
discouraging the old classical routine of verbal imitation, and giving a
new prominence to Greek and to German. The new humanism found a home in
Goettingen (1783) in the days of J.M. Gesner and C.G. Heyne. It was
represented at Leipzig by Gesner's successor, Ernesti (d. 1781); and at
Halle by F.A. Wolf, who in 1783 was appointed professor of education by
Zedlitz, the minister of Frederick the Great. In literature, its leading
names were Winckelmann, Lessing and Voss, and Herder, Goethe and
Schiller. The tide of the new movement had reached its height about
1800. Goethe and Schiller were convinced that the old Greek world was
the highest revelation of humanity; and the universities and schools of
Germany were reorganized in this spirit by F.A. Wolf and his illustrious
pupil, Wilhelm von Humboldt. In 1809-1810 Humboldt was at the head of
the educational section of the Prussian Home Office, and, in the brief
interval of a year and a half, gave to the general system of education
the direction which it followed (with slight exceptions) throughout the
whole century. In 1810 the _examen pro facultate docendi_ first made the
profession of a schoolmaster independent of that of a minister of
religion. The new scheme drawn up by J.W. Suevern recognized four
principal co-ordinated branches of learning: Latin, Greek, German,
mathematics. All four were studied throughout the school, Greek being
begun in the fourth of the nine classes, that corresponding to the
English "third form." The old Latin school had only one main subject,
the study of Latin style (combined with a modicum of Greek). The new
gymnasium aimed at a wider education, in which literature was
represented by Latin, Greek and German, by the side of mathematics and
natural science, history and religion. The uniform employment of the
term _Gymnasium_ for the highest type of a Prussian school dates from
1812. The leaving examination (_Abgangspruefung_), instituted in that
year, required Greek translation at sight, with Greek prose composition,
and ability to speak and to write Latin. In 1818-1840 the leading spirit
on the board of education was Johannes Schulze, and a _complete_ and
comprehensive system of education continued to be the ideal kept in
view. Such an education, however, was found in practice to involve a
prolongation of the years spent at school and a correspondingl