PREFACE

*. iii.

...you have entrusted the instruction of adolescents [to me]: and although this plan has met with less success thus far, yet I do not entirely despair of it. Although I am, by a certain fault of my nature, more prone to despair than to good hope, your singular faithfulness, industry, diligence, and authority in managing literary affairs gives me confidence that it will soon find its place. Up to this time, God has so blessed your efforts that the number of both students and classes has almost doubled; the zeal of both teachers and learners flourishes again; and I am less and less regretful of this "Sparta" of mine. Wolf uses the classical proverb Spartam nactus es, hanc exorna ("You have found your Sparta, now adorn it"), meaning one should do their best in the lot or office they have been assigned. If the school continues as it has begun—protected, advanced, and increased by divine favor—you yourselves, in your wisdom, surely see that there will be a great need to separate the first class and divide it into two, and to provide a new winter quarters. original: "hybernaculo." This refers to a heated room or classroom suitable for use during the cold winter months. Indeed, a plan could be undertaken at small expense so that neither the head teacher nor the public professor Wolf refers to himself here; a "public professor" gave lectures open to the higher-level students and the public. (for I do not labor for myself alone or primarily, as my age and health are like a ruinous wall) Wolf frequently complained of his "hypochondria" and various ailments. would ever lack a substantial number of suitable listeners. Neither teacher, while serving one half of the students—whether the more advanced or the beginners—would be forced to neglect the other half, as has happened until now and continues to happen.

But perhaps you ask, what is that plan? I will explain what I think in few words; you shall be the judges. To deliberate on a new building is not my task, but that of the city planners and architects. However, regarding the establishing and maintaining of a proper number of public students, this is a conjecture rather than a plan: currently, six adolescents are supported by public funds, whom we call scholarship students. term: stipendiarios (scholarship students or "stipendiaries") — students whose education and living expenses were paid for by the city or a charitable foundation. These have, for the most part, won the prize for talent, diligence, and learning up to this point. If as many more were added to these (and indeed this city produces many excellent talents which are drawn away from letters partly by wealth, partly by poverty), the public professor, since several foreigners would also occasionally join, would have students whom he could train. Leaving aside the basics of both Grammars, Meaning both Latin and Greek grammar. he would exercise them in Dialectics, Rhetoric, Homer, Demosthenes, Cicero, Virgil, and other good authors and honorable disciplines. He would do this so effectively that they might master a large and good part of these authors and arts in one or two years, or at most three. Or, if that effort were hindered in any way, he would lead these studious listeners, gifted with persistent diligence, to the point where they could read and understand the rest by their own industry.

Two years ago, I set out in writing to you what the method for this might be. In the same way, in the first class, both Grammars, Terence, Ovid, the short works of Cicero, Isocrates, and other similar authors would be taught and emphasized to such an extent that the public lecture hall would be open to no one unless they were a Grammaticus In the Renaissance sense, a "Grammaticus" was not just a student of grammar, but someone who had achieved a high level of proficiency in classical philology and literature.—that is, someone equipped with a moderate faculty and supply of both languages. A similar regulation of the other classes could also be established, so that boys might be kept longer in the upper classes, and the lower ones would not be overwhelmed by a multitude of students, as usually happens. But concerning this matter (since our...