Their Extensive Educational System—It Was Strongly Organized—It Reached Even to the Training of the Youngest Children—A Source of Perplexity to the Papacy, and the Foundation of the Reformation
By H. H. HALL
PRA DEL TORRE
BIBLE-LOVING missionary people is always an intelligent people. Therefore we should expect education to be a part of their life and practise. While our records of the Waldensian educational system are somewhat incomplete, they are not disappointing.
STANDARD OF THEIR PASTORS
The following are some of their rules for those aspiring to the ministry:
“All such . . . as are to be received for pastors amongst us, notwithstanding they remain yet with their parents, are to entreat us to receive them to the ministry, and that we will be pleased to pray unto God for them that they may be made capable of so great a charge. Which the said suppliants do to no other end, but to show their humility.
“They are to learn certain lessons, and to learn by heart all the chapters of St. Matthew and St. John, and all the epistles which they call canonical, a good part of the writings of Solomon, David, and the prophets.
“Afterwards having good testimonies of their learning and conversation, they are received with the imposition of hands into the office or function of preaching.”—Perrin’s “Waldenses,” part 1, book 1, page 53.
A SCHOOL IN ITALY
IN 1229
The earliest schools of which the writer has seen a record were in Lombardy in 1229.
“In the year 1229 the Waldenses were spread abroad in great numbers throughout Italy. [In] Valcamonica only they had schools, and from all parts of their abode they sent money into Lombardy for the maintenance of the said schools.”—Perrin’s “Waldenses,” part 2, book 2, page 137.
SCHOOLS IN GERMANY
IN 1230
When they left their valleys and took up their abode in other countries, their school system went with them; for in Germany, where there were Waldenses in 1230, the record says:
“In these times the Waldenses had in the diocese of Treves many schools, wherein they caused their children to be instructed in their belief, and notwithstanding all the inquisitions and persecutions executed upon their flocks, yet they adventured to preach, calling their assemblies by the sound of a bell.”—Perrin’s “Waldenses,” part 2, book 2, page 129.
“MORE SCHOOLS THAN THE THEOLOGIANS”
The monk Reinerus, who wrote between the years 1230 and 1250, complains bitterly of their missionary activity and their schools as follows:
“In all the states of Lombardy and Provence [the Waldenses lay between the two], and in the other kingdoms and lands, the heretics have more schools than the theologians, and more auditors; they hold public disputations, and convoke the people to solemn discussions; they preach in the market-places, and in the fields, and in private houses, and there is nobody who dares to prevent them, on account of the power and numbers of those who favor them.
“In my examination of heretics, and according to a computation made by them, I find there are forty-one schools in the diocese of Padua, and ten in a place called Clemmate.
“These also are the places where the heretics have churches and schools.” And he then proceeds to make a calculation of forty-two.
“They have translated the Old and New Testaments into vulgar tongues, and so teach and learn them. I myself have seen and heard a clownish layman who could repeat the whole of the book of Job by heart, word for word, and many who were perfectly acquainted with the whole of the New Testament.
“They reject whatsoever is taught, if it is not demonstrable by a text in the New Testament.”—Gilly’s “Waldensian Researches,” pages 115, 116. Quoted from Reinerus, Bsh. Patr. 13, page 299.
“NUMEROUS SCHOOLS” IN 1650
That their educational system was a permanent one and had an extensive influence is indicated by an edict of February 20, 1650, which called upon the Waldenses to “shut up the numerous schools maintained by them, elsewhere than in their own territory.” (“Israel of the Alps,” volume 1, page 330.)
For four hundred twenty-one years, therefore,—from 1229 to 1650,—their educational system had continued. And this edict would indicate that it was stronger than ever, for there were now said to be “numerous schools” outside the valleys themselves. Two hundred years later they were still maintained, for their liberation order of February 17, 1848, includes this significant clause: “No change, however, is made as to the exercise of their worship and their own schools.”
WALDENSES NOT “RUDE AND BLOCKISH”
A writer quoted by Perrin bears testimony to the high spiritual attainments and faithfulness of their pastors and teachers, and then adds:
“Neither are they so rude and blockish, but that they have divers amongst them that can read, and deliver their minds in good terms, especially they that travel sometimes into the lower countries for their commodities. They have schools wherein their children are taught and nurtured, neither do they want anything they think necessary to advance the glory of God amongst them.”—Perrin’s “Waldenses,” part 2, book 2, page 17.
THE LITTLE CHILDREN WERE INSTRUCTED
This same writer does not overlook the children, of whom he speaks as follows:
“Taking His word for the rule of their faith, and His law for the rule of their obedience. And in this design it was, that they have been blessed of God, above all Christian people throughout Europe, insomuch that their infants were hardly weaned from their mothers’ breast, but their parents took a singular delight to instruct them in the Christian faith and doctrine, until they were able to confound many persons dwelling elsewhere well stricken in years, and overwhelmed with ignorance.”—Perrin’s “Waldenses,” part 2, book 2, page 16.
THEOLOGIANS PUT TO FLIGHT BY CHILDREN
About the middle of the sixteenth century, the bishop of Cavaillon, southern France, sent a divine among the Waldenses in his district, thinking he might convince them of their error. But the priest came back perplexed, saying he had never profited so much in the Scriptures in his whole life as he had in those few days’ conference with the Waldenses, in examining the articles of their confessions by passages of Scripture cited by them.
“This bishop, not being satisfied by this trial, sent a company of young doctors, that came lately from Sorbonne, to confound them by the subtlety726of their questions. But one there was among the rest that said, at his return, with a loud voice, that he had learned more touching the doctrine necessary to salvation, in attending to the answers of the little children of the Waldenses, in their catechizing, than in all the disputations of divinity which he had ever heard in Paris.”—Perrin’s “Waldenses,” part 1, book 1, page 30.
THEIR EDUCATIONAL HEADQUARTERS
Like every well-ordered institution or system, the education of the Waldenses had its headquarters. It was the college of Pra del Torre, or “Meadow of the Tower,” away up in the heart of the Alps. It was located on the Angrogna torrent, in a circular valley entirely shut in on every side by towering mountain peaks. A narrow rent in an apparently solid granite wall, permitted the torrent to rush through; while half way between the river below and the summit above, a ledge so narrow that in some places but two people could walk abreast, connected the secluded school with the plains on the outside. “It was here, in this sanctuary of the brave and the pious, that the ancient college of Angrogna stood, from which the intrepid preachers used to sally upon their sacred missions and to seminate those lessons upon which afterwards were founded the doctrines of the Reformation.” (Gilly’s “Excursions,” page 133.)
Of this college and its valley another author says:
“From its secluded position, rendering it almost inaccessible to a hostile force, the Angrogna has been, in all ages, the ‘holy valley’ of the Waldenses. . . . Within this region was the spot, the ‘Shiloh’ of the valleys, where in former ages the Waldensian Synod often met, and where, above all, was their ‘school of the prophets.’ In the Pra del Torre, very high up towards the loud waters of the Angrogna, secure from interruption, their young men, from the earliest ages of which we have any account of them, were accustomed to assemble from the different valleys, to pursue, under the direction of competent pastors, such studies as would fit them to preach the gospel. It was perhaps a rude institution, as compared with the well-appointed theological seminaries of this day. But it sent forth many noble bands of missionaries, to preach the pure gospel of Christ, long before the period of the Reformation, and when the rest of the Christian world was enveloped in thick darkness. Whilst, in the monasteries and the theological schools of the rest of Christendom, the Bible was a forbidden or an unknown book, the simple-minded young dalesmen of the Pra del Torre prepared themselves for the work of the ministry mainly by committing thoroughly to memory the entire Gospels and the epistles.”—“The Waldenses.” Presbyterian Board edition, pages 21, 22.
Dr. Muston, who spent fifteen years in gathering up material for his “Israel of the Alps,” a two-volume work of over one thousand pages, makes the following significant statement:
“Here the ancient Vandois had the school of their barbes, or pastors, the secret source of those vivifying missions which they sent to both extremes of Italy.”
Yes, the Waldenses had a system of education based upon “the doctrine necessary to salvation,” as the surprised monk announced after his talk with their children. And that system included, in the cases of at least selected persons, the higher courses which enabled them to mingle on a plane of equality with and successfully persuade the great of earth. Their educational system went hand in hand with their missionary activities, and the results were truly marvelous. Is not such a system worthy of our consideration to-day?
