ST. PAUL’SSCHOOL IN LONDON: RENAISSANCE MODEL OF SCHOOL ORGANIZATION

Abstract

Introduction: The article is devoted to the analysis of the Renaissance model of school organization and running, the London’s grammar school of St. Paul established in 1509 at the St. Paul Cathedral by rector John Colet (1467-1519) being taken as an example. The history of the school has not yet received a worthy attention of domestic scientists. The foreign studies show the contradictory estimation of J. Colet's pedagogical activity. Analysis of the organizational basis as well as mundane life of the St. Paul’s school seems to be of critical importance for an integral picture of the development of the educational system during the Renaissance and modern age.Material and methods: The source and historiographical base: the school’s Statute, English chronicles, epistolary texts, documents concerning the school building’ construction as well as the relationship establishing with the Merchant Mercers company and with the Saint Paul Cathedral’s chapter; the writings of humanists, research in the fields of personal history and the social history of education. Methods: hermeneutic analysis, historical-genetic method, paradigm-pedagogical method.Results of the study: School running and everyday life in England at that time would stick to the traditional medieval forms within the clerical and city municipal corporal framework. Colet created a crucially new model of grammar school. It was an open public school independent of ecclesiastical jurisdiction and ruled by a secular body - the School Board of the Mercer-merchants of London («Mercers Wardens and Surveyors»). To maintain the school Colet transferred the considerable land holdings under the control of the Mercers. Education was free. The St. Paul ’s grammar school was the largest one in the Renaissance England in terms of number of students and teaching staff.Discussion and conclusions: Colet became able to thoroughly over haul his predecessors’ experience and the most progressive elements of the school organization and running that had already existed and developed some new humanistic ones in order to implement them within a whole educational body. It was a brand new educational institution in terms of organization of the educational process, which became an example for the classical gymnasiums of the modern age.

Keywords

• grammar school of st. paul
• john colet
• mercers
• education system
• pedagogy
• renaissance
• the school statute