Solemn Orations in Praise of the Divine Elector Princes of Saxony, Maurice and Christian I

ORATION I.

succeeded his parent Henry, and followed his footsteps strenuously and faithfully. For because he had been educated in the true religion from his earliest childhood by the care and providence of his parent Henry, and had begun to recognize the heavenly truth with the inventions of the papists exploded, he finally rested uniquely in it with mature age and perfect judgment, and he made it his highest study that all subjects should do the same. But since he clearly perceived, for his exceptional piety and prudence, that the heavenly doctrine recently repurged could not be preserved and propagated without the aid of schools, he began to think about how he might assist the Church, gradually growing, with faithful help and counsel. It seemed convenient and salutary to him that he should convert the goods and revenues of the principal monasteries of Meissen to the support of Schools. The Most Clement God assented to the pious attempt, and directed and governed the faithful mind of Maurice.

Therefore, first, the monastery of the Monks of Pforta by the Saale original: "Monachorum Portæ ad Salam" was built, and enriched in a wonderful way with fields, forests, a mill, and fishponds, he transformed it into a liberal workshop of humanistic studies, the arts of speaking, and languages, so that 150 boys, informed in honest morals and instructed in the necessary doctrine of piety and the arts, might emerge after 6 years to Academic studies and greater benches, and become salutary organs of both the Church and the Republic. This was done in the Year 1543.

In the following year, he similarly changed the monastery of the Monks of Meissen at Saint Afra original: "Monachorum Miſnenſium ad ſanctam Afram" into a School, and arranged it paternally, so that 100 boys, whether they were born of noble parents or of honest citizens, might be fed for free and imbued with learned doctrine. And he willed that these two schools belong to the Duchy, so that from it boys endowed with good talents