TROTZENDORFF (or TROCEDORFIUS), VALENTIN FRIEDLAND (149o-1556), German educationist, called Trot zendorff from his birthplace, near Gorlitz, in Prussian Silesia, was born on Feb. 14, 1490, of parents so poor that they could not keep him at school. Nevertheless he was sent to study at Gor litz, and became a schoolmaster there. He resigned presently to study under Luther and Melanchthon, supporting himself mean while by private teaching. He then became master in the school at Goldberg in Silesia, and in 1524 rector. There he remained three years, when he was sent to Liegnitz. He returned to Gold berg in 1531 and began that career which has made him the typi cal German schoolmaster of the Reformation period. He made his best elder scholars the teachers of the younger classes, and insisted that the way to learn was to teach. He organized the school in such a way that the whole ordinary discipline was in the hands of the boys themselves. Every month a "consul," twelve "senators" and two "censors" were chosen from the pupils, and over all Trotzendorff ruled as "dictator perpetuus." One hour a day was spent in going over the lessons of the previous day. The lessons were repeatedly recalled by examinations, which
were conducted on the plan of academical disputations. Every week each pupil had to write two "exercitia styli," one in prose and the other in verse, and Trotzendorff took pains to see that the subject of each exercise was something interesting. The fame of the Goldberg School extended over all Protestant Germany, and a large number of the more famous men of the following generation were taught by Trotzendorff. He died on April 20, 1556.
See Herrmann, Merkwiirdige Lebensgeschichte eines beriihmten Schulmanns, V. F. Trotzendorffs (1727) ; Frosch, V. F. Trotzendorff, Rektor zu Goldberg (1818) ; Pinzger, V. F. Trotzendorff (with the Goldberg portrait, and a complete list of his writings, 1825) ; Koehler, V. F. Trotzendorff, ein biographischer Versuch (1848) ; G. Bauch, Valentin Trozendorf and die Goldberger Schule (1921). The bio graphical facts appear to be derived from a funeral or memorial oration delivered by Balthasar Rhau in the university of Wittenberg on Aug. 15, 1564, and published in an edition of Trotzendorff's Rosarium (1565).