The History of Education

[7] Textbooks on the art of letter-writing began to appear by the eleventh century, explaining in detail how to prepare the five divisions of a letter: (1) the salutation (_salutatio_), (2) the art of introducing the subject properly and making a good impression (_captatio benevolentiae_), (3) the body of the letter (_narratio_), (4) how to make the request (_pet.i.tio_), and (5) a fitting conclusion (_conclusio_).

[8] Anderson reproduces a portion of a chapter by Capella on the number four, which is ill.u.s.trative of the mediaeval study of the properties of number:

"What shall I call four? in which is a certain perfection of solidarity; for it is composed of length and depth, and a full decade is made up from those four numbers added together in order, that is, from one, two, three, four. Similarly a hundred is made up of the four decades, that is, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, which are a hundred; and again four numbers from a hundred on amount to a thousand, that is, 100, 200, 300, 400. So ten thousand is made up of another series. What is to be said of the fact that there are four seasons of the year, four quarters of the heavens, and four principles of the elements?

There are also four ages of man, four vices, and four virtues."

[9] Anderson reproduces a paragraph from Maurus, showing how number was applied to Holy Writ. It reads:

"A real thinker," says Maurus, "will not pa.s.s on indifferently when he reads that Moses, Elijah, and our Lord fasted forty days. Without strict observance and investigation the matter cannot be explained.

The number 40 contains the number 10 four times, by which all is signified which concerns the temporal. For, according to the number 4, the days and the seasons run their course. The day consists of morning, midday, evening, and night, the year of spring, summer, autumn, winter. Further, we have the number 10 to recognize G.o.d and the creature. The three (trinity) indicated the Creator; the seven, the creature which consists of body and spirit. In the latter is the three: for we must love G.o.d with our whole heart and soul and mind. In the body, on the other hand, the four elements of which it consists reveal themselves clearly. So if we are moved through that which is signified by the number 10 to live in time--for 10 is taken four times--chaste, withholding ourselves from worldly l.u.s.ts, that means to fast forty days. So the Holy Scriptures contain suggestively in many different numbers all sorts of secrets which must remain hidden to those who do not understand the meaning of numbers."

[10] Gerbert (953-1003) was one of the most learned monks of his day, having studied in the Saracen schools of Spain. He afterwards became Pope Sylvester II (999-1003). Because of his scientific knowledge in an age of superst.i.tion he was accused of transactions with the devil.

[11] For example, the _Stabat Mater_ and the _Dies Irae_, two thirteenth- century hymns. The former has been called the most pathetic and the latter the most sublime of all mediaeval poems.

[12] Ca.s.siodorus was an educated later Roman, who had been chief minister to Theodoric, the Ostrogothic king, and had done much to carry over Latin learning and civilization into the new regime. He later founded the monastery of Viviers, in southern Italy, and spent the latter part of his life there in writing and contemplation. He urged the monks to study, and those who had no head for learning he advised to read Cato and Columella on agriculture, and then to devote themselves to it.

[13] "Wisdom hath builded her house; she hath hewn out her seven pillars."

(Proverbs, IX, 1.)

[14] Abelson, in his monograph on _The Seven Liberal Arts_, reduces each of these textbooks to their equivalent in a modern 16mo printed page, with the following results:

Ca.s.si- Capella Boethius odorus Isidore Alcuin Maurus Subject (c. 425) (c. 520) (c. 575) (c. 630) (c. 800) (c. 844) /Grammar...... 11 -- 25 50 54 55 |Rhetoric..... 14 -- 5-1/2 14 26 -- Dialectic.... 11 -- 18 14 25 -- /Arithmetic... 11 40 2 2 -- -- |Geometry..... 15 30 2 1 -- -- |Astronomy.... 9 -- 15 3 23 60 Music........ 11 67 2 12 -- -- --- --- --- --- --- --- Totals in pages 82 137 69-1/2 96 128 115

[15] The mediaeval serf was the successor of the Roman slave, and was a step upward in the process of the evolution of the free man. The serf was tied to the soil and by obligations of personal service to the lord.

Gradually, due to economic causes, the personal service was

[16] The German private duel and the American fist fight are the modern survivals of the time when personal insults, easily taken, and private grievances were settled in the "n.o.ble way" by sword and battle-axe and torch.

[17] In the earlier days of n.o.blemen's education reading and writing were regarded as effeminate, but in the later times the n.o.bles became increasingly literate. By the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries many began to pride themselves on their patronage of learning.

[18] Rhyming in the vernacular language came to be an important part of the training, and many old love songs and songs expressing the joy of life date from this period. Chaucer's knight is described as:

"Syngynge he was or floytynge [playing], al the day; He was as fressh as is the monthe of May.

Short was his gowne, with sleves longe and wyde.

Wel cowde he sitte on hors and faire ryde; He cowde songes make and wel endite, Juste and eek daunce, and wel purtreye and write.

So hote he loved, that by nighterdale [night time]

He slept no more than doth the nightingale."

[19] From the life of the Frankish Abbot, John of Gorze, Abbot at Gorze in the tenth century.

[20] Leach, A. F., _Educational Charters_, p. 143.

[21] _Ibid._, p. 147.

[22] Anselm (1033-1109), Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109, formulated the early mediaeval view when he said:

"I do not seek to know in order that I may believe, but I believe in order that I may know."

"The Christian ought to advance to knowledge through faith, not to come to faith through knowledge."

"The proper order demands that we believe the deep things of Christian faith before we presume to reason about them."

[23] Monroe, Paul, _Text-Book in the History of Education_, p. 258.

CHAPTER VIII

[1] "In the school of Nisibis the Church possessed an inst.i.tution, which for centuries secured her a system of higher education, and therewith an important social and political position. To the older literature, consisting of translations, there was added, from the middle of the fifth century onward, a large number of philosophical, scientific, and medical treatises belonging to Greek antiquity, and especially the works of Aristotle. Through these Greek wisdom and learning, clothed in Syrian attire, found a home on these borders of Christendom." (Muller, D. K., _Kirchengeschichte_, vol. I, p. 278.)

[2] "By the year 600 A.D. the triumph of the oriental element in Christendom had well-nigh banished learning and education from the domain of the Church, giving place to a gloomy, unquestioning faith which sank ever deeper and deeper in the mire of superst.i.tion. What enlightenment survived had found a home beyond the limits of the Roman Empire,--in Ireland, in the extreme West; in Syria, in the far East." (Davidson, Thomas, _History of Education_, p. 133.)

[3] This was determined as being 56-1/3 miles, which would make the circ.u.mference of the earth 20,280 miles. The correct distance is 69 miles.

[4] The fanaticism of the eastern Arabs now rea.s.serted itself, and higher education In the Mohammedan countries of the East drew permanently to a close. A harsh, rigid orthodoxy, fatal to educational progress, now triumphed. The coming of the Turks only made matters worse, and with their advent education throughout Arabia and Asia Minor became a thing of the past. Some day it will be the task of western Europe to hand back schools and learning to the Mohammedan East. This may be one of the by-products of the great World War.

[5] The Alhambra, built between 1238 and 1354, at Granada, is an exquisite example of their art. (See plate in vol. 1, p. 658, of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 11th ed., for an ill.u.s.tration of their architecture and art.)

[6] It was an age of superst.i.tion and miracles, diabolic influences, witchcraft and magic, private warfare, trials by ordeal, robber bands, little dirty towns, no roads, unsanitary conditions, and miserable homes.

Even the n.o.bility had few comforts and conveniences, and personal cleanliness was not common. Disease was punishment for sin and to be cured by prayer, while the insane were scourged to cast out the devils within them.

[7] Frederic II was Emperor of the mediaeval Holy Roman Empire, ruling from 1227 to 1250. Though a German by birth, he had lived long in Sicily, and spent most of his time in Italy after becoming Emperor. He greatly admired the Saracens for their learning, and tried to transfer some of their knowledge to Christian Europe. He lived, however, at a time when the Papacy was cementing its temporal power and the Pope was becoming the Emperor of Europe. This encroachment Frederick resisted and tried to break, but without success. At his death the mediaeval German dream of world empire perished; Germany was left a collection of feudal States; and the temporal power of the Pope was henceforth for centuries to come undisputed.

[8] Christianity had not as yet been introduced among the mixed Slavic and Germanic tribes along the eastern Baltic. In Prussia and Lithuania, where missionary efforts had been made from 900 on, success did not come until more than three centuries later. (See art. "Missions," _Ency. Brit._, 11th ed., vol. 18.)

[9] The more important questions arising concerned the Trinity, the Eucharist, and Transubstantiation.

[10] This discussion was over what was known as nominalism vs. realism.

Anselm of Canterbury (1034-1109), basing his argument largely on some parts of Plato, had declared that ideas const.i.tuted our real existence.

Roscellinus of Compiegne (1050-1105), basing his argument on parts of the _Organon_ of Aristotle, had held that ideas or concepts are only names for real, concrete things. Anselm, as a realist, contended that the human senses are deceptive, and that revealed truth alone is reliable.

Roscellinus, as a nominalist, held that truth can be reached only through investigation and the use of reason. The church accepted the realism of Anselm as correct, and Roscellinus was compelled to recant. The stifling effect of such an att.i.tude toward honest doubt can be imagined.

[11] McCabe, Joseph, _Peter Abelard_, p. 7.

[12] By the beginning of the eleventh century this cathedral school had become the most important in France, a position which it retained for centuries. It was the great center for theological study, and drew to it a succession of eminent teachers--William of Champeaux, Abelard, Peter the Lombard--and, in time, thousands of students.

[13] The term _scholasticism_ comes from _scholasticus_, because it was chiefly in the cathedral schools that scholasticism arose. It means, literally, the method of thinking worked out by the teachers in the cathedral schools.

[14] The English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) once said that when he considered the inertness of the Middle Ages he was led to think that G.o.d had been content to make man a two-legged animal, leaving to Aristotle the task of making him a thinking being. The wors.h.i.+p of Aristotle is easily explained by the great amount of information his works contained, his logical method and skillful cla.s.sification of knowledge, and the way his ideas as to causes fitted into Christian reasoning.

[15] The Dominicans, or Black Friars, were a new teaching and preaching monastic order, founded in 1216. It was a revival of monasticism, directed toward more modern ends. The Dominicans established themselves in connection with the new universities, and sought to control education and to defend orthodoxy. Another new order of this same period was that of the Franciscans, or Gray Friars, founded by Saint Francis in 1212. Their work was directed still more to preaching, missions, and public service. They were a less intellectual but a more democratic brotherhood. It was the Franciscans who followed the armies of Spain to Mexico, and later built and conducted the missions of the central and southern California coast.

[16] Special translations of Aristotle's _Rhetoric_ and _Politics_, from the original Greek texts, obtained at Constantinople by the Crusaders, were made for Thomas Aquinas at his special request, about 1260, by William of Moerbeke, who knew enough Greek to perform the task. This gave him better translations from which to lecture and write.

[17] In 529 the Eastern Emperor, Justinian (see p. 76), directed that an orderly compilation be prepared of the many and confused laws and decisions which had been made in the Roman Empire, with a view to producing a standard body of Roman law in place of the unwieldy ma.s.s of contradictory material then existing. The result was the _Corpus Juris Civilis_, worked out by a staff of eminent lawyers between 529 and 533 (R.

93). This consisted of

I. The _Code_, in twelve books, containing the Statutes of the Emperors;