History of Education Part 12

CHAPTER XVIII

MONASTIC EDUCATION

=Literature.=--_Lord_, Beacon Lights; _Lecky_, History of European Morals; _Myers_, Mediaeval and Modern History; _White_, Eighteen Christian Centuries; _Harper_, Book of Facts; _Mrs. Jameson_, Legends of Monastic Orders; _Gasquet_, Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries; _Chateaubriand_, The Genius of Christianity; _Allies_, The Monastic Life; _Taunton_, The English Black Monks of St. Benedict.

=Monasteries.=--Monasteries were established as early as the third century A.D.; but it was not until the sixth century that they became powerful. The spirit of asceticism, urged by the Church as one of the most important virtues, took a strong hold upon the people, and led many to withdraw from the world. For such the founding of monasteries became a necessity. The monasteries were the result of the ascetic spirit, and their teaching was based upon authority and not upon free investigation or original research. Thus there was introduced into society and education a principle that, wrongly interpreted, impeded progress for a thousand years.

Most of the time during this period the Church held supremacy over the State with authority unquestioned. This authority was carried not only into spiritual matters, but also into social, political, and educational affairs. Everything that conflicted with that authority, or with the decrees of the Church, was condemned. Even scientific discoveries that did not harmonize with preconceived and accepted theories were reluctantly received, if not absolutely rejected. Discoverers in the realm of science were silenced, and sometimes actually punished, for promulgating theories contrary to the teachings of the Church. A notable example is that of Galileo, who taught the Copernican theory of the universe, and for which teaching he was condemned to imprisonment and a ban put upon his work. This exaggerated interpretation of authority worked harm to the Church. It seemed to be forgotten that the Bible is a book of religion and morals and not a text-book of science.

=The Benedictines.=--The most important monastic order from the standpoint of education was that of the Benedictines. St. Benedict founded the first monastery of the order that bears his name--Monte Ca.s.sino, near Naples,--in 529. It will be remembered that this is the date of the abolition of pagan schools by Justinian. On the site of Monte Ca.s.sino had stood a pagan school. The monastery which supplanted it remains to the present day.

Benedict's two important principles--to which cloisters. .h.i.therto had been unaccustomed--were industry and strict discipline. These principles made the Benedictine the most successful and beneficent of all monastic orders. It grew rapidly, and within one hundred years from its foundation there were more than two hundred and fifty Benedictine monasteries. It is claimed that the order has produced 4600 bishops, 1600 archbishops, 200 cardinals, 40 popes, 50 patriarchs, 4 emperors, 12 empresses, 46 kings, 41 queens, 3600 canonized saints, and 15,700 authors, and that prior to the French Revolution it possessed 37,000 cloisters. There have been times when the wealth of this order in some states comprised more than half of all the property. The Benedictine monks tilled the soil of the country surrounding their monasteries, literally making the "desert blossom as the rose." They were untiring in zeal for the Church and in deeds of mercy. They established cloister schools in Italy, France, Spain, England, Ireland, Germany, and Switzerland. Monte Ca.s.sino (529), Italy; Canterbury (586) and Oxford (ninth century), England; St. Gall (613), Switzerland; Fulda (744), Constance, Hamburg, and Cologne (tenth century), Germany; Lyons, Tours, Paris, and Rouen (tenth century), France; Salzburg (696), Austria; and many other schools were founded chiefly by the Benedictines. Among the many great teachers that they produced were Alcuin of England, Boniface of Germany, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Abelard. It thus appears that the Benedictine order took a deep interest in education, and their work deserves a most honorable place among the educational agencies of the period under discussion.

=The Seven Liberal Arts.=--We have seen that much attention was always given to religious instruction in the Christian schools. The Bible, the doctrines of the Church, and its rites and ceremonies were at first exclusively taught. But later secular branches were introduced. These secular branches were known as the seven liberal arts, which comprised the following subjects:--

{Reading and {1. Grammar. {Writing.

{I. Trivium[1] {2. Rhetoric.

The Seven { {3. Logic.

Liberal Arts. { { {1. Arithmetic.

{ {2. Music.

{ II. Quadrivium[31] {3. Geometry.

{ {4. Astronomy.

This course required seven years. Latin was the only language used, and consequently the native tongues suffered. The _trivium_ was the most popular course; such knowledge was considered an absolute necessity for any one making claim to culture. After completing the _trivium_, those who wished for higher culture studied the _quadrivium_.

Under the term _grammar_ were included reading and writing, as well as the construction and use of language. In _rhetoric_ the works of Quintilian and Cicero were studied, and sermons delivered in the churches were made to serve for a practical application of the rules. In _logic_ the works of St. Augustine were used in the exercises of constructing syllogisms, of disputation, and of definition. In _arithmetic_, before the introduction of the Arabic notation, numbers were considered to have a mysterious meaning. The hands and fingers were used to indicate numbers. For example, the left hand upon the breast indicated ten thousand; both hands folded, one hundred thousand. For the practical purposes of life the reckoning board was used. This was a board with lines drawn upon it, between which pebbles were placed to indicate the number to be expressed. For example, the number 3146 would be indicated as follows:--

| 3 | 1 | 4 | 6 | | | | | | | ''' | ' | '''' | '''''' |

_Music_ was designed for the church service. Knowledge of music was held to be positively essential to priest and teacher. Under the term _music_ were also sometimes included the fine arts, painting, drawing, architecture, sculpture, etc.

In _geometry_ Euclid was used. Lines, angles, surfaces, and solids were studied. With geometry there seems to have been connected a meager study of _geography_. Early maps have been found, one dating from the seventh century, being in possession of St. Gall monastery. Astronomy was closely connected with _astrology_. Its practical application was limited to the formation of the Church calendar, fixing the date of Easter, etc.

This celebrated course of study formed the basis of secular instruction in the monasteries, and, indeed, in all schools, for several centuries.

Religious instruction always remained a prominent feature of the work.

History had no place in the curriculum.

=Summary of Benefits conferred upon Civilization by the Monasteries.=--1. They preserved cla.s.sic literature. Though many of the Church Fathers, as we have seen, were bitterly opposed to pagan literature, the monasteries copied it with great industry and preserved it with care. The archives of these inst.i.tutions have yielded up some most remarkable and valuable ma.n.u.scripts that otherwise would have been lost to the world.

2. They kept alive the flickering flame of Christianity. The Middle Ages were indeed dark for Christianity, as unbelief, ignorance, and faithlessness prevailed. But the monasteries were centers of religious interest and zeal.

3. They maintained educational interest during this long, dark period.

We have seen that the monasteries contained the only schools. Through them the Church kept up whatever educational interest survived during the Middle Ages, and her work then conserved the energies employed in later educational enterprise.

4. They originated a great course of study by giving to the world the seven liberal arts.

5. They furnished places of refuge for the oppressed.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] Laurie thinks that these names were first appropriately used about the end of the fourth century.

CHAPTER XIX

SCHOLASTICISM

=Literature.=--_Fisher_, History of the Reformation; _Lord_, Beacon Lights; _Thalheimer_, Mediaeval and Modern History; _Schwegler_, History of Philosophy; _Seebohm_, Era of the Protestant Revolution; _Hegel_, Philosophy of History; _Azarias_, Philosophy of Literature; _Azarias_, Essays Philosophical; _Schwickerath_, Jesuit Education, its History and Principles.

Compayre remarks, "It has been truly said that there were three Renascences: the first, which owed its beginning to Charlemagne, and whose brilliancy did not last; the second, that of the twelfth century, the issue of which was Scholasticism; and the third, the great Renaissance of the sixteenth century, which still lasts, and which the French Revolution has completed."[32]

As scholasticism, in a sense, was the rival of monasticism, and as it covered a large part of the Middle Ages, we shall discuss it at this point. Scholasticism was a movement having for its object the harmonizing of ancient philosophy, especially that of Aristotle, with the doctrines of Christianity. It covered a period reaching from the ninth to the fifteenth century, and displayed its greatest activity between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. It is called the philosophy of the Middle Ages. The term _scholastic_ is also applied generally to forms of reasoning which abound in subtleties.

Scholasticism was a dissent from the teachings of St. Augustine and the ascetics. It laid chief stress upon _reason_ instead of _authority_, thus a.s.serting a vitally different principle, which would tend to change the whole spirit of education.

The first prominent leader of this movement was Erigena, who lived during the ninth century, and was the most interesting writer of the Middle Ages. He was also a great teacher, and was called to give instruction at the court of Charles the Bald, and afterward at Oxford.

He opposed the prevailing tendencies of the monasteries to base all teaching on authority, and made its foundation philosophy and reason.

Schwegler[33] denominates Anselm (born about 1033) as "the beginner and founder of scholasticism." Thus it was not till the eleventh century "that there was developed anything that might be properly termed a Christian philosophy. This was the so-called scholasticism."[34]

Greater than either of these was Abelard (born 1079), who by his eloquence attracted great numbers of students to Paris. It is said that "few teachers ever held such sway as did Abelard for a time." He made Paris the center of the scholastic movement, attracting students from all parts of the world. He did more than any of his predecessors to give accepted ecclesiastical doctrines a rational expression. Scholasticism influenced the establishment of inst.i.tutions of learning in England, Germany, Italy, and Spain, some of which later developed into great universities. Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Occam may also be mentioned as great schoolmen. Of the first two Schwegler says,[35] "At the summit of scholasticism we must place the two incontestably greatest masters of the scholastic art and method, _Thomas Aquinas_ (Dominican, 1225-1274) and _Duns Scotus_ (Franciscan, 1265-1308), the founders of two schools, into which after them the whole scholastic theology divides itself,--the former exalting the understanding (_intellectus_), and the latter the will (_voluntas_), as the highest principle, both being driven into essentially differing directions by this opposition of the theoretical and practical. Even with this began the downfall of scholasticism; its highest point was also the turning point to its self-destruction. The rationality of the dogmas, the oneness of faith and knowledge, had been constantly their fundamental premise; but this premise fell away, and the whole basis of their metaphysics was given up in principle the moment Duns Scotus placed the problem of theology in the practical. When the practical and the theoretical became divided, and still more when thought and being were separated by nominalism, philosophy broke loose from theology and knowledge from faith. Knowledge a.s.sumed its position above faith and above authority, and the religious consciousness broke with the traditional dogma."

Toward the end, another thing contributed to the downfall of scholasticism. The philosophical subtleties of discussion made the schoolmen lose sight of the main issue, and devote themselves to the most ridiculous questions.[36] Schwickerath remarks,[37] "It can not and need not be denied that the education imparted by the mediaeval scholastics was in many regards defective. It was at once too dogmatic and disputatious. Literary studies were comparatively neglected; frequently too much importance was attached to purely dialectical subtleties.... The defects of scholasticism became especially manifest in the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when much time and energy were wasted in discussing useless refinements of thought."

That it did a great deal of good will appear from the following summary:--

=Summary of the Benefits of Scholasticism.=--1. It attempted to harmonize philosophy with Christianity, and may be called the first Christian philosophy.

2. It sought to base learning on reason and investigation, rather than on authority. In this we find the first impulse of that movement which later led to the founding of science.

3. Many universities were established through the scholastic influence, notably, Paris, Heidelberg, Bologna, Prague, and Vienna.

4. While it failed to establish them, it at least recognized the desirableness of a universal language for schools, and a universal church for man.

5. Although, with the exception of the universities which it founded, its direct work in education cannot be said to have been permanent, yet it imparted fresh vigor to educational endeavors.

6. Schwegler says,[38] "It ... introduced to the world another principle than that of the old Church, the principle of the thinking spirit, the self-consciousness of the reason, or at least prepared the way for the victory of this principle. Even the deformities and unfavorable side of scholasticism, the many absurd questions upon which the scholastics divided, even their thousandfold unnecessary and accidental distinctions, their inquisitiveness and subtleties, all sprang from a rational principle, and grew out of a spirit of investigation, which could only utter itself in this way under the all-powerful ecclesiastical spirit of the time."

FOOTNOTES:

[32] "History of Pedagogy," p. 71.

[33] "History of Philosophy," p. 186.

[34] _Ibid._, p. 185.