The History of Education Part 9

5. Explain how the Hebrew scribes, administering such a mixed body of laws, naturally came to be both teachers and judges for the people.

6. Ill.u.s.trate how the Hebrew tradition that the moral and spiritual unity of a people is stronger than armed force has been shown to be true in history.

7. What great lessons may we draw from the work of the Hebrews in maintaining a national unity through compulsory education?

8. Why was Jesus' idea as to the importance of the individual destined to make such slow headway in the world? What is the status of the idea to-day (a) in China? (b) in Germany? (c) in England? (d) in the United States? Is the idea necessarily opposed to nationality or even to a strong state government?

9. Show how the political Church, itself the State, was the natural outcome during the Middle Ages of the teachings of the early Christians as to the relationship of Church and State.

10. Is it to be wondered that the Romans were finally led to persecute "the vast organized defiance of law by the Christians"?

11. Show how the Christian idea of the equality and responsibility of all gave the citizen a new place in the State.

12. State the reasons for the gradually increasing lack of sympathy and understanding between the eastern and western Fathers of the Church, and which finally led to the division of the Church.

13. Explain what is meant by "a State within a State" as applied to the Church of the third and fourth centuries. Did this prove to be a good thing for the future of civilization? Why?

14. Would Rome probably have been better able to withstand the barbarian invasions if Christianity had not arisen, or not? Why?

15. Show how the Christian att.i.tude toward pagan learning tended to stop schools and destroy the acc.u.mulated learning.

16. What was the effect of the Christian att.i.tude toward the care of the body, on scientific and medical knowledge, and on education? Was the Christian or the pagan att.i.tude more nearly like that of modern times?

17. Why did the emphasis on form of belief, in the third and fourth centuries, come to supersede the emphasis on personal virtues and simple faith of the first and second centuries?

18. Compare the work of the Sunday School of to-day with the catechumenal instruction of the early Christians.

SELECTED READINGS

In the accompanying _Book of Readings_ the following selections are reproduced:

27. The Talmud: Educational Maxims from.

28. Saint Paul: Epistle to the Romans.

29. Saint Paul: To the Athenians.

30. The Crimes of the Christians.

(a) Minucius Felix: The Roman Point of View.

(b) Tertullian: The Christian Point of View.

31. Persecution of the Christians as Disloyal Subjects of the Empire.

(a) Pliny to Trajan.

(b) Trajan to Pliny.

32. Tertullian: Effect of the Persecutions.

33. Eusebius: Edicts of Diocletian against the Christians.

34. Workman: Certificate of having Sacrificed to the Pagan G.o.ds.

35. Kingsley: The Empire and Christianity in Conflict.

36. Lactantius: The Edict of Toleration by Galerius.

37. Theodosian Code: The Faith of Catholic Christians.

38. Theodosian Code: Privileges and Immunities granted the Clergy.

39. Apostolic Const.i.tutions: How the Catechumens are to be instructed.

40. Leach: Catechumenal Schools of the Early Church.

41. Apostolic Const.i.tutions: Christians should abstain from all Heathen Books.

42. The Nicene Creed of 325 A.D.

43. Saint Benedict: Extracts from the Rule of.

44. Lanfranc: Enforcing Lenten Reading in the Monasteries.

45. Saint Jerome: Letter on the Education of Girls.

QUESTIONS ON THE READINGS

1. Characterize the type of education to be provided and the status of the teacher, as shown in the selections from the Talmud (27). Compare with Rome. With Athens.

2. Characterize the att.i.tude of Saint Paul toward the Romans (28). Does his description of Athens (29) tally with the description of the Athenians given in the text?

3. Was it possible for the Roman and the Christian to understand one another, thinking as they did in such different terms (30 a-b)?

4. Considering Pliny and Trajan (31 a-b) as Roman officials, with the Roman point of view, and taking into account the time in the history of world civilization, would you say that they were quite tolerant of rebels within the State?

5. Compare the privileges and immunities granted the clergy (38) with the privileges previously given by Constantine to physicians and teachers (26).

6. Characterize the irrepressible conflict as pictured by Kingsley (35).

Name a few other somewhat similar conflicts in world history.

7. Outline the type of instruction for catechumens as directed in the Apostolic Const.i.tutions (39).

8. What would have been the effect of the continued rejection of secular books called for in the Apostolic Const.i.tutions (41)?

9. What was the governmental advantage of the adoption of the Nicene Creed (42)?

10. Why did the rule of Saint Benedict (43) requiring readings and study lead to the copying and preservation of ma.n.u.scripts?

11. What does the selection from Lanfranc (44) indicate as to the state of monastic learning?

12. Was there anything pedagogically sound about the letter of Saint Jerome (45) on the education of girls? Discuss.

SUPPLEMENTARY REFERENCES

* Dill, Sam'l. _Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire_.

Fisher, Geo. P. _Beginnings of Christianity_.

* Fisher, Geo. P. _History of the Christian Church_.

* Hatch, Edw. _Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church_. (Hibbert Lectures, 1888.) Hodgson, Geraldine. _Primitive Church Education_.

Kretzmann, P. E. _Education among the Jews_.

MacCabe, Joseph. _Saint Augustine_.

* Monro, D. C. and Sellery, G. E. _Mediaeval Civilization_.

* Swift, F. H. _Education in Ancient Israel to 70 A.D._ Taylor, H. O. _Cla.s.sical Heritage of the Middle Ages_.

Wishart, A. W. _Short History of Monks and Monasticism_.