74 S THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



thought and feeling, that we could but gaze upon them in wonder. 

 Not one of these manifestations, however, but is rooted in the inborn 

 constitution of our fellows. To recognize this is to sympathize with 

 the past that is, to understand it, wherein also, and wherein alone, 

 we realize the present. The history of education from the early 

 Christian centuries throughout the middle-age period is the expres- 

 sion of a one-sided development starting from a misunderstood Chris- 

 tianity. The new religion was contra-natural, contra-earthly ; its train- 

 ins: was for heaven. Though some may claim that this teaching did 

 not lie fairly in the authoritative records of the Church, there was 

 much in these records to favor it, and much more still in the situa- 

 tion of the first Christians. Persecution would force attention from 

 things temporal to things eternal. The present would be but a trial, 

 a testing. This misinterpretation was laid upon the early Christians 

 even as it seems to be laid upon many unfortunate souls to-day. 

 Those for whom life is a ceaseless curse need such power as may well 

 be said to come from on high to place the blame where it belongs, 

 on broken law and wasted opportunity. The gospel of a heaven on 

 earth, of a heaven in and by law, of a heaven in and by the present 

 right life, is not even now fully come, though we give thanks for its 

 presence here and there. 



My former paper called attention to the following points : the 

 early relations of Christian education with heathen education, the grad- 

 ual extension of Christianity and the shaping of all instruction for 

 a religious life, Arabian culture, the character of middle-age educa- 

 tion as unnatural, contra-earthly. We shall now look directly at this 

 middle-acre training. Where did the teachers of the middle a^es 

 teach ? In the cloister schools, the cathedral schools, and the paro- 

 chial schools. These parochial or common schools never amounted 

 to much, because the masses of the people had little interest in 

 knowledge. Still, at a comparatively early time the popes established 

 the parochial schools by the side of the parish church. Charlemagne 

 ordered that the children should be instructed in reading, singing, 

 reckoning, some grammar and writing ; and a council held at Mainz, 

 before the middle of the ninth century, required that the children 

 should be sent either to the cloister schools or to those of the parish, 

 that they might learn the Creed and the Lord's Prayer in their 

 own language. The cloister schools are classed as those of the Beue- 

 dictines, Dominicans, and Franciscans. The first Benedictine mon- 

 astery was founded at Monte Casino, in the kingdom of Naples, about 

 5-29, bv St. Benedict himself. This order increased so wonderfully 

 and became so powerful that it may be said to have been the chief 

 means for the spread of learning throughout the West from the sixth 

 to the twelfth century. At first the regulations of St. Benedict were 

 for those only who had set themselves apart to the service of the 

 Church. But, with the increase of the reputation of the order, it 



