BY J. BROWNLIE HENDERSON. xiii. 
schools became famous, and it is interesting to note that 
one of the most famous was that of Columbia in the Island 
of Iona, the Irish monks from there spreading their 
knowledge all over Europe. 
In one sense it was unfortunate that the monks held 
supreme control of education. Each monastery had its 
own methods, and there was no attempt at a national 
system of co-ordinated education. The monks’ view of life 
was an extremely narrow one, and it, of course, colored 
their system of education. With several brilliant excep- 
tions the monastic schools were of a rather low standing. 
Charles the Great saw the pressing need of education, even 
found fault with that of the monks, and strove to educate 
the laity as well as the clergy. The good work he did in this 
direction long survived him, the schools he had founded 
still remaining in existence long after his Empire was 
dismembered. Alfred the Great shortly afterwards did the 
same work for Great Britain, actually himself conducting 
a school at court for the sons of the nobles. All these schools 
however still had the monastic ideal, and advancement under 
that ideal was quite impossible. The monk glorified the 
soul and scorned and ill-treated the body. In the period 
known as the Age of Chivalry the knight arose in contrast 
to the monk. He glorified the body, and cared little for the 
soul and less for the mind. His education was simple, 
first as page and then as esquire. He was taught to scorn 
learning as a thing for monks, not for men, but in spite of 
that he had many manly virtues and served to preserve 
a balance against the monk at the other extreme. At the 
same time another development took place, the birth 
of modern conditions. Large towns gradually arose, and 
as a check to the power of nobles were granted by the 
sovereigns the right of self-government. In these towns 
the need was felt of an education totally distinct from that 
of the monk or the knight. As a result the first secular 
schools were founded and for the first time the native 
tongue was taught as a distinct subject. 
Out of these monastic and other schools grew the 
educational triumph of the middle ages—the Universities. 
The first Universities were merely the result of great teachers 
arising in well-known schools, and by their ability increasing 
