WOMAN'S LONG STRUGGLE 35 



in history as the Middle Ages. By some it is considered 

 as synonymous with the Dark Ages, because of the de- 

 cline of learning and civilization during this long interval 

 of time. The former designation seems preferable, for, as 

 we shall see, the latter is more or less misleading. During 

 the "wandering of the nations" in the fourth and fifth 

 centuries, and the long and fierce struggles between the 

 barbarian hordes from the north with the decadent peoples 

 of the once great Koman empire, there was, no doubt, a 

 partial eclipse of the sun of civilization; but the conse- 

 quent darkness was not so dense nor so general and long- 

 continued as is sometimes imagined. The progress of in- 

 tellectual culture was, indeed, greatly retarded, but there 

 was no time when the light of learning was entirely ex- 

 tinguished. For even during the most troublous times 

 there were centers of culture in one part of Europe or 

 another. At one time the center was in Italy, at another 

 in Gaul, and, at still another, it was in Britain or Ireland 

 or Germany. 



But whether it was in the south, or the west or the north 

 of Europe that letters flourished, it was always the con- 

 vent or the monastery that was the home of learning and 

 culture. Within these holy precincts the literary treasures 

 of antiquity were preserved and multiplied. Here monks 

 and nuns labored and studied, always keeping lighted the 

 sacred torch of knowledge Et quasi cursores vitai lam- 

 pada tradunt and passing it on to the generations that 

 succeeded them. That any of the great literary master- 

 pieces of Greece and Rome have come to us, in spite of 

 the destructive agencies of time and the wreck of empires, 

 is due wholly to the unremitting toil through long ages of 

 the zealous and intelligent inmates of the cloister. 



Of the monastic institutions for men there is no occa- 

 sion to speak, except in so far as they contributed to the 

 intellectual advancement of woman. In some cases the 

 women of the cloister owed much to ecclesiastics for their 



