evidenced by some of the more important works of the times, possessed a knowledge of all the preliminary sciences demanded of the orator by Quintilian. For the most part, however, this learning was mere antiquarianism and degenerated as did the literature of the times into mere trifling. The study of Vergil so dominated in these schools, that here was laid the foundation of the practice of the Middle Ages of identifying all classical learning with the cult of Vergil. But it was rather Vergil analyzed and dissected, than Vergil appreciated and enjoyed. If this was the degenerate state of the study of grammar and literature, that of rhetoric was even worse. No longer connected with real life, in the school or out, no longer a public function in the courts, senate, or curial assemblies, it had degenerated into a mere display in the theater, in the school, or before the private audience. As an art it depended upon an abundant vocabulary, a glibness of tongue, and the mastery of the mannerisms of the stage. Like the older sophists these later rhetoricians boasted their ability to speak with equal effectiveness on either side of any proposition and aspired but to clothe the most common event in gorgeous verbiage, or to dress out a trivial or hackneyed thought in the greatest variety of ways. Such ideals of culture stopped all progress. If the Hellenized Roman education ever possessed any of the liberalizing tendencies that it did with the Greeks, it had long since lost all of them. The practical merits of Roman education had disappeared quite as completely. Down to the close of the sixth century these schools existed throughout the European provinces and gave to the early Church in that region a formal training in the culture of pagan society. This service was performed for provincial converts and even for the youth of the early Teutonic invaders, especially those of the Goths who remained permanently on the soil of Gaul. Such instances, however, were so infrequent as to be of little effect, and the schools, unable to stand the evils of indifference and barbarian hostility as well as of hollow formality, became extinct. Such being the character of the pagan culture in its senility, let us turn to a consideration of Christian culture in its infancy. REFERENCES Becker, Gallus, Scene III. (London, 1844.) Clark, The Education of Children at Rome. (New York, 1896.) Davidson, Aristotle and the Ancient Educational Ideal, Bk. IV, Ch. II. Hobhouse, Ancient Education. Laurie, Historical Survey of Pre-Christian Education, pp. 301-411. Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory, esp. Bk. I, Chs. I and II. Sandys, History of Classical Education from the Sixth Century B.C. to the end of the Middle Ages, Chs. X-XXIII inclusive. (Cambridge, 1903.) Thomas, Roman Life Under the Cæsars, Ch. IX. (New York, 1899.) TOPICAL QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDY 1. What contrasts are offered between the concrete virtues of the Roman ideal and those of the Greek, as indicated in their early literature? 2. To what extent does Roman education indicate the value of biography in education? 3. To what extent does Roman education illustrate the function and the importance of the parent in education? 4. What is the difference between the Roman and the Greek use of gymnastics in education? 5. Was the conception of an orator, as expounded by Cicero, Tacitus, and Quintilian, a sufficiently broad educational ideal for society in the imperial period? 6. What concrete details concerning the work of the rhetorical schools can be found in the writings of these same authors? 7. To what extent did the adopted use of the Greek literary education afford to the Romans a liberal education, after the Greek idea? 8. To what extent is the old Roman education described in the first chapter of the Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus? 9. To what extent do present practices and beliefs justify Quintilian's views concerning methods of teaching reading, methods of studying grammar and literature, and his conception of the nature and educational function of these two subjects? 527 Isidore of reunited 565 Venerable Arab conquest Mohammed. 622 of Spain 714 Alcuin churches 476 Cassiodorus Theodoric 493 Gregory of Saracens 541-542 732 Rules c. 480-575 converted. 496 Boethius, monastery 540 Tours c. 538-594 Mohammed b. 572 Translations Christian era first Diaconus 725-797 Karl Martel defeats Paulus Carolingian line 752 End of Lombard 735-804 Whitby Boniface converts 721-754 nized by Eastern and Western 664 of Sacred Literature Gregory of Tours, Chron. Isidore, Bede, Chron. 787 Alcuin, On Seven Liberal CHAPTER V MIDDLE AGES: EDUCATION AS DISCIPLINE § I. EARLY CHRISTIAN EDUCATION CHRISTIANITY IN CONTACT WITH THE WORLD OF THOUGHT. In order to understand the attitude of the early Church to education, and the conception of education that developed from these early conditions and prevailed throughout the Middle Ages, it is necessary to have in mind some of the characteristics of the thought life and of the concrete social activities of the pagan life surrounding the early Church. Into the life of Greek culture and intellectual activity of the cosmopolitan period, modified, supplemented, and extended as it had been through adoption by the Romans, and into the life of Roman activity at its height of power, though past its prime in vigor and positive virtues, Christianity was introduced in the first century, to spread with great rapidity, to modify this foreign world both in regard to thought and to conduct, and, on the other hand, to be itself profoundly modified as well. The Greek mind had developed a versatility that probably has never been equaled, a power of dealing with abstract thought and an interest in philosophical questions that is as remote from the interests of society at large to-day as it was in ages preceding the time under consideration. Schools were very numerous and flourishing in both the East and the West; culture had never been so disseminated, nor the intellectual life so fostered. In very many points indeed. it can be shown |