Page:Jesuit Education.djvu/65

Rh about 1250, enumerates the following authors whom he read with his pupils: Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Juvenal, Persius, Statius, Homerus Latinus, Boethius, Claudian, Sedulius, Prudentius, and others. Of prose authors are mentioned: Cicero, Seneca, Sallust, and others. The study of Greek is met with only very exceptionally before the Renaissance. Mathematics were taught, but it is difficult to say to what extent.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries there was a revival of literary studies, which, however, was soon replaced by another movement, scholasticism. Through the Arabs and the Jews, Western Europe became acquainted with the entire Logic of Aristotle – hitherto only his Organon was known, and that in the Latin translation of Boethius, – with his Dialectics, Physics, Metaphysics, and Ethics. Scientific inquiry in the universities began to move in another direction than heretofore. The methods of Aristotle were introduced into the schools; henceforth there was a more rigorous form of reasoning, a dialectic tendency, and a closer adherence to the syllogism; disputations were very common. A renewed study of the Fathers of the Church, and a more correct understanding of Aristotle inaugurated the most brilliant period of scholasticism (1230-1330).