Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/771

Rh used an Englishman's book, called the Book of the Spheres. As is well known, astronomy was very closely bound up with astrology, of which there was a professorship in the University of Bologna. In the lower schools all instruction in astronomy was confined to the reckoning of the Easter feasts and the Church calendar.

We have thus outlined the principal objects of pursuit during the middle ages. History had no place in the course of study. Jurisprudence, as it came from Rome, did receive, in some places, special attention from the priestly orders. At York it took the place of dialectic and was studied for the cultivation of the judgment. Physics and chemistry were pursued secretly, if at all, and the former degenerated into magic, the latter into alchemy.

Possibly this review of the middle-age studies may have obscured the leading idea with which we started, and by which the entire period is characterized—that is, the idea of religion.

The following words from a leader in middle-age education will show the grasp of the Church upon all the training of the time:

"Grammar discloses the art of explaining the old poets and writers; at the same time it gives ability to read and write without mistake. By grammar alone we understand the figures and unaccustomed modes of speech of the Sacred Scriptures and seize the true meaning of the divine words.

"Prosody, also, one should not neglect, because in the Psalms there are many kinds of verses; for this reason the fluent reading of heathen poets and frequent practice in poetry are not to be disregarded. But the old poets must first be very carefully purified, that nothing remain in them which has reference to love and love ceremonies, or to the heathen deities. Rhetoric, which gives the different classes and chief parts of speech, together with the accompanying rules, is important for such young persons only as have nothing more serious to attend to, and it must be learned only out of the holy fathers. Dialectic, on the other hand, is the queen of all the arts and sciences. In her dwells reason. Philosophy alone can furnish knowledge and wisdom; she alone declares what and whence we are, she alone teaches us our destination, through her alone we learn to know the good and the evil. How necessary she is for the priestly man, that he may contend with and overcome the unbeliever! Arithmetic is important because of the secrets which are contained in numbers, and Scripture requires arithmetic to be learned, in that the Holy Word speaks of numbers and measures. Geometry is necessary because, in Scripture, at the building of Noah's Ark and Solomon's Temple, circles of all kinds appear.

"Music and astronomy are necessary for divine service, which, without music, could not be conducted worthily and impressively, and without astronomy could not be held on set and appointed days."

We have now, in our outline, reached that period to which history gives the name Reformation. Up to this time, young men were