Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/281

Rh with no respect, is not provided for: instance the fact that in Japan, "during many centuries previous to Iyéyasŭ's time, the very numerous warrior-class like the Knights of Mediæval Europe, despised a knowledge of letters as beneath the dignity of a soldier, and worthy only of the bard and priest." And it was thus in Rome.

"The economic arrangements of the Romans placed the work of elementary instruction in the mother-tongue—like every other work held in little estimation, and performed for hire—chiefly in the hands of slaves, freed-men, or foreigners, or in other words chiefly in the hands of Greeks or half-Greeks."

This condition of things will be comprehended when we remember firstly that the normal genesis of teachers from priests is due to the fact that in early stages priests are distinguished by their superior knowledge; secondly that the priests in Rome were not thus distinguished, since the subjugated Greeks were more learned than they; and thirdly that all attributes of conquered men are liable to fall into contempt.

On passing northward to the peoples of pre-Christian days and to those of early Christian days, we are again shown the primitive identity of priest and teacher and the eventual separation of the two. Elsewhere saying of the Celts that their training, wholly military, aimed to produce endurance, agility, and other bodily capacities, Pelloutier writes:—

"Pour entretenir les peuples dans la dépendance, et pour être toujours consultez comme des Oracles, les Ecclésiastiques vouloient être les seuls Savans; et de l'autre, les Celtes, qui regardoient tout travail, tant du corps que de l'esprit (Procop. Gotth. L. I., cap. 2, p. 311) comme une chose servile, abandonnoient de bon coeur toutes les Sciences à leurs Druides, qu'ils consideroient non seulement comme des Savans, mais encore comme de véritables Magiciens. Les études des Nations Celtiques se réduisoient donc uniquement à apprendre par cœur certains Hymnes qui renfermoient leurs Loix, leur Religion, leur Histoire, et en général tout ce qu'on vouloit bien que le peuple sût." (To keep the people dependent upon them, and in order that they might always be consulted as oracles, the Ecclesiastics wished to be the only men of knowledge; and, on the other hand, the Celts, who regarded all labor, whether of body or mind (Procop. Gotth. L. I., chap. 2, p. 311), as servile, readily left all the sciences to their Druids, whom they held to be real magicians as well as men of knowledge. The studies of the Celtic nations were therefore reduced simply to learning by heart certain hymns in which were embodied their law, their religion, their history and, in general, all that it was desirable the people should know.)

And congruous with this is the statement of Pliny concerning the British:—The druids "taught their pupils, and harangued to them concerning their doctrines; they made public speeches to the people, and instructed them in morality."

Almost extinguished during early centuries of our era, such