Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/282

270* culture as survived was to be found only in ecclesiastical institutions, and out of them grew up afresh. As Hallam says:—

"The praise of having-originally established schools belongs to some bishops and abbots of the sixth century. They came in place of the Imperial schools overthrown by the barbarians. . . . The cathedral and conventual schools, created or restored by Charlemagne, became the means of preserving that small portion of learning which continued to exist."

Mosheim, describing the Church of the sixth century, further tells us that in the cathedral schools the clerical teacher "instructed the youth in the seven liberal arts, as a preparation for the study of the sacred books;" and that in the monasteries "the abbot or some one of the monks instructed the children and youth that were devoted to a monastic life." These last facts verify the statement, made at the outset, that primarily instruction, whether given to lay or clerical youth, concerned itself directly or indirectly with religious propitiation: the avowed purpose, as expressed by the Council of Vaison, being to make the young "attach themselves to holy books and to know the law of God."

Subsequent centuries of wars and social derangements witnessed a decay of these ecclesiastical teaching institutions, notwithstanding efforts from time to time made by popes and bishops to reinvigorate them. But, as was to be expected, when there began to arise lay teachers, there arose clerical resistance. Then, as always, the priestly class disliked to see the instruction of the young falling into other hands. In France, for example, the Chancellor of Ste. Geneviève, who granted licenses to teach at the Paris University, used his power sometimes to exclude able men, sometimes to extort money, and had repeatedly to be restrained by papal injunctions. So, too, was it in Germany.

"All the professorial posts in the Universities were in the hands of the clergy, until the end of the fifteenth, and even into the sixteenth, century."

In Heidelberg, 1482, "a layman was for the first time, after a severe struggle, allowed to become a professor of medicine."

"The general admission of lay professors to clerical offices did not take place until 1553."

Our own country presents like evidences. In old English days "parish churches were often used as schools," says Pearson. And, according to Sharon Turner,—

"The clergy were the preceptors of those who sought to learn. . . to them the moral and intellectual education of the age was intrusted. . . . Thus the Irish monk Maildurf, who settled at Malmesbury. . . took scholars to earn subsistence."

So it was, too, in subsequent days. We read in the same two authors that after the Conquest—

"The numerous clergy scattered up and down through England had a