The History of Education / Educational Practice and Progress Considered as a Phase of the Development and Spread of Western Civilization

by Ellwood Patterson Cubberley

II. THE QUADRIVIUM

The trivial studies, in most cases before the thirteenth century, sufficed to prepare for the study of theology, though those few who desired to prepare thoroughly also studied the subjects of the quadrivium. In schools not offering instruction in this advanced group some of the elements of its four studies were often taught from the textbooks in use for the Trivium. Particularly was this the case during the early Middle Ages, when the knowledge of arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy possessed by western Europe was exceedingly small. No regular order in the study of the subjects of this group was followed.

4. ARITHMETIC. Naturally little could be done in this subject as long as the Roman system of notation was in use (see footnote, i, p. 64), and the Arabic notation was not known in western Christian Europe until the beginning of the thirteenth century, and was not much used for two or three centuries later. So far as arithmetic was taught before that time, it was but little in advance of that given to novitiates in the monasteries, except that much attention was devoted to an absurd study of the properties of numbers, [8] and to the uses of arithmetic in determining church days, calculating the date of Easter, and interpreting passages in the Scriptures involving measurements (R. 74 d). The textbook by Rhabanus Maurus On Reckoning, issued in 820, is largely in dialogue (catechetical) form, and is devoted to describing the properties of numbers, "odd, even, perfect, imperfect, composite, plane, solid, cardinal, ordinal, adverbial, distributive, multiple, denunciative, etc."; to pointing out the scriptural significance of number; [9] and to an elaborate explanation of finger reckoning, after the old Roman plan (see p. 65). Near the end of the tenth century Gerbert, [10] afterwards Pope Sylvester II, devised a simple abacus-form for expressing numbers, simple enough in itself, but regarded as wonderful in its day. This greatly simplified calculation, and made work with large numbers possible. He also devised an easier form for large divisions.

Gerbert's form for expressing numbers may be shown from the following simple sum in addition:

Arabic Form Roman Form Gerbert's Form
M C X I

1204 MCCIV I II IV
538 DXXXVIII V III VIII
2455 MMCCCCLV II IV V V
619 DCXIX VI I IX
——- ————- —————————-
4816 MMMMDCCCXVI IV VIII I VI

No study of arithmetic of importance was possible, however, until the introduction of Arabic notation and the use of the zero.

5. GEOMETRY. This study consisted almost entirely of geography and reasoning as to geometrical forms until the tenth century, when Boethius' work on Geometry, containing some extracts from Euclid, was discovered by Gerbert. The geography of Europe, Asia, and Africa also was studied, as treated in the textbooks of the time, and a little about plants and animals as well was introduced. The nature of the geographic instruction may be inferred from Figure 46, which reproduces one of the best world maps of the day. The main geographical features of the known world can be made out from this, but many of the mediaeval maps are utterly unintelligible.

To illustrate the reasoning as to geometrical forms which preceded the finding of Euclid we quote from Maurus, who says that the science of geometry "found realization also at the building of the tabernacle and the temple; and that the same measuring rod, circles, spheres, hemispheres, quadrangles, and other figures were employed. The knowledge of all this brings to him, who is occupied with it, no small gain for his spiritual culture." (R. 74 e). After Gerbert's time some geometry proper and the elements of land surveying were introduced. The real study of geometry in Europe, however, dates from the twelfth century, when Euclid was translated into Latin from the Arabic.

6. ASTRONOMY. In astronomy the chief purpose of the instruction was to explain the seasons and the motions of the planets, to set forth the wonders of the visible creation, and to enable the priests "to fix the time of Easter and all other festivals and holy days, and to announce to the congregation the proper celebration of them." (R. 74 g).

[Illustration: FIG. 46. AN ANGLO-SAXON MAP OF THE WORLD
(From a tenth-century map in the British Museum)

This is one of the better maps of the period. Note the mixture of Biblical and classical geography (Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Pillars of Hercules), and the animal life (lion) introduced in the upper corner. The Mediterranean Sea in the center, the Greek islands, the British isles, the Italian peninsula, the Nile, and the northern African coast are easily recognized. Western Europe, the best-known part of the world at that time, is very poorly done.]

Even after Ptolemy's Mechanism of the Heavens (p. 49) and Aristotle's On the Heavens had filtered across the Pyrenees from the Saracens, in the eleventh century, the Ptolemaic theory of a flat earth located at the center of the heavenly bodies and around which they all revolved, while a very pleasing theological conception, was absolutely fatal to any instruction in astronomy worth while and to any astronomical advance. All mediaeval astronomy, too, was saturated with astrology, as the selection on the motion of the heavenly bodies reproduced from Bartholomew Anglicus shows (R. 77 b), and the supernatural was invoked to explain such phenomena as meteors, comets, and eclipses. The Copernican theory of the motion of the heavenly bodies was not published until 1543, and all our modern ideas date from that time.

Physics was often taught as a part of the instruction in astronomy, and consisted of lessons on the properties of matter (R. 77 a) and some of the simple principles of dynamics. Little else of what we to-day know as physics was then known.

7. MUSIC. Unlike the other studies of the Quadrivium, the instruction in music was quite extensive, and from early times a good course in musical theory was taught (R. 74 f). Boethius' De Musica, written at the beginning of the sixth century, was the text used. Music entered into so many activities of the Church that much naturally was made of it. The organ, too, is an old instrument, going back to the second century B.C., and the organ with a keyboard to the close of the eleventh century. This instrument added much to the value of the music course, and the hymns composed by Christian musicians form an important part of our musical heritage. [11] The cathedral school at Metz and the monastery at Saint Gall became famous as musical centers, and of the work of one of the teachers of music at Saint Gall (Notker) it was written by his biographer: "Through different hymns, sequences, tropes, and litanies, through different songs and melodies as well as through ecclesiastical science, the pupils of this man made the church of God famous not merely in Alemannia, but everywhere from sea to sea."

[Illustration: FIG. 47. AN EARLY CHURCH MUSICIAN
(From a fourteenth-century manuscript, now in the British Museum)]

THE GREAT TEXTBOOKS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. While the textbooks mentioned under the description of each of the Liberal Arts formed the basis of the instruction given, most of the instruction before the twelfth century was not given from editions of the original works, but from abridged compendiums. Six of these were so famous and so widely used that each deserves a few words of description.

1. The Marriage of Mercury and Philology, written by Martianus Capella, between 410 and 427 A.D., was the first of the five great mediaeval textbooks. Mercury, desiring to marry, finally settles on the learned maiden Philology, and the seven bridesmaids—Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric, Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy, and Music—enter in turn at the ceremony and tell who they are and what they represent. The speeches of the seven maidens summarized the ancient learning in each subject. This textbook was more widely used during the Middle Ages than any other book.

2. Boethius (475-524) was another important mediaeval textbook writer, having prepared textbooks on dialectic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and ethics. Nearly all of what the Middle Ages knew of Aristotle's Logic and Ethics, and of the writings of Plato, were contained in the texts he wrote. His De Musica was used in the universities as a textbook until near the middle of the eighteenth century.

3. Cassiodorus [12] (c. 490-585), in his On the Liberal Arts and Sciences, prepared a digest of each of the Seven Liberal Arts for monastic use, fixing the number at seven by scriptural authority. [13]

4. Isidore, Bishop of Seville (c. 570-636), under the title of Etymologies or Origines, prepared an encyclopaedia of the ancient learning for the use of the monks and clergy which was intended to be a summary of all knowledge worth knowing. While he drew his knowledge from the writings of the Greeks and Romans, with many of which he was familiar, contrary to the attitude of Cassiodorus he forbade the monks and clergy to make any use of them whatever. Cassiodorus was still in part a Roman; Isidore was a full mediaeval.

5. Alcuin, a learned scholar of the eighth century, whom we met in the preceding chapter (p. 140), wrote treatises on the studies of the Trivium and on astronomy which were used in many schools in Frankland.

6. Maurus. In 819 the learned monk of Fulda, Rhabanus Maurus, a pupil of Alcuin, issued his volume On the Instruction of the Clergy, in the third part of which he describes the uses and the subject-matter of each of the Arts (R. 74). He also wrote texts on grammar and astronomy, and in 844 issued an encyclopaedia, De Universo, based largely on the work of Isidore, but supplemented from other sources.

These were the great textbooks for the study of the Trivium and the Quadrivium throughout all the early Middle Ages. Considering that they were in manuscript form and were in one volume, [14] their extent and scope can be imagined. The teacher usually had or had access to a copy, though even a teacher's books in that day were few in number (R. 78). Pupils had no books at all. These "great" texts were composed of brief extracts, bits of miscellaneous information, and lists of names. Their style was uninviting. They were at best a mere shell, compared with the Greek and Roman knowledge which had been lost. Some of these books were in question-and-answer (catechetical) form. Their purpose was not to stimulate thinking, but to transmit that modicum of secular knowledge needed for the service of the Church and as a preparation for the study of the theological writings. For nearly eight hundred years education was static, the only purpose of instruction being to transmit to the next generation what the preceding one had known. For such a period such textbooks answered the purpose fairly well.

3. Training of the nobility

TENTH-CENTURY CONDITIONS. Following the death of Charlemagne and the break-up of the empire held together by him, a period of organized anarchy followed in western Europe. Authority broke down more completely than before, and Europe, for protection, was forced to organize itself into a great number of small defensive groups. Serfs, [15] freemen lacking land, and small landowners alike came to depend on some nobleman for protection, and this nobleman in turn upon some lord or overlord. For this protection military service was rendered in return. The lord lived in his castle, and the peasantry worked his land and supported him, fighting his battles if the need arose. This condition of society was known as feudalism, and the feudal relations of lord and vassal came to be the prevailing governmental organization of the period. Feudalism was at best an organized anarchy, suited to rude and barbarous times, but so well was it adapted to existing conditions that it became the prevailing form of government, and continued as such until a better order of society could be evolved. With the invention of gunpowder, the rise of cities and industries, the evolution of modern States by the consolidation of numbers of these feudal governments, and the establishment of order and civilization, feudalism passed out with the passing of the conditions which gave rise to it. From the end of the ninth to the middle of the thirteenth centuries it was the dominant form of government.

The life of the nobility under the feudal régime gave a certain picturesqueness to what was otherwise an age of lawlessness and disorder. The chief occupation of a noble was fighting, either in his own quarrel or that of his overlord. It is hard for us to-day to realize how much fighting went on then. Much was said about "honor," but quarrels were easily started, and oaths were poorly kept. It was a day of personal feuds and private warfare, and every noble thought it his right to wage war on his neighbor at any time, without asking the consent of any one. [16] As a preparation for actual warfare a series of mimic encounters, known as tournaments, were held, in which it often happened that knights were killed. In these encounters mounted knights charged one another with spear and lance, performing feats similar to those of actual warfare. This was the great amusement of the period, compared with which the German duel, the Mexican bullfight, or the American game of football are mild sports. The other diversions of the knights and nobles were hunting, hawking, feasting, drinking, making love, minstrelsy, and chess. Intellectual ability formed no part of their accomplishments, and a knowledge of reading and writing was commonly regarded as effeminate.

To take this carousing, fighting, pillaging, ravaging, destructive, and murderous instinct, so strong by nature among the Germanic tribes, and refine it and in time use it to some better purpose, and in so doing to increasingly civilize these Germanic lords and overlords, was the problem which faced the Church and all interested in establishing an orderly society in Europe. As a means of checking this outlawry the Church established and tried to enforce the "Truce of God" (R. 79), and as a partial means of educating the nobility to some better conception of a purpose in life the Church aided in the development of the education of chivalry, the first secular form of education in western Europe since the days of Rome, and added its sanction to it after it arose.

THE EDUCATION OF CHIVALRY. This form of education was an evolution. It began during the latter part of the ninth century and the early part of the tenth, reached its maximum greatness during the period of the Crusades (twelfth century), and passed out of existence by the sixteenth. The period of the Crusades was the heroic age of chivalry. The system of education which gradually developed for the children of the nobility may be briefly described as follows:

1. Page. Up to the age of seven or eight the youth was trained at home, by his mother. He played to develop strength, was taught the meaning of obedience, trained in politeness and courtesy, and his religious education was begun. After this, usually at seven, he was sent to the court of some other noble, usually his father's superior in the feudal scale, though in case of kings and feudal lords of large importance the children remained at home and were trained in the palace school. From seven to fourteen the boy was known as a page. He was in particular attached to some lady, who supervised his education in religion, music, courtesy, gallantry, the etiquette of love and honor, and taught him to play chess and other games. He was usually taught to read and write the vernacular language, and was sometimes given a little instruction in reading Latin. [17] To the lord he rendered much personal service such as messenger, servant at meals, and attention to guests. By the men he was trained in running, boxing, wrestling, riding, swimming, and the use of light weapons.

2. Squire. At fourteen or fifteen he became a squire. While continuing to serve his lady, with whom he was still in company, and continuing to render personal service in the castle, the squire became in particular the personal servant and bodyguard of the lord or knight. He was in a sense a valet for him, making his bed, caring for his clothes, helping him to dress, and looking after him at night and when sick. He also groomed his horse, looked after his weapons, and attended and protected him on the field of combat or in battle. He himself learned to hunt, to handle shield and spear, to ride in armor, to meet his opponent, and to fight with sword and battle-axe. As he approached the age of twenty-one, he chose his lady- love, who was older than he and who might be married, to whom he swore ever to be devoted, even though he married some one else. He also learned to rhyme, [18] to make songs, sing, dance, play the harp, and observe the ceremonials of the Church. Girls were given this instruction along with the boys, but naturally their training placed its emphasis upon household duties, service, good manners, conversational ability, music, and religion.

3. Knight. At twenty-one the boy was knighted, and of this the Church made an impressive ceremonial. After fasting, confession, a night of vigil in armor spent at the altar in holy meditation, and communion in the morning, the ceremony of dubbing the squire a knight took place in the presence of the court. He gave his sword to the priest, who blest it upon the altar. He then took the oath "to defend the Church, to attack the wicked, to respect the priesthood, to protect women and the poor, to preserve the country in tranquillity, and to shed his blood, even to its last drop, in behalf of his brethren." The priest then returned him the sword which he had blessed, charging him "to protect the widows and orphans, to restore and preserve the desolate, to revenge the wronged, and to confirm the virtuous." He then knelt before his lord, who, drawing his own sword and holding it over him, said: "In the name of God, of our Lady, of thy patron Saint, and of Saint Michael and Saint George, I dub thee knight; be brave (touching him with the sword on one shoulder), be bold (on the other shoulder), be loyal (on the head)."

[Illustration: FIG. 48. A SQUIRE BEING KNIGHTED (From an old manuscript)]

THE CHIVALRIC IDEALS. Such, briefly stated, was the education of chivalry. The cathedral and monastery schools not meeting the needs of the nobility, the castle school was evolved. There was little that was intellectual about the training given—few books, and no training in Latin. Instead, the native language was emphasized, and squires in England frequently learned to speak French. It was essentially an education for secular ends, and prepared not only for active participation in the feuds and warfare of the time, but also for the Seven Perfections of the Middle Ages: (1) Riding, (2) Swimming, (3) Archery, (4) Fencing, (5) Hunting, (6) Whist or Chess, and (7) Rhyming. It also represents the first type of schooling in the Middle Ages designed to prepare for life here, rather than hereafter. For the nobility it was a discipline, just as the Seven Liberal Arts was a discipline for the monks and clergy. Out of it later on was evolved the education of a gentleman as distinct from that of a scholar.

That such training had a civilizing effect on the nobility of the time cannot be doubted. Through it the Church exercised a restraining and civilizing influence on a rude, quarrelsome, and impetuous people, who resented restraints and who had no use for intellectual discipline. It developed the ability to work together for common ends, personal loyalty, and a sense of honor in an age when these were much-needed traits, and the ideal of a life of regulated service in place of one of lawless gratification was set up. What monasticism had done for the religious life in dignifying labor and service, chivalry did for secular life. The Ten Commandments of chivalry, (1) to pray, (2) to avoid sin, (3) to defend the Church, (4) to protect widows and orphans, (5) to travel, (6) to wage loyal war, (7) to fight for his Lady, (8) to defend the right, (9) to love his God, and (10) to listen to good and true men, while not often followed, were valuable precepts to uphold in that age and time. In the great Crusades movement of the twelfth century the Church consecrated the military prowess and restless energy of the nobility to her service, but after this wave had passed chivalry became formal and stilted and rapidly declined in importance (R. 80).

[Illustration: FIG. 49. A KNIGHT OF THE TIME OF THE FIRST CRUSADE
(From a manuscript in the British Museum)]

4. Professional study

As the one professional study of the entire early Middle-Age period, and the one study which absorbed the intellectual energy of the one learned class, the evolution of the study of Theology possesses particular interest for us.

THE STUDY OF THEOLOGY. During the earlier part of the period under consideration the preparatory study necessary for service in the Church was small, and very elementary in character. The elements of reading, writing, reckoning, and music, as taught to oblati in the monasteries, sufficed. As knowledge increased a little the study of grammar at first, and later all the studies of the Trivium came to be common as preparatory study, while those who made the best preparation added the subjects of the Quadrivium. Ethics, or metaphysics, taught largely from the digest of Aristotle's Ethics prepared in the sixth century by Boethius, was the text for this study until about 1200, when Aristotle's Metaphysics, Physics, Psychology, and Ethics were re-introduced into Europe from Saracen sources (R. 87).

The theological course proper experienced a similar development. At first, as we saw in chapter V, there were but few principles of belief, and the church organization was exceedingly simple. In 325 A.D. the Nicene Creed was formulated (p. 96), and the first twenty canons (rules) adopted for the government of the clergy. With the translation of the Bible into the Latin language (Vulgate, fourth century), the writings of the early Latin Fathers, and additional canons and expressions of belief adopted at subsequent church councils, an increasing amount relating to belief, church organization, and pastoral duties needed to be imparted to new members of the clergy. Still, up to the eleventh century at least, the theological course remained quite meager. In a tenth-century account the following description of the theological course of the time is given: [19]

1. Elements of grammar and the first part of Donatus.
2. Repeated readings of the Old and New Testaments.
3. Mass prayers.
4. Rules of the Church as to time reckoning.
5. Decrees of the Church Councils.
6. Rules of penance.
7. Prescriptions for church services.
8. Worldly laws.
9. Collections of homilies (sermons).
10. Tractates on the Epistles and Gospels.
11. Lives of the Saints.
12. Church music.

It will be seen from this tenth-century course of theological study that it was based on reading, writing, and reckoning, and a little music as preparatory studies; that it began with the first of the subjects of the Trivium, which was studied only in part; and that its purpose was to impart needed information as to dogma, church practices, canon (church) law, and such civil (worldly) law as would be needed by the priest in discharging his functions as the notary and lawyer of the age. There is no suggestion of the study of Theology as a science, based on evidences, logic, and ethics. Such study was not then known, and would not have been tolerated. There were no other professions to study for.

SYSTEMATIC INSTRUCTION BEGINS. About 1145 Peter the Lombard published his Book of Sentences, and this worked a revolution in the teaching of the subject. In topics, arrangement, and method of treatment the book marked a great advance, and became the standard textbook in Theology for a long time. It did much to change the study of Theology from dogmas to a scientific subject, and made possible schools of Theology in the universities now about to arise. In the thirteenth century it was made the official textbook at both the universities of Oxford and Paris. The studies of dialectic and ethics were raised to a new plane of importance by the publication of this book.

By the close of the twelfth century the interest of the Church in a better-trained clergy had grown to such an extent that theological instruction was ordered established wherever there was an Archbishop. In a decree issued by Pope Innocent III and the General Council it was ordered:

In every cathedral or other church of sufficient means, a master ought to be elected by the prelate or chapter, and the income of a prebend assigned to him, and in every metropolitan church a theologian also ought to be elected. And if the church is not rich enough to provide a grammarian and a theologian, it shall provide for the theologian from the revenues of his church, and cause provision to be made for the grammarian in some church of his city or diocese. [20]

We also, in the early thirteenth century, find bishops enforcing theological training on future priests by orders of which the following is a type:

Hugh of Scawby, clerk, presented by Nigel Costentin to the church of (Potter) Hanworth, was admitted and canonically instituted in it as parson, on condition that he comes to the next orders to be ordained subdeacon. But on account of the insufficiency of his grammar, the lord bishop ordered him on pain of loss of his benefice to attend school. And the Dean of Wyville was ordered to induct him into corporal possession of the said church in form aforesaid, and to inform the lord bishop if he does not attend school. [21]

5. Characteristics of mediaeval education

FOUNDATIONS LAID FOR A NEW ORDER. The education which we have just described covers the period from the time of the downfall of Rome to the twelfth or the thirteenth century. It represents what the Church evolved to replace that which it and the barbarians had destroyed. Meager as it still was, after seven or eight centuries of effort, it nevertheless presents certain clearly marked lines of development. The beginnings of a new Christian civilization among the tribes which had invaded and overrun the old Roman Empire are evident, and, toward the latter part of the Middle Ages, we note the development of a number of centers of learning (R. 71) and the beginnings of that specialization of knowledge (church doctrine, classical learning, music, logic and ethics, theology), at different church and monastery schools, which promised much for the future of learning. We also notice, and will see the same evidence in the following chapter, the beginnings of a class of scholarly men, though the scholarship is very limited in scope and along lines thoroughly approved by the Church.

In education proper, in the sense that we understand it, the schools provided were still for a very limited class, and secondary rather than elementary in nature. They were intended to meet the needs of an institution rather than of a people, and to prepare those who studied in them for service to that institution. That institution, too, had concentrated its efforts on preparing its members for life in another world, and not for life or service in this. There were as yet no independent schools or scholars, the monks and clergy represented the one learned class, Theology was the one professional study, the ability to read and write was not regarded by noble or commoner as of any particular importance, and all book knowledge was in a language which the people did not understand when they heard it and could not read. Society was as yet composed of three classes—feudal warriors, who spent their time in amusements or fighting, and who had evolved a form of knightly training for their children; privileged priests and monks and nuns, who controlled all book learning and opportunities for professional advancement; and the great mass of working peasants, engaged chiefly in agriculture, and belonging to and helping to fight the battles of their protecting lord.

For these peasants there was as yet no education aside from what the Church gave through her watchful oversight and her religious services (R. 81), and but little leisure, freedom, wealth, security, or economic need to make such education possible or desirable. Moreover, the other-worldly attitude of the Church made such education seem unnecessary. It was still the education of a few for institutional purposes, though here and there, by the close of the twelfth century, the Church was beginning to urge its members to provide some education for their children (R. 82), and the world was at last getting ready for the evolution of the independent scholar, and soon would be ready for the evolution of schools to meet secular needs.

REPRESSIVE ATTITUDE OF THE MEDIAEVAL CHURCH. The great work of the Church during this period, as we see it to-day, was to assimilate and sufficiently civilize the barbarians to make possible a new civilization, based on knowledge and reason rather than force. To this end the Church had interposed her authority against barbarian force, and had slowly won the contest. Almost of necessity the Church had been compelled to insist upon her way, and this type of absolutism in church government had been extended to most other matters. The Bible, or rather the interpretations of it which church councils, popes, bishops, and theological writers had made, became authoritative, and disobedience or doubt became sinful in the eyes of the Church. [22] The Scriptures were made the authority for everything, and interpretations the most fantastic were made of scriptural verses. Unquestioning belief was extended to many other matters, with the result that tales the most wonderful were recounted and believed. To question, to doubt, to disbelieve—these were among the deadly sins of the early Middle Ages. This attitude of mind undoubtedly had its value in assimilating and civilizing the barbarians, and probably was a necessity at the time, but it was bad for the future of the Church as an institution, and utterly opposed to scientific inquiry and intellectual progress. Monroe well expresses the situation which came to exist when he says:

The validity of any statement, the actuality of any alleged instance, came to be determined, not by any application of rationalistic principle, not by inherent plausibility, not by actual inquiry into the facts of the case, but by its agreement with religious feelings or beliefs, its effect in furthering the influence of the Church or the reputation of a saint—in general, by its relationship to matters of faith. Thus it happens that the chronicles of the monks and the lives of the saints, charming and interesting as they are in their naïveté, their simplicity, their trustful credulity, and their pictures of a life and an attitude of mind so remote from ours, are filled with incidents given as facts that test the greatest faith, strain the most vivid imagination, and shock that innate respect for reality, that it is the purpose of modern education to inculcate. [23]

This authoritative and repressive attitude of the Church expressed itself in many ways. The teaching of the period is an excellent example of this influence. The instruction in the so-called Seven Liberal Arts remained unchanged throughout a period of half a dozen centuries—so much accumulated knowledge passed on as a legacy to succeeding generations. It represented mere instruction; not education. As a recent writer has well expressed it, the whole knowledge and culture contained in the Seven Liberal Arts remained "like a substance in suspension in a medium incapable of absorbing it; unchanged throughout the whole mediaeval period." Inquiry or doubt in religious matters was not tolerated, and scientific inquiry and investigation ceased to exist. The notable scientific advances of the Greeks, their literature and philosophy, and particularly their genius for free inquiry and investigation, no longer influenced a world dominated by an institution preparing its children only for life in a world to come. Not until the world could shake off this mediaeval attitude toward scientific inquiry and make possible honest doubt was any real intellectual progress possible. In a rough, general way the turn in the tide came about the beginning of the twelfth century, and for the next five centuries the Church was increasingly busy trying, like King Canute of old, to stop the waves of free inquiry and scientific doubt from rising higher against the bulwarks it had erected.

THE MEDIAEVAL EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. The educational system which the Church had developed by 1200 continued unchanged in its essential features until after the great awakening known as the Revival of Learning, or Renaissance. This system we have just sketched. For instruction in the elements of learning we have the inner and outer monastery and convent schools, and, in connection with the churches, song schools, and chantry or stipendary schools. In these last we have the beginnings of the parish school for instruction in the elements of learning and the fundamentals of faith for the children of the faithful. In the monasteries, convents, and in connection with the cathedral churches we have the secondary instruction fairly well organized with the Trivium and the Quadrivium as the basis. At the close of the period under consideration in this chapter a few privately endowed grammar schools were just beginning to be founded to supplement the work of the cathedral schools (RS. 141-143). In some of the inner monastery schools and a few of the cathedral schools we also have the beginnings of higher instruction, with theology as the one professional subject and the one learned career.

[Illustration: FIG. 50. EVOLUTION OF EDUCATION DURING THE EARLY MIDDLE
AGES
The relative weight of the lines indicates approximate development. The
lines along which educational evolution took place in the later Middle
Ages are here clearly marked out.]

All these schools, too, were completely under the control of the Church. There were no private schools or teachers before about 1200. Only the chivalric education was under the control of princes or kings, and even this the Church kept under its supervision. The Church was still the State, to a large degree, and the Church, unlike Greece or Rome, took the education of the young upon itself as one of its most important functions. The schools taught what the Church approved, and the instruction was for religious and church ends. The monks who gave instruction in the monasteries were responsible to the Abbot, who was in turn responsible to the head of the order and through him to the Pope at Rome. Similarly the scholasticus in the cathedral school and the precentor in the song school were both responsible to the Bishop, and again through Archbishop and Cardinal to the Pope.

THE FIRST TEACHER'S CERTIFICATES AND SCHOOL SUPERVISION. Toward the latter part of the period under consideration in this chapter an interesting development in church school administration took place. As the cathedral and song schools increased assistant teachers were needed, and the scholasticus and precentor gradually withdrew from instruction and became the supervisors of instruction, or rather the principals of their respective schools. As song or parish schools were established in the parishes of the diocese teachers for these were needed, and the scholasticus and precentor extended their authority and supervision over these, just as the Bishop had done much earlier (p. 97) over the training and appointment of priests. By 1150 we have, clearly evolved, the system of central supervision of the training of all teachers in the diocese through the issuing, for the first time in Europe, of licenses to teach (R. 83). The system was finally put into legal form by a decree adopted by a general council of the Church at Rome, in 1179, which required that the scholasticus "should have authority to superintend all the schoolmasters of the diocese and grant them licenses without which none should presume to teach," and that "nothing be exacted for licenses to teach" issued by him, thus stopping the charging of fees for their issuance. The precentor, in a similar manner, claimed and often secured supervision of all elementary, and especially all song-school instruction. Teachers were also required to take an oath of fealty and obedience (R. 84 b).

As a result of centuries of evolution we thus find, by 1200, a limited but powerful church school system, with centralized control and supervision of instruction, diocesan licenses to teach, and a curriculum adapted to the needs of the institution in control of the schools. We also note the beginnings of secular instruction in the training of the nobility for life's service, though even this is approved and sanctioned by the Church. The centralized religious control thus established continued until the nineteenth century, and still exists to a more or less important degree in the school systems of Italy, the old Austro-Hungarian States, Germany, England, and some other western nations. As we shall see later on, one of the big battles in the process of developing state school systems has come through the attempt of the State to substitute its own organization for this religious monopoly of instruction.