MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE:
We cannot close our discussion of the curriculum of Irish monastic schools without a brief reference to its limitations which are especially noteworthy in the case of mathematics and other secular sciences. While not venturing into details some writers manage to convey the impression that the scientific knowledge of the Irish monks was as profound as their knowledge of the classics. We have not found any evidence to support this view. The most that can be said in favour of the teachers of this early period is that they willingly imparted all the mathematical and scientific knowledge of their time. But the actual amount of such knowledge possessed by Western Europe prior to the tenth century was relatively small as compared with even the later Middle Ages not to speak of modern times.