PREFACE
Education in Gaul during the fourth and fifth centuries after Christ has curiously escaped the makers of books. Yet it has more than one claim to notice. It was an age, like our own, of transition, and we see education passing through the last stage of official paganism in the Western Empire, and entering into the Christian era. Movements and counter-movements (which have a considerable measure of modern interest) pass before our eyes. For behind the shifting scenes of Roman and Barbarian, Pagan and Christian, there is a continuity which reaches to the present day. That continuity is the immense fabric of Roman Education which passed through the Church into the Middle Ages, and shaped the thought and culture of modern nations.
Gaul raises the problem of complex nationality. The old Celtic population, overlaid with Roman civilization, penetrated by Germanic tribes—Goths, Franks, Burgundians—is about to enter on a new period of history, and the blending of these elements has an influence on education which is interesting. Nations, when they become great, are prone to emphasize the purity of their race and language. They exclude foreign words and customs whenever they can, they raise the boast of a pure and unique culture. It is an empty boast. Thousands of ‘foreign’ elements have mingled to make them what they are, and unconsciously they daily absorb fresh elements that are ‘foreign’. But so far do they forget this, that sometimes pride, and the ignorance that is born of exclusiveness, lead them to impose their culture on others by force. Complex nationality, while it is in the making, means friction; but once that stage is passed the result is almost always a richer and better culture. So it was with Gaul. Her position as leader of the Roman Empire in education was undoubtedly due largely to her complexity.
At the same time, there is the problem of recognition. The elements of the complex whole cannot be kept from discord unless there is recognition of their individuality. Not till then will they make their positive contribution to enrich the State. How far the Romans recognized the individuality of those whom they governed, and with what results, is a question of interest for modern political thought. And the effect of such recognition (or the lack thereof) on the school curriculum, for example, in the teaching of history, is a pertinent problem for those who live in countries where there is a dual nationality.
It has been borne in upon us that the teaching of history is all-important. Everybody is seeking to find the ultimate causes of the war, and one of the most far-reaching answers that can be given is that history has been wrongly taught. The fireworks of history have been displayed to us, but the permanent forces behind events, the thought and psychology of nations, the human interest of character, in fine, all that truly makes for understanding and progress has been neglected. It was neglected in the Roman Empire, and it is instructive to note the results.
To a South African the situation in Gaul at this time is particularly illuminating. After all the troubles (still fresh in our memory) attaching to the solution of the language question, it is almost startling to note a similar situation in Roman Gaul. There the question of teaching Greek and Latin was not so acute as in South Africa, for Greek was dying out, and had no racial background, but the effects of a wrong handling of ‘the second language’ are as unmistakable and instructive. It is not time or place or circumstance that matters in educational method so much as psychology—a study that is only beginning to come into its heritage—and the psychology of the child is the same yesterday as to-day.
To us the language question in Gaul is interesting from another point of view too. The Romans did the world a great service by keeping their language uniform. This they did chiefly by means of their law, which was understood throughout the Roman world, and by means of their professors, who, like the Panegyrists in Gaul during the fourth century A.D., handed down a language which remained for centuries very similar to that of Cicero. But a time came when this attempt failed. When Christian teaching became strong and widespread, it was found that to the bulk of the people the polished rhetoric of the schools had become strange. In order to touch the understanding of their flock, the bishops were constrained (with sore travail, for at heart they were proud of their pagan education) to discard the style of speech in which they had been trained, and to come closer to the idiom of the masses. So in South Africa it has been officially recognized that the language of Holland has become strange to the school-child, and that in order to reach his intelligence we must use the offspring of Holland Dutch, Afrikaans—moulded, since 1652, to a vastly different climate, scenery, and national character. How this attempt is to be made, and what its danger is in the direction of formlessness—these are questions for which something may be gleaned from a consideration of the Latin of the Fathers. Art is needed and scientific interest. For lack of these the vivid language of Tertullian and the early Fathers degenerated later into formlessness. And our problem to-day is to watch over the form that is taking shape, make clear its scientific basis, and beautify it by spreading an interest in Art.
Finally, the Gauls witnessed the breaking up of governments and its consequent disorders. They were faced, as we are, by the problem of ‘Bolshevism’, though in their case it merely took the shape of the marauding Vargi and the Bagaudae. The influence of a disordered society on education was felt then as now. With us there are some who, like Avitus of Vienne, in malis ferventibus, despair of any end to the troubles which throng around them, while the wiser sort will rather urge with the author of the De Providentia Dei that, despite disappointments,
‘Invictum deceat studiis servare vigorem’.
This study has been based, as far as possible, directly on original authorities, who have been neglected largely because they fall in a period which the pedant has called ‘unclassical’ and which is yet not definitely ‘modern’. I have found many statements in modern books relating to this period which need modification or correcting, and I feel sure that this essay has merely touched a field that deserves more attention than it has hitherto received.
Among those to whom my gratitude is due, I wish to mention particularly my tutor, Professor E. W. Watson of Christ Church, Professor J. A. Smith of Magdalen, Professor Percy Gardner, who read the archaeological part, Professor Gilbert Murray, whose suggestions were helpful and inspiring, and the examiners of this essay when it was put forward as a thesis at Oxford. Professor Haverfield and Mr. R. L. Poole, through whose influence it was accepted for publication. Since then the material has been considerably revised and amplified. For help in the dreary work of reading the proofs, I must record my thanks to my old and trusted guide, Professor William Ritchie, of the University of Cape Town, and to my wife. And there is one whose memory I must always cherish, in this as in other spheres, with the deepest affection and gratitude—my former tutor, the late Mr. H. J. Cunningham of Worcester. His encouragement and counsel were invaluable, and his readiness to assist one of the pleasantest memories of my work.
I wish to acknowledge the courtesy of the Rhodes Trustees in allowing me to use part of my scholarship to defray the expenses of publication; and I must not fail also to put on record the financial assistance given me by the Government Research Grant Board of the Union of South Africa. Such assistance is not inappropriate for a book that deals so largely with State support of education, and it is the more pleasing in view of the growing interest of the Government in research.
Finally, I must mention the uniform courtesy and attention that I have received from the Clarendon Press authorities. To Mr. C. E. Freeman I owe a particular debt of gratitude for many interesting suggestions.
THEODORE HAARHOFF.
University of Cape Town.
October 23, 1919.