Papacy’s tyranny of theology over thought
Mind is a wonderful thing, the most profound study of the universe. It was designed to be free, to grasp the mighty laws of its own Creator, and a means was supplied by which that very thing could be done: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, ... but let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.”
In order to maintain the supremacy thus gained, it was necessary for the education of the young to lie wholly within the control of the papal hierarchy; and it is with their educational institutions and educational methods that we have now to deal. It is hoped that the study of the Dark Ages will so accentuate the importance of Protestants’ maintaining their own schools, that the tendency now so strong in the other direction may receive a check. The education begun in the schools of the early Christians has been followed into the monastic institutions of the Middle Ages. The life and power of Christianity departed, and form alone remained. It has been said that “paganism in the garb of Christianity walked into the church,” and it can truthfully be added that it gained admittance through the schools.
Papal primary schools
In order to trace carefully the education offered by the papacy,—and that comprised all that was then offered,—the first quotations are concerning primary instruction. Laurie says: “Instruction began about the age of seven. The alphabet, written on tables or leaves, was learned by heart by the children, then syllables and words. The first reading-book was the Latin psalter, and this was read again and again until it could be said by heart; and numerous priests, and even monks, were content all their lives with the mere sound of Latin words, which they could both read and recite, but did not understand.”[83]
Prominence of memory work
Note carefully that work for these children was almost wholly memory work. They were to learn by heart and to repeat without understanding. This was the first step in that great system which binds the minds of the masses to the will of one sovereign mind.
“Writing followed.” “The elements of arithmetic were also taught, but merely with a view to the calculation of church days and festivals.”[84]
Early use of Latin
“Latin was begun very early (apparently immediately after the psaltery was known), with the learning by heart of declensions and conjugations and lists of vocables. The rule was to use Latin in the school in conversing.... In the eleventh century, if not earlier, Latin conversation-books ... were not only read, but, like everything else, learned by heart.”[85] Their method of studying Latin emphasizes the thought of the formal abstract way of teaching, which tended to conservatism and mental subjection. “Memory is the faculty that subordinates the present under the past, and its extensive training develops a habit of mind that holds by what is prescribed, and recoils from the new and untried. In short, the educational curriculum that lays great stress on memorizing, produces a class of conservative people.”[86] The papal schools employed methods which, in themselves, in the course of a few generations would develop dependent rather than independent thinking; therefore methods are as important as the subject taught.