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

by Ellwood Patterson Cubberley

CHAPTER VII

EDUCATION DURING THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES

II. SCHOOLS ESTABLISHED AND INSTRUCTION PROVIDED

1. Elementary instruction and schools

MONASTIC AND CONVENTIONAL SCHOOLS. In the preceding chapters we found that, by the tenth century, the monasteries had developed both inner monastic schools for those intending to take the vows (oblati), and outer monastic schools for those not so intending (externi). The distinction in name was due to the fact that the oblati were from the first considered as belonging to the brotherhood, participating in the religious services and helping the monks at their work. The others were not so admitted, and in all monasteries of any size a separate building, outside the main portion of the monastery (see Figure 38), was provided for the outer school. A similar classification of instruction had been evolved for the convents.

[Illustration: FIG. 43. AN OUTER MONASTIC SCHOOL
(After an old wood engraving)]

The instruction in the inner school was meager, and in the outer school probably even more so. Reading, writing, music, simple reckoning, religious observances, and rules of conduct constituted the range of instruction. Reading was taught by the alphabet method, as among the Romans, and writing by the use of wax tablets and the stylus. Much attention was given to Latin pronunciation, as had been the practice at Rome. As Latin by this time had practically ceased to be a living tongue, outside the Church and perhaps in Central Italy, the difficulties of instruction were largely increased. The Psalter, or book of Latin psalms, was the first reading book, and this was memorized rather than read. Copy- books, usually wax, with copies expressing some scriptural injunction, were used. Music, being of so much importance in the church services, received much time and attention. In arithmetic, counting and finger reckoning, after the Roman plan, was taught. Latin was used in conversation as much as possible, some of the old lesson books much resembling conversation books of to-day in the modern languages (R. 75). Special attention seems to have been given to teaching rules of conduct to the oblati, [1] and much corporal punishment was used to facilitate learning. Up to the eleventh century this instruction, meager as it was, constituted the whole of the preparatory training necessary for the study of theology and a career in the Church. In the convents similar schools were developed, though, as stated in the last chapter, much more attention was given to the education of those not intending to take the vows.

SONG AND PARISH SCHOOLS. In the cathedral churches, and other larger non- cathedral churches, the musical part of the service was very important, and to secure boys for the choir and for other church services these churches organized what came to be known as song schools (R. 70). In these a number of promising boys were trained in the same studies and in much the same way as were boys in the monastery schools, except that much more attention was given to the musical instruction. The students in these schools were placed under the precentor (choir director) of the cathedral, or other large church, the scholasticus confining his attention to the higher or more literary instruction provided. The boys usually were given board, lodging, and instruction in return for their services as choristers. As the parish churches in the diocese also came to need boys for their services, parish schools of a similar nature were in time organized in connection with them. It was out of this need, and by a very slow and gradual evolution, that the parish school in western Europe was developed later on.

CHANTRY SCHOOLS. Still another type of elementary school, which did not arise until near the latter part of the period under consideration in this chapter, but which will be enumerated here as descriptive of a type which later became very common, came through wills, and the schools came to be known as chantry schools, or stipendary schools. Men, in dying, who felt themselves particularly in need of assistance for their misdeeds on earth, would leave a sum of money to a church to endow a priest, or sometimes two, who were to chant masses each day for the repose of their souls. Sometimes the property was left to endow a priest to say mass in honor of some special saint, and frequently of the Virgin Mary. As such priests usually felt the need for some other occupation, some of them began voluntarily to teach the elements of religion and learning to selected boys, and in time it became common for those leaving money for the prayers to stipulate in the will that the priest should also teach a school. Usually a very elementary type of school was provided, where the children were taught to know the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, the Salutation to the Virgin, certain psalms, to sign themselves rightly with the sign of the cross, and perhaps to read and write (Latin). Sometimes, on the contrary, and especially was this the case later on in England, a grammar school was ordered maintained. After the twelfth century this type of foundation (R. 73) became quite common.

2. Advanced instruction