The History of Pedagogy

by Gabriel Compayré

As for the flute, which the Greek philosophers also did not like, let it be so; but what shall we say of this condemnation of the harp, the instrument of David and the angels, and of religious music itself! How far we are, in common with Saint Jerome, from that complete life, from that harmonious development of all the faculties, which modern educators, Herbert Spencer, for example, present to us with reason as the ideal of education! Saint Jerome goes so far as to proscribe walking:—

“Do not let Paula be found in the ways of the world (emphatic paraphrase for streets), in the gatherings and in the company of her kindred; let her be found only in retirement.”

The ideal of Saint Jerome is a monastic and cloistered life, even in the world. But that which is graver still, that which is the fatal law of mysticism, is that Saint Jerome, after having proscribed letters, arts, and necessary and legitimate pleasures, even brings his condemnation to bear on the most honorable sentiments of the heart. The heart is human also, and everything human is evil and full of danger:

“Do not allow Paula to feel more affection for one of her companions than for others; do not allow her to speak with such a one in an undertone.” And as he held in suspicion even the affections of the family, the Doctor of the Church concludes thus:—

“Let her be educated in a cloister, where she will not know the world, where she will live as an angel, having a body but not knowing it, and where, in a word, you will be spared the care of watching over her.... If you will send us Paula, I will charge myself with being her master and nurse; I will give her my tenderest care; my old age will not prevent me from untying her tongue, and I shall be more renowned than the philosopher Aristotle, since I shall instruct, not a mortal and perishable king, but an immortal spouse of the Heavenly King.”

75. Permanent Truths.—The pious exaggerations of Saint Jerome only throw into sharper relief the justice and the excellence of some of his practical suggestions,—upon the teaching of reading, for example, or upon the necessity of emulation:—

“Put into the hands of Paula letters in wood or in ivory, and teach her the names of them. She will thus learn while playing. But it will not suffice to have her merely memorize the names of the letters, and call them in succession as they stand in the alphabet. You should often mix them, putting the last first, and the first in the middle.

“Induce her to construct words by offering her a prize, or by giving her, as a reward, what ordinarily pleases children of her age.... Let her have companions, so that the commendation she may receive may excite in her the feeling of emulation. Do not chide her for the difficulty she may have in learning. On the contrary, encourage her by commendation, and proceed in such a way that she shall be equally sensible to the pleasure of having done well, and to the pain of not having been successful.... Especially take care that she do not conceive a dislike for study that might follow her into a more advanced age.”[63]

76. Intellectual Feebleness of the Middle Age.—If the early doctors of the Church occasionally expressed some sympathy for profane letters, it is because, in their youth, before having received baptism, they had themselves attended the pagan schools. But these schools once closed, Christianity did not open others, and, after the fourth century, a profound night enveloped humanity. The labor of the Greeks and the Romans was as though it never had been. The past no longer existed. Humanity began anew. In the fifth century, Apollinaris Sidonius declares that “the young no longer study, that teachers no longer have pupils, and that learning languishes and dies.” Later, Lupus of Ferrières, the favorite of Louis the Pious and Charles the Bald, writes that the study of letters had almost ceased. In the early part of the eleventh century, the Bishop of Laon, Adalberic, asserts that “there is more than one bishop who cannot count the letters of the alphabet on his fingers.” In 1291, of all the monks in the convent of Saint Gall, there was not one who could read and write. It was so difficult to find notaries public, that acts had to be passed verbally. The barons took pride in their ignorance. Even after the efforts of the twelfth century, instruction remained a luxury for the common people; it was the privilege of the ecclesiastics, and even they did not carry it very far. The Benedictines confess that the mathematics were studied only for the purpose of calculating the date of Easter.