Bacon’s criticism of education applies chiefly to the training of the friars in theology.
Thirdly, while Bacon occasionally makes bitter remarks about the present state of learning in general, it is the teaching of theology at Paris and by the friars that he has most in mind and that he especially desires to reform. Though himself a friar and master of theology, he had been trained and had then himself specialized in the three learned languages, Hebrew, Greek and Arabic, in optic and geometry, in astronomy and astrology, in alchemy and “experimental science,” and in the writings of the classical moralists. Consequently he thought that no one could be a thorough theologian who did not go through the same course of training; nay, it was enough to ruin the reputation of any supposed scholar in Bacon’s sight, if he were unacquainted with these indispensable subjects. Bacon held that it was not sufficient preparation for theology merely to study “the common sciences, such as Latin, grammar, logic, and a part of natural philosophy, and a little metaphysics.”[2119] However, it was not that he objected to these studies in themselves, nor to the ordinary university instruction in the arts course; in fact, he complains that many young friars start in to study theology at once and “presume to investigate philosophy by themselves without a teacher.”[2120] Bacon has a low opinion of the scholarship of Alexander of Hales, because his university education had been completed before the chief authorities and commentaries in natural philosophy and metaphysics had been translated. Against another friar generally regarded by the academic world as its greatest living authority Bacon brings the charge that “he never heard philosophy in the schools,” and “was not instructed nor trained in listening, reading and disputing, so that he must be ignorant of the common sciences.”[2121] Such passages show that to represent Bacon’s writings as full of “sweeping attacks” upon “the metaphysical subtleties and verbal strifes” of his age is to exaggerate his position.[2122] There are not many direct attacks upon scholastic method in his works.
His other criticisms of contemporary education.
It is true that Bacon complains of the lack of good teachers in his day, saying in the Opus Minus that he could impart to an apt pupil in four years all the knowledge that it had taken himself forty years to acquire,[2123] and in the Opus Tertium that he could do it in a half or a quarter of a year, and that he could teach a good student all the Greek and Hebrew he need know in three days for each subject.[2124] But aside from the young friars who presume to teach theology, the teachers against whom he rails most are those in his favorite subject of “mathematics.” Bacon could teach more useful geometry in a fortnight than they do in ten or twenty years[2125]—a hint that much time was given in those days to the study of mathematics. These boasts are not, however, as wild as they may at first seem; after all Roger did not know a vast amount of geometry and Greek and Hebrew, and he had no intention of teaching any more of mathematics and the languages than would be of service in his other sciences, in theology, and in practical life. He complained that “the ordinary mathematician does not consider that he knows anything unless he demonstrates it, and so he takes from thirty to forty years” to master the subject, and that “the text-books and the teachers of mathematics delight in multiplying conclusions to such an extent that one has to give years of unnecessary time to extracting the essentials,” and “this is one reason why there are so few students of a science which is a prerequisite to all knowledge.”[2126] Nor were such boasts unique in the age in which Bacon lived. Another professor and Franciscan friar, who wrote at least no later than the early fourteenth century, Bernard of Verdun, states that his little book on astronomy takes the place of “innumerable works and huge tomes,” and makes it possible for anyone acquainted with geometry to learn in a short time not only the gist of books which two years of steady reading could scarce suffice to cover, but also many points which other books omit.[2127]
His personal motives.
It is easy to discern the personal motives which actuated Bacon in his criticism. He was jealous of his more successful contemporaries and desperately anxious to secure the pope as his patron. If, as Macaulay said, Francis Bacon seeking the truth was a very different person from Francis Bacon seeking the seals, we must remember that Roger Bacon combined both attempts at once. He grieved to see the neglect by his fellow theologians of the subjects in which he was particularly interested, and to see himself second in reputation, influence and advancement to the “boy theologians.” It angered him that these same narrowly educated and narrow-minded men should “always teach against these sciences in their lectures, sermons and conferences.”[2128] And after all, as he tells the pope, he does not wish to revolutionize the curriculum nor overthrow the existing educational system, “but that from the table of the Lord, heaped with wisdom’s spoils, I, poor fellow, may gather the falling crumbs I need.”
Inaccuracy of much of his criticism.
Bacon’s allusions to and dates for events in the history of medieval learning are sometimes hard to fit in with what we learn from other sources, and as we have seen he has been detected in misstatements of the doctrines of other scholars.[2129] His personal diatribes against the Latin translators of Greek and Arabian science seem overdrawn and unfair, especially when he condemns the first translators for not knowing the sciences in question before they ventured to translate, whereas it is plain that the sciences could not be known to the Latin world until the translations had been made. Indeed, it may be doubted if Roger himself knew Arabic well enough to read scientific works therein without a translation or interpreter. Especially unjustifiable and ill advised seems his savage onslaught upon William of Moerbeke,[2130] whom we are told Aquinas induced to translate Aristotle from the Greek, who was like Bacon interested in occult science, and to whom Witelo dedicated his treatise on optics. As William held the confidential post of papal chaplain and penitentiary under Clement IV, and as he became archbishop of Corinth about the time that Roger was condemned to prison, there may have been some personal rivalry and bitterness between them.
Bacon does not regard himself as unique.
It should be said to Bacon’s credit that his own statements do not support the inference which others have drawn from them, that he was alone in the advocacy or pursuit of the studies dear to him. In the Opus Minus he says to the pope, with rather unusual modesty it must be admitted, “I confess that there are several men who can present to Your Wisdom in a better way than I can these very subjects of which I treat.”[2131] And though the secrets of the arts and sciences are neglected by the crowd of students and their masters, “God always has reserved some sages who know all the necessary elements of wisdom. Not that anyone of them knows every detail, however, nor the majority of them; but one knows one subject, another another, so that the knowledge of such sages ought to be combined.”[2132] Combine it Bacon does for the pope’s perusal, and he is not ashamed to speak on its behalf, for though there are fewer Latins conversant with it than there should be, there are many who would gladly receive it, if they were taught.[2133] Thus he speaks not merely as an exponent of his own ideas, but as the representative of a movement with a considerable following at least outside of strictly theological circles.