LITERATURE.

  1. Abbott, Frank Frost, Society and politics in ancient Rome.
  2. Abbott, Frank Frost. The common people of ancient Rome.
  3. Anderson, Lewis F., History of common school education.
  4. Church, Alfred J., Roman life in the days of Cicero.
  5. Clarke, George, The education of children at Rome.
  6. Dean, Amos, The history of civilization.
  7. Dill, Samuel, Roman society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius.
  8. Donaldson, James, Woman: Her position and influence in ancient Greece and Rome and among the early Christians.
  9. Duruy, Victor, History of Rome and the Roman people.
  10. Fowler, W. Warde, Social life at Home in the days of Cicero.
  11. Fowler, W. Warde, The Roman festivals of the period of the republic.
  12. Friedländer, Ludwig, Roman life and manners under the early empire.
  13. Graves, Frank Pierrepont, A history of Education, Before the middle ages.
  14. Guhl, E., and Koner, W., The life of the Greeks and Romans.
  15. Ihne, W., Early Rome.
  16. Lanciani, Rodolpho, Ancient Rome in the light of recent discoveries.
  17. Laurie, S. S., Historical survey of pre-Christian education.
  18. Letourneau, Ch., The evolution of marriage.
  19. Mommsen, Theodor, The history of Rome.
  20. Payne, George Henry, The child in human progress.
  21. Preston, Harriet Waters, and Dodge, Louis, The private life of the Romans.
  22. Shumway, Edgar S., A day in ancient Rome.
  23. Wilkins, A. S., Roman education.

CHAPTER XI
THE CHILD IN EARLIER AND MEDIEVAL EUROPE

Historical and Critical.

Yet the very fact that these civilizations are overthrown would imply that the people themselves are weakened or else they could not be overcome. So it would seem that the nation has reached a place where it no longer can prove most useful to the people composing it or to the people of the world, and it must be overthrown and caused to cease to exist in order that new, fresh elements may be allowed to enter into the life of the people that stagnation may not come upon the whole race of people.

The old Romans disappear and a new race enters upon world activity, a race of barbarians, and not only a new people but likewise a youthful people, which must promise much for the race. But this new people begins at quite a lower plane of civilization than the old nations of Greece and Rome had reached and so there is entered upon a long, slow upward climbing but there is a civilization attained that not only reached to that of Greece and Rome but even surpassed these nations and it is still going upward.

It would seem that it does a world good at times to slow down and even to lie dormant for in the end it will surpass its former self. Humanity is the same always and the dominant traits, though they may be checked and held passive for a long time, in the end will show themselves, strengthened by the rest. The best things that a nation produces are not lost in the nation's passing away for the conquering people will in a slow way absorb and work over the essentials and they will come forth among the new people all the better and stronger for race progress. What if the time be long and the regeneration slow, the world can pass away its time in no better way than in getting ready for progress and it has plenty of time for such.

"The larger part of all that the ancient world had gained seemed to be lost. But it was so in appearance only. Almost, if not quite, every achievement of the Greeks and the Romans in thought, in science, in law, in the practical arts, is now a part of our civilization, either among the tools of our daily life or in the long-forgotten or perhaps disowned foundation-stones which have disappeared from sight because we have built some more complete structure upon them, a structure which never could have been built, however, had not these foundations first been laid by some one. All of real value which had been gained was to be preserved in the world's permanent civilization. For the moment it seemed lost, but it was only for the moment, and in the end the recovery was to be complete. By a long process of education, by its own natural growth, under the influence of the remains of the ancient civilization, by no means small or unimportant, which worked effectively from the very first, by widening experience and outside stimulus, the barbarian society which resulted from the conquest was at last brought up to a level from which it could comprehend the classic civilization, at least to a point to see that it had very much still to learn from the ancients, and then, with an enthusiasm which the race has rarely felt, it made itself master in a generation or two of all that it had not known of the classic work—of its thought and art and science—and from the beginning thus secured, advanced to the still more marvelous achievements of modern times."[200]

Feudalism.

The feudal system grew up from the conditions of society of the time, which caused the people to organize themselves about earlier institutions whose remains still existed among them. In Rome there had grown up a system where the great man had clients attached to him, who consulted him, who helped him and in turn were helped and directed by him. This system must have somewhat been taken up by the conquerors and carried through the years in a modified form, so that when there was no longer a strong central power able to care for the people as a whole, it was natural for them to turn to the strong men about them and to attach themselves to the ones who could bestow upon them land to hold in tenure and likewise who was strong enough to protect them in the use of this land or of their own land. The constituent elements of feudalism were those referring to land and its tenure and to the relations which existed between the protector and the one protected, or, vassalage, beneficies, and immunities.