The aim of Greek education was the formation of the philosophic thinker, the man fitted by nature and training to guide and direct the energies of the man of action. Roman education, on the other hand, directed its efforts mainly to the moulding of the man of action himself. The Romans adopted the form rather than the spirit of Greek education. The aim of Roman education was to make a man who could do things; a practical man, a man full of energy, who was ever ready to sacrifice himself in the interests of the State; a man who knew the laws and who regulated his conduct by them; who reverenced his father and his country's gods; and found his chief pleasure in the complete overthrow and utter destruction of his country's foes. He could discourse eloquently and not unphilosophically; and he spared neither himself
nor others in his effort to maintain the freedom of his country, and to bring destruction on the enemies of Rome. Roman education began in the home, and during the earlier years was largely directed by the mother. Later the preparation of the boy for life was taken over by the father; but it is probable that, from very early times many, if not most, Romans boys were sent to school, where, under the magister literarius (elementary teacher), the grammaticus (advanced teacher), and the rhetor (professor), they acquired the knowledge and accomplishments it was needful for them to obtain.
The Roman schools, elementary and secondary, seem to have been conducted in a verandah, and boys and girls seem to have been taught in the same school. The chief Roman writers on education are Cicero, Seneca, and Quintilian. Quintilian tells us that Cato also wrote a treatise on the subject, but that that work had been lost. The oratorical training of which Quintilian was the expositor seems to have been largely out of connection with real life; and, though he claims that the orator must be a widely cultured, wise, and honourable man, seems to have developed a tendency to the bombastic abuse of ornate and stilted speech. The practical effects, too, of the corruption of family education were far from satisfactory. Moral degradation followed, and humanity seems to have been rescued only by the introduction of a new ideal of life, which substituted for the pagan self-reliance, self-control, moderation, and proportion, self-denial, self-forgetfulness, and humility; which made the last, indeed, the chief virtue, and looked on pride and self-confidence as spiritual sins.
The introduction of Christianity was followed by the inroads into the Roman Empire of barbarous tribes from the north and east. Before these attacks the Western Roman Empire collapsed, and with it to a greater or less extent the educational system of the time.
It must be remembered that between three and four hundred years elapsed between the downfall of the Western Roman Empire and the beginnings of the Holy Roman Empire under Charlemagne. Classical or pagan culture, as profane learning, was at a discount, and the aim of the monasticism which grew out of the introduction of Christianity was mystic absorption in the contemplation of God.
This interval was followed by the efforts of Charlemagne to revive Roman culture, and to establish schools throughout Western Europe. In this he was aided by Alcuin and other scholars from England, where in the comparative quiet that followed the conquest of Britain there had grown up a system of education. Throughout his dominions three classes of schools were established by Charlemagne, the Palace School, the Bishop's School, and the Monastery School. These were intended to take the place of the splendid system of public schools that had grown up under the Roman Empire. The course of studies established in these mediæval schools, following the practice of Greece and Rome, was divided into two parts: the Trivium, including Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric; and the Quadrivium, which embraced Geometry, Arithmetic, Music, and Astronomy. Education in the palace or castle schools had a different aim. It sought to develop the bodily powers, and to awake in the pupils that respect for the weak which was shown in the worship of women, and that love of justice, and belief in its supremacy, which characterized the chivalry of the Middle Ages.
The scholastic education of this time laid special stress on formal logic and metaphysics. Latin was taught, was, indeed, the universal language of the period. Questions about the nature of the unseen and the spiritual occupied much of men's minds; while their time was taken up in discussing the character of universals, the true realities which lay behind the individual manifestations of experience. As a rule, the physical world was ignored, and human intelligence disregarded; but there were notable exceptions, among which the teachings of Bishop Grosseteste (died 1253) and of Roger Bacon (1214 to 1294) take a prominent place.
It was during the period of scholasticism that universities, in imitation of the trade guilds of the time, sprung up in different parts of Europe, particularly in Spain, Italy, France, and England. To the famous schools both in England and on the Continent scholars flocked from all parts, and their instruction presented little difficulty, as Latin, the language in which the instruction was given, was the common language of scholars in Western Europe. The establishment of universities in different countries was a sign rather than a cause or result of that intellectual and spiritual awakening which, after nearly a thousand years of almost complete stagnation, manifested itself among the peoples of Europe.
It is usual to date the Renaissance from 1453, the fall of Constantinople; but it must not be forgotten that owing to the clash between East and West, the struggle between Christianity and Mohammedanism (the Crusades, as these religious wars were called), there had from the end of the eleventh century been a considerable change of outlook among the nations of Western Europe. This was specially the case in Italy, where city states, not unlike those of Greece in their character, had sprung up, and where, as in Greece in the time of Pericles, there had been the great outburst of literary activity which is associated with the names of Boccaccio, Dante, and
Petrarch. In Northern and Western Europe the intelligence stimulated by the new learning was directed towards the improvement of the method of study. All study was linguistic. Latin was the instrument of common intercourse; Greek and Hebrew were sacred as the tongues in which the Scriptures had been conveyed; it was no wonder, therefore, that the humanistic education was almost entirely confined to the study of languages. Sturm (1507 to 1589) drew up a scheme of studies which had long a great influence on the school courses of instruction throughout Europe.