Albert William Parry

“ Next to languages, Bacon placed the study of mathematics. “I hold mathematics necessary in the second place, to the end that we may know what may be known. It is not planted in us by nature, yet is closest to inborn knowledge, of all the sciences which we know through discovery and learning. For its study is easier than all other sciences, and boys learn its branches easily. Besides, the laity can make diagrams, and calculate and sing, and use musical instruments. These are the ‘opera’ of mathematics.” ”

“ Monasticism, as we have shown, originated mainly from a sense of inability to lead a Christian life in an atmosphere largely tinged with paganism, and in which the prevailing ideal of life had sunk to a very low standard. The remarkable success of monasticism led to a great increase in the number of those who desired to enrol themselves as members of an organised religious community. In course of time, not only had Christianity become the generally accepted religion of the western world, but the monks had come to be regarded as the élite among the clergy. ”

“ From the earliest date three things have been considered necessary for religious education: there must be a training in habits of worship and devotion, the mind must be stored with adequate and systematised knowledge of the doctrine of the Church to serve as a guide to conduct, and there must be held before the mind of the pupil the ideal character of Christ, human and divine.
Hence we note that the curriculum of the schools evolved in response to this ideal. It consisted, as we have seen, of song and grammar: song, because of its value in the training of habits of worship and devotion ”

“ Realising that it was necessary that prospective priests should study grammar before they proceeded to the universities, and assuming that these embryo scholars were literally poor, and could not afford even to attend the local grammar schools, which, as we have seen, were common in medieval England, we ask what action would a man such as William of Wykeham, who was desirous of perpetuating a memorial to himself and of being of service to the Church generally, naturally take? ”

“ The Lateran Council of 1179 had not only decreed that “in every cathedral church a competent benefice shall be bestowed upon a master who shall teach the clerks of the same church and poor scholars freely,” but it had also enacted that it was the duty of the Church to provide free education “in order that the poor, who cannot be assisted by their parents’ [Pg 85] means, may not be deprived of the opportunity of reading and proficiency.” ”

“ Experience soon convinced him that to found a college was one thing; to obtain a supply of students, who were qualified to profit by the proposed course was quite another; especially as, “through default of good teaching and sufficient learning in grammar, (they) often fall into the danger of failing, where they had set before themselves the desire of success.” [596]
Nor was a lack of knowledge of Latin the only difficulty. A greater obstacle was the poverty of the prospective student of the period. ”

“ Progress in morality necessarily involved progress in civilisation. With the growth of civilisation, there developed gradually an interest in the things of the mind as well as the things of the body. Thus it came about that education began to possess a value for its own sake, apart from its service in connection with religious progress.
But the ideal of education, as necessary for moral perfection, never ceased to be the ideal behind the establishment of church schools. ”

“ We are justified in definitely asserting that some of the monasteries were centres of intellectual activity, and that systematic education was given in connection with some of the collegiate churches. It is also extremely probable that it was a general custom for the parish priest to give instruction in Latin to those who wished for such instruction, but it is impossible, so far as our knowledge goes now, to assert anything more than probability in this connection. ”

“ Even to-day, in this time of free education, [Pg 93] parents, who can barely afford to do so, prefer to send their children to a fee-paying school for social reasons, even though the instruction given in the public free school may be given by better qualified and more efficient teachers than are to be found in the fee-paying schools. By analogy, we can reconstruct the situation in the eleventh and succeeding centuries. A knowledge of Latin was perceived, by this time, to possess value, and the boy who had received an education was recognised as being in a position to make his way in the world. ”

“ In consequence, a demand would arise for teachers of Latin. Now it is an accepted rule of Economics that whenever a demand for a particular commodity exists, then an attempt to meet the demand is forthcoming. Since scholars were to be found in a cathedral city who wished for instruction in Latin, and since other clerks were to be found there who considered themselves capable of giving such instruction and who were desirous of taking private pupils, it is only natural to conclude that the holding of Latin schools in order to meet the demand became common. ”

“ In reviewing the educational progress which our country has made during the later Middle Ages, our starting point must be the consideration of the ideals which at various times dominated education, and created a supply of, and a demand for, facilities for education. ”

“ Is it possible to trace a connection between a social and economic condition such as we have described as existing in the manors and towns, and education? It is obvious that there could be little or no demand for education, because, before education is demanded, its value must be perceived. ”

“ With this realisation of a social ideal for education, schools began to be provided by civic societies and by merchants who had gained a fortune for themselves. The social ideal arose out of the value of religious education, hence the curriculum was not affected. There was a change in the agency through which the school was provided, there was a change in the mode of governing the schools, there was a change in the relationship of the teacher to the church, but there was no change in the curriculum. Inspired originally by a religious ideal, it was now known to serve a social purpose. ”

“ The second period which extended from the beginning of the thirteenth century to the Renaissance was the period of the culmination of scholastic thought and its consolidation into a system. The “great schoolmen” include Albertus Magnus, a Dominican who has been described as “the great organising intellect of the Middle Ages,” Thomas Aquinas, famous as the scholar who brought scholasticism to its highest development by harmonising Aristotelianism with the doctrines of the Church, and two Englishmen, both of whom were Franciscan friars, Duns Scotus, and William of Occam. ”

“ A more important work accomplished by Cassiodorus than the writings he produced was his organisation of the monastery scriptorium. This served as a model for the series of Benedictine monasteries which subsequently came into existence. Hence to Cassiodorus must be assigned the honour of realising that the multiplication of manuscripts was a recognised employment of monastic life. Consequently, he conferred a boon of the greatest value upon the human race. ”

“ In the eleventh century, there were only two social grades in England, the nobility and the various classes of tenants. The middle class, which gradually grew up, won its way through its wealth. Wealthy and prosperous merchants would seek to emulate the nobility of the land, and send their sons to the houses of nobles for their education or—at the least—to provide them with a tutor. It may also be added that the clergy of the period, who were practically the professional class, were celibates. ”

“ This custom of appointing a supervisor, as distinct from the schoolmaster, prevailed at the schools, other than schools for choristers, which were founded from time to time. Thus at Winchester, Eton, Acaster, and Rotherham—to name a few instances only—the responsible head of the institution was the provost, while the master of grammar was merely required to give instruction in the subjects assigned to him. The evolution of the schoolmaster as the superintending organiser and controller of an establishment belongs to a later date in English educational history. ”

“ One of the characteristics of the ecclesiastical life of this country during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was the institution of chantries; altogether upwards of 2,000 of them are known to have been founded during the period. As chantry priests played an important part in connection with the provision of educational facilities in England, the topic of chantries calls for careful consideration.
A chantry may be defined as a foundation for the purpose of providing a priest who shall pray daily, primarily for the soul of the founder, and secondly for the souls of all Christian people. ”

“ We may, therefore, summarise the school curriculum of the Middle Ages as consisting mainly of grammar, meaning by the term the study of the reading of ecclesiastical Latin, and the acquisition of the power to speak Latin. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Logic was also studied [Pg 231] and, for a time, was the supreme study. Gradually the study of Logic returned to a subsidiary position, due, partly, to the fact that new studies were slowly finding their way into the curriculum owing to the humanistic influences which began to manifest themselves in Italy in the fourteenth century ”

“ With the possible exception of Economics, Education suffers more than any other science from the ambiguous use of terms. Consequently it is advisable, at this juncture, to indicate the sense in which some of the terms frequently used in this thesis are understood. This is particularly necessary because the terms we propose to consider are often used in a sense different from that in which, in our opinion, they were employed in medieval times. We have selected the following for consideration—School, Free, Grammar, Song, Writing, and Reading. ”

“ That it was customary for schools to be established in monasteries is a fact that can be readily demonstrated. Bede writes that he “was given at seven years of age to be educated by the most reverend Abbot Benedict and afterwards by Ceolfrid; and spending all the remaining time of my life in that monastery, I applied myself wholly [Pg 11] to the study of scripture, and amidst the observance of regular discipline and the daily care of singing in the Church, I always took delight in learning, teaching, and writing.” ”

“ Originally the aim of the monks was the introduction of Christianity; now the task of the monks is to make the Church more efficient and powerful. Efficiency and power can be acquired by the Church in various ways—by its temporal wealth, by its political power, by its spiritual zeal, by its intellectual activities. It is only with the last named aspect of the work of the Church that we are here concerned. Education and religion were generally regarded as identical at the period with which we are dealing; the progress of religion was held to involve the spread of education. ”

“ Theologians do not study sufficiently the “best sciences.” By the “best sciences,” Bacon meant “the grammar of the foreign tongues, from which all theology comes. Of even more value are mathematics, optics, moral sciences, experimental science, and alchemy.” The “common sciences” (scientiae viles) include “grammar, logic, natural philosophy in its baser part, and a certain side of metaphysic.”
(3) Scholars are ignorant of Greek and Hebrew and Arabic, and consequently they are ignorant of what is contained in the books written in these languages. ”

“ We next pass to consider the term “free”—an epithet which usually accompanies the expression “grammar school” and which has given rise to a certain amount of controversy. A special meaning was given to this term in 1862 by Dr. Kennedy, headmaster of Shrewsbury School, in a paper which he submitted to the Public Schools’ Commission and which was published by them. This special meaning was that the term “free” denoted a “school free from the control of a superior body, e.g. a chapter, a college, a monastery.” He advances the following arguments in support of his contention. ”

“ We can trace the appointment of masters to teach writing for this purpose in this country from the fifteenth century. Thus, of the three masters appointed to the college of Acaster in 1483, one was to teach grammar, the second, song, “and the third to teche to Write and all suche thing as belonged to Scrivener craft.” [195] The third stage in the evolution of writing is reached when ability to write is considered to be one of the earliest of the school tasks to be undertaken, and when writing is considered indispensable for all intellectual progress. ”

“ The importance of university education for Benedictine monks was emphasised by the Benedictine statutes of 1334, which enacted that “the cathedral churches, monasteries, priories, and other such places, each of them ... shall be bound to send out of every twenty monks one who is fit to acquire the fruit of greater learning to a university, and to provide each one so sent with the yearly pension underwritten.” ”

“ Religion in the Middle Ages was more closely interwoven with the life of the people than it is to-day.
The gild existing at Stratford-on-Avon seems also to have been a citizen gild. Its origin can be traced to a date earlier than 1295. In the return made to the sheriff’s proclamation in 1389, it was stated that the gild was begun at a time beyond the memory of man. The affairs of the gild were administered by two wardens who were elected by the members. The main objects of the gild seem to have been the maintenance of priests to celebrate divine service and the keeping of a grammar school. ”

“ The change in the attitude of the nation towards education is the direct outcome of its social and economic conditions, and if we are properly to understand the educational developments, it is necessary that we should consider briefly the changes in the economic conditions of England, and the resultant social changes, which manifested themselves in the closing centuries of the Middle Ages. ”

“ One of the most celebrated scholars of the school of Canterbury was Aldhelm, who can claim the distinction of being the first Englishman who cultivated classical learning with any success, and the first of whom any literary remains are preserved. [61] Bede describes Aldhelm as “a wonder of erudition in the liberal as well as ecclesiastical learning.” [62] It is from a letter written by Aldhelm that we gain an insight into the curriculum followed at Canterbury, and learn that the course of study pursued there included grammar, geometry, arithmetic, metre, astronomy, and Roman Law. ”

“ During the period we now proceed to consider, the idea gradually developed that education was not a matter which exclusively pertained to the Church. With the rise of the universities, the control of education tended to pass out of the power of the Church; with the social and economic progress of the country, there was a growth of the idea that civic and trade and craft organisations respectively owed a duty to the community, and that this duty included the provision of facilities for education. ”