1 The following quotation illustrates this servile dependence on authority:

" At the time when the discovery of spots on the sun first began to circu-

late, a student called the attention of his old professor to the rumor, and

received the following reply: ' There can be no spots on the sun, for I have

read Aristotle twice from beginning to end, and he says the sun is incor-

ruptible. Clean your lenses, and if the spots are not in the telescope, they

must be in your eyes ! ' " Naville, La Lor/ique de VHypothese. (P.)

THE EARLY CHRISTIANS AND THE MIDDLE AGE. 75

" This way of philosophizing on words and thoughts, with-

out examining the things themselves, was certainly an easy

way of getting along without a knowledge of facts, which

can be acquired only by reading " (Fleury should have added

and by observation) ; " and it was an easy way of dazzling

the ignorant laics by peculiar terms and vain subtilties."

Rut Scholasticism had its hour of glory, its erudite doe-

tors, its eloquent professors, chief among whom was Abelard.

83. Abelard (1079-1142). ВЂ” a genuine professor of

higher ^instruction, Abelard, by the prestige of his eloquence,

gathered around him at Paris thousands of students. Hu-

man speech, the living words of the teacher, had then an

authority, an importance, which it has lost in part since

books, everywhere distributed, have, to a certain extent,

superseded oral instruction. At a time when printing did

not exist, when manuscript copies were rare, a teacher who

combined knowledge with the gift of speech was a phenome-

non of incomparable interest, and students flocked from all

parts of Europe to take advantage of his lectures. Abelard

is the most brilliant representative of the scholastic pedagogy,

with an original and personal tendency towards the emanci-

pation of the mind. " It is ridiculous," he said, " to preach

to others what we can neither make them understand, nor

understand ourselves." With more boldness than Saint

Anselm, he applied dialectics to theology, and attempted to

reason out the grounds of his faith.

84. The Seven Liberal Arts. — The seven liberal arts

constituted what may be called the secondary instruction of

the Middle Age, such as was given in the claustral or con-

ventual schools, and later, in the universities. The liberal

arts were distributed into two courses of study, known as the

trivium and the quadrivium. The trivium comprised gram-

mar (Latin grammar, of course), dialectics, or logic, and

76 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

rhetoric ; and the quadrivium, music, arithmetic, geometry,

and astronomy. It is important to note the fact that this

programme contains only abstract and formal studies, — no

real and concrete studies. The sciences which teach us to

know man and the world, such as history, ethics, the physical

and natural sciences, were omitted and unknown, save per-

haps in a few convents of the Benedictines. Nothing which

can truly educate man, and develop his faculties as a whole,

enlists the attention of the Middle Age. From a course of

study thus limited there might come skillful reasoners and

men formidable in argument, but never fully developed men. 1

85. Methods and Discipline. — The methods employed

in the ecclesiastical schools of the Middle Age were in accord

with the spirit of the times, when men were not concerned

about liberty and intellectual freedom ; and when they thought

more about the teaching of dogmas than about the training

of the intelligence. The teachers recited or read their

lectures, and the pupils learned by heart. The discipline

was harsh. Corrupt human nature was distrusted. In 1363,

pupils were forbidden the use of benches and chairs, on the

pretext that such high seats were an encouragement to pride.

For securing obedience, corporal chastisements were used

and abused. The rod is in fashion in the fifteenth as it was

in the fourteenth century.

" There is no other difference," says an historian, " except

that the rods in the fifteenth century are twice as long as

those in the fourteenth." 2 Let us note, however, the pro-

test of Saint Anselm, a protest that pointed out the evil

rather than cured it. "Day and night," said an abbot to

1 This is no exception to the rule that the education of an age is the ex-

ponent of its real or supposed needs. (P.)

2 Monteil, IJistoire des Franrais des divers Mats.

THE EARLY CHRISTIANS AND THE MIDDLE AGE. 77

Saint Anselm, " we do not cease to chastise the children

confided to our care, and they grow worse and worse."

Anselm replied, "Indeed! You do not cease to chastise

them ! And when the} 7 are grown up, what will they become ?

Idiotic and stupid. A fine education that, which makes

brutes of men! ... If you were to plant a tree in your

erarden, and were to enclose it on all sides so that it could

not extend its branches, what would you find when, at the end

of several years, you set it free from its bands? A tree

whose branches would be bent and crooked ; and would it

not be your fault, in having so unreasonably confined it? "

86. The Universities. — Save claustral and cathedral

schools, to which must be added some parish schools, the

earliest example of our village schools, the sole educational

establishment of the Middle Age was what is called the Uni-

versity. Towards the thirteenth and fourteenth century we

see multiplying in the great cities of Europe those centres of

study, those collections of students which recall from afar

the schools of Plato and Aristotle. Of such establishments

were the university which opened at Paris for the teaching

of theology and philosophy (1200) ; the universities of

Naples (1224), of Prague (1345), of Vienna (1365), of

Heidelberg (1386), etc. 1 Without being completely affran-

chised from sacerdotal control, these universities were a first

expansion of free science. As far back as the ninth century,

the Arabs had given an example to the rest of Europe by

founding at Salamanca, at Cordova, and in other cities of

Spain, schools where all the sciences were cultivated.

87. Gerson (1363-1429). —With the gentle Gerson. the

supposed author of the Imitation, it seems that the dreary dia-

Cambridge (1109), Oxford (1140).

78 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

lectics disappear to let the heart speak and make way for

feeling. The Chancellor of the University of Paris is distin-

guished from the men of his time by his love for the people.

He wrote in the common tongue little elementary treatises

for the use and within the comprehension of the plain people.

His Latin work, entitled De parvulis ad Christum trahendis

("Little children whom we must lead to Christ "), gives

evidence of a large spirit of sweetness and goodness. It

abounds in subtile and delicate observations. For exam-

ple, Gcrson demands of teachers patience and tenderness :

"Little children," he says, "are more easily managed by

caresses than by fear." For these frail creatures he dreads

the contagion of example. " No living being is more in

danger than the child of allowing himself to be corrupted by

another child." In his eyes, the little child is a delicate

plant that must be carefully protected against every evil in-

fluence, and, in particular, against pernicious literature, such

as the Roman de la Hose. Gerson condemns corporal punish-

ment, and requires that teachers shall have for their pupils

the affection of a father : —

" Above all else, let the teacher make an effort to be a

father to his pupils. Let him never be angry with them.

Let him always be simple in his instruction, and relate to his

pupils that which is wholesome and agreeable." Tender-

hearted and exalted spirit, Gerson is a precursor of Fenelon. 1

88. Vittorino da Feltre (1379-1446). — It is a pleas-

ure to place beside Gerson one of his Italian contemporaries,

the celebrated Vittorino da Feltre, a professor in the Uni-

versity of Padua. It was as preceptor to the sons of the

1 In the Traite de la visite des dioceses, in 1400, he directed the bishoj>s to

inquire whether each parish had a school, and, in case there were none, to

establish one.

THE EARLY CHRISTIANS AND THE MIDDLE AGE. 79

Prince of Gonzagas, and as founder of an educational estab-

lishment at Venice, that Vittorino found occasion to show

his aptitude for educational work. With him, education

again became what it was in Greece, — the harmonious devel-

opment of mind and body. Gymnastic exercises, such as

swimming, riding, fencing, restored to honor ; attention to

the exterior qualities of fine bearing ; an interesting and

agreeable method of instruction ; a constant effort to discover

the character and aptitudes of children ; a conscientious

preparation for each lesson ; assiduous watchfulness over the

work of pupils ; such are the principal features of the peda-

gogy of Vittorino da Feltre, a system of teaching evidently

in advance of his time, and one which deserves a longer

study.

89. Other Teachers at the Close of the Middle Age.

— Were we writing a work of erudition, there would be

other thinkers to point out in the last years of the Middle

Age, in that uncertain and, so to speak, twilight period

which serves as a transition from the night of the Middle

Age to the full day of the Renaissance. Among others, let

us notice the Chevalier de la Tour-Landry and iEneas Sylvius

Piccolomini.

The Chevalier de la Tour-Landry, in the work which he

wrote for the education of his daughters (1372), scarcely rises

above the spirit of his time. Woman, as he thinks, is made

to pray ami to go to church. The model which he sets be-

fore his daughters is a countess, who ' ; each day wished to

hear three masses." He recommends fasting three times a

week in order " the better to subdue the flesh," and to pre-

vent it " from diverting itself too much." There is neither

responsibility nor proper dignity for the wife, who owes

obedience to her husband, her lord, and " should do his will.

80 THE HISTOKY OF PEDAGOGY.

Whether wrong or right ; if wrong, she is absolved from

blame, as the blame falls on her lord."

^Eneas Sylvius, the future Pope Pius II., in his tract on

The Education of Children (1451), is already a man of the

Renaissance, since he recommends with enthusiasm the read-

ing and study of most of the classical authors. However,

he traces a programme of studies relatively liberal. By the

side of the humanities he places the sciences of geometry

and arithmetic, " which are necessary," he says, " for train-

ing the mind and assuring rapidity of conceptions " ; and

also history and geography. He had himself composed his-

torical narratives accompanied by maps. The distrusts of

an overstrained devotion were no longer felt by a teacher

who wrote, "There is nothing in the world more precious

or more beautiful than an enlightened intelligence."

90. Recapitulation. — It is thus that the Middle Age in

drawing to a close came nearer and nearer, in the way of

continuous progress, to the decisive emancipation which the

Renaissance and the Reformation were soon to perpetuate.

But the Middle Age, in itself, whatever effort may be put

forth at this day to rehabilitate it, and to discover in it

the golden age of modern societies, remains an ill-starred

epoch. A few virtues, negative for the most part, virtues

of obedience and consecration, cannot atone for the real

faults of those rude and barbarous centuries. A higher

education reserved to ecclesiastics and men of noble rank ;

an instruction which consisted in verbal legerdemain, which

developed only the mechanism of reasoning, and made of

the intelligence a prisoner of the formal syllogism ; agreea-

bly to the barbarism of primitive times, a fantastic pedantry

which lost itself in superficial discussions and in verbal

distinctions ; popular education almost null, and restricted to

THE EARLY CHRISTIANS AND THE MIDDLE AGE. 81

the teaching of the catechism in Latin ; finally, a Church,

absolute and sovereign, which determined for all, great and

small, the limits of thought, of belief, and of action ; such

was, from our own point of view, the condition of the Mid-

dle Age. It was time for the coming of the Renaissance to

affranchise the human mind, to excite and to reveal to itself

the unconscious need of instruction, and by the fruitful

alliance of the Christian spirit and profane letters, to prepare

for the coming of modern education.

[91. Analytical Summary. — 1. The fundamental char-

acteristic of Middle Age education was the domination of

religious conceptions. The training was for the life to come,

rather than for this life ; it was almost exclusively religious

and moral ; was based on authority ; and included the whole

human race.

2. This alliance of church and school, while giving an

exclusive aim to education, also gave it a spirit of intense

seriousness and earnestness. The survivals of this histori-

cal alliance are church and parish schools, and a disposition

of the modern Church to dispute the right of the State to

educate.

3. The supreme importance attached to the Scriptures

made education literary ; made instruction dogmatic and

arbitrary ; exalted words over things ; inculcated a taste for

abstract and formal reasoning ; made learning a process of

memorizing ; and stilled the spirit of free inquiry.

4. The inclusion of the whole world in one Christian

Commonwealth, led to the intellectual enfranchisement of

woman and to the list' of primary education proper.

5. The general tendency was towards harshness in disci-

pline, coarseness in habits and manners, and a contempt for

the amenities of life.

82 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

6. Scholasticism erred by exaggeration ; but its general

effect was to develop the power of deductive reasoning, to

teach the use of language as the instrument of thought, and

to make apparent the need of nice discriminations in the use

of words.

7. The great intellectual lesson taught is the extreme

difficulty of attaining compass, symmetry, and moderation.]]

CHAPTER V.

THE RENAISSANCE AND THE THEORIES OF EDUCATION

IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

general characteristics of the education of the sixteenth

century; causes of the renaissance in education; the

theory and the practice of education in the sixteenth

century j erasmus (1467-1536) j education of erasmus j the

jeromites; pedagogical works of erasmus; juvenile

etiquette ; early education j the instruction of women ;

rabelais (1483-1553) ; criticism of the old education ; gar-

gantua and eudemon j the new education j physical edu-

cation ; intellectual education j the physical and natural

sciences; object lessons; attractive methods j religious

education; moral education; montaigne (1533-1592) and

rabelais ; the personal education of montaigne ; edu-

cation should be general j the purpose of instruction ;

education of the judgment ; educational methods j studies

recommended; montaigne's errors; incompleteness of his

views on the education of women ; ANALYTICAL summary.

92. General Characteristics of the Education of

the Sixteenth Century. — Modern education begins with

the Renaissance. The educational methods that we then

begin to discern will doubtless not be developed and

perfected till a later period ; the new doctrines will pass

into practice only gradually, and with the general progress

of the times. But from the sixteenth century education

is in possession of its essential principles. The educa-

tion of the Middle Age, over-rigid and repressive, which

condemned the body to a regime too severe, and the

mind to a discipline too narrow, is to be succeeded,

84 THE HISTORY OF PEDAGOGY.

at least in theory, by an education broader and more

liberal ; which will give due attention to hygiene and

physical exercises ; which will enfranchise the intelligence,

hitherto the prisoner of the syllogism ; which will call into

play the moral forces, instead of repressing them ; which

will substitute real studies for the verbal subtilties of dia-

lectics ; which will give the preference to things over words ;

which, finally, instead of developing but a single faculty, the

reason, and instead of reducing man to a sort of dialectic

automaton, will seek to develop the whole man, mind and

body, taste and knowledge, heart and will.

93. Causes of the Renaissance in Education. — The

men of the sixteenth century having renewed with classical

antiquity an intercourse that had been too long interrupted,

it was natural that they should propose to the young the

study of the Greeks and the Romans. What is called

secondary instruction really dates from the sixteenth cen-

tury. The crude works of the Middle Age are succeeded by

the elegant compositions of Athens and Rome, henceforth

made accessible to all through the art of printing ; and, with

the reading of the ancient authors, there reappear through the

fruitful effect of imitation, their qualities of correctness in

thought, of literary taste, and of elegance in form. In

France, as in Italy, the national tongues, moulded, and,

as it were, consecrated by writers of genius, become the

instruments of an intellectual propaganda. Artistic taste,

revived by the rich products of a race of incomparable artists,

gives an extension to the horizon of life, and creates a new

class of emotions. Finally, the Protestant Reform develops

individual thought and free inquiry, and at the same time,

by its success, it imposes still greater efforts on the Catholic

Church.

THE RENAISSANCE. 85

This is not saying that everything is faultless in the edu-

cational efforts of the sixteenth century. First, as is natural

for innovators, the thought of the teachers of this period is

marked by enthusiasm rather than by precision. They are

more zealous in pointing out the end to be attained, than

exact in determining the means to be employed. Besides,

some of them are content to emancipate the mind, but forget

to give it proper direction. Finally, others make a wrong

use of the ancients ; they are too much preoccupied with the

form and the purity of language ; they fall into Ciceromania,

and it is not their fault if a new superstition, that of rhetoric,

does not succeed the old superstition, that of the syllogism.