monasteries.

an isolated life of asceticism and devotion. This led eventually to the foundation of monasteries, in which Hermits and the monks lived apart in separate cells, but met for meals, prayers, communion, and counsel. Monasticism started in Egypt, but soon spread into Syria and Palestine, and) then into Greece, Italy, and Gaul. But in the West monasticism gradually adopted more active pursuits and milder discipline, and the monks turned to the cultivation of the soil and the preservation of literature.

Monasticism

in the West.

and reading re

Benedict's 'Rule' and the Multiplication of Manuscripts. These monastic activities were especially crystallized and promoted by the Benedictine 'rule.' This was a code formulated by St. Benedict in 529 for his monastery at Monte Cassino in Southwest Italy, and it was generally adopted by the monasteries of Western Europe. In the forty-eighth chapter of the 'rule' he commanded that the monks each day engage in manual Manual labor labor for at least seven hours and in systematic reading quired. for at least two hours. The requirement of daily reading led to the collection and reproduction of manuscripts, and each monastery soon had a scriptorium, or 'writingroom,' in one end of the building (Fig. 7). Most of the works copied were of a religious nature and were limited in number, but the monks were occasionally occupied with the Latin classics, and they also became the authors of some original literature, which included histories of the Resulting liter Church, the monasteries, and the times, as well as works upon religious topics.

ary activities.

Amalgamation of Roman and Irish Christianity.This preservation of learning and development of literature was especially apparent in the monasteries of Eng- Especial pres land. It came about through the amalgamation at the learning

ervation of

Council of Whitby, in 664, of the Roman Church in England, with Irish Christianity, which had preserved an unusually high order of learning after its isolation. An immense enthusiasm for the Church, culture, and literature of Rome resulted from this merging of the rival organizations, and the English monasteries, such as Jarrow and Wearmouth, and cathedral schools, like York, became the great educational centers for Europe.

The Organization of the Monastic Schools.-The literary work of the monasteries soon led to the establishment of regular schools within their walls (Fig. 8). The course in these monastic schools may often have lasted eight or ten years, as boys of ten or even less were sometimes received, and no one could become a regular member of the order before he was eighteen. By the ninth century the schools sometimes also admitted pupils who never expected to enter the order. These latter were called externi in distinction to the oblati, who were preparing to become monks. Some training was also given women in convents for nuns, such as that established by the sister of Benedict.

The Seven Liberal Arts' as the Curriculum.—The curriculum of the monastic schools was at first elementary, and narrow. It included only reading, in order to study the Bible; writing, to copy the sacred books; and calculation, for the sake of computing Church festivals. But after a while the classical learning was gradually introduced in that dry and condensed form of the 'seven liberal arts', which was also used by the cathedral schools. This medieval canon of studies was a gradual evolution from Græco-Roman days. The discrimination of these liberal subjects may be said to have begun with Plato,

Evolution and

trivium and

whose educational scheme included a higher group of studies, consisting of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy; and during the later days of Greece and Rome these 'liberal' subjects of Plato were combined with the 'practical' studies of the sophists,-grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic. These 'seven liberal arts' were definitely fixed during the fifth and sixth centuries A. D., through several treatises by such writers as Martianus scope of the Capella, Boëthius, and Cassiodorus; and the grammar, quadrivium. rhetoric, and dialectic eventually became classed as the trivium or lower studies, and the arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy as the quadrivium or higher (Fig. 9). While this curriculum was not a broad one, the scope was much wider than would be supposed. 'Grammar' was an introduction to literature, 'rhetoric' included some knowledge of law and history, 'dialectic' paved the way for metaphysics, 'arithmetic' extended beyond mere calculation, 'geometry' embraced geography and surveying, 'music' covered a broad course in theory, and 'astronomy' comprehended some physics and advanced mathematics.

The Methods and Texts.-The general method of teaching in the monastic schools was that of question and answer. As copies of the various books were scarce, the instructor often resorted to dictation, explaining the meaning as he read, and the pupils took the passage Dictation and down upon tablets and committed it. The reading memorizing. books preparatory to the study of literature, many of which are still extant, were generally arranged by each teacher, and careful attention was given to the etymological and literary study of the authors to be read. As to texts, the leading works upon grammar were at first