CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS AND SCHOLARS. CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS AND SCHOLARS OR _SKETCHES OF EDUCATION FROM THE CHRISTIAN ERA TO THE COUNCIL OF TRENT_ BY AUGUSTA THEODOSIA DRANE AUTHOR OF “THE THREE CHANCELLORS,” “KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN,” “THE HISTORY OF ST. CATHERINE OF SIENA,” ETC. Anastatic Reprint of the Second Edition Published in London 1881. NEW YORK G. E. STECHERT & Co. 1910. PREFACE. The following pages have been written with the view of presenting a general and connected sketch of the history of Christian Education down to the period of the Council of Trent, illustrated from the lives of those who have, in successive ages, taken part in that great work. A subject extending over so wide a field could of necessity be only partially treated, and it seems desirable, therefore, to explain certain omissions which might otherwise cause disappointment. It was believed that the object aimed at would, in most cases, be better accomplished by introducing the reader to the teachers themselves, than by undertaking to give a complete account and critical examination of their writings. Such an examination would properly enter into a history of Christian Literature, a grand _desideratum_ indeed, but one which the present volumes makes no pretensions to supply. Again, for obvious reasons, the philosophical and theological controversies connected with the lives of the great men who form the subjects of the following studies, have been designedly touched on with the greatest possible brevity: the history of such controversies seeming to belong to Ecclesiastical History, and to be unsuitable in a work like the present. It has been the wish of the writer to treat the subject from a purely historical point of view, and to increase the value of the narrative by, as far as possible, preserving the colouring, and sometimes even the very language, of the original historians.