Christian Schools and Scholars: or, Sketches of Education from the Christian Era to the Council of TrentDrane, Augusta Theodosia
History
Christian Schools and Scholars: or, Sketches of Education from the Christian Era to the Council of Trent
Drane, Augusta Theodosia
Church and education; Education -- Europe -- History; Renaissance; Scholasticism
The picture of St. Cesaria in the sixth century, and of St. Lioba in
the eighth, is reproduced in that of St. Adelaide of Gueldres, abbess
of Cologne in the tenth. She had enjoyed a learned education, and
took great delight in collecting around her young virgins to whom she
communicated her lessons with a truly maternal care. Every day she
showed herself in the school, and propounded grammatical subtleties
to her disciples; rewarding the diligent with caresses, and punishing
the slothful with a severity for which her tender heart was wont
afterwards often to reproach her. In fact, were I to repeat all that
her biographer relates of her zeal in the matter of correction, I
might convey the impression that the pupils of the abbess Adelaide
lived under a rather terrible taskmistress. She sometimes visited the
offenders with rods, and sometimes with a good box on the ear. The
latter chastisement was even inflicted in choir when her pupils sang
out of tune; but her biographer adds, it was never found necessary to
administer it a second time, for the touch of her saintly hand had
such power in it, as to cure all defects of voice and ear for the
future.[112] But yet she was a tender and a loving mother, and when
she had punished any one, would conjure some of her sisters to go and
console the poor victim whom she immediately began to compassionate.
Nay, her love went so far, that besides the incessant thought she
bestowed on providing her children with good food and raiment, she
would steal into their dormitory in the winter nights, to find out
if any were suffering from cold feet, and would warm them by rubbing
them with her hands.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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