help them--poetry, philosophy, rhetoric, or the arts. They should contemplate the Sun of Truth as it is reflected in the waters of human literature, and then lift their eyes to gaze on it in its full effulgence in the heavens. He then goes on to cite many passages from Homer, Hesiod, and Socrates, and other ancient writers, showing that they abound in excellent maxims, which a Christian may very well apply to his own benefit. A Christian student, he says, should follow the example of the bees, who draw out honey from flowers which seem only proper to charm the eye, or gratify the smell. But then they must also imitate them, in only selecting those flowers that yield honey; and when they extract the sweet juices, let them be careful to leave the poison behind. In like manner we should gather together from the heathen literature whatever may be useful, and leave what is pernicious to morals behind.[19] This was but saying what Plato and Cicero had said before him, and it cannot be charged to the account of a Christian prelate as narrow bigotry, that he should insist on at least as much reserve in the use of profane writers as had been required by the pagan moralists themselves. It cannot be supposed that the Christian prelates were insensible to the dangers incurred by students in the State academies. St. Chrysostom, indeed, who knew what they were by experience, and who was certainly the last man to undervalue a knowledge of letters, was induced to weigh the arguments for and against a public school education, and decides that the risk is too great to be compensated for by any intellectual advantage. He declares that he knows of no school in his neighbourhood where the study of profane literature can be found united to the teaching of virtue; and this being the case, he considers that Christian parents will generously sacrifice the superior tuition given in the State gymnasia, and send their children to be brought up in a monastery. His words are the more remarkable from the extreme moderation of their tone, and the evident reluctance with which he advocates a course of conduct which must needs place the faithful at a disadvantage. They are also important as showing how very early the monasteries began to be regarded as places of education, for seculars as well as religious. “If you have masters among you,” he writes,[20] “who can answer for the virtue of your children, I should be very far from advocating your sending them to a monastery; on the contrary, I should strongly insist on their remaining where they are. But if no one can give such a guarantee, we ought not to send children to schools where they will learn vice before they learn science, and where in acquiring learning of relatively small value, they will lose what is far more precious, their integrity of soul. Are we then to give up literature? you will exclaim. I do not say that; but I do say that we must not kill souls.... When the foundations of a building are sapped, we should