... For reviving and spreading religion among his people he used the best means that he knew of; that is, he founded new monasteries and restored old ones, and did his utmost to get good bishops and clergymen. For his own part, he strove to practise in all ways what he taught to others. ... Education was in a still worse condition than everything else. ... All the schools had been broken up. Alfred says that when he began to reign there were very few clergymen south of the Humber who could even understand the Prayer-book. (That was still in Latin, as the Roman missionaries had brought it.) And south of the Thames he could not remember one. His first care was to get better-educated clergy and bishops. And next to get the laymen taught also. ... He founded monasteries and schools, and restored the old ones which had been ruined. He had a school in his court for his own children and the children of his nobles. But at the very outset a most serious difficulty confronted Alfred. Where was he to get books? At this time, as far as we can judge, there can only have been one, or at most two books in the English language--the long poem of Cædmon about the creation of the world, &c., and the poem of Beowulf about warriors and fiery dragons. There were many English ballads and songs, but whether these were written down I do not know. There was no book of history, not even English history; no book of geography, no religious books, no philosophy. Bede, who had written so many books, had written them all in Latin. ... So when they had a time of 'stillness' the king and his learned friends set to work and translated books into English; and Alfred, who was as modest and candid as he was wise, put into the preface of one of his translations that he hoped, if anyone knew Latin better than he did, that he would not blame him, for he could but do according to his ability. ... Beside all this, he had a great many other occupations. Asser, who often lived with him for months at a time, gives us an account of his busy life. Notwithstanding his infirmities and other hindrances, 'he continued to carry on the government, and to exercise hunting in all its branches; to teach his workers in gold and artificers of all kinds, his falconers, hawkers, and dog-keepers; to build houses, majestic and good, beyond all the precedents of his ancestors, by his new mechanical inventions; to recite the Saxon books (Asser, being a Welshman, always calls the English, Saxon), and especially to learn by heart the Saxon poems, and to make others learn them; he never desisted from studying most diligently to the best of his ability; he attended the mass and other daily services of religion; he was frequent in psalm-singing and prayer; ... he bestowed alms and largesses on both natives and foreigners of