Education was not confined simply to the higher schools and universities. There were also a great many elementary schools. The first work of these was to teach the Koran, which was used as a reading book. The Koran gives us the most perfect picture of the oriental mind that we possess. Children of the poor attended school from their fifth till their eighth year, when they were allowed to go to service. Children of the rich entered school at their fifth year and remained till their fourteenth or fifteenth year. After that, if parents could afford it, boys traveled until their twentieth year, under care of a tutor. This completed their education. Any person could teach who chose to do so, no authority fixing the qualifications of teachers. The Mohammedan schools began to decline in the eleventh century. At the present time, but little attention is paid to education in any of the countries under the sway of Islam. GENERAL SUMMARY OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS DURING THE MIDDLE AGES 1. Paganism gave way to Christianity, and the benign influence of the latter began to be felt in the recognition of the importance of the individual. 2. The Church undertook the direction of education, which, though necessarily limited chiefly to the ecclesiastics, had also a great influence upon the masses at large. 3. The Church Fathers were the leaders in intellectual as well as in spiritual matters, while monks and priests were the principal teachers. 4. The monasteries were the centers of educational activity, both in fostering scholarship and in preserving classic literature. 5. Secular courses of study were established, the most important being the "seven liberal arts." 6. Education was based on authority, and free investigation found but little encouragement, except among the scholastics. 7. The State assumed no part in the training of the young. Charlemagne's educational work is an exception to this rule. He asserted the prerogative of the State to control education, recognized the necessity of universal education, and the principle of compulsory attendance. 8. The crusades checked the growth of feudalism, aroused the intellectual as well as the spiritual energies of the people, led to a broader conception of man's duty to his fellow-man, and prepared the way for greater religious and political freedom. 9. As an important result of the stimulated educational activity, both among Christians and Mohammedans, many universities were founded. 10. "The Middle Ages," says Emerson, "gave us decimal numbers, gunpowder, glass, chemistry, and gothic architecture, and their paintings are the delight and tuition of our age."[49] FOOTNOTES: [49] Emerson, Progress of Culture in "Letters and Social Aims," p. 204. Boston, 1895. CHAPTER XXVI THE RENAISSANCE