The order of learning is as follows. Since _eloquentia_ is the instrument of all teaching, they are instructed in it first. Its three parts are correct writing and correct delivery of what is written; proof of what is to be proved, which _dialectica_ teaches; figures of words and sentences, which _rhetorica_ hands down. Therefore we are to be initiated in _grammatica_, then in _dialectica_, afterward in _rhetorica_. Equipped with these arms, we should approach the study of philosophy. Here the order is first the quadrivium, and in this first _arithmetica_, second _musica_, third _geometria_, fourth _astronomia_, then holy writ, so that through knowledge of what is created we arrive at knowledge of the Creator.[2] Toward the close of the tenth century the same order of studies, except for the transposition of _geometria_ and _musica_, appears in the school at Speier. Though the details of the reminiscences prefixed by Walter of Speier to his _Passion of St. Christopher_[3] are obscured by figurative language, allusions, and other devices of style, he shows unmistakably, after his first lessons in psalmody, a full course of _grammatica_, including much metric. His references seem also to indicate both the elementary exercises beginning with _fabula_, and _prælectiones_ on Vergil, Ovid, Horace’s _Ars poetica_, and the _metra_ of Boethius. _Dialectica_, which he entered by the door of Porphyry, he recalls less distinctly. _Rhetorica_, though remembered in her usual garb of flowers, evidently included _declamatio_. By the end of the tenth century, then, a typical monastic school, though still spending most time on _grammatica_, seems to have offered an ample trivium. B. _GRAMMATICA_ Donatus and Priscian, with the other grammarians of the declining Empire,[4] kept their authority. They were successively adapted to changing needs in manuals by Bede, Boniface, Paulus Diaconus, Alcuin, Loup, Remi, Gerbert, Abbo, Ælfric. That _grammatica_ thus engaged the best teachers of the time is evidence of its cardinal importance. At Chartres, by the tenth century, _grammaticus_ was the usual name for headmaster.[5] The study of figures, both those usually included in _grammatica_ and those assigned to _rhetorica_, was applied to the interpretation of holy writ. Augustine[6] had pointed out that the Scriptures not only use figures, but explicitly mention allegory and parable. Bede’s brief summary _De schematibus et tropis sacræ scripturæ_[7] is thus typical both of elementary teaching and of medieval habit of reading. 1. POETIC