Part of this idea of mortification and discipline was worked out in the manual labour which the monasteries made, and consistently have made, of considerable importance in their educational scheme. Partly, too, it was a reaction against the extreme artificiality of the rhetorical schools, and it was also undoubtedly an attempt to follow Christ and his Apostles in their adoption of some craft or trade. Mabillon shows[1117] how much this practical side was insisted on, and he speaks of a tradition which started in Gaul during our period. The correspondence between word and deed was made a vital point—a fact which proved a healthy corrective to the attitude apt to be produced by the rhetoric of the pagan schools. ‘Qui si volunt lectioni vacare ut non operentur, ipsi lectioni contumaces existunt, quia non faciant quod ibi legunt’,[1118] said Isidore of Seville, and his ‘Rule’, like that of Caesarius, expressed the thought of the fifth century as well as of the seventh. We find that at Lérins Hilary of Arles worked in the fields, and that it was the duty of Caesarius when he first entered that monastery to provide for the bodily needs of the brethren.[1119] Cassian made a strong point of manual labour. It prevents many faults,[1120] and we have the example of St. Paul[1121] and the precept of Solomon.[1122] The East, which gave the impulse to monasticism, emphasized this point, for example in Egypt,[1123] and there is the story of the Abbot Paul who burnt every year the work of his hands lest he should ever lack work.[1124] Thus in its development of elementary education, in its ‘rusticitas’, in its greater concentration on thought, and in its emphasis on practical work, Christian education in fifth-century Gaul was in reaction against the brilliant but superficial schools of the previous century. That this was so, and that the movement was strong enough to make itself felt against the whole weight of the traditional education, was partly due to skilful leadership. How far was this effective leadership general in the Christian schools?