Eucherius in a letter to Valerianus[1125] gives a list of men who have become monks. Clemens, ‘omni scientia refertus, omniumque liberalium artium peritissimus’; Gregorius, ‘philosophia primus apud mundum et eloquentia praestans’; another Gregorius, ‘litteris et philosophiae deditus’; Paulinus of Nola, ‘peculiare et beatum Galliae nostrae exemplum—uberrimo eloquentiae fonte’; Basilius, a rhetor and a learned man; and many others. Of Eucherius himself Claudianus says: ‘ingenio subtilissimus, scientia plenus, eloquii profluens’.[1126] There was, therefore, considerable learning in the monasteries towards the end of the fourth century. We have seen how many of the aristocracy brought pagan culture into the cloisters; we have also seen that the Christians were not without their rhetors (and rhetorical ability implied the liberal education of the day), nor without their theologians and philosophers. Of Hilary of Arles, whose eloquence Honoratus praises, Gennadius says: ‘Ingenio vero immortali aliqua et parva edidit, quae eruditae animae et fidelis linguae indicio sunt’.[1127] Even where a man did not have the initial advantage of education and birth, he often had the ambition and the opportunity to remedy his ignorance in the cloister. Vincentius, who had come to Lérins after having been a soldier, studied with such zeal that he became one of the tutors of Eucherius’s sons and wrote in a style praised by Gennadius.[1128] Now all these men became the teachers of the Christian schools. They taught unceasingly and with great eagerness. They had within them the joy of the pioneer, and the inspiration of a great ideal. And if one does not agree entirely with their theory of education, it must be admitted that intellectually they were in most cases better equipped than the professors of Ausonius, and that they did more to inspire a true love of education and to preserve the triumphs of culture. When Gaul was separated from the Empire, it was the schools, and mostly the Christian schools (for imperial protection of education failed with the failing Empire), that saved civilization in Gaul and helped to perpetuate Rome’s great contribution to the world—her Law. Dull and uninteresting as their educational labours often were, they were often, like Browning’s Grammarian, possessed by a real love of learning. The pedestrian quality of the work—the jealous watching over the text of Vergil, the copying of manuscripts, the relentless monastic routine—was perhaps the best service that could have been rendered to humanity. What the world wanted, in view of the dark times that were to follow, was a tenacious watch-dog type of loyalty to letters, not the brilliant genius who needs somebody to look after his manuscripts. Not only books but garden art, architecture, wood- and stone-carving, and pottery were preserved by these watch-dogs. The dull lack of appreciation with which we sometimes think of their work,