The History of Education: Educational Practice and Progress Considered as a Phase of the Development and Spread of Western CivilizationCubberley, Ellwood Patterson
History
The History of Education: Educational Practice and Progress Considered as a Phase of the Development and Spread of Western Civilization
Cubberley, Ellwood Patterson
Education -- History
The youth, having mastered the Hornbook (ABC's) and the rudiments of
learning (reading, writing, and the beginnings of music and numbers),
advances toward the temple of knowledge. Wisdom is about to place the key
in the lock of the door of the temple. On the door is written the word
_congruitas_, signifying Grammar. ("Gramaire first hath for to teche to
speke upon congruite.") On the first and second floors of the temple he
studies the Grammar of Donatus, and of Priscian, and at the first stage at
the left on the third floor he studies the Logic of Aristotle, followed by
the Rhetoric and Poetry of Tully, thus completing the _Trivium_. The
Arithmetic of Boethius also appears on the third floor. On the fourth
floor he completes the studies of the _Quadrivium_, taking in order the
Music of Pythagoras, Euclid's Geometry, and Ptolemy's Astronomy. The
student now advances to the study of Philosophy, studying successively
Physics, Seneca's Morals, and the Theology (or Metaphysics) of Peter
Lombard, the last being the goal toward which all has been directed.]
Beyond these came Ethics or Metaphysics, and the greatest of all studies,
Theology. This last represented the one professional study of the early
middle-age period, and was the goal toward which all the preceding studies
had tended. This mediaeval system of education is well summarized in the
drawing given on the opposite page, taken from an illuminated picture
inserted in a famous mediaeval manuscript, recopied at Basle, Switzerland,
in 1508.
Not all these studies were taught in every monastery or cathedral school.
Many of the lesser monasteries and schools offered instruction chiefly in
grammar, and only a little of the studies beyond. Others emphasized the
Trivium, and taught perhaps only a little of the second group. Only a few
taught the full range of mediaeval learning, and these were regarded as
the great schools of the times (R. 71).
Rhabanus Maurus (776-865), one of the greatest minds of the Middle Ages,
Abbot for years at Fulda, and a mediaeval textbook writer of importance,
has left us a good description of each of the Seven Liberal Arts studies
as they were developed in his day, and their use in the Christian scheme
of education (R. 74).
I. THE TRIVIUM
Of the three studies forming the _Trivium_, grammar always came first as
the basal subject. No uniformity existed for the other two.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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