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 MEDIAEVAL EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. The educational system which the Church
had developed by 1200 continued unchanged in its essential features until
after the great awakening known as the Revival of Learning, or
Renaissance. This system we have just sketched. For instruction in the
elements of learning we have the inner and outer monastery and convent
schools, and, in connection with the churches, song schools, and chantry
or stipendary schools. In these last we have the beginnings of the parish
school for instruction in the elements of learning and the fundamentals of
faith for the children of the faithful. In the monasteries, convents, and
in connection with the cathedral churches we have the secondary
instruction fairly well organized with the _Trivium_ and the _Quadrivium_
as the basis. At the close of the period under consideration in this
chapter a few privately endowed grammar schools were just beginning to be
founded to supplement the work of the cathedral schools (RS. 141-143). In
some of the inner monastery schools and a few of the cathedral schools we
also have the beginnings of higher instruction, with theology as the one
professional subject and the one learned career.
[Illustration: FIG. 50. EVOLUTION OF EDUCATION DURING THE EARLY MIDDLE
AGES
The relative weight of the lines indicates approximate development. The
lines along which educational evolution took place in the later Middle
Ages are here clearly marked out.]
All these schools, too, were completely under the control of the Church.
There were no private schools or teachers before about 1200. Only the
chivalric education was under the control of princes or kings, and even
this the Church kept under its supervision. The Church was still the
State, to a large degree, and the Church, unlike Greece or Rome, took the
education of the young upon itself as one of its most important functions.
The schools taught what the Church approved, and the instruction was for
religious and church ends. The monks who gave instruction in the
monasteries were responsible to the Abbot, who was in turn responsible to
the head of the order and through him to the Pope at Rome. Similarly the
_scholasticus_ in the cathedral school and the _precentor_ in the song
school were both responsible to the Bishop, and again through Archbishop
and Cardinal to the Pope.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account