THE FIRST TEACHER'S CERTIFICATES AND SCHOOL SUPERVISION. Toward the latter part of the period under consideration in this chapter an interesting development in church school administration took place. As the cathedral and song schools increased assistant teachers were needed, and the _scholasticus_ and _precentor_ gradually withdrew from instruction and became the supervisors of instruction, or rather the principals of their respective schools. As song or parish schools were established in the parishes of the diocese teachers for these were needed, and the _scholasticus_ and _precentor_ extended their authority and supervision over these, just as the Bishop had done much earlier (p. 97) over the training and appointment of priests. By 1150 we have, clearly evolved, the system of central supervision of the training of all teachers in the diocese through the issuing, for the first time in Europe, of licenses to teach (R. 83). The system was finally put into legal form by a decree adopted by a general council of the Church at Rome, in 1179, which required that the _scholasticus_ "should have authority to superintend all the schoolmasters of the diocese and grant them licenses without which none should presume to teach," and that "nothing be exacted for licenses to teach" issued by him, thus stopping the charging of fees for their issuance. The _precentor_, in a similar manner, claimed and often secured supervision of all elementary, and especially all song-school instruction. Teachers were also required to take an oath of fealty and obedience (R. 84 b). As a result of centuries of evolution we thus find, by 1200, a limited but powerful church school system, with centralized control and supervision of instruction, diocesan licenses to teach, and a curriculum adapted to the needs of the institution in control of the schools. We also note the beginnings of secular instruction in the training of the nobility for life's service, though even this is approved and sanctioned by the Church. The centralized religious control thus established continued until the nineteenth century, and still exists to a more or less important degree in the school systems of Italy, the old Austro-Hungarian States, Germany, England, and some other western nations. As we shall see later on, one of the big battles in the process of developing state school systems has come through the attempt of the State to substitute its own organization for this religious monopoly of instruction. QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. Outline the instruction in an inner monastery school. 2. Show how the mediaeval parish school naturally developed as an offshoot of the cathedral schools, and was supplemented later by the endowed chantry schools. 3. What effect did the development of song-school instruction have on the instruction in the cathedral schools? 4. Why was it difficult to develop good cathedral schools during the early Middle Ages?