They preserved and transmitted much of the civilization of Rome to the barbarians. They were the teachers of the West. Literature and learning found a refuge with them in times of violence."[79] "The monks became missionaries," declares Myers, "and it was largely to their zeal and devotion that the Church owed her speedy and signal victory over the barbarians; they also became teachers, and under the shelter of the monasteries established schools which were the nurseries of learning during the Middle Ages; they became copyists, and with great care and industry gathered and multiplied ancient manuscripts, and thus preserved and transmitted to the modern world much classical learning and literature that would otherwise have been lost.... In a word, these retreats were the inns, the asylums, and the hospitals, as well as the schools of learning and the nurseries of religion of medieval Europe."[80] Speaking of the monks' contribution to civilization, Professor Emerton gives this estimate: "They opened up vast tracts of land to civilized culture; they helped by their lives of self-denial to keep in the minds of men a standard of morals somewhat higher than their own; they furnished a safe retreat where the spark of learning, beaten out by the violence of the time, might find a quiet corner in which to smoulder at first, and then to flicker up slowly and feebly, yet steadily into a brilliant flame."[81] Similar is the witness of Professor Harding: "Each monastery was a settlement complete in itself, surrounded by a wall; and the monks were not allowed to wander at will. New monasteries were often located on waste ground, in swamps, and in dense forests; and by reclaiming such lands and teaching better methods of agriculture the monks rendered a great service to society. Schools were also maintained in connection with the monasteries.... The monks were encouraged to copy and read books."[82] Professor Duruy claims that "the Benedictines added agriculture to preaching, and copying manuscripts to prayer. Schools were usually annexed to their convents, and contributed toward the saving of letters from complete ruin."[83] Says another: "Only with the revival of learning did literature and art issue out to the world in general; and then the end of the reign of the manuscript was at hand. So, before the decline of monasticism was accomplished, its special work as the exclusive guardian of literature was done; and the secular world was ready to take into its own keeping the heritage of learning which the monks had been so largely instrumental in handing down to it."[84] And says Mr. Putnam: "The fall of Constantinople in 1453," (at the very time when Gutenberg was engaged in printing the first book) "and the introduction into Europe of the Turks, was unquestionably a great injury to Europe and to civilization, and the destruction of the collections of manuscripts existing in the capital itself and in the monasteries and libraries in