partly to the mystical and ascetic tendencies which manifest themselves in some individuals. Though the generally accepted view of the moral condition of Roman society in the days of the Early Church[6] may be exaggerated and the description given by Dill[7] represent more fairly the condition of things that actually prevailed, yet even this modified account portrays a social condition in which moral ideals—except in rare cases—barely existed. To yield to the lusts of the body seemed to be almost inseparable from life in the world. Repeatedly did the Apostles and the Church Fathers find it necessary to warn the members of the Church against the grosser sins. The multiplicity of temptations, the low moral standard, the absence of any social condemnation of infractions of the moral code tended to the growth of a belief that bodily mortification and a vigorous asceticism should be practised by those who desired to be real and not merely nominal Christians. Effectively to achieve such an ideal tended to a withdrawal from a participation in social life, from a life of fellowship with others, to a life of isolation, in order that by a severe discipline of the body and a life given up completely to prayer, contemplation, and meditation, the soul might enter into a closer communion with God.

This ideal of isolation was not altogether new. In the deserts of Egypt, during the early centuries, devout Jews had given themselves up to a solitary and austere life of chastity and prayer, combining a system of religious contemplation with a stern régime of physical discipline. Here then was an example ready to be imitated by the enthusiastic Christian. Abandoning life in the world, which in so many cases meant profligacy and vice, the convert, to whom the Christian religion had become a reality, endeavoured to find in the isolated life of a hermit the opportunity for contemplation which he considered imperative for the salvation of his soul.

The reputation for sanctity and austerity gained by certain hermits caused others desirous of a similar life to build their cells in close proximity. Gradually the custom arose of building an enclosure round a small group of cells and of recognising one man as the spiritual head of the group. Certain rules were agreed to, and a common oratory was shared. The first rules for a community of this type were drawn up by Pachomius who founded a coenobitic community at Tabenna in 320 A.D.

For our purpose, it is important to note that Pachomius considered that attention should be paid to the education of the inmates of the community. Classes were to be held for those whose early instruction had been neglected, whilst no one was to be allowed to remain who did not learn to read and was not familiar, at the very least, with the Book of Psalms and the New Testament.[8]

A third stage in the evolution of monasticism is associated with the name of St. Basil of Caesarea. Instead of founding his monastery in some remote district, he built it near a town and received into it not only solitaries who had become convinced of the dangers of living alone, but also the poor, the oppressed, the homeless, and those who, for various reasons, had become weary of life in the outer world and sought an asylum for their remaining days. Not only men but also women and children were received by Basil: so great was his success that he ultimately established in different centres several industrial coenobitic communities.

The reception of children by Basil naturally brought forward the question of their education. These children fell into one or other of two classes; in the one class were those who, like the infant Samuel, were offered by their parents for the cloistral life from a tender age; in the other class were those who were subsequently to return to the world. St. Basil organised schools for the former of these classes; children were to be admitted to them when they were five or six years of age; details with regard to the mode of their instruction were prescribed; general rules of discipline were laid down.[9] Under certain circumstances, children who were not destined for the monastic life could also be received in these schools.[10] In addition to teaching the elements of grammar and rhetoric and the facts of scripture history, Basil provided for a number of trades to be learned and practised as soon as the children were able to profit by the course. Among the trades recommended were weaving, tailoring, architecture, woodwork, brass work, and agriculture.[11]

Cassian was the first to transplant the rules of the Eastern monks into Europe. He founded two monasteries in the neighbourhood of Marseilles for men and women respectively. In 420 he wrote De Institutis Renuntiatium, in which he records the rules to be observed in the institutions he had founded. The code of rules here enunciated constituted the law of monasticism in Gaul till it gave place to the regulations of Benedict. Cassian in his youth had studied the works of Greek learning, but in his later years he showed a great distrust of pagan literature and strongly opposed its study. He considered that the fascination of such literature distracted the soul, and desired that even the memory of the classical writings should be eradicated from his mind. The underlying conception of the rule of Cassian was that the monastery was a school in which a future stage of existence was the dominating and controlling thought.

Reference must next be made to Cassiodorus (479?-575)—the great Italian statesman turned monk—who did much to develop study among ecclesiastics and to make the cloister the centre of literary activity. He founded a monastery at Vivarium in Bruttium, which he endowed with his Roman library containing a magnificent collection of manuscripts, and to which he himself retired at the age of sixty. During the remaining years of his life he devoted himself to literary work; of his numerous writings the most important is his Institutiones Divinarum et Saecularium Lectionum. A more important work accomplished by Cassiodorus than the writings he produced was his organisation of the monastery scriptorium. This served as a model for the series of Benedictine monasteries which subsequently came into existence. Hence to Cassiodorus must be assigned the honour of realising that the multiplication of manuscripts was a recognised employment of monastic life. Consequently, he conferred a boon of the greatest value upon the human race. As Hodgkin expresses it, there was in existence an accumulated store of two thousand years of literature, sacred and profane, the writings of Hebrew prophets, of Greek philosophers, of Latin rhetoricians, perishing for want of men with leisure and ability to transcribe them. Were it not for the labours of the monks it is highly conceivable that these treasures would have been