the use of the clergy who were living with him. The clergy who lived according to these rules were called “canons.” The rule of Chrodegang was introduced into England, but it was not generally accepted;[43] and consequently the term “canon,” in this country, originally meant little more than a man who was a member of a college of clergy, who served a church in common and had a common claim on its revenue.

We may also note here that when a bishop’s official seat or throne (cathedra) was placed in a church, it thereby became a cathedral church. Sometimes the cathedral church was a monastic church, sometimes a collegiate church; in each case the church was known as a cathedral. From the standpoint of the development of education, as will be subsequently shown, the distinction between a collegiate cathedral church and a monastic cathedral church is an important one, but this distinction cannot always be clearly made, because during the early centuries of Christianity in England, a cathedral church was at times in the possession of the regular clergy, and at other times in the hands of the secular clergy. Thus Christ Church, Canterbury, was originally monastic but is said to have fallen into the hands of the seculars during the archiepiscopate of Ceolnoth (837-870), after which it again returned to the monks and remained monastic till the Reformation. So too, Gloucester Cathedral was originally monastic, then Offa transferred it to the secular clergy, later it again became monastic.

Whether or not the cathedral church of a diocese was monastic, the bishop of a diocese was the head of the secular clergy and obedience was due to him from them; on the other hand, the monks owed their obedience directly to their abbot, from him to the head of their order, and ultimately to the pope.[44]

In this chapter we propose to limit ourselves to the labours for education of the bishop and the secular clergy, though, as we have previously indicated, the line of demarcation between the work that was definitely monastic and that which may definitely be assigned to the secular clergy cannot always be clearly drawn.

The educational problems which had to be faced by a bishop and his band of secular priests were similar to those which had to be dealt with by the missionary monks. Latin, the language of the Church, had to be taught to those who were ignorant of it and who wished to be attached to the Church in an official capacity. A knowledge of music was necessary for those who desired to take a personal part in the worship offered by the Church. In addition, the principles of Christianity had to be taught more fully to converts; the children of the faith required instruction; arrangements had to be made for more advanced instruction for those who were desirous of receiving it. Schools had to be founded for these purposes, and these schools were the original schools of England.

We have already adopted as our hypothesis that the schools of this country were not a new discovery but were modelled on those which existed elsewhere. Our first problem consequently, is to discover where these models were found.

Mr. Leach, in his Schools of Medieval England, maintains that “the true models and source of the schools of England are not the schools of the Church but the schools of heathendom, the schools of Athens and Alexandria, of Rome, of Lyons, of Vienne. They were in fact the very same “heathen” or “pagan” or, in other words, Graeco-Roman institutions, in which Horace and Juvenal, Jerome and St. Augustine had learned the scansion of hexameters and the accredited methods of speech-making and arguments.”[45]

This statement calls for examination. The schools to which Mr. Leach refers came into existence about 50 B.C. and owed their distinctive characteristics to the influence of Greek thought upon Roman activities. Three grades of these schools are usually recognised:—

(1) The Schools of the Litteratores. In these schools only reading, writing, and calculation were taught; they were never very highly esteemed, and their teachers, who were generally slaves, were frequently ill-remunerated.

(2) The Schools of the Grammatici. Originally these schools dealt simply with grammar, i.e. with words and their relations; but the conception of grammar developed so that it came to include both a study of Latin and Greek Literature and also a range of subjects embracing mathematics, music, and elementary dialectic. Ultimately these schools were to be found in almost every city of the empire and, generally speaking, were supported either by public funds or by endowments.

(3) The Schools of the Rhetores. These were the most important schools; admission to them was not possible until the “toga virilis” had been assumed. Here the pupils studied carefully and minutely all matters relating to success in the art of oratory—an art which at that time had to be mastered by all who purposed to devote themselves to public life. But oratory, as the term was then understood, denoted much more than the art of declamation. It included a mastery of the existing literature, an acquaintance with the knowledge of things so far as that knowledge was then available, and a good vocabulary. To this must be added the power of playing upon human emotions, combined with grace of manner and effective delivery.

The following reasons may be advanced in support of our contention that Mr. Leach is in error in considering these Graeco-Roman Schools as the models of our English Schools, which, as Mr. Leach himself admits, owed their existence in the first place to the labours of Christian missionaries.

(1) In the pagan schools, there was no thought of the moral aspect of instruction. The literature on which the schoolboy was nourished was created in the atmosphere of paganism and teemed with mythological allusions.[46] The scholar was taught that the ideal age lay in the past rather than, as Christianity taught, in the future. The great deeds held up for his admiration were those associated with the Roman heroes who had read the fate of their campaigns in the flight of birds or the entrails of the victims at the altar.

(2) As Professor Woodward points out, “it is an invariable law that the accepted ideals of the adult generation shape its educational aims.”[47] At the period in which the schools referred to by Mr. Leach were flourishing, scepticism in religious matters was prevalent. Terentius Varro had urged that the anthropomorphic gods were mere emblems of the forces of nature. Lucretius had argued against the immortality of the soul. Cicero, the greatest thinker of the time, barely veiled his scepticism. Moreover, it was generally recognised that religion had lost its control over the moral life of man. It is thus evident that the ideals of Christianity and the ideals of the Graeco-Roman schools were fundamentally opposed. In no essential respect could the schools of paganism furnish a model for the schools of