The monas clergy lived under rules 110 Brief Course in the History of Education located. After the overthrow of Roman culture by the barbarians, when education had completely fallen into the hands of the Church, these schools with those of the monasteries remained the only ones of the West. § 2. MONASTICISM. EDUCATION AS A MORAL DISCIPLINE SCOPE AND IMPORTANCE OF MONASTIC EDUCATION. tic or regular The term monasticism in its most general application indicates the organization of those who have taken special vows of a religious life and live according to rules controlling conduct in most minute details. For this reason they are generally termed the regular clergy, as opposed to the secular clergy, who do not live under special rule and who pass their lives in close association with the lives of the people. Monastic schools were the We have noted the establishment of cathedral or episcopal schools under the control of the bishop, for the training of the secular clergy. But in western Europe, from the seventh century to the Reformation, the most important type of school was educational that of the monastery. Under these must also be included the nost imporant and umerous nstitutions schools of the mendicant friars, which were established during Middle Ages the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (p. 153). After the luring the 1 Monastic ›r ascetic element ound in various eligions Reformation, other monastic orders, termed teaching congregations (p. 201), were organized especially for educational work. Since the term monastic education indicates a great variety of activities, includes the work of a great number of orders, and covers a scope of territory from Egypt to Ireland, and a period of time from the sixth century well into modern times, only its most general characteristics can be here discussed. ORIGIN OF MONASTICISM. The primary idea of monasticism is asceticism. In its original significance, asceticism was the training or discipline of the athlete in preparation for the physical contests. In its figurative use it indicates the subjection or the disciplining of all bodily desires and human affections in order that the mind and soul may be devoted to the 1 interests of the higher life. Found in some degree in all beliefs, it was given a special prominence in many religions, in the Jewish, the Persian, the Egyptian and in several of the Grecian philosophical sects, with which Christianity early came in conflict. In all of these the highest ethical thought was that of rising to spiritual excellence and insight through the elimination of all natural and material wants. Through fasting, penance, flagellation, or through prolonged and enervating physical exercise, the quiescence of the physical nature and the complete eradication of temporal interests were obtained. Thus the Christian ascetics united in themselves the Stoic The elevirtues of contempt for pain and for death and of indifference to the vicissitudes of fortune, the Pythagorean customs of silence asceticism and of submission of the physical nature, and the Cynic neglect. of the obligations and the forms of society. The ascetic idea found support in Christ's commands to take no thought for the morrow, to sell all one's goods and give to the poor, to forsake father and mother, wife and children, and, above all, in the frequent exhortations to world-renunciation and to the devotion of one's self to the service of spreading the gospel. ments in Christian asticism in the West The particular occasion of the rise of monasticism in Introducthe East was the intimate relation of Christianity to other tion of mo Oriental religions. The particular occasion for its spread in the West was the development of the secular character of the Church and the worldly life of its communicants after the general inclusion of the Roman population within the formal limits of Christianity. The first prominence was given to monasticism by St. Anthony, who in 305 fled to the desert on the shore of the Red Sea and there subjected himself to a series of physical penances which became the model for a long line of exacting, ingeniously devised and herocially endured practices for the mortification of the flesh. Monasticism was transferred to Rome by Athanasius (296-373) and Jerome (340-420). In the West the monks lived in communities rather than in isolation as hermits, as was the usual custom in the East. Rules of St. Bene lict, 529 ater rules iontent of enedictine iles anual bor and its pnseJences MONASTIC RULES.-At first each of these groups formulated its own rules. Among these was Benedict, a patrician who had fled from the corruption of Rome and had attracted many by his life of spiritual devotion. In 529 he drew up a set of rules for his own community. Through the influence of the popes these rules were soon adopted quite generally by the monastic communities in western Europe. These rules were not necessarily exclusive, but were at first adopted as supplemental to the local rules. During the tenth century the Benedictine rules were made more rigid by the "Cluny reform." During the eleventh and twelfth centuries still more rigid rules were adopted by a variety of new orders. The most notable of all was the Cistercian Order, founded in 1098. The rules of this order enjoined absolute silence, provided for the solitary life so far as possible, simplified worship, and applied in their churches and ceremonials provisions more rigidly ascetic than any previously formulated. The original rules of St. Benedict were seventy-three in number. Nine related to the general duties of abbots and monks; thirteen to worship; twenty-nine to discipline, errors, penalties; ten to the administration of the monastery; and twelve to various topics, such as reception of guests, conduct of monks while traveling, etc. The distinctive feature of the rovision for Benedictine Rule was insistence upon manual labor of some kind, added to the implicit obedience which the monk must render to the abbot in the performance of this work. In very great divergence from the ideas and habits of the monk of the East, indolence was termed the enemy of the soul. To provide against this, at least seven hours a day must be given to some kind of toil. Thus many of the evils that had come into monastic life as a result of idleness were eradicated. The more subtle evils of a subjective kind, arising from enforced solitary confinement and a brooding over imaginary evils by minds little adapted to profit from such a course, were also eliminated. The Benedictine Rule is the first recognition of the value of manual labor in education. Though the conception of education and the value placed upon the manual activities in this moral training were both very different from those in our own time, they were a great step beyond the position of the Greeks and Romans. From this provision came most of the social benefits of monasticism in the West, for monasticism was an education in the broadest social sense of the term, In the cultivation of the soil the monks furnished models for the peasantry. They introduced new processes for the craftsmen in wood, metal, leather and cloth. They gave new ideas to the architect. In a way they stimulated and fostered trade among the mercantile class. They offered asylums to the poor, the sick, the injured and the distressed. They drained swamps and improved public health and public life in almost every way. The Benedictine rules also provided that two hours of each day should be devoted to reading; indicated the portions of the Bible and of the Fathers to be read; provided for the reading of the Bible during the meal hours; and through minute rules saw to it that these times for reading were not to be wasted in idleness, in sleep or in talking. Social value of these rules Asceti- Educational aspects of rules IDEALS OF MONASTIC LIFE AND EDUCATION. cism an Ideal of Discipline. The rules of monastic life might the ascetic present the greatest variation; its ideals were everywhere the same. In all places and in all ages its dominant ideal was that of asceticism. The virtue of the monk was often measured by his ingenuity in devising new and fantastic methods of mortifying the flesh through fasting, through eating insufficient and inappropriate foods, through taking insufficient sleep, through wearing insufficient clothing, through assuming unnatural postures of extreme discomfort and maintaining them sometimes for months, through uncleanliness of body, through binding the limbs with ligatures, through loading the body with chains and weights, through every means which would reduce or even destroy the natural wants or which would produce suffering from insufficient care for them. This irrational régime might Jegative `ocial influ deals either destroy or weaken the mind. In any case it would make it subject to abnormal visions, which would be increased by the terror of such temptations. However, this seems seldom to have been noticed by the monks. All these forms of discipline were for the sake of the spiritual growth, the moral betterment of the penitent. All these, as the very significance of the word asceticism indicates, reveal the dominant conception of education which prevailed throughout this long period, - the idea of discipline of the physical nature for the sake of growth in moral and spiritual power. The ideals of monasticism were usually summed up in the three ideals of chastity, poverty and obedience, or more technically, conversion, stability and obedience.) Social Significance of these Ideals. Thus, in a manner, the nces of these monastic ideal had its negative as well as its positive significance. In its three great ideals it negated the three great institutional aspects of social life, the family, industrial society and the state. It represented-a type of disciplinary education which left out of account these three great classes of needs of society and emphasized and developed those moral virtues that, in a restricted sense, found expression largely through the Church and religion. Positive ocial influ nces On the other hand, monasticism became in the larger sense an educational force of very great importance to society as a whole. Each one of these monastic ideals introduced new factors into social development. For example, the habit of obedience, with its accompanying virtue of humility, presented as great a contrast as can be imagined to the strong individualism of the barbarian and the arrogance of the Roman. The ideals and habits of the monks entered into the reorganization of society in the institution of feudalism, revealed themselves in the crusade movement, and probably did more than any other single factor in the subjection of the rude Teuton to the restrictions of civilization and culture. - As we MONASTICISM AND LITERARY EDUCATION. have seen, monasticism was not primarily a scheme of education |