of understanding—the form without the spirit—was the characteristic. As
the saints and martyrs in theology had taken the place of the Greek gods
and goddesses, so in the study of other branches a multitude of pagan
terms, clothed with what was then known as the “Christian spirit,” was
made to satisfy the longing for real mental culture. The simplicity of
the gospel was laid aside. What God had revealed was made to appear too
complex for the human mind, and the secret things which are known only
to God were pried into. In theology, dialectics, or logic, became the
study of endless queries, difficult syllogisms, meaningless quibbles. Men
delighted in propounding such questions as, “How many angels can stand on
the point of a needle?” and others prided themselves on the acuteness of
their reasoning powers in arguing such questions. Likewise in medicine,
the study of the simple needs of the body and the rational treatment
of disease was obscured by hundreds of _Latin terms_, and these were
memorized to the neglect of the simple philosophy of the science. It is
with this multitude of names, hoary with age, and savoring strongly of
their pagan origin, that the student of medicine is still compelled to
grapple.
[Sidenote: The Arabs as educators]
The history of the rise of European universities throws light on the
attitude of the papacy toward education. While Europe was overspread
by spiritual and intellectual darkness, God used another people to
disseminate truth. When faith in God was lost, and in its place was
substituted that blind faith in man and obedience to the church which is
known in European history as the age of faith, learning was propagated
by the Arabs. That power which had failed to conquer the world by the
sword, now gained by intellectual culture what the arms of Mohammed and
his immediate successors failed to achieve. Spain, while in the hands
of the Moors, contributed more to European civilization than at any
other time in her history; and it was as an _educator_ and through the
_influence of her schools_ that the papacy received its blow from the
south which made her more readily succumb to the revolt of Germany under
Luther. By the Arabs “flourishing schools were established in all the
principal cities, notably at Bagdad and Damascus in the East, and at
Cordova, Salamanca, and Toledo in the West. Here grammar, mathematics,
astronomy, philosophy, chemistry, and medicine were pursued with great
ardor and success. The Arabians originated chemistry, discovering
alcohol, and nitric and sulphuric acids. They gave algebra and
trigonometry their modern form; applied the pendulum to the reckoning of
time; ascertained the size of the earth by measuring a degree, and made
catalogues of the stars.”[98] And all this was done when Europe as a
whole was lying in darkness, when the chemist was considered a wizard,
when astronomy was merely astrology, and whatever learning existed was
formal and spiritless.
[Sidenote: Arabs and papal schools]
But the discoveries of the Arab teachers could not long remain with them
alone, and it is with the spread of their ideas through the schools by
means of the students that we are concerned. “For a time they [the Arabs]
were the intellectual leaders of Europe. Their schools in Spain were
largely attended by Christian youth from other European countries, who
carried back with them to their homes the Arabian science, and through it
stimulated intellectual activity in Christian [papal] nations.”[99]
[Sidenote: Arabs and universities]
The specialization of studies such as theology, medicine, or philosophy,
together with the impulse derived from the Mohammedans in Africa and the
Arabs in Spain, led to the establishment of the universities, which were,
as before stated, composed of four faculties, or colleges. “They arose
independently of both church and state.” The University of Paris “became
the most distinguished seat of learning in Europe. At one time it was
attended by more than twenty thousand students.”
[Sidenote: Papacy seized universities]
The growth of the universities was very rapid, and they threatened
speedily to revolutionize the society of Europe and overthrow the papal
hierarchy. “The influence and power of the universities were speedily
recognized,” says Painter; “and though originally free associations,
they were soon brought into relation with the church and the state, by
which they were officially authorized and endowed.” If learning could
not be suppressed, then it must be controlled by the church; and the
“church sought to attach them [the universities] to itself, in order to
join to the power of faith the power of knowledge. The first privileges
that the universities received proceeded from the popes.” “While Rome
was not the mother, she was yet the nurse of universities.” Scientific
investigation had by this time received such an impulse from youth who
had been students in the Arab schools that the church could not hope to
crush it. The only hope of the papacy was to so surround the truth with
fables and mysteries, and to so conduct the schools, that again the
spirit of progress would be lost in its labyrinthine wanderings through
empty forms. _Monopoly in education_ works havoc in the same way that a
monopoly in commerce leads to oppression. And so it was.
[Sidenote: Character of students]
“The students led a free and uncontrolled life, seeking and finding
protection in their own university authorities even from the civil
power.”[100]
[Sidenote: Origin of courses and degrees]
Youth from the age of twelve and upward attended these universities,
making it necessary to teach the secondary studies which terminated in
a bachelor’s degree. “Boys ... attended the Parisian university merely
for instruction in ... grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic; and after three
or four years’ study they received the title of Baccalaureus.” “When he
reached ... the age of seventeen or eighteen, he then began the study for
the mastership.”[101]
It will be remembered that the schools established by the early church
were marked for the simplicity of their methods, and their singleness
of purpose. Their object was to educate workers for the spread of the
gospel. For the accomplishment of this object the course of instruction
was arranged, and students were sent forth into the world commissioned
of God, as were the disciples after their ordination. There was no call
for the granting of degrees. These, it is true, were used in the pagan
schools, and indicated that the receiver had been initiated, after years
of study, into the hidden mysteries of Greek wisdom. Among the pagans,
indeed, the principle of degrees and diplomas dated back to the days of
Egyptian and Babylonian supremacy, where it was indicative of fellowship
in the grossest forms of licentiousness.
Greece, the country which united the learning of Babylon and the wisdom
of Egypt, and offered it to Europe in the form of Platonism, naturally
enough made use of diplomas and degrees. And the fact that her wisdom was
so complicated in its nature made it necessary to spend long years in
mastering her sciences.
Paganism, moreover, has but one model for all men; its aim is ever to
crush individuality and mold all characters alike. To accomplish this
purpose the schools arranged their studies in courses, demanding that
each student should pass over the same ground. This is characteristic of
all educational systems aside from that one, the true education, which
comes from God. If you look to China, you find it there, as it develops
the disciples of Confucius; India educates her Brahmans in the same
manner; the priests and wise men of Egypt were taught in schools of a
similar type. The Jews had aped the fashion of the pagan world, and it
was from this custom that Christ called his disciples. One of the surest
signs that the schools established in the days of Christian purity had
lost the spirit which characterized the apostolic teaching, is the fact
that the schools of the Middle Ages had adopted this pagan custom.
Students were called into the universities when mere boys, and by
hundreds and thousands were run through the “grind” which we term “course
of instruction,” and were turned out at the end of ten, twenty, and
sometimes even forty years with a degree, which, in dignity, corresponded
to the years spent in completing the course.
This custom is papal. It is opposed to the very spirit of Christianity;
and any institution of learning which deigns to accept the approval of
the state, while at the same time passing as a Christian institution, is
not only linking itself with the papacy, but with paganism as well. Of
His followers Christ says, “They are not of the world, even as I am not
of the world.”
“Older students, those especially in the theological faculty, with their
fifteen or sixteen years’ course of study, achieved in this respect far
greater notoriety. At the age of thirty or forty the student at the
university was still a scholar.”[102] The idea of long courses is not,
then, a modern one, and American colleges can truthfully point to the
university of Paris for the precedent in this respect as in some others.
In the granting of degrees another interesting subject is approached.
Laurie continues: “Up to the middle of the twelfth century, anyone taught
in the infant universities who thought he had the requisite knowledge....
In the second half of the twelfth century, when bishops and abbots, who
acted, personally or through their deputies, as chancellors of the rising
university schools, wished to assume to themselves exclusively the right
of granting the license, ... Pope Alexander III forbade them, on the
ground that the teaching faculty was a gift of God.”[103] This, however,
must have been the work of a liberal pope, for earlier,—that is, in
1219,—“Pope Honorius III interfered with the granting of degrees; and in
order to impose a check on abuses, directed that they should be conferred
not by, but by permission of, the archdeacon of the cathedral, and under
his presidency.”[104]
The church had gained control of the universities, and through her
representative, usually the chancellor, _granted degrees_. Now, in
order to keep the authority well in her own hands, no one was allowed
to teach who did not hold a license granted by the university after an
examination. Thus the educational _trust_ developed, and the iron hand
of Rome, though concealed in a silken glove, clinched her victories, and
strove to crush all opponents.
[Sidenote: Degrees and the papacy]
Our modern B.S., M.A., LL.D., D.D., etc., were adopted into the
universities at this stage of educational history. “Itter informs us,”
says Laurie, “that ... a complete university course was represented by
_four degrees_—_bachelor_, _master_, _licentiate_, and finally _doctor_,
which last was usually taken at the age of thirty or thirty-five.”
“The next development of the degree system was the introduction of the
_grades of bachelor_ and _master_, or licentiate, into each of the higher
faculties—theology, law, and medicine. Thus a man who had finished his
preliminary art studies, generally at the age of twenty-one, and wished
to specialize in theology, medicine, or law, had to pass through the
stages of _bachelor_ of theology, or of medicine, or of law, and then of
_master_ or licentiate, before he obtained the title of _doctor_. The
_bachelorship_ of medicine or law was reached in three years, of theology
in seven. Four years’ further study brought the _doctor’s degree_.”[105]
“The conferring of degrees was originated by a pope.”[106] The
educational monopoly appeared quite complete; and having gained the form
of godliness and the civil power, the old scheme of killing the life and
substituting those things which would recognize the papal hierarchy, were
again introduced. Leading educators are awakening to the true situation.
Christian education alone can deliver.
[Sidenote: Form had replaced the life]
“The moral tone of the universities was low,” says Painter; “there were
brawls, outbreaks, and abominable immoralities. ‘The students,’ say
the Vienna statutes, ‘shall not spend more time in drinking, fighting,
and guitar playing than at physics, logic, and the regular courses
of lectures; and they shall not get up public dances in the streets.
Quarrelers, wanton persons, drunkards, those that go about serenading at
night, or who spend their leisure in following after lewd women; thieves,
those that insult citizens, players at dice—having been properly warned
and not reforming, besides the ordinary punishment provided by law for
those misdemeanors, shall be deprived of their academical privileges and
expelled.’ These prohibitions give us a clear insight into university
life of the time, for it was not worse at Vienna than at Paris and
elsewhere.”[107]
Could some of those medieval students be resurrected and placed in some
of the universities of the nineteenth century, they might feel quite at
home, not only as far as courses of study and the granting of degrees is
concerned, but in revelings, parties, etc., judging from the reports
of the hazing, drinking, and general carousing of the students in our
university towns.“[108] The conduct of students is the reflex of the
instruction given. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that the
instruction of the universities, containing as it did the form without
the life, should fail to develop stability of character in its students.
“The true Catholic attitude to all investigation was, and is, one
admitting of great advances in every department of learning, while
checking all true freedom of thought.”[109]
The _North American Review_ for October, 1842, expresses in concise
language the relation of students and schools to the general government
and consequent state of society. It says: “In the colleges is determined
the character of most of the persons who are to fill the professions,
teach the schools, write the books, and do most of the business of
legislation for the whole body of the people. The general direction of
literature and politics, the prevailing habits and modes of thought
throughout the country, are in the hands of men whose social position
and early advantages have given them an influence, of the magnitude and
permanency of which the possessors themselves are hardly conscious.”
Recognizing this fact, the papacy controlled the education of the Middle
Ages, and is to-day seeking to do the same thing. Luther and other
reformers, also recognizing this fact, sought to overthrow the tyranny of
the papacy by establishing new schools where freedom of thought would be
fostered through faith in God’s Word.
[Sidenote: Work for Protestants to-day]
Protestants to-day, looking upon the system of education as it now
exists, and tracing there the same long courses in the classics and the
sciences; the same degrees granted in a manner similar to the Dark Ages,
the text-book containing the same theories, the same terms, the same
doctrines of philosophy; the same tendency toward monarchism, or the
monopoly of education by certain universities, and through them by the
same power that has borne sway, should, for the sake of their government,
and for the sake of their faith, establish schools of their own. As the
papacy, by the subjection of thought, builds up a monarchy in place of
democracy; as she in the same way overthrows faith in God, substituting
faith in man or the church, so _Protestant schools should educate
children_ in the pure principles of that gospel freedom which recognizes
the equality of every man in the sight of heaven, and makes it possible
for the government to be of, for, and by the people by developing the
Christian character through faith in Jesus Christ.
XII
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY REFORMATION AN EDUCATIONAL REFORM
While following the history of education through the Dark Ages, we have
often been compelled to recognize that an influence was at work slowly
but surely undermining the structure which the papacy was, with the
greatest perseverance, erecting, and which that power purposed should
withstand all the attacks brought against it. The papacy had calculated
well; it had, in absorbing the educational system of the times, laid its
hand on the very tap-root of society, and, in its education as well as in
its doctrines, woven about the human race meshes which only the Prince of
heaven could rend with the sword of eternal truth.
[Sidenote: Secret of papal strength]
Never has the world seen such an enduring system as the papacy. Patterned
so nearly after the truth of God, and resembling so closely, both in
church government and educational principles, the plan delivered to
the chosen nation, that only an expert, guided by the Spirit of truth,
could judge between the true and the counterfeit, it had, as had the Jews
before them, replaced the life by the mere form. Nevertheless, so firmly
laid was the foundation, and so substantially built were the walls, that
for centuries it baffled all attempts at overthrow.
This structure had as its foundation an _educational system_; the mortar
which held the bricks in the wall was _educational methods_, and should
the building fall, the foundation itself must be attacked.
As a civil power, the papacy was periodically attacked by ambitious
kings and princes; but these shocks scarcely disturbed the serenity of
the papal head, so firm was his throne. The sword of the Mohammedans was
broken at Tours; and the Crescent, instead of advancing to the full by
encircling the Mediterranean, waned as its light receded to the shores of
Africa and the west of Asia.
[Sidenote: The revival of learning]
What the Turk could not do by force of arms, he did in another way. In
1453 Constantinople fell into the hands of the calif, yet this did not
affect the strength of the papal hierarchy. But as the Turk came into
Greece, Greek art and literature fled to Italy. Here is the attack
on the papacy which came from the east. Painter says: “The revival
of classical learning, which had its central point in the downfall
of Constantinople in 1453, exerted a favorable influence. It opened
the literary treasures of Greece and Rome, provided a new culture
for the mind, awakened dissatisfaction with the scholastic teaching
of the church, and tended to emancipate thought from subjection to
ecclesiastical authority.”[110] The taking of Constantinople did still
more toward hastening the Reformation. Venice had controlled the commerce
of the eastern Mediterranean, but Turkish supremacy in those waters
transferred that power to her rival, Genoa, on the other side of Italy;
and from this latter center began the search for a western passage to the
East Indies which led to the accidental discovery of America.
[Sidenote: Greek classics]
Again, “The revival of learning was so intimately related to the
Reformation, and to the educational advancement dating from that time,
that it calls for consideration in some detail. It had its origin in
Italy.... Eager scholars from England, France, and Germany sat at the
feet of Italian masters, in order afterward to bear beyond the Alps the
precious seed of the new culture.”[111] However, this Greek culture, or
new learning, was nothing more nor less than a revival of the study of
Greek paganism. Notwithstanding that fact, a life and enthusiasm attended
its study which drew students from the papal universities, and induced
men to travel hundreds of miles for the sake of sitting at the feet of
masters of the Greek classics.
This was the attempted reform of the papacy made by classic literature.
Its results can not but interest us. Painter further says: “The revival
of letters produced different results in different countries. Everywhere
it contributed to the emancipation of the human mind, but in Italy it
tended strongly to paganize its adherents.”
Bear in mind that the classics were attempting to reform the papacy. Here
was the result in Italy. Italian schools undoubtedly needed reforming,
for the words of Luther describing German schools are applicable to all
papal institutions. Of these he said: “What have they been taught in the
universities and convents, but to become blockheads? A man has studied
_twenty_, _forty_ years, and has learned neither Latin nor German.” But
as much as reform was needed, Greek classics “in Italy tended strongly
to paganize its adherents.” We can not look for the classics, then, to
Christianize the Italian papists.
[Sidenote: Greek in German schools]
But while “in Italy the new learning became a minister of infidelity, in
Germany [it became a minister] of religion.” Why this difference? The
work of Erasmus, Luther, and Melancthon, as they introduced the study
of the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures into the German schools, will answer
why. The Italians studied the Greek classics for the _thought_, and it
paganized its adherents; the Germans studied the Greek New Testament,
translating it into the mother tongue, and it became one of the greatest
helps in the spread of the Reformation of the sixteenth century.
So much for the attempted reform by Greek classics. They played their
part, but they could not overthrow the papacy; and why should we expect
it when papal education was, in the first place, built upon those same
classics and the philosophy of Greek writers?
[Sidenote: Papacy and Arab education]
We now turn to the southern attack upon the papal system. This was also
an educational attack. Already we have seen the Arab schools in Spain.
Before the eleventh century Christian youth attended these schools,
taking across the Pyrenees the science of the Moors. The papacy quailed
before this attack, and in order to lessen its force, the sciences of the
Arabs were adopted in the papal universities. This, as we have already
seen, was done in medicine and mathematics. But again the form was
retained without the life. France, because of her jealousy of the Jewish
physicians, through the influence of the University of Paris, banished
every Jew from her borders. A _scientific attack could not overthrow the
papacy_.
[Sidenote: Science and discovery of America]
However, the Moors went quietly on in their scientific discoveries; and
when the fall of Constantinople closed the eastern route to the Indian
Ocean, and Genoa wanted a western route, Spain was prepared to offer
sailors the necessary charts and maps, compasses, and other mariners’
instruments. Her astronomical studies, celestial maps, and measurements
of the degrees on the earth’s surface encouraged voyages both to the
south and west, in direct contradiction to the theories of the patristic
geographies. When Columbus asked aid at the Spanish court to fit vessels
for the tour across the Atlantic, it is strange to note that the wife of
the king of Spain, who took from the Moors the keys of Granada, and drove
the Arab and his learning out of Europe, was the same woman who pledged
her jewels to this man,—a man, who, dependent upon Arabic scientific
investigation, discovered a world where those same truths might be
planted, and mature untrammeled by papal tyranny. I say this was more
than a coincidence. The hand of God was in it; and, as D’Aubigné says:
“He prepares slowly and from afar that which he designs to accomplish. He
has ages in which to work.”
[Sidenote: Science and the Reformation]
While scientific knowledge could not overthrow the papacy, it had its
part to play along with the classics. When men were spiritually dead, and
the Word of God was hidden, minds were freed from papal thraldom by the
work of the scientist and the classical student. Bear in mind, however,
that the classics helped only as they offered the Scriptures; and science
helped only as it opened men’s minds to the reception of the truths of
God’s Word. Mighty forces were at work: the earth itself must be moved,
and the fulcrum whereon rested the lever by which it was to be turned in
its orbit was the throne of God, and the _Word of the Eternal was the
moving power_. Men, weak in themselves but resolute in purpose, were the
instruments in the hand of God to accomplish a task which ages had waited
for, and principalities and powers in heavenly places had longed to see.
[Sidenote: Reformation and education]
The Reformation was not the work of a year, nor yet of one man, even
in Germany. It was the gradual work of a system of education, and that
system was the same as had formerly been given to Israel, as had been
exemplified and amplified in the life of Christ, and was at the time of
the Reformation to be revealed, little by little, as men’s minds, long
darkened by oppression, were able to grasp it.
[Sidenote: Forerunners of the Reformation]