Education in the Middle Ages.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 17, 24 April 1902, Page 29

Education in the Middle Ages.

Speaking at the opening of the new Dominican Priory at Geraldton, W.Afc, Bishop Kelly took occasion to refer to the groundless charge, so frequently made that ' the Church dreaded the results of Popular Education, and preferred to keep her cluhhun in intellectual darkness ' As his Lordship said :—: — ' The refutation of the charge is. to be found in every page of the world's history, in uhe magnificent scholastic institutions which for centuries past have dispensed the blessings ot education to the older nations, in the brand-new schools which already dot the face of brandnew -countries like America and Australia. This charge, however, js never made by inon who ha\ c any pretensions to Rearming. They know that the world owes Lo the Church its most precious literature, the inspired word of the Holy Bible, and all that it possesses of the ancienti learning of Greece and Rome. TConsider," says Canon Farrar, " hat tho Chuixh did for education. Her 10,000 monasteries kept alive and transmitted the torch of learning wihich otherwise would have been extinguished long before. The humanising machinery of schools and uni\erbities, thu civilising propaganda, of missionary zeal, were they not due to her ? " ' Commenting on the Bishop's remarks our bright contemporary, the ' Monitor,' says :— We hardly need to be reminded that Oxford and Cambridge Universities bear testimony to the Anglican Canon's words Still it is of interest to note to-day, as far as can be ascertained, 149 universities exist throughout the world. Of these 118 were founded by the Catholic Church or under her auspices The educational advantages thus liberally offered were availed of in Catholic ages to an extent of which few of us have any conception. Jt is recorded that in the 13th century Bologna University had 10,000 students : Oxford, 15,000 , and Parrs. 40.000. The education of the poorer (lassos was no less generoiiisly pro- \ ided for 3n 1179 Pope Alexander lIJ at the third Lateran Council, decreed • — ' Let a competent benefice be founded in every cathedral church and assigned to a teacher, whose duty it shall be to teach the clerks and' poor scholars of the same church gratuitously, by which means tuc support of the teacher may be assured, and the way to instruction opened to learners ' Ami his Holiness proceeded : — ' Let this practice be restored m other churches and monasteries,' showing, that even thus early free education was no new thing". As a result of this wise legislation historians toll us that there were in France, m the 14th century, 40,000 common schools, and that all the inhabitants could read and write. Neither the spirit nor the effort of tho Church has .changed. A Protestant writer, Lang, 'in his ' Notes of a Tra\elli>r, ' sa,\s ' The statistical fact that Home has above 100 schools more than Berlin, for a population little more than half that of Berlin, puts to flight a world of humbug.'