Section Two: The British Tradition
For eight centuries, Britain has been centrally involved in the preservation and revival of liberal education. Britain was not always a lone defender of the tradition: the role of the Church meant that for many centuries this was a pan-European effort, with Italy also playing an especially important part. In particular, the founding of the great universities of Paris and Bologna, the marriage of reason and faith by St. Aquinas and the Petrarchan Renaissance were all unique and irreplaceable contributions. Yet from the influence of Alcuin of York on the Carolingian Empire and its inheritors (our modern formation of the letters of the alphabet and system of punctuation still owe a great deal to Alcuin’s reforms), to the unparalleled literary quality of the British Renaissance, to the energy with which British intellects addressed the rise of science and the meaning of the Industrial Revolution for liberal education and its proper objects, the British tradition was a beacon to the world. And when America’s Revolution created a nation that would become the next great home for liberal learning, it was in large part founded by classically-trained men of British descent. In recent years the ideal of a liberal education has fallen from view in Britain, but that failure of memory is uncharacteristic, as witnessed by the words of men such as Thomas Carlyle and John Stuart Mill, for whom the term was a conventional one.
IV: Against the Darkness
After the fall of Rome, only the dedication of a few men kept the tradition of liberal learning alive. In the eighth century, Britain was home to Alcuin, one of the last truly learned men in Europe: tending the flame of liberal thought in humble retreat, but ready, when called upon, to aid in a great restoration of civilisation, albeit in the service of Christian expansionism. For Alcuin, the liberal arts were less an aid to scripture in St. Augustine’s manner as scripture was a call to liberal learning in the service of Christ. He quoted Proverbs [9.1] in his Grammatica as proof that the seven liberal arts had divine approval: ‘Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars’. Alcuin eventually left the School of York, invited to put the Emperor Charlemagne and his empire to instruction once again. But the Carolingian Renaissance was itself precarious and did not reach Alcuin’s homeland. Behind him, the Danes began their brutal raids on the British coast. Their first bloody incursions, recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, included the sack of the bastion of Christian civilisation at Lindisfarne. They recall to us the dangers of the period and the uncertain fate of the tradition. King Alfred the Great, still fighting the invaders in the ninth century, made it part of his fight to encourage literacy and translate not just Christian works but The Consolations of Philosophy into Old English - a book written by another civilised man fallen into the hands of barbarians. By the tenth century, as Ælfric’s Grammar attests, liberal learning was well-established in the country, and though Ælfric was the first to refer to his language as ‘Englisc’, he did so in the service of classical learning. In his landmark textbook, he encourages the young to learn Latin by providing translations in English as a guide. This was the first grammar written in a European vernacular: like Alcuin’s service as Europe’s schoolmaster, it is a further reminder of Britain’s vital role in the liberal education tradition. These sources still speak directly to us: we can sense the affection the men had for their students, their love of learning and their conviction that this justified their lives. Their Christian beliefs and their love of liberal learning are largely reconciled. As Alcuin’s epitaph says, ‘My name was Alchuine, who e’er wisdom loved./ For me, who read my stone, pour prayers of thought’.
(a) The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: The Coming of the Northmen
AD 787 This year King Bertric took Edburga the daughter of Offa to wife. And in his days came first three ships of the Northmen from the land of robbers. The reeve then rode thereto, and would drive them to the king’s town; for he knew not what they were; and there was he slain. These were the first ships of the Danish men that sought the land of the English nation.
AD 793 This year came dreadful fore-warnings over the land of the Northumbrians, terrifying the people most woefully: these were immense sheets of light rushing through the air, and whirlwinds, and fiery dragons flying across the firmament. These tremendous tokens were soon followed by a great famine: and not long after, on the sixth day before the ides of January in the same year, the harrowing inroads of heathen men made lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island, by rapine and slaughter.
(b) Alcuin of York (735-804): With Faith, Learning is Restored
Urbibus egregiis - A Poem of Exile
For noble cities, whose new roof-tops rise,
Even above the stars loud praises fly;
In song whom books of poets ancient laud
Were bathed in gold, their wealth innumerable.
But this small cell you see, its woodland roof
Rustic, built in the desert, nobler is.
This flowers with sacred studies, reads the laws
Of God and treats the secrets of old men.
There do they sell and twist a thousand lies
Of old men, to embroil their friend in harm.
Here holy truth is sought in many ways
With peaceful speech through logic’s mysteries.
There oft deep drinking takes away the sense,
The lord is barely led by servants’ hands.
Here evening sees the readers’ fasts prolonged,
And feeds with sacred feasts their sober hearts.
To Thee may our prayers come, O Christ most mild.
To us, O Christ, may Thy Grace soon arrive.
On the Saints of the Church of York - describing the School of York’s library
To th’other he bequeathed both wisdom’s mark,
And zeal for it, and also its abode,
And all the books his famous master had
Collected from all parts, beneath one roof
Preserving this egregious treasure-store.
There shall you find our ancient fathers’ trace,
Whate’er the Roman in the Latian world
Has for himself, and what bright Greece transferred
To Latins, what the Hebrew people drank
From showers supernal, and what Africa
Did sprinkle forth from its light-flooded eye.
What knowledge had Jerome and Hilary,
Archbishop Ambrose and St. Augustine,
St. Athanasius, old Orosius’ works:
What lofty Gregory and Pope Leo taught;
The sparks from Basil and Fulgentius.
Cassiodorus too, John Chrysostom,
What Aldhelm and the master Bede did teach,
What Victorinus and Boethius wrote,
The old historians, Pompeius, Pliny,
The shrewd Aristotle, great Cicero,
The orator. Sedulius’ poems,
Also Juvencus’, Alcimus’, Clemens’,
Prosper’s, Paulinus’, those of Arator,
What Fortunatus and Lactantius wrote.
The writings of Vergilius Maro and
Of Statius, Lucan and the masters of
The art of grammar; Probus, Focas, and
Donatus, Priscian, Servius, and still
Euticius, Pompey and Comminian.
You shall find many more, o reader, there,
Masters renowned in studies, art and speech,
Who wrote full many volumes with clear sense;
To write their names down in the present song
Methought would stretch the limits of my quill.
A Letter to the Monks of Wearmouth and Jarrow (AD 793)
Remember what noble fathers you had. Do not be degenerate sons to such progenitors. Look at the treasure-stores of your books; consider the beauty of your churches, the loveliness of your buildings, the orderliness of the regular life. Recall again how blessed is the man who from these most lovely dwellings moves across to the joys of the heavenly kingdom.
Let your boys be accustomed to stand to sing praises of our king above, not to dig out the holes of foxes, nor to follow the fleeing paths of hares. How impious it is to neglect Christ’s obsequies and follow the tracks of foxes! Let your boys learn the sacred scriptures, that when they grow up they may be able to teach others. He who does not learn in his childhood, does not learn in old age. Think again of the noblest priest of our times, master Bede. How much zeal did he have for learning in his youth, how much praise does he now receive among men, and how much greater the glory of recompense in God’s presence! So, on his example, wake up your sleeping minds. Sit by your masters, open your books, look at the letters, and understand their meaning, that you may be able both to feed yourselves and to provide the fodder of the spiritual life to others. Avoid secret binges and furtive drunkenness like the pit of hell, for as Solomon says, “Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell”, [Proverbs 9.17-18] wanting it to be understood that at such feasts devils are present.
As sons of God, what befits you are nobility of manners, holiness of life, and modesty of garments. A man’s laughter, his clothing and his gait say what he is - according to Solomon [Ecclesiasticus 19.29]. What appears praiseworthy among the laity, that is fine clothing, is recognised to be a matter for rebuke among clerics and most of all among monks. But the leading apostle himself also forbade even women from wearing precious garments and having their hair in plaits [1 Peter 3.3]. If this had not been a sin, Pope Gregory tells us, the shepherd of the church would never have banned women from the delights of clothing. Let all things be done decently and in order [I Corinthians 14.40], that God may be praised in your good style of living and your honour grow among men and the reward for your merits multiply with God.
A Letter to Charlemagne (AD 796/7)
To King David, my most pious Lord, most glorious and most worthy of every honour, Flaccus Albinus wishes the eternal salvation of true blessedness in Christ. At every hour and every moment the sweetness of your holy affection abundantly refreshes the eagerness of my heart; and the appearance of your beauty, which I used very often lovingly to ponder, desirously fills all the veins of my memory with great joy; and the name and sight of your goodness is stored like the beauty of many riches in my heart.
Therefore it is a great joy to me to hear of the happiness of your most sweet prosperity. As you know, I have directed this little boy, a small dependant of my smallness, to learn of it, so that happily I may join in praise of the mercy of Jesus Christ, our Lord God, in respect of his acts of grace in the health of your highness. And not only ought I, the least little servant of our Saviour, to join in rejoicing at the prosperity and exaltation of your most illustrious power. But the whole of the holy church of God shall be obliged with a unanimous shout of love to give thanks to our omnipotent Lord God, since He has given to the Christian people by a most merciful gift in these last and dangerous times of the world so pious, wise and just a leader and defender, one who will vie in his every intention to correct wrongs, to strengthen the right, and to raise up what is holy, and will rejoice in spreading the name of our Lord God on high through many areas of the world, and will try to light the light of the Catholic faith in its furthest parts.
This is, O sweetest David, your glory, praise and reward in the judgment of the great day and in the perpetual company of the saints, that you study most diligently to correct the people entrusted to your excellency by God, and you attempt to lead their souls long blinded by the darkness of ignorance to the light of true faith.
Remuneration from God will never fail the best wills and good strivings. But he who works more in the will of God shall receive more rewards in the kingdom of God. The time of this life runs quickly, flees and does not return; but the ineffable piety of God foresaw for the human race short labour, but eternal coronation. Therefore time ought to be precious to us, lest we lose through negligence what we shall be able to have for ever through the exercise of a good life. Nor shall we be able to love anything so much on earth as blessed repose shall be loved in heaven. He who wishes to have this then let him strive now to earn it by good works. Therefore the door to heaven is open in common to all, but those alone are allowed to enter who make haste towards it by the multiple fruits of their goodness.
I, your Flaccus, following your exhortation and your excellent wishes aim to administer to some under the roofs of St Martin’s the honey of the sacred scriptures; others I study to inebriate with the vintage wine of the ancient teachings; some I shall set out to nourish with the fruits of grammatical subtlety; some I strive to enlighten in the ordering of the stars, as though they were the painted ceiling of some great man’s house; becoming many things to many men, that I may educate many to the furtherment of the holy church of God, and to the honour of your imperial kingdom, so that God’s grace towards me may not be empty nor the bountifulness of your goodness without issue.
However, I your humble servant, am missing from my portion the more esoteric books of scholarly learning which I had in my homeland through the good and most devoted zeal of my master and even through some little sweat on my own part. Therefore do I say this to your excellency, if it should please your counsel ever most desirous of all wisdom that I should send back some of my boys to take from there some things I need and bring back to France the flowers of Britain, so that not only in York may there be an enclosed garden, but that in Tours also there may be emissions of paradise with its many fruits, that the south wind arising may blow upon the gardens of the Loire and its perfumes may flow, and that in our age may come to pass what follows in the Song of Songs, from where I took this analogy: “May my beloved come into his garden and eat the bounty of his fruits, and let him say to his young men: ‘Eat my friends, drink and let us become drunk my dearest ones. I sleep, yet my heart keeps watch”, or that saying of the prophet Isaiah which exhorts to the acquisition of learning: “All ye who thirst, come to the waters. And ye who have no money, hurry, buy and eat; come, buy without money and without any exchange both wine and milk.”
These are things which your most noble mind is not ignorant of - as we are exhorted by every page of sacred scripture to the acquisition of wisdom - that there is nothing higher for the attainment of the blessed life, nothing more pleasant for its exercise, nothing stronger against vice, nothing more praiseworthy in every dignity. Even according to the sayings of the philosophers, there is nothing more essential for ruling a people, nothing better for setting one’s life’s course in the direction of the best behaviour, than the beauty of wisdom, the praise of learning and the achievement of erudition. Wherefore does most wise Solomon proclaim in its praise: “Wisdom is better than all the most precious jewels, and everything desirable cannot be compared to it.” It is this which exalts the lowly, which honours the lofty. “Through this do kings rule and the lawmakers make just decrees; through this do the rulers have power and the potentates decree justice. Blessed are those who guard its ways and blessed those who keep watch each day at its gates.”
My Lord King, please exhort each of the young men in your excellency’s palace to learn [wisdom] with all zeal and to gain possession of it by daily exercise, so that they may excel in it while they are in the age of their bloom, that they may be held worthy to bring their white hairs to honour and through wisdom be able to come to perpetual happiness. I shall not for my part be idle in these parts in sowing the seeds of wisdom among your servants, insofar as my modest intellect may allow, mindful of this wise saying: “Sow your seed in the morning and in the evening let not your hand grow idle: for you do not know what may grow greater, this or that, and if each grows equally it is better.” In the morning of my life, when my studies flowered in conjunction with my age, I sowed my seeds in Britain, but now, as my blood grows cold, as though at eventide I do not cease from sowing in France. For, God’s grace allowing it, I wish that both may grow.
Now my body is broken, my solace is in the wise dictum of St Jerome, who says in the epistle to Nepotianus: “Almost all the bodily functions change in old men, and all decrease, while wisdom alone increases.” A little later he continues: “The old age of those who instructed their youth in the honourable arts and meditated night and day upon the law of the Lord, becomes more learned the older they are, smoother through experience, wiser by the passage of time; and it shall reap the sweetest harvest from its old studies.” In this epistle on the praise of wisdom and the study of the ancients he who pleases to read can find more and discover how much the ancients desired to flourish in the beauty of wisdom.
A Letter to a Pupil (AD 798)
Albinus sends greetings to Maurus, a boy under the benediction of St. Benedict.
I am asking for the book which you promised to have written on my request, so that your promise may be kept and my joy be brought to pass. Though many drink, the fount of living water does not run dry. Thus your wisdom is not diminished even though my neediness slakes its thirst therefrom. Do not reject my request nor deny your promise, but let your truthfulness become my satisfaction. Love him who loves you and give to him who makes the request, that you may be able to please the one who possesses all, who gives these commands.
Live in good fortune with your boys and in the chalice of charity. Greet your brothers who pray for me.
A Letter to Charlemagne (AD 799)
Flaccus Albinus sends greetings to his most beloved lord, King David.
As I was journeying through the dry plains of broad Belgium the letter, sweeter than any honey, sent by your venerable authority, caught up with me.
[...]
But in having whisked me away from the dusty clods of the countryside to the most noble and piercing consideration of the heavenly heights, you attempt to renew in the secret places of my heart, from which it has never departed, the knowledge of Pythagoras’ teachings, since you have never found me a laggard, only rather unlearned, in reflections upon honourable arts of this kind. Nor ought the annoying laziness of readers justly be put down to the master’s benevolence, since perhaps, with many following the famous enthusiasm of your mind, a new Athens might be created in France, or rather, a much better one. For what is ennobled by the teaching of Christ our Lord is superior to any knowledge gained through academic exercises. The latter, taught merely by the Platonic disciplines, was formed and grew famous because of the seven arts. The former, enriched in addition by the sevenfold richness of the Holy Spirit, excels all the dignity of worldly wisdom. From whose gift I shall proffer anything I can worthily use in reply to your question.
A Letter to Charlemagne (AD 801)
To his most longed for David, most worthy of every honour, Father of his Fatherland, Albinus his pensioner wishes the salvation of present and future happiness.
Fortunate the people which is ruled by a pious and wise prince, as we read in the famous axiom of Plato, who said that kingdoms would have good fortune if the philosophers (that is, the lovers of wisdom) were to rule, or if kings devoted themselves to philosophy. For nothing in this world can be compared to wisdom. It is this in fact which exalts the lowly, makes the powerful glorious, and is praiseworthy in every person. In this is the honour and beauty of the present life, and also the glory of perpetual happiness. It is only true wisdom which will make our eternal days happy.
My Lord David, I knew that always to love and to preach wisdom was your greatest care. You have endeavoured to exhort everyone to learn it, nay even to urge them by means of rewards and honours, and to assemble its lovers from various regions of the world to assist your good will. Among whom you took care to recruit even me, the meanest little household servant of that holy wisdom, from the furthest reaches of Britain. Would that I might have been as useful a servant in the house of God, as I was prompt to obey your will. For lovingly did I love in your most sacred breast what I knew you wished to find in me.
A Letter to Arno, Bishop of Salzburg (AD 801/2)
Albinus the pensioner wishes for his most beloved Eagle everlasting happiness in Christ.
I have sent this animal to you, a calf who is in my protection, for you to help him and snatch him from the hands of his enemies. Help him as much as you can, because the venerable bishop, Theodulph that is, is very angry with me. I have also sent in this boy’s mouth, though the calf is, contrary to nature, a rational beast, something for him to moo in the ears of your holiness. For I keep him in my house to educate him for God. He will be able to progess, if God allow him the gift, in the study of reading and the discipline of the grammatical arts in the house of St. Martin. O Eagle, “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.” [Psalm 20.7] Farewell and be strong for ever.
A Letter to a Pupil (AD 804)
Albinus sends greeting to Calf.
I beg you, my dearest son, to keep in mind the words of your father with perpetual diligence and to save yourself for eternal happiness. Let not the cleverness of the devil seduce you, let not bodily pleasure turn you aside, let not worldly ambition deceive you, let not sadness render you weak-minded, nor joy make you immoderate. In that boy’s body be an old man in your ways, constant in mind, sedulous in God’s work, watchful in prayer, joyous in obedience, devout in humility, peaceful in speech, honourable in deed, chaste of body, fervent in penitence, in love sufficient in God, always rejoicing in hope of the Lord’s goodness, gladdened by fraternal love, lovable in piety towards your parents. Learn, that you may have something to teach, knowing that God speaks to you when you have read His sacred scriptures, and by the same token that you speak with God, when you have prayed to God with contrite heart. What is sweeter than to enjoy this reciprocity with God? Consider that He is always with you, and let his most sacred presence keep you from every sin and dishonesty of word or deed, and even of thought, so that you may appear fully clean in soul and body in the sight of the highest judge. And may the angels of God delight in your excellent works and deem it right to intercede for you, because for those whom they find devout in the work of God they do not cease to pray to God. Likewise do the spirits of the saints always give heed to our tears, if they know that we are ardent in the love of Christ and are performing good works.
Make sure that this little note is opened often before the eyes of your affection and retained in the treasure-store of your heart, so that it may speak to you always for your father’s tongue ... and that he may find you joyful when he returns. Be mindful always that your throat should always be God’s trumpet and your tongue a herald of salvation to everyone. The nearer the day of reward approaches, the more you should study to pile up the good fortune of your reward.
Propositions of Alcuin: For Sharpening Young Men’s Minds
(i) Two men were driving some cattle along the road. One of them said to the other, “Give me two cows and then I’ll have the same number as you have yourself.” The second man, however, replied, “No, you give me two cows and then I’ll have double the number you have.” Let him who can can tell me how many cows each man had?
(ii) There were three monks who each had a sister and needed to get across a river. Now each of the monks lusted after the sister of the one next to him. When they got to the river, they could only find a small boat, which could carry no more than two of them over. Let him who can tell me how they managed to cross the river without even one of the sisters being molested?
(iii) A bishop ordered twelve loaves of bread to be shared out among his clergy. His instructions were that each priest should receive two loaves, each deacon a half-loaf and each lector a quarter-loaf. However, the number of clerics should be equal to the number of loaves. Who can tell me how many priests, deacons and lectors there ought to be?
(c) Alfred the Great (849-899): Britain’s Philosopher-King
Bishop Asser’s Annals of the Reign of Alfred the Great
On a certain day we were both of us sitting in the king’s chamber, talking on all kinds of subjects, as usual, and it happened that I read to him a quotation out of a certain book. He heard it attentively with both his ears, and addressed me with a thoughtful mind, showing me at the same moment a book which he carried in his bosom, wherein the daily courses and psalms, and prayers which he had read in his youth, were written, and he commanded me to write the same quotation in that book.
Hearing this, and perceiving his ingenuous benevolence, and devout desire of studying the words of divine wisdom, I gave, though in secret, boundless thanks to Almighty God, who had implanted such a love of wisdom in the king’s heart. But I could not find any empty space in that book wherein to write the quotation, for it was already full of various matters; wherefore I made a little delay, principally that I might stir up the bright intellect of the king to a higher acquaintance with the divine testimonies. Upon his urging me to make haste and write it quickly, I said to him, “Are you willing that I should write that quotation on some leaf apart? For it is not certain whether we shall not find one or more other such extracts which will please you; and if that should so happen, we shall be glad that we have kept them apart.”
“Your plan is good,” said he, and I gladly made haste to get ready a sheet, in the beginning of which I wrote what he bade me; and on that same day, I wrote therein, as I had anticipated, no less than three other quotations which pleased him; and from that time we daily talked together, and found out other quotations which pleased him, so that the sheet became full, and deservedly so; according as it is written, “The just man builds upon a moderate foundation, and by degrees passes to greater things.”
Thus, like a most productive bee, he flew here and there, asking questions, as he went, until he had eagerly and unceasingly collected many various flowers of divine Scriptures, with which he thickly stored the cells of his mind.
Now when that first quotation was copied, he was eager at once to read, and to interpret in Saxon, and then to teach others; even as we read of that happy robber, who recognized his Lord, aye, the Lord of all men, as he was hanging on the blessed cross, and, saluting him with his bodily eyes only, because elsewhere he was all pierced with nails, cried, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom!” for it was only at the end of his life that he began to learn the rudiments of the Christian faith. But the king, inspired by God, began to study the rudiments of divine Scripture on the sacred solemnity of St. Martin [Nov. 11], and he continued to learn the flowers collected by certain masters, and to reduce them into the form of one book, as he was then able, although mixed one with another, until it became almost as large as a psalter. This book he called his Enchiridion or Manual, because he carefully kept it at hand day and night, and found, as he told me, no small consolation therein.
King Alfred’s Introduction to Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Care
King Alfred bids greet bishop Wærferth, lovingly and friendly in his words; and I bid thee to make it known that it hath very often come into my mind what wise men formerly were throughout the English race, both of the spiritual and of the secular condition, and how happy the times then were through the English race, and how the kings, who then had the government of this folk, obeyed God and his messengers, and how they held both their peace, their customs, and their government at home, and also increased their country abroad, and how they then sped both in war and in wisdom, and also the religious orders, how earnest they were, both about their doctrine and about their learning, and about all the services that they should do to God, and how men from abroad sought wisdom and instruction in this land, and how we must now get them from without, if we would have them.
So clean was it [learning] now fallen off among the English race that there were very few on this side of the Humber that were able to understand their service in English, or even to turn a letter from Latin into English; and I think that there were not many beyond the Humber. - So few there were of them that I cannot think of even one on the south of the Thames, when I first took to the kingdom. To God Almighty be thanks that we now have any teacher in the stall, and therefore I have commanded thee that thou do as I believe thou wilt - that thou, who from the things of this world art at leisure for this, as thou often mayest, that thou bestow the wisdom that God has given thee wherever thou mayest bestow it.
Think what punishment shall come upon us for this world, when we have not ourselves loved it in the least degree, and also have not left it to other men to do so. We have had the name alone that we were Christians, and very few the virtues. When I then called to mind all this, then I remembered how I saw, ere that all in them was laid waste and burnt up, how the churches throughout all the English race stood filled with treasures and books, and also a great multitude of God’s servants, but they knew very little use of those books, for that they could not understand anything of them, for that they were not written in their own language, such as they, our elders, spoke, who erewhile held these places; they loved wisdom, and through that got wealth, and left it to us. Here men may yet see their path, but we know not how to tread in their footsteps, inasmuch as we have both lost that wealth and wisdom, for that we would not with our minds stoop to their tracks.
When I then called to mind all this, I then wondered greatly about those good and wise men that have been of old among the English race, and who had fully learned all the books, that they have not been willing to turn any part of them into their own language. But then I soon again answered myself and said, “They did not think that men would ever become so reckless, and that learning should fall off in such a way. Of set purpose, then, they let it alone, and wished that there should be more wisdom in this land the more languages we knew.” Then I remembered how the Law was first found in the Hebrew tongue, and again, when the Greeks learnt it, then they turned the whole of it into their own language, and also all the other books. And again the Latins also in the same way, when they had learned it, turned it all through wise interpreters into their own language, and likewise all other Christian nations have translated some part into their own speech. Wherefore I think it better, if it also appears so to you, that we too should translate some books, which are the most necessary for all men to understand - that we should turn these into that tongue which we all can know, and so bring it about, as we very easily may, with God’s help, if we have rest, that all the youth that now is among the English race, of free men, that have property, so that they can apply themselves to these things, may be committed to others for the sake of instruction, so long as they have no power for any other employments, until the time that they may know well how to read English writing. Let men afterwards further teach them Latin, those whom they are willing further to teach, and whom they wish to advance to a higher state.
When I then called to mind how the learning of the Latin tongue before this was fallen away throughout the English race, though many knew how to read writing in English - then began I, among other unlike and manifold businesses of this kingdom, to turn into English the book that is named in Latin Pastoralis, and in English the Hind’s Book, one-while word for word, another-while meaning for meaning, so far as I learned it with Phlegmund, my archbishop, and with Asser, my bishop, and with Grimbold, my mass-priest, and with John, my mass-priest.
After I had learned them, so that I understood them, and so that I might read them with the fullest comprehension, I turned them into English, and to each bishop’s see in my kingdom will send one [...] it is unknown how long there may be so learned bishops as now, thank God, are everywhere.
Alfred’s Translation and Adaptation of Boethius’ Consolations of Philosophy
Lay XXIII (Chapter XXXV)
Lo! Now on earth is he
In every thing
A happy man,
If he may see
The clearest
Heaven-shining stream,
The noble fountain
Of all good;
And of himself
The swarthy mist,--
The darkness of the mind,--
Can dispel!
We will as yet,
With God’s help,
With old and fabulous
Stories instruct
Thy mind;
That thou the better mayest
Discover to the skies
The right path
To the eternal region
Of our souls.
* * *
Chapter XL
Well! O wise men, well! Proceed ye all in the way which the illustrious examples of the good men, and of the men anxious for glory, who were before you, point out to you. O, ye weak and idle! Why are ye so useless and so enervated? Why will ye not enquire about the wise men, and about the men anxious for glory, who were before you; what they were? And why will ye not then, after ye have learned their manners, imitate them as ye best may? For they endeavoured after honour in this world, and sought good fame by good works, and set a good example to those who should be after them. Therefore they now dwell above the stars, in everlasting happiness, for their good works.
(d) Ælfric of Eynsham (c.955-1010): Latin For An ‘Englisc’-Speaking People
The Preface to Ælfric’s Grammar
HERE BEGINS THE PREFACE OF THIS BOOK
I Ælfric, little wisdom as I possess, have laboured to translate into your language these excerpts from Priscian (the smaller and the larger editions) for you young boys, so that once you have read over the eight parts of Donatus in that book you are able to copy each language (that is Latin and English) to help your youthfulness until such time as you reach a more perfect understanding through your studies. I am well aware that there are many who will rebuke me for having wanted to occupy my intellect with such studies, that is in turning the Ars Grammatica into English. But I consider that this reading will be suitable for ignorant little boys, not for old men. I know that words can be translated in many ways, but I always follow a simple translation to avoid causing annoyance. However, if it displeases anyone, let him speak of our translation as he will: we are content with the way we learned in the school of Æthelwold, the venerable prelate, who imbued many towards the good by educating them well. It is to be noted, however, that in many places the art of grammar does not easily translate into English, for example in the area of metrics, on which I say nothing here. Nonetheless, we reckon that this translation can be of help to the little ones, as we have already said. [...] Farewell in the Lord, little boys.
V. Twelfth-Century Revival
The twelfth century brought a classical revival to European learning. John of Salisbury’s education was based upon the work of Quintilian, showing how liberal education can reach across the centuries to reinspire the human mind. John’s writing defends the study of great works as refreshment for the thinking mind. Long before Isaac Newtons use of the phrase, John of Salisbury spoke of standing on the shoulders of giants - and acknowledged that this too he had learned from Bernard of Chartres, a vivid account of whose teaching methods he also recorded for posterity. John died as Bishop of Chartres, and his life of learning flourished on the European mainland, for learning was by this time a truly European project, a fact also evident in the need to include St. Thomas Aquinas, an Italian by birth and dwelling, here. In the extract, Aquinas discusses the true role of the teacher, like St. Augustine before him, but bringing the characteristics of Aristotelian logic (Aristotle having been recently rediscovered through the translations prepared in Islamic Spain) to problems of Christian doctrine. Although not British, St. Thomas is an indispensable figure in the tradition: no man did more to combine Aristotelian thought with Christian theology, uniting reason and faith. For this he was named by the Catholic Church as Doctor Communis, the universal and timeless instructor of Catholics and the model teacher for those preparing for the priesthood; but his intellectual impact has been even wider and deeper than that might imply. GK Chesterton wrote in his biography of Aquinas, The Dumb Ox, ‘It will not be possible to conceal much longer from anybody the fact that St. Thomas Aquinas was one of the great liberators of the human intellect.
(a) John of Salisbury (c. 1115-1176): Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
Metalogicon
Book I
Chapter 12
Although there are many kinds of arts, it is the liberal arts that are the very first to spring to the mind of the philosopher. All of these are contained in the Trivium or Quadrivium and are reported to have acquired such efficacy among our ancestors who studied them diligently, that they clarified every reading, raised the intellect to every challenge, and were sufficient for solving the difficulties posed by all the knotty problems which can be resolved. For in understanding books or in resolving problems those to whom either the force of all language was expounded by the Trivium course, or the secrets of the whole of nature by the law of the Quadrivium, did not need a teacher.
[...]
[T]hey are called liberal either because the ancients ensured that their children [liberi] were instructed in them, or because their goal is man’s freedom, that he may be free [liber] to spend his time in learning, and they very often free him from those cares which wisdom does not allow us to share. They often exclude even the necessities of life, so that the way may be swifter for the impulsion of the mind towards philosophy.
Chapter 24
Bernard of Chartres, the most copious font of learning in Gaul of modern times, used to follow this method and would demonstrate in his reading of the authors what was simple and set down according to the rules. He used to set out clearly the grammatical figures, the rhetorical colours, the types of argument and how the passage for reading set before them related to other areas of study.
He did this not so as to teach everything in one go, but according to his pupils’ abilities to dole out to them at the due time the correct measure of learning. Because the splendour of speech derives either from its properties, that is when an adjective or verb are elegantly conjoined with a noun, or from metaphor, that is when a word is for good reason transferred to another meaning, he would inculcate these lessons when the occasion arose in the minds of his audience.
And since memory is fortified by exercise, and the intellect is sharpened to imitate what people hear, he would urge on some by admonitions and others by the strap and punishments.
Everyone was compelled each day to repeat the next day some of what they had heard on the previous day, some more, some less. Among them the next day was the pupil of the previous one. Their evening exercise, called declinatio, was stuffed with such a huge amount of grammar that anyone who spent his time on it for an entire year would have to hand, provided he were not too stupid, the proper method of speaking and writing, and would not be able to be ignorant of the correct meaning of the words in common use.
However, because it is not right for any school or any day to be without religion, the sort of material set forth was such as to edify faith and character and from which those gathered together might be motivated to pursue the good, as though they were at a collatio. The final passage of this declinatio, or rather philosophical collatio, set forth the imprints of piety and commended the souls of the dead to their Redeemer through the devout offering of the sixth psalm in the penitentials and the Lord’s Prayer.
Bernard would explain the poets or orators prescribed as introductory exercises for the boys in imitating prose or poetry, demonstrating the way their words were joined together and the elegant endings of their discourses. When anyone had taken a piece of cloth from someone else and used it to enhance the beauty of his own work, he would expose the theft he had detected, but very often did not impose a penalty. In this way he encouraged the exposed plagiarist, even if his inept disposition of the material had merited punishment, by modest indulgence to ascend towards properly expressing the authorities’ form and he caused those who imitated their forebears to be models for imitation by their descendants.
Among the first lessons, he taught and fixed in his pupils’ minds the virtue of economy, what is to be praised in the beauty of the facts and what in words, where slenderness of speech almost to the point of emaciation is appropriate, where orotundity is needed, where excess lies and where moderation in all things. He advised them to run through histories and poems, but with close attention, like riders urged to flight by no spurs. He demanded from everyone with diligent insistence as a daily due something memorised. He told them to avoid what was superfluous, and that what was written by the famous authors was sufficient for their purposes...
[...]
And because in the whole preliminary training of those who are to be educated nothing is more useful than to grow accustomed to the final goal of the art, the pupils would constantly write prose and poetry every day, and exercise themselves in mutual comparisons.
Nothing is more useful for the attainment of eloquence than this exercise, nothing which provides a swifter route to knowledge. Moreover, it also has much to offer in terms of the way we live, so long as charity holds the reins of diligence and humility is retained while progress is being made in the study of letters.
Book III
Chapter 4
Moreover, we must show reverence towards the words of the authoritative writers, who are to be used with respect and assiduousness, both because they carry before them a certain majesty from the great names of antiquity, but also because lack of knowledge of them imposes a penalty, since they are extremely powerful aids to encouragement and discouragement. For they seize hold of the ignorant like a whirlwind and drive them along or lay them low struck with fear: the words of philosophers when previously unheard are thunderbolts.
Even though the meaning of modern writers may be the same as that of the older ones, age is more venerable. I recall that the Palatine Peripatetic, Peter Abelard, said (and I regard it as true) that it would be simple for someone in our times to compose a book about dialectic which was in no way inferior either in its conception of the truth or in its elegance of expression, but that it would be impossible or at least very difficult for it to attain the enjoyment of authoritativeness.
This he asserted was to be ascribed to our forebears, whose intellects flowered and who because they were gifted with amazing inventiveness left the fruits of their labours to their descendants. And so what many spent their time upon, sweating profusely upon their creative labours, can now be learned easily and quickly by one individual.
Our age however enjoys the benefit of the preceding one, and often knows more, not because it excels in its own intellectual qualities, but because it relies upon the strength of others, and the rich wisdom of our fathers. Bernard of Chartres used to say that we were like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants, with the result that we are able to see more and further than they could, not because of the acuity of our own eyesight or the size of our bodies, but because we are raised and lifted up on high by the massiveness of the giants.
On this basis I would find it easy to agree that teachers of the arts even in their Introductions pass down the prerequisites of the art and many articles of truth equally as well, and sometimes better, than the ancients. Is anyone content with what even Aristotle teaches in On Interpretation? Who does not add to it matter derived from elsewhere?
Everyone gathers the sum of the whole art and passes it on in simple language. They dress the meanings of the authorities as it were in everyday clothing, which somehow or other becomes more glorious when it is more obviously marked by the gravity of antiquity. We must therefore learn by heart the words of the authors, but most particularly those which lay out their full views and can be communicated easily to many. These words preserve the integrity of knowledge and beside this contain within themselves as much hidden as explicit force.
(b) St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274): The Need For Teachers
Quæstiones Disputatæ De Veritate
Question 11: The Teacher-Article 2
“Can one be called his own teacher?”
It seems the answer is “yes”, because
1. an action ought to be attributed more to the principal cause than to the instrumental; but the principal cause of knowledge caused in us is the agent intellect, although the man outside who teaches is as it were an instrumental cause, providing the intellectual agent with the instruments by which he may lead him to knowledge; therefore the agent intellect is more teacher than the man outside; if therefore because of his being labelled “outside” the person who speaks outside is said to be the teacher of him who listens, much more is he who hears to be called his own teacher because of the light from the agent intellect.
2. Besides, no one learns anything except according to what leads to the certainty of understanding; but the certainty of understanding is naturally present in us through principles known in the light of the agent intellect; therefore it is principally the place of the agent intellect to be the teacher, and this brings us to the same conclusion as before.
3. Furthermore, to teach is more God’s than man’s place. Hence (Matthew 23.8) the dictum “Your teacher is one”. But God teaches us in so far as he gives us the light of reason by which we are able to make judgments. Therefore it is to that light that the action of teaching ought principally to be attributed, and so we reach the same conclusion as before.
4. Furthermore, to know something through discovery is better than to learn from another, as appears in the first book of the Ethics. If therefore it is from that manner of acquisition by which someone learns knowledge from another that the name of teacher is taken, so that one is the teacher of the other, so much the more ought the name of teacher to be received from the manner of receiving knowledge through discovery, so that someone is called his own teacher.
5. Furthermore, just as someone is brought to virtue by another and by himself, so someone is led to knowledge both by himself through discovery and by another through learning; but those who arrive at the works of the virtues without an external instructor or legislator are said to be a law unto themselves (Romans 2.14): “When the gentiles who do not have the law do naturally what the law requires, they are a law unto themselves”. Therefore he who acquires knowledge through himself also ought to be called his own teacher.
6. Furthermore, a teacher is the cause of knowledge in the same way that a physician is of health, as the saying goes; but a physician heals himself; therefore someone can teach himself.
Against this
1. is what the Philosopher says in Physics book 8, namely that it is impossible for a teacher to learn, because a teacher must have knowledge, but a learner must not possess it; therefore it cannot be that someone may teach himself or be able to be called his own teacher.
2. Furthermore, the role of teacher brings with it a relationship of superiority, like that of master; but this sort of relationship cannot exist within a person with regard to himself; for no one can be his own father or master; therefore no one can be called his own teacher either.
Reply
We should say that without doubt someone can through the light of reason inborn in him and without the support of outside teaching arrive at knowledge of many things he did not know, as is apparent in everyone who acquires knowledge through discovery; and thus in some way a person is the cause of his own acquisition of knowledge. However, he should not because of this be called his own teacher or be said to teach himself.
For we find in the world of nature two modes of agent principles, as can be seen from the Philosopher’s Metaphysics 7. One agent is that which contains in itself that which is in effect caused by it, either in the same way as in univocal agents or in a higher way as in equivocal agents; but there are some agents in which only a part of what is done exists beforehand, for example as a movement causes health or some warm medicine in which warmth is found either actually or virtually, but the warmth is not the whole of health but only part of it. In the first agents, therefore, there exists the complete cause of action, but not in the agents of the second kind, because this second type causes something because it is in action, whence since it is not in the act of inducing the effect except in part, it will not be fully an agent.
But learning brings the complete action of knowledge in the person teaching or the master; hence it is necessary that he who teaches or is the master have the knowledge which he causes explicitly and fully in the other, as it is acquired by learning in the learner. But when someone acquires knowledge through an internal principle, that which is the agent cause of the knowledge does not possess the knowledge to be acquired except partially, that is as much as pertains to the seminal reasons which are the common principles; and therefore from such causality the name of teacher or master cannot properly speaking be derived.
Answers To Objections
1. In answer to the first objection we should say that, although the agent intellect is in some respect a more principal cause than the man teaching externally, nonetheless the knowledge does not pre-exist in it completely as it does in the teacher, and so the argument does not follow.
2. To the second objection we should make the same answer as to the first.
3. To the third we should respond that God explicitly knows everything which a man is taught through Him. Hence the title of teacher can suitably be attributed to Him. But for the reason already stated, the same is not true of the agent intellect.
4. To the fourth we should reply that although the manner in the acquisition of knowledge through discovery is more complete on the part of the person receiving the knowledge, inasmuch as he is designated as more apt to learn, nonetheless on the part of the person who causes the knowledge the mode via teaching is more complete, because the person teaching, who explicitly knows the whole knowledge, is able more expeditiously to lead someone to knowledge than someone can be led by himself through that which he knows beforehand of the principles of knowledge in their generality.
5. To the fifth our response should be that the law operates in much the same way in respect of action as a principle does in matters of speculation, but not in the same way as a teacher. Hence it does not follow that because someone may be a law unto himself he can be his own teacher.
6. To the sixth we should reply that a physician heals insofar as he possesses healing beforehand not in actuality but in the understanding of the art, but a teacher teaches inasmuch as he possesses knowledge in actuality. Hence, he who does not possess healing in actuality is able to heal himself because he has healing in his understanding of the art. It cannot be, however, that someone has knowledge in actuality and at the same time does not have it, so that he is able to be taught by himself.
VI. New Learning: The Renaissance Humanists
The revival of the twelfth century effloresced with the Renaissance, reaching England in the sixteenth century. As in ancient Rome, liberal learning again became the proper training of statesmen like St. Thomas More - the diplomat Richard Pace even wrote a book defending this claim. Petrarch, the forefather of Italian humanism, already a source for Chaucer in the fourteenth century, now became the most popular poet of the English Renaissance, translated by Elizabeth I and influencing poets such as Wyatt, Sidney, Shakespeare and Donne. Henry Parker’s translation bears witness to Petrarch’s classical debt. The battle to incorporate the rediscovered classical authors within the educational system still had to be won. While scholastics resisted the trend, it was the humanists who won the day, thanks to such voices as St. Thomas More, whose letter to the University of Oxford is a classic defence of liberal learning. More’s spiritual adviser, John Colet, was, like More, a friend of Erasmus and a lover of the new learning. Colet was inspired to found St. Paul’s School - concrete testament to his passion. His curriculum would give as much weight to Greek as to Latin. More also ensured that his daughters enjoyed an excellent education, while George Buchanan, whose work on the limits of kingship was one of the most radical of the sixteenth century, penned a poem to the infant James VI on the education for self-mastery that he saw as proper to a king. The two great predecessors of King James, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, had been exceptionally well-educated in the liberal arts, and if Henry had ultimately disappointed the promise of his youth, Elizabeth had provided the standard for intelligent kingship. Her education at the hands of Roger Ascham, and that of Lady Jane Grey, is recalled in two extracts from Ascham’s writing.
(a) John Colet: A True Education Requires both Greek and Latin
Statuta Paulinæ Scholæ [The Statutes of Saint Paul’s School] (1512)
John Colett the sonne of Henrye Colett, Dean of Paules, desiring nothyng more thanne education and bringing uppe children in good maners and literature in the yere of our Lorde A M fyve hundreth and twelfe bylded a scole in the estende of Paulis churche for CLIII to be taught fre in the same. And ordeyned there a maister, and a surmaister, and a chappelyn, with sufficiente and perpetuale stipendes ever to endure, and sett patrones and defenders governours and rulers of that same schoole the most honest and faithful fellowshipe of the mercers of London. And for because nothing can continue longe and endure in good ordre withoute lawes and statutes, I the saide John have here expressed and shewed my minde whatI wolde shoulde be truly and diligentlye observed and kept of the sayde maister and surmaister, and chapelyn, and of the mercers governours of the schole that in this boke may appere to what intent I founde this schole.
[...]
What shall be taught.
As touching in this scole what shall be taught of the maisters and learned of the scolers, it passeth my witte to devyse, and determyne in particular, but in general to speake and somewhat to saye my mynde, I would they were taught always in good literature bothe Laten and Greke, and good autors such as have the verrye Romayne eloquence joyned with wisdom, specially Cristen autors, that wrote theire wisdome with clean and chaste Laten, other in verse or in prose, for my intent is by this scole specially to encrease knowlege and worshippinge of God and our Lord Christ Jesu, and good Cristen life and maners in the children. And for that entent I will the children learne first above all the catechizon in Englishe and after the accidens, that I made, or some other, yf any be better to the purpose, to induce children more spedely to Laten speeche. And then Institutum Christiani Hominis, which that learned Erasmus made at my requeste, and the boke called Copia of the same Erasmus. And then other authors Christian, as Lactantius, Prudentius, and Proba and Sedulius, and Juvencus and Baptista Mantuanus, and suche other as shall be thought convenient and most to purpose unto the true Laten speeche, all barbary, all corruption, all Laten adulterate which ignorant blinde foles brought into this worlde and with the same hath dystained and poysonyd the olde Laten speche and the veraye Romayne tongue whiche in the tyme of Tully and Salust, and Virgill, and Terence, was usid, whiche also sainte Jerome and sainte Ambrose and saint Austen and many holy doctors lernid in theyre tymes. I saye that fylthines and all suche abusion whiche the later blynde worlde brought in whiche more rather may be called blotterature then litterature, I utterly abannyshe and exclude out of this scole, and charge the maisters that they teache alwaye that is beste, and instruct the children in Greke and redynge Laten in redynge unto them suche autors that hathe with wisdome joyned the pure chaste eloquence.
(b) Richard Pace: The Statesman needs a Liberal Education
De Fructu Qui Ex Doctrina Percipitur [The Fruits of Liberal Education] (1517)
Such is the force of learning that it raises the humble on high, but brings the lofty equal with the divine. It is as though it also has the capacity to render you even more famous if your fortune should be rather prosperous, but if you are oppressed by adversity, to console you, a thing I have often experienced myself.
Moreover, since utility is the most highly regarded thing in human affairs, young men ought to consider and ponder how many individuals in the past and present, and how many born in obscure positions, learning has rendered most noble and illustrious.
Finally, true nobility is the one created by virtue, rather than that bestowed by a famous and long family succession. This issue has long been a matter of discussion by the most erudite men. Those who have held the contrary view were the ones who brought upon the human race the corruption of all good habits. For it is no rash dictum that honour is added to nobility from virtue and not to virtues from nobility.
Therefore, since from this evidence I think it sufficiently clear how great the excellence of learning is and how necessarily it should be sought by every wish, I shall now turn my pen to other matters which relate to the argument.
Since we have advised above that the company of dishonest and evil men is to be avoided, it follows that we should give instructions as to whose company studious young men should cultivate. Actually, the old proverb “equal with equals” gives this information succinctly. Thus young men who are dedicated to the study of literature ought to make friends only with learned and honourable men, frequent their houses, and consult them. If they have any doubts, let them labour with all their strength to demonstrate that they wish to learn and seek with all their heart nothing so much as learning.
For if he sees in a young man this kind of nature and desire for learning, any really learned man will most gladly teach him and (as the saying goes) spur the running steed. This happened to me first at Padua, when as a young man I began to bend myself to the study of literature, through the agency of Cuthbert Tunstall and William Latymer, men of great renown and perfectly rounded learning. Moreover, so great is their wisdom, uprightness of life, and honesty of character, that it is scarcely possible to say whether it is their learning which gives lustre to their characters, or their characters to their learning. Then I had instruction from Leonico and Leoniceno, men of the same stripe, and also from our Erasmus in various places (an education which continues in the present, since either his books accompany me or I go in pursuit of them), and from Paolo Bombasio at Bologna, where in a great hall he commented to great acclaim on all the good books. For it is to these men alone that I owe any small bit of learning that I may possess, and it is because of this that in these trifles of mine I wanted to show that I do not perform the role of ungrateful pupil, but remember my teachers: after all, even Aristophanes’ rustic considers they are worthy of being honoured at least with flour.
It is from association with this sort of men, youths, that not only good literature, but also good character is learned, the two things of which the perfect human life consists. From a learned mouth you will hear nothing but learned words, and this conduces to the speedy learning of many lessons. For somehow it often happens that what we hear, provided it is erudite, sticks more firmly in the memory than what we read. So do not neglect this, as the firmest foundation upon which to build learning, in case an inauspicious beginning should lead to an inauspicious end.
(c) St. Thomas More: In Defence of the “New” Learning
A Letter to John Colet (1512)
I am not really surprised if they are bursting with envy of your most illustrious school. They can see that just as the Greeks emerged from the Trojan horse and destroyed the barbarous Troy, so from your school emerge those who prove and undermine their ignorance.
A Letter to his Daughters (1517)
Thomas More to his most beloved daughters Margaret, Elisabeth and Cecilia and to Margaret Giggs, as dear as though she had been his daughter.
I cannot properly explain, my most pleasant girls, what great delight your elegant letters give me, and none the less since I see that although you are continually changing locations as you travel, you have not left aside any of your usual pursuits, either in exercises of logic, in the composition of declamations, or in the writing of verses. Now I very clearly can persuade myself that I am, as is reasonable, dear to you, when you take such account of my absence that you vie with each other to do what you know would be a delight to me if I were present. As I see your disposition towards me gives me joy, so shall I ensure on my return that you shall experience its utility. For you must be fully persuaded, that there is nothing which brings me more relief among this tedious business than when I read what emanates from you. From which I perceive to be true what your teacher, who loves you so much, writes so amiably about you, namely that if your letter did not declare your outstanding zeal for letters, he could appear to have been indulging his affection rather than the truth. As it is, however, from what you write you gain credence for him, so that I believe true what he boasts almost unbelievably, how finely and acutely you discourse. And so my heart longs to rush home, so that I may match my pupil with you and listen. He is rather lazy in this matter, because he is not able to abandon the hope that he may find you fall below the claims of your teacher. I conceive the hope, however, since I know you are tenacious of your purpose, that you will soon surpass your teacher if not in discoursing, at least in not deserting the contest. Farewell, my dearest girls.
A Letter to the University of Oxford (29 March 1518)
Thomas More sends many greetings to the reverend fathers, the commissary, proctors, and the rest of the senate of the scholars of Oxford.
[...]
Now learn what sort of matter this is. When I was in London, I heard that recently already on a good number of occasions certain scholars of your academy, whether through hatred of Greek literature or some perverse enthusiasm for another literature, though in my opinion more likely because of their misguided desire for sport and trifling, had deliberately conspired together to call themselves Trojans. One of their number, advanced in age but not in wisdom, as they say, chose for himself the name of Priam, another that of Hector, another likewise that of Paris, or of some other of the ancient Trojans, with the rest following the same notion, with no other purpose than to poke fun, with jests and jokes, at those committed to the study of Greek literature, as though they were a faction opposed to the Greeks. And so they say that this was how it happened that no one who had had even a taste of that language could stand up whether at his house or in public without being pointed at, greeted with uproarious laughter, and made the butt of jokes by one of those ridiculous Trojans, who are actually mocking only all the good literature of which they are ignorant. So much so that one might most aptly fit to those appalling Trojans the old adage “Phrygians are late learners”.
When I heard many people assiduously reporting many things about this matter, although it displeased everyone and was especially upsetting to me that there were some scholars among you who with such idiocies both abused their leisure and caused annoyance to the good studies of others, nonetheless because I could see that there could never be anywhere the prospect that out of such a large body of people everyone would be wise, temperate and modest I began to regard the matter in my own mind as unworthy of notice.
However, when I accompanied our most invincible king here to Abingdon, I learned that those idiocies had finally begun to move towards madness. Well it seems that one of the Trojans, in his own opinion a wise man, a jolly jester, as his supporters might say in mitigation, but a lunatic, in the judgment of others who consider what he has done, during this sacred season of Lent in a public meeting-place has made a babbling attack not just upon Greek literature and good Latinity, but pretty liberally against all the liberal arts.
[...]
And so as far as secular literature is concerned, although no one denies that someone can attain salvation without not only that literature but any whatsoever, nevertheless secular learning, as he calls it, does prepare the soul for virtue. However that may be, almost no one denies that the study of literature is almost the only reason why Oxford is so crowded. It is clear that any decent woman could teach her children pretty well at home that virtue which is rough and illiterate. Besides, students who come to us do not head straightaway towards the study of theology. Some of them must learn the laws also. Moreover, wisdom in human affairs is also something to be gained, a thing which is so useful for a theologian that he might be able to sing a sweet enough song among his peers, but would certainly sing a foolish one before the ordinary people. I do not know if there is anywhere from which this skill can be drunk in deeper measure than from the poets, orators and historians.
[...]
I am not such a fool, most literate men, as to take upon myself the protection of Greek literature in the presence of such wise persons as yourselves. I can easily recognise that its utility has been perceived and understood by you. To whom in fact is it not obvious that it was the Greeks who discovered all the most important things and who handed down most accurately what they had discovered, both in the other arts and in theology itself?
[...]
May God keep safe this most illustrious Academy of yours and render it daily more and more flourishing in all good literature and in virtue.
Abingdon, 4th days before the Kalends of April 1518
A Letter to William Gonell (22 May 1518)
I have received your letter, my Gonell, which is as always most elegant and full of affection. I perceive from your letter your affection for my children, your diligence from theirs. I was mightily pleased by all their epistles. But in particular I feel that Elisabeth has displayed such modesty of character in the absence of her mother as some normally do not in the presence of theirs. Make sure she learns that this is more pleasing to me than all the letters of all mortal men.
For just as I prefer the learning which is joined with virtue to all the treasure-stores of the kings, so if you separate probity of character, what else does literary fame confer than a celebrated and glorious infamy? This is especially so in women, since most people will gladly attack the idea of educating them as a revolutionary thing and as arguing the case against men for their sloth and they will accuse literature of what is actually a fault of nature, reckoning that their own ignorance will be counted as virtue as a result of the faults of the educated.
On the contrary, if a woman adds to outstanding mental virtues even a moderate skill in letters (a thing which I pray, nay I expect for certain with you as their teacher, all mine will achieve), I think that she has gained more true good than if she had acquired the riches of Croesus along with the beauty of Helen.
[...]
Nor do I think it matters to the harvest whether it is a man or a woman who has done the sowing. If each can lay claim to the name of human being, whose nature is distinguished from the beasts by reason, I claim that each can equally lay claim to literary learning, through which reason is cultivated and like a field brings forth its crop once the seeds of good lessons have been planted there. But if the feminine soil be of its very nature thin and more wont to bring forth fern than crops (a saying which many use to put women off from letters), my view is on the contrary that a woman’s intellect is so much the more diligently to be cultivated by literature and the good disciplines, in order that a fault of nature may be redressed by hard work. This was the view of very wise and at the same time very holy men. To mention only two, Jerome and Augustine did not simply encourage excellent married women and very honourable maidens to engage in literary study, but to help them make progress more readily they provided diligent exegesis for them of hidden meanings in the Scriptures, and wrote to tender little girls letters stuffed with such erudition that even now old men who profess to be teachers of sacred literature can scarcely read them properly, let alone understand them.
[...]
Besides, you will make my children, who are dear to me first by nature’s law, and secondly dearer through their studies and their virtue, most dear to me through this increment in their learning and good character.
Farewell.
A Letter to Margaret More (1518)
I enjoyed your letter, my dearest Margaret, in which you informed me how Shaw is. I will enjoy future ones the more if you have reported on your and your brother’s studies, what you read together every day, how pleasurably you converse, what you compose, and how you spend your day among the sweetest fruits of literature. For although nothing could not cause me pleasure which you write, nonetheless those offerings are the most honey-sweet which cannot be written to me except by you and your brother.
[...]
Please make sure I know what is going on with your studies, Margaret. For rather than allow my own to grow torpid with inertia, I would immediately bid farewell to my other cares and business, even with some loss to my fortunes, and give my attention to my children and my family. Among these there is nothing dearer to me than you, my dearest daughter.
Farewell.
A Letter to his School (1521)
Thomas More sends greetings to his whole school.
Note the greeting shortcut I have discovered, to save myself wasting both time and paper, which otherwise would have had to be taken up in greeting you all individually by a roll-call of names! In fact my labour in this would have been superfluous, since although you are all dear to me under different names, none of which should be omitted in an ambitious greeting, nonetheless no one is dearer by almost any appellation than each of you is by virtue of the name “scholar”. To such an extent does the enthusiasm for learning bind me to you more tightly almost than the actual bond of blood. I rejoice, therefore, that Master Drew has returned safely: as you know, I was concerned for his well-being. If I did not love you so very much, I would obviously be envious of your great good fortune in having so many great teachers. However, I think Master Nicholas is now surplus to your requirements, since you have learned so well whatever astronomy he has in his grasp. Indeed, I hear you are so far advanced in this study that not only can you spot the pole-star or the dog-star or any other member of the star herd, but you can even (a thing which demands a skilled and complete astronomer) among those outstanding and primary stellar entities distinguish the sun from the moon! Bravo! I applaud this new and admirable skill of yours, with which you thus mount the stars. While you are looking up so assiduously, perhaps you might think from time to time that this sacred period of Lent admonishes you and that excellent and most holy poem of Boethius sings in your ears. By the latter we are taught to lift our minds up to heaven at the same time, in case though the body be raised on high the intellect may be laid low upon the earth, following the lifestyle of the beasts.
Farewell, all my most dear ones. From the Court, 23rd March.
(d) Roger Ascham: Ladies of Great Learning
A Letter to Sturm (1550)
St. John’s, April 4.
There are many honourable ladies now who surpass Thomes More’s daughters in all kinds of learning; but among all of them the brightest star is my illustrious Lady Elizabeth, the king’s sister; so that I have no difficulty in finding subject for writing in her praise, but only in setting bounds to what I write. I will write nothing however which I have not myself witnessed. She had me for her tutor in Greek and Latin two years; but now I am released from the Court and restored to my old literary leisure here, where by her beneficence I hold an honest place in this University.
It is difficult to say whether the gifts of nature or of fortune are most to be admired in that illustrious lady. The praise which Aristotle gives wholly centres in her - beauty, stature, prudence, and industry. She has just passed her sixteenth birthday, and shows such dignity and gentleness as are wonderful at her age and in her rank.
Her study of true religion and learning is most energetic. Her mind has no womanly weakness, her perseverance is equal to that of a man, and her memory long keeps what it quickly picks up. She talks French and Italian as well as English: she has often talked to me readily and well in Latin, and moderately so in Greek. When she writes Greek and Latin, nothing is more beautiful than her hand-writing. She is as much delighted with music as she is skilful in the art. In adornment she is elegant rather than showy, and by her contempt of gold and head-dresses, she reminds one of Hippolyte rather than of Phædra.
She read with me almost all Cicero, and great part of Titus Livius; for she drew all her knowledge of Latin from those two authors. She used to give the morning of the day to the Greek Testament, and afterwards read select orations of Isocrates and the tragedies of Sophocles. For I thought that from those sources she might gain purity of style, and her mind derive instruction that would be of value to her to meet every contingency of life.
To these I added Saint Cyprian and Melanchthon’s Common Places, &c., as best suited, after the Holy Scriptures, to teach her the foundations of religion, together with elegant language and sound doctrine. Whatever she reads she at once perceives any word that has a doubtful or curious meaning. She cannot endure those foolish imitators of Erasmus, who have tied up the Latin tongue in those wretched fetters of proverbs. She likes a style that grows out of the subject; chaste because it is suitable, and beautiful because it is clear. She very much admires modest metaphors, and comparisons of contraries well put together and contrasting felicitously with one another. Her ears are so well practised in discriminating all these things, and her judgment is so good, that in all Greek, Latin, and English composition, there is nothing so loose on the one hand or so concise on the other, which she does not immediately attend to, and either reject with disgust or receive with pleasure, as the case may be.
I am not inventing anything, my dear Sturm; it is all true: but I only seek to give you an outline of her excellence, and whilst doing so, I have been pleased to recall to my mind the dear memory of my most illustrious lady.
The Scholemaster (1570)
Therfore, to love or to hate, to like or contemne, to plie this waie or that waie to good or to bad, ye shall have as ye use a child in his youth.
And one example, whether love or feare doth worke more in a child, for vertue and learning, I will gladlie report: which maie be had with some pleasure, and folowed with more profit. Before I went into Germanie, I came to Brodegate in Lecetershire, to take my leave of that noble Ladie Jane Grey, to whom I was exceding moch beholdinge.
Hir parentes, the Duke and Duches, with all the Grey houshould, Gentlemen and Gentlewomen, were huntinge in the Parke: I founde her, in her Chamber, readinge Plato’s Phædo in Greeke, and that with as moch delite, as som gentleman wold read a merie tale in Boccacio. After salutation, and dewtie done, with som other taulke, I asked hir, why she wold lease soch pastime in the Parke? Smiling she answered me: I know all their sporte in the Parke is but a shadoe to that pleasure, that I find in Plato: Alas good folke, they never felt, what trewe pleasure ment.
And howe came you Madame, quoth I, to this deepe knowledge of pleasure, and what did chieflie allure you unto it: seinge, not many women, but verie fewe men have atteined thereunto. I will tell you, quoth she, and tell you a troth, which perchance ye will mervell at. One of the greatest benefites, that ever God gave me, is, that he sent me so sharpe and severe Parentes, and so gentle a scholemaster.
For when I am in presence either of father or mother, whether I speake, kepe silence, sit, stand, or go, eate, drinke, be merie, or sad, be sowyng, plaiyng, dauncing, or doing anie thing els, I must do it, as it were, in soch weight, mesure, and number, even so perfitelie, as God made the world, or else I am so sharplie taunted, so cruellie threatened, yea presentlie some tymes, with pinches, nippes, and bobbes, and other waies, which I will not name, for the honor I beare them, so without measure misordered, that I thinke my selfe in hell, till tyme cum, that I must go to M. Elmer, who teacheth me so gentlie, so pleasantlie, with soch faire allurementes to learning, that I thinke all the tyme nothing, whiles I am with him. And when I am called from him, I fall on weeping, because, what soever I do els, but learning, is ful of grief, trouble, feare, and whole misliking unto me: And thus my booke, hath bene so moch my pleasure, & bringeth dayly to me more pleasure & more, that in respect of it, all other pleasures, in very deede, be but trifles and troubles unto me. I remember this talke gladly, both bicause it is so worthy of memorie, & bicause also, it was the last talke that ever I had, and the last tyme, that ever I saw that noble and worthie Ladie.
[...]
Dion of Prussæus, that wise Philosopher, & excellent orator of all his tyme, did cum to the great learning & utterance that was in him, by reading and folowing onelie two bookes, Plato’s Phædo, and Demosthenes’ most notable oration ‘Peri tes Parapresbeias’. And a better, and nerer example herein, may be our most noble Queene Elizabeth, who never toke yet, Greeke nor Latin Grammer in her hand, after the first declining of a nowne and a verbe, but onely by this double translating of Demosthenes and Isocrates dailie without missing everie forenone, and likewise som part of Tully every afternone, for the space of a yeare or two, hath atteyned to soch a perfite understanding in both the tonges, and to soch a readie utterance of the Latin, and that wyth soch a judgement, as they be fewe in nomber in both the universities, or els where in England, that be, in both tonges, comparable with her Majestie. And to conclude in a short room, the commodities of double translation, surelie the mynde by dailie marking, first, the cause and matter: than, the wordes and phrases: next, the order and composition: after the reason and argumentes: than the formes and figures of both the tonges: lastelie, the measure and compas of everie sentence, must nedes, by litle and litle drawe unto it the like shape of eloquence, as the author doth use, which is read.
(e) Henry Parker, Lord Morley: The Heroes Of The Past Inspire Us Forward
A Translation of Petrarch’s Triumph of Fame (1554)
I coulde not in noo wyse away put my syght
From these greate honorable men of myght
When as me thoughte one to me dyd saye
Loke on the lefte hande there see thou may
The dyvyne Plato that goeth I say full nye
Unto the marke of fame even by and by
Next unto Plato Aristotle there he is
Pytagoras foloweth that mekely calde Iwys
Phylosophy he dyd geve it that name
Socrates and Xenophontes folowed the same
And that fyery old auncient man
To whome the musys were so fra[n]dely than
That descrybed Argo Micena and Troye
Howe that for Helene they lost all their joye
And he dyd wryte of Lærtes sonne also
And of Achilles that was the Troyanes woe
He was the fyrst paynter it is so tolde
Of the auncient and venerable actes olde
There went with hym in that place hand in hand
The Mantuan poete I do well understand
Stryving which of them should goo before
And there folowed after in hast more and more
[...]
I cannot saye in ordre nether wryte nor tell
Of one and other that dyd there exell
Nor howe I dyd them se nor when
Nor who went foremost nor hynmost then
For it were so to do to great a wondre
They went not fare these clarkes a sondre
But so thycke that both eye and mynd
In lokyng on them theyr names I could not find
[...]
There followed after [Th]ucides in that pres
That ordeyned [with] wisedome the howres doutles
And wrote of the battels & wher they were done
And Herodotus with his style holesome
And he beganne the crafty sciense of Geometre
The triangle and the rounde Arball in degree
[...]
There was also Dicearco the curyouse
Quintilian, Sceneke, and Plutarke the famouse
[...]
There was also that Phylozopher [that] in very dede
Spune the subtle and wonderouse crafty threde
Hys wyt was so excellent and his learning so fine
That he semed to have a knowledge devyne
[Z]e[n]one of the Father of the Stoykes secte
Above the rest he was best electe
Well declared he as he dyd there stande
By the palme and closyng of hys hande
Howe the truth was in eche season and case
For he so declared it with his wyse face.
(e) George Buchanan: A King Must Be Bound By Wisdom
Genethliacon Jacobi Principis Scotorum (1566)
These precepts let him learn in tender age,
And practise in mature, and let him deem
He reigns more widely, than if he conjoin’d
The dusk Hindoos to the Hesperian shore,
If of himself, and of his passions King.
When firmer strength shall rule his limbs and mind,
His boyish murmurs, and his struggling words
The Graces sweet will fashion, and will give
His rude breast to the Muses to be train’d;
Thence will he learn the marks, by which what grieves
Or pleases, he, though absent, may express
To absent friends beloved; what certain marks
Discriminate the specious from the true;
What contradicts, or necessarily follows;
What kind of language soothes inflamèd wrath,
What kindles it when smouldering; what force rules
The orbs of heaven; or whether Nature rolls
Her maze eternal of her proper force.
Next he’ll begin by the Socratic chart
To know himself, if by Socratic chart
Truth can indeed be known: now firmer age,
Fit to distinguish sacred from profane,
Adapts him for the heaven-begotten Muses:
Thence will he get the precepts that subdue
Rebellious passions; from the sacred fount
Learn the true art of ruling commonwealths
In peace and war. If careful to this rule
He all his acts conform, he will succeed
And happily to his forefathers’ throne.
VII. Persistence Through Enlightenment, Romanticism & Industrialisation
The Age of Enlightenment preferred rationality to tradition and might have been expected to reject the old ways of liberal learning. There were modernising educational voices at the time who sought to introduce systems born of pure reason. However, even David Hume had to acknowledge the need for a test of time in constructing a canon of great works. Adam Smith, introducing the economic transformation of industrialisation that lies implicit in his theory of the division of labour, was aware of the Greco-Roman tradition, acknowledged that the specialisation he advocated worked against the creation of fully-rounded human beings, and proposed the state should work to correct this tendency through its national education system. In Samuel Johnson, himself at one time a schoolmaster, we find a practical man who worked for helpful changes but without rejecting the traditional system. In his ‘Vision of Theodore’ he offers an allegorical account of human life in which Education is a hard taskmistress and the goal is faith informed by reason. After the Enlightenment, the Romantic reaction against rationalism produced Rousseau’s Emile, the classic ‘alternative’ to liberal education. Yet in Coleridge’s Biographia he once more rejects the trend away from tradition and celebrates his own rigorous classical education.
(a) Samuel Johnson: Education Battles With Bad Habits
Scheme for the Classes of a Grammar School (c. 1736?)
When the introduction, or formation of nouns and verbs, is perfectly mastered, let them learn
Corderius, by Mr. Clarke; beginning at the same time to translate out of the introduction, that by this means they may learn the syntax. Then let them proceed to
Erasmus, with an English translation, by the same author.
Class II. Learns Eutropius and Cornelius Nepos, or Justin, with the translation.
N.B. The first class gets for their part every morning the rules which they have learned before, and in the afternoon learns the Latin rules of the nouns and verbs.
They are examined in the rules which they have learned, every Thursday and Saturday.
The second class doth the same whilst they are in Eutropius; afterwards their part is in the irregular nouns and verbs, and in the rules for making and scanning verses. They are examined as in the first.
Class III. Ovid’s Metamorphoses in the morning, and Cæsar’s Commentaries in the afternoon.
Part is in the Latin rules till they are perfect in them, afterwards in Mr. Leeds’s Greek Grammar. Examined as before.
Afterwards they proceed to Virgil, beginning at the same time to write themes and verses, and to learn Greek from thence passing on to Horace, &c. as shall seem most proper.
The Vision of Theodore, the hermit of Teneriffe, found in his cell (1748)
I looked and beheld a mountain higher than Teneriffe, to the summit of which the human eye could never reach; when I had tired myself with gazing upon its height, I turned my eyes towards its foot, which I could easily discover, but was amazed to find it without foundation, and placed inconceivably in emptiness and darkness. Thus I stood terrified and confused; above were tracks inscrutable, and below was total vacuity. But my protector, with a voice of admonition, cried out, “Theodore, be not affrighted, but raise thy eyes again; the Mountain of Existence is before thee, survey it and be wise.”
I then looked with more deliberate attention, and observed the bottom of the mountain to be of gentle rise, and overspread with flowers; the middle to be more steep, embarrassed with crags, and interrupted by precipices, over which hung branches loaded with fruits, and among which were scattered palaces and bowers. The tracts which my eye could reach nearest the top were generally barren; but there were among the clefts of the rocks a few hardy evergreens, which though they did not give much pleasure to the sight or smell, yet seemed to cheer the labour and facilitate the steps of those who were clambering among them.
Then, beginning to examine more minutely the different parts, I observed at a great distance a multitude of both sexes issuing into view from the bottom of the mountain. Their first actions I could not accurately discern; but, as they every moment approached nearer, I found that they amused themselves with gathering flowers under the superintendence of a modest virgin in a white robe, who seemed not over-solicitous to confine them to any settled pace or certain track; for she knew that the whole ground was smooth and solid, and that they could not easily be hurt or bewildered. When, as it often happened, they plucked a thistle for a flower, Innocence, so was she called, would smile at the mistake. Happy, said I, are they who are under so gentle a government, and yet are safe. But I had no opportunity to dwell long on the consideration of their felicity; for I found that Innocence continued her attendance but a little way, and seemed to consider only the flowery bottom of the mountain as her proper province. Those whom she abandoned scarcely knew that they were left, before they perceived themselves in the hands of Education, a nymph more severe in her aspect, and imperious in her commands, who confined them to certain paths, in their opinion too narrow and too rough. These they were continually solicited to leave by Appetite, whom Education could never fright away, though she sometimes awed her to such timidity that the effects of her presence were scarcely perceptible. Some went back to the first part of the mountain, and seemed desirous of continuing busied in plucking flowers, but were no longer guarded by Innocence; and such as Education could not force back proceeded up the mountain by some miry road, in which they were seldom seen, and scarcely ever regarded.
As Education led her troop up the mountain, nothing was more observable than that she was frequently giving them cautions to beware of Habits; and was calling out to one or another at every step, that a Habit was insnaring them; that they would be under the dominion of Habit before they perceived their danger; and that those whom Habit should once subdue, had little hope of regaining their liberty.
[...]
(b) David Hume: A Canon is Formed by Uniform Consent of Nations and Ages
Of the Standard of Taste (1757)
The same Homer, who pleased at Athens and Rome two thousand years ago, is still admired at Paris and at London. All the changes of climate, government, religion, and language, have not been able to obscure his glory. Authority or prejudice may give a temporary vogue to a bad poet or orator, but his reputation will never be durable or general. When his compositions are examined by posterity or by foreigners, the enchantment is dissipated, and his faults appear in their true colours. On the contrary, a real genius, the longer his works endure, and the more wide they are spread, the more sincere is the admiration which he meets with. Envy and jealousy have too much place in a narrow circle; and even familiar acquaintance with his person may diminish the applause due to his performances. But when these obstructions are removed, the beauties, which are naturally fitted to excite agreeable sentiments, immediately display their energy; and while the world endures, they maintain their authority over the minds of men.
It appears then, that, amidst all the variety and caprice of taste, there are certain general principles of approbation or blame, whose influence a careful eye may trace in all operations of the mind. Some particular forms or qualities, from the original structure of the internal fabric, are calculated to please, and others to displease; and if they fail of their effect in any particular instance, it is from some apparent defect or imperfection in the organ. A man in a fever would not insist on his palate as able to decide concerning flavours; nor would one, affected with the jaundice, pretend to give a verdict with regard to colours. In each creature, there is a sound and a defective state; and the former alone can be supposed to afford us a true standard of taste and sentiment. If, in the sound state of the organ, there be an entire or a considerable uniformity of sentiment among men, we may thence derive an idea of the perfect beauty; in like manner as the appearance of objects in daylight, to the eye of a man in health, is denominated their true and real colour, even while colour is allowed to be merely a phantasm of the senses.
Many and frequent are the defects in the internal organs, which prevent or weaken the influence of those general principles, on which depends our sentiment of beauty or deformity. Though some objects, by the structure of the mind, be naturally calculated to give pleasure, it is not to be expected that in every individual the pleasure will be equally felt. Particular incidents and situations occur, which either throw a false light on the objects, or hinder the true from conveying to the imagination the proper sentiment and perception.
One obvious cause, why many feel not the proper sentiment of beauty, is the want of that delicacy of imagination, which is requisite to convey a sensibility of those finer emotions. This delicacy every one pretends to: every one talks of it; and would reduce every kind of taste or sentiment to its standard. But as our intention in this essay is to mingle some light of the understanding with the feelings of sentiment, it will be proper to give a more accurate definition of delicacy, than has hitherto been attempted. And not to draw our philosophy from too profound a source, we shall have recourse to a noted story in Don Quixote.
It is with good reason, says Sancho to the squire with the great nose, that I pretend to have a judgment in wine: this is a quality hereditary in our family. Two of my kinsmen were once called to give their opinion of a hogshead, which was supposed to be excellent, being old and of a good vintage. One of them tastes it; considers it; and after mature reflection pronounces the wine to be good, were it not for a small taste of leather, which he perceived in it. The other, after using the same precautions, gives also his verdict in favour of the wine; but with the reserve of a taste of iron, which he could easily distinguish. You cannot imagine how much they were both ridiculed for their judgment. But who laughed in the end? On emptying the hogshead, there was found at the bottom an old key with a leathern thong tied to it.
The great resemblance between mental and bodily taste will easily teach us to apply this story. Though it be certain, that beauty and deformity, more than sweet and bitter, are not qualities in objects, but belong entirely to the sentiment, internal or external, it must be allowed that there are certain qualities in objects which are fitted by nature to produce those particular feelings. Now as these qualities may be found in a smaller degree, or may be mixed and confounded with each other, it often happens that the taste is not affected with such minute qualities, or is not able to distinguish all the particular flavours, amidst the disorder in which they are presented. Where the organs are so fine as to allow nothing to escape them and at the same time so exact as to perceive every ingredient in the composition: this we call delicacy of taste, whether we employ these terms in the literal or metaphorical sense. Here then the general rules of beauty are of use, being drawn from established models, and from the observation of what pleases or displeases, when presented singly and in a high degree; and if the same qualities, in a continued composition and in a small degree, affect not the organs with a sensible delight or uneasiness, we exclude the person from all pretensions to this delicacy. To produce these general rules or avowed patterns of composition is like finding the key with the leathern thong, which justified the verdict of Sancho’s kinsmen, and confounded those pretended judges who had condemned them. Though the hogshead had never been emptied, the taste of the one was still equally delicate, and that of the other equally dull and languid; but it would have been more difficult to have proved the superiority of the former, to the conviction of every by-stander. In like manner, though the beauties of writing had never been methodized, or reduced to general principles; though no excellent models had ever been acknowledged; the different degrees of taste would still have subsisted, and the judgment of one man had been preferable to that of another; but it would not have been so easy to silence the bad critic, who might always insist upon his particular sentiment, and refuse to submit to his antagonist. But when we show him an avowed principle of art; when we illustrate this principle by examples, whose operation, from his own particular taste, he acknowledges to be conformable to the principle; when we prove that the same principle may be applied to the present case, where he did not perceive or feel its influence: he must conclude, upon the whole, that the fault lies in himself, and that he wants the delicacy which is requisite to make him sensible of every beauty and every blemish in any composition or discourse.
It is acknowledged to be the perfection of every sense or faculty, to perceive with exactness its most minute objects, and allow nothing to escape its notice and observation. The smaller the objects are, which become sensible to the eye, the finer is that organ, and the more elaborate its make and composition. A good palate is not tried by strong flavours, but by a mixture of small ingredients, where we are still sensible of each part, notwithstanding its minuteness and its confusion with the rest. In like manner, a quick and acute perception of beauty and deformity must be the perfection of our mental taste; nor can a man be satisfied with himself while he suspects that any excellence or blemish in a discourse has passed him unobserved. In this case, the perfection of the man and the perfection of the sense of feeling are found to be united. A very delicate palate, on many occasions, may be a great inconvenience both to a man himself and to his friends; but a delicate taste of wit or beauty must always be a desirable quality, because it is the source of all the finest and most innocent enjoyments of which human nature is susceptible. In this decision the sentiments of all mankind are agreed. Wherever you can ascertain a delicacy of taste, it is sure to meet with approbation; and the best way of ascertaining it is to appeal to those models and principles, which have been established by the uniform consent and experience of nations and ages.
But though there be naturally a wide difference in point of delicacy between one person and another, nothing tends further to increase and improve this talent, than practice in a particular art, and the frequent survey or contemplation of a particular species of beauty. When objects of any kind are first presented to the eye or imagination, the sentiment, which attends them, is obscure and confused; and the mind is, in a great measure, incapable of pronouncing concerning their merits or defects. The taste cannot perceive the several excellences of the performance, much less distinguish the particular character of each excellency and ascertain its quality and degree. If it pronounce the whole in general to be beautiful or deformed, it is the utmost that can be expected; and even this judgment, a person, so unpractised, will be apt to deliver with great hesitation and reserve. But allow him to acquire experience in those objects, his feeling becomes more exact and nice: he not only perceives the beauties and defects of each part, but marks the distinguishing species of each quality, and assigns it suitable praise or blame. A clear and distinct sentiment attends him through the whole survey of the objects; and he discerns that very degree and kind of approbation or displeasure, which each part is naturally fitted to produce. The mist dissipates, which seemed formerly to hang over the object: the organ acquires greater perfection in its operations; and can pronounce, without danger of mistake, concerning the merits of every performance. In a word, the same address and dexterity, which practice gives to the execution of any work, is also acquired by the same means in the judging of it.
So advantageous is practice to the discernment of beauty, that, before we can give judgment of any work of importance, it will even be requisite, that that very individual performance be more than once perused by us, and be surveyed in different lights with attention and deliberation. There is a flutter or hurry of thought which attends the first perusal of any piece, and which confounds the genuine sentiment of beauty. The relation of the parts is not discerned: The true characters of style are little distinguished: The several perfections and defects seem wrapped up in a species of confusion, and present themselves indistinctly to the imagination. Not to mention, that there is a species of beauty, which, as it is florid and superficial, pleases at first but being found incompatible with a just expression either of reason or passion, soon palls upon the taste, and is then rejected with disdain, at least rated at a much lower value.
It is impossible to continue in the practice of contemplating any order of beauty, without being frequently obliged to form comparisons between the several species and degrees of excellence, and estimating their proportion to each other. A man who has had no opportunity of comparing the different kinds of beauty, is indeed totally unqualified to pronounce an opinion with regard to any object presented to him. By comparison alone we fix the epithets of praise or blame, and learn how to assign the due degree of each. The coarsest daubing contains a certain lustre of colours and exactness of imitation, which are so far beauties, and would affect the mind of a peasant or Indian with the highest admiration. The most vulgar ballads are not entirely destitute of harmony or nature; and none but a person familiarized to superior beauties would pronounce their numbers harsh, or narration uninteresting. A great inferiority of beauty gives pain to a person conversant in the highest excellence of the kind, and is for that reason pronounced a deformity; as the most finished object with which we are acquainted is naturally supposed to have reached the pinnacle of perfection, and to be entitled to the highest applause. One accustomed to see, and examine, and weigh the several performances admired in different ages and nations can alone rate the merits of a work exhibited to his view, and assign its proper rank among the productions of genius.
But to enablea critic the more fully to execute this undertaking, he must preserve his mind free from all prejudice, and allow nothing to enter into his consideration but the very object which is submitted to his examination. We may observe that every work of art, in order to produce its due effect on the mind, must be surveyed in a certain point of view, and not be fully relished by persons whose situation, real or imaginary, is not conformable to that which is required by the performance. An orator addresses himself to a particular audience, and must have a regard to their particular genius, interests, opinions, passions, and prejudices; otherwise he hopes in vain to govern their resolutions, and inflame their affections. Should they even have entertained some prepossessions against him, however unreasonable, he must not overlook this disadvantage; but, before he enters upon the subject, must endeavour to conciliate their affection, and acquire their good graces. A critic of a different age or notion, who should peruse this discourse, must have all these circumstances in his eye, and must place himself in the same situation as the audience, in order to form a true judgment of the oration. In like manner, when any work is addressed to the public, though I should have a friendship or enmity with the author, I must depart from this situation and, considering myself as a man in general, forget, if possible, my individual being and my peculiar circumstances. A person influenced by prejudice complies not with this condition, but obstinately maintains his natural position, without placing himself in that point of view which the performance supposes. If the work be addressed to persons of a different age or nation, he makes no allowance for their peculiar views and prejudices; but, full of the manners of his own age and country, rashly condemns what seemed admirable in the eyes of those for whom alone the discourse was calculated. If the work be executed for the public, he never sufficiently enlarges his comprehension, or forgets his interest as a friend or enemy, as a rival or commentator. By this means his sentiments are perverted; nor have the same beauties and blemishes the same influence upon him, as if he had imposed a proper violence on his imagination, and had forgotten himself for a moment. So far his taste evidently departs from the true standard, and of consequence loses all credit and authority.
It is well known, that in all questions submitted to the understanding prejudice is destructive of sound judgment, and perverts all operations of the intellectual faculties: it is no less contrary to good taste; nor has it less influence to corrupt our sentiment of beauty. It belongs to good sense to check its influence in both cases; and in this respect, as well as in many others, reason, if not an essential part of taste, is at least requisite to the operations of this latter faculty. In all the nobler productions of genius, there is a mutual relation and correspondence of parts; nor can either the beauties or blemishes be perceived by him whose thought is not capacious enough to comprehend all those parts, and compare them with each other, in order to perceive the consistence and uniformity of the whole. Every work of art has also a certain end or purpose for which it is calculated; and is to be deemed more or less perfect, as it is more or less fitted to attain this end. The object of eloquence is to persuade, of history to instruct, of poetry to please by means of the passions and the imagination. These ends we must carry constantly in our view when we peruse any performance; and we must be able to judge how far the means employed are adapted to their respective purposes. Besides, every kind of composition, even the most poetical, is nothing but a chain of propositions and reasonings; not always, indeed, the justest and most exact, but still plausible and specious, however disguised by the colouring of the imagination. The persons introduced in tragedy and epic poetry must be represented as reasoning, and thinking, and concluding, and acting, suitably to their character and circumstances; and without judgment, as well as taste and invention, a poet can never hope to succeed in so delicate an undertaking. Not to mention, that the same excellence of faculties which contributes to the improvement of reason, the same clearness of conception, the same exactness of distinction, the same vivacity of apprehension, are essential to the operations of true taste, and are its infallible concomitants. It seldom or never happens that a man of sense, who has experience in any art, cannot judge of its beauty; and it is no less rare to meet with a man who has a just taste without a sound understanding.
Thus, though the principles of taste be universal, and, nearly, if not entirely the same in all men; yet few are qualified to give judgment on any work of art, or establish their own sentiment as the standard of beauty. The organs of internal sensation are seldom so perfect as to allow the general principles their full play, and produce a feeling correspondent to those principles. They either labour under some defect, or are vitiated by some disorder; and by that means excite a sentiment which may be pronounced erroneous. When the critic has no delicacy, he judges without any distinction, and is only affected by the grosser and more palpable qualities of the object: the finer touches pass unnoticed and disregarded. Where he is not aided by practice, his verdict is attended with confusion and hesitation. Where no comparison has been employed, the most frivolous beauties, such as rather merit the name of defects, are the object of his admiration. Where he lies under the influence of prejudice, all his natural sentiments are perverted. Where good sense is wanting, he is not qualified to discern the beauties of design and reasoning, which are the highest and most excellent. Under some or other of these imperfections, the generality of men labour; and hence a true judge in the finer arts is observed, even during the most polished ages, to be so rare a character: strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice, can alone entitle critics to this valuable character; and the joint verdict of such, wherever they are to be found, is the true standard of taste and beauty.
(c) Adam Smith: Economic Pragmatism Does Not Exclude Liberal Education
An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776)
Of the Expense of the Institutions for the Education of Youth
In the republics of ancient Greece, every free citizen was instructed, under the direction of the public magistrate, in gymnastic exercises and in music. By gymnastic exercises it was intended to harden his body, to sharpen his courage, and to prepare him for the fatigues and dangers of war; and as the Greek militia was, by all accounts, one of the best that ever was in the world, this part of their public education must have answered completely the purpose for which it was intended. By the other part, music, it was proposed, at least by the philosophers and historians who have given us an account of those institutions, to humanize the mind, to soften the temper, and to dispose it for performing all the social and moral duties both of public and private life.
[...]
In the progress of the division of labour, the employment of the far greater part of those who live by labour, that is, of the great body of the people, comes to be confined to a few very simple operations, frequently to one or two. But the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgment concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private life. Of the great and extensive interests of his country he is altogether incapable of judging, and unless very particular pains have been taken to render him otherwise, he is equally incapable of defending his country in war. The uniformity of his stationary life naturally corrupts the courage of his mind, and makes him regard with abhorrence the irregular, uncertain, and adventurous life of a soldier. It corrupts even the activity of his body, and renders him incapable of exerting his strength with vigour and perseverance in any other employment than that to which he has been bred. His dexterity at his own particular trade seems, in this manner, to be acquired at the expense of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues. But in every improved and civilised society this is the state into which the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent it.
[...]
Even though the martial spirit of the people were of no use towards the defence of the society, yet to prevent that sort of mental mutilation, deformity, and wretchedness, which cowardice necessarily involves in it, from spreading themselves through the great body of the people, would still deserve the most serious attention of government, in the same manner as it would deserve its most serious attention to prevent a leprosy or any other loathsome and offensive disease, though neither mortal nor dangerous, from spreading itself among them, though perhaps no other public good might result from such attention besides the prevention of so great a public evil.
The same thing may be said of the gross ignorance and stupidity which, in a civilised society, seem so frequently to benumb the understandings of all the inferior ranks of people. A man without the proper use of the intellectual faculties of a man, is, if possible, more contemptible than even a coward, and seems to be mutilated and deformed in a still more essential part of the character of human nature. Though the state was to derive no advantage from the instruction of the inferior ranks of people, it would still deserve its attention that they should not be altogether uninstructed.
(d) Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Romantic Classicist
Biographia Literaria (1817)
At school I enjoyed the inestimable advantage of a very sensible though at the same time a very severe master. He early moulded my taste to the preference of Demosthenes to Cicero, of Homer and Theocritus to Virgil, and again of Virgil to Ovid. He habituated me to compare Lucretius, (in such extracts as I then read) Terence, and above all the chaster poems of Catullus, not only with the Roman poets of the, so called, silver and brazen ages; but with even those of the Augustan era: and on grounds of plain sense and universal logic to see and assert the superiority of the former in the truth and nativeness, both of their thoughts and diction. At the same time that we were studying the Greek Tragic Poets, he made us read Shakespeare and Milton as lessons: and they were the lessons too, which required most time and trouble to bring up, so as to escape his censure. I learnt from him, that Poetry, even that of the loftiest and, seemingly, that of the wildest odes, had a logic of its own, as severe as that of science; and more difficult, because more subtle, more complex, and dependent on more, and more fugitive causes. In the truly great poets, he would say, there is a reason assignable, not only for every word, but for the position of every word; and I well remember that, availing himself of the synonyms to the Homer of Didymus, he made us attempt to show, with regard to each, why it would not have answered the same purpose; and wherein consisted the peculiar fitness of the word in the original text.
In our own English compositions, (at least for the last three years of our school education,) he showed no mercy to phrase, metaphor, or image, unsupported by a sound sense, or where the same sense might have been conveyed with equal force and dignity in plainer words. Lute, harp, and lyre, muse, muses, and inspirations, Pegasus, Parnassus, and Hippocrene were all an abomination to him. In fancy I can almost hear him now, exclaiming “Harp? Harp? Lyre? Pen and ink, boy, you mean! Muse, boy, Muse? Your Nurse’s daughter, you mean! Pierian spring? Oh aye! The cloister-pump, I suppose!” Nay, certain introductions, similes, and examples, were placed by name on a list of interdiction. Among the similes, there was, I remember, that of the Manchineel fruit, as suiting equally well with too many subjects; in which however it yielded the palm at once to the example of Alexander and Clytus, which was equally good and apt, whatever might be the theme. Was it ambition? Alexander and Clytus! - Flattery? Alexander and Clytus! - Anger? Drunkenness? Pride? Friendship? Ingratitude? Late repentance? Still, still Alexander and Clytus! At length, the praises of agriculture having been exemplified in the sagacious observation that, had Alexander been holding the plough, he would not have run his friend Clytus through with a spear, this tried, and serviceable old friend was banished by public edict in secula seculorum. I have sometimes ventured to think, that a list of this kind, or an index expurgatorius of certain well known and ever returning phrases, both introductory, and transitional, including a large assortment of modest egoisms, and flattering illeisms, &c., &c., might be hung up in our law-courts, and both houses of parliament, with great advantage to the public, as an important saving of national time, an incalculable relief to his Majesty’s ministers, but above all, as insuring the thanks of country attornies, and their clients, who have private bills to carry through the house.
Be this as it may, there was one custom of our master’s, which I cannot pass over in silence, because I think it imitable and worthy of imitation. He would often permit our exercises, under some pretext of want of time, to accumulate, till each lad had four or five to be looked over. Then placing the whole number abreast on his desk, he would ask the writer, why this or that sentence might not have found as appropriate a place under this or that other thesis: and if no satisfying answer could be returned, and two faults of the same kind were found in one exercise, the irrevocable verdict followed, the exercise was torn up, and another on the same subject to be produced, in addition to the tasks of the day. The reader will, I trust, excuse this tribute of recollection to a man, whose severities, even now, not seldom furnish the dreams, by which the blind fancy would fain interpret to the mind the painful sensations of distempered sleep; but neither lessen nor dim the deep sense of my moral and intellectual obligations. He sent us to the University excellent Latin and Greek scholars, and tolerable Hebraists. Yet our classical knowledge was the least of the good gifts, which we derived from his zealous and conscientious tutorage. He is now gone to his final reward, full of years, and full of honors, even of those honors, which were dearest to his heart, as gratefully bestowed by that school, and still binding him to the interests of that school, in which he had been himself educated, and to which during his whole life he was a dedicated thing.
[...]
There are indeed modes of teaching which have produced, and are producing, youths of a very different stamp; modes of teaching, in comparison with which we have been called on to despise our great public schools, and universities, in whose halls are hung Armoury of the invincible knights of old - modes, by which children are to be metamorphosed into prodigies. And prodigies with a vengeance have I known thus produced! Prodigies of self-conceit, shallowness, arrogance, and infidelity! Instead of storing the memory, during the period when the memory is the predominant faculty, with facts for the after exercise of the judgment; and instead of awakening by the noblest models the fond and unmixed love and admiration, which is the natural and graceful temper of early youth; these nurslings of improved pedagogy are taught to dispute and decide; to suspect all, but their own and their lecturer’s wisdom; and to hold nothing sacred from their contempt, but their own contemptible arrogance: boy-graduates in all the technicals, and in all the dirty passions and impudence of anonymous criticism. To such dispositions alone can the admonition of Pliny be requisite, “Neque enim debet operibus ejus obesse, quod vivit. An si inter eos, quos nunquam vidimus, floruisset, non solum libros ejus, verum etiam imagines conquireremus, ejusdem nunc honor præsentis, et gratia quasi satietate languescit? At hoc pravum, malignumque est, non admirari hominem admiratione dignissimum, quia videre, complecti, nec laudare tantum, verum etiam amare contingit.”