The Irish standard., 1904-06-11
Their GOOD WORK
DR.. P. w. Joyce Describes That
Which Was Accomplished.
During the Dark Ages By An
cient Irish Educators.

lItn ut tlle Alexandra college, Dublin,
the third of his series of the Margaret
Stokes Memorial lectures on "Educa-
ton and Educators in Ancient Ire
land.' The title of the lecture, which
concluded the series, was Irish Edu-
Gators in Foreign Lands" There was
il fairly large attendance.
DR.. Joyce, in the course of his lee
! lure, said:
Irish scholars and teachers did not
contine their good work to their native
land. Their personal eagerness to ac-
quire knowledge was, if possible, ex-
! ceeded by their desire to impart that
| knowledge to others. For the accounts
we are indebted almost altogether to
foreign writer's, for Irish writer's hard
ly ever trace the fortunes of those of
their countrymen who went abroad.
This emigration of Irishmen to the
continent began about the sixth cen
| fury, and continued for three or four
hundred years.
"Some of the Irish missionaries We're
purely religious; some teachers, chiefly
of secular learning But most of them
mixed both vocations. for there was
then everywhere a wholesome, irresist-
IDLE instinct against separating religion
and learning. The lives of those Irish
men who figured on the continent
would occupy a big book: and it must
be remembered that the learning they
displayed was acquired in the colleges
of their native land. One of the great
est of all-;l great man. in the best
sense of the word-was st. Column
hanuS. who was educated in the college
of Bangor in the county Down, under
ST. Comgall. the founder. One of his
companions. an Irishman named Gal
lus. founded the monastery of st. Gall
in Switzerland. for many ages after
wards Il centre of enlightenment where
he is still revercd as patron. and which
still retains his name. Dungal, the
astronomer with the authority of the
emperor. Lothaire I. founded schools
all over Italy, and had superintendent
over them all: so that he was. in fact.
minister of education for the whole
kingdom. The great Greek scholar,
John Srot,l> F.riyena. already mention
ed. taught philosophy in Paris. To
wards tho end of tho eighth century
two deeply learned IriSl!ncn. named
Clement and AlbinuS. landed in
France.
"'ihr Emperor ChnrlemaYnc rstnb-
lsllr,l Il great school in Friluca. over
which he placed Clement: .llbnus was
sent to Italy and placed ut til" head Of
an important school near Pnvia by the
cmprrur'S directions. In the ninth and
tenth centuries. when learning in Eng
land had been almost eXtin@uiShcd by
the Danish ravageS. it was revived and
sustained Ivy lriShmc1. especially at
Glastonbury. where Il colony of Irish
teachers had an establishment. The
lecturer then referred ut length to the
Closes. The teachers often wrote, in
Irish. between the lines. or in the mar
gin. the meanings of the Latin words
or general renderings of the sense of
short Latin passages. These interlineal
> or marginal explanations are what VIC
/. now call CLOSES. They were written
!, by Irishmen chiefly in the seventh,
eighth and ninth centuries. Their
!, Irish is now. to us. old Irish; and for
, a mere modern Irish scholar old Irish
p is very much harder to understand
( than Chaucer is to mere reader OF
e modern English. Accordingly, while
8 they used the Irish to explain the Lat
: in, we now use the Latin to explain
= the Irish.'
. The first to make extensive use OF
r the CLOSES for this purpose was Joh1
Nasper Zeuss, a Bavarian schoolmas
k ter. He went through the principa
!. libraries of Europe, read all the i'm
> portant CLOSED MSS, and copied from
, them everything he found bearing OF
:, his subject. He recopied and arranged
this enormous mass of materials, ant
r. after 10 years of hard and unremittin'
r labor, produced his immortal work
10 "Grammatica Celtfca.'' In his book h
8, proves-and proves for the first tim
70 that Celtic is one of the great famil
I: Of Aryan Or Indo-European languages
- abreast with Sanscrit, Greek, Lati1
:, the Teutonic and Slavonian languages
Zeuss restored the old Irish language
about which hardly anything was Pre-
viously known. He was the founde
10 of Celtic philology, and gave an in
8 petus to the study that has been yearl
- gaining force since his time. 1t
:, pleasant to know that the nrst decide
IN and generous acknowledgment Q
or Zeuss's noble work came-as was NEE
re and proper-from Ireland. Trinity co
~ lege was prepared to confer on him til
y university honors he so we'll deserved
eo and with this object in view the Re,
y. Dr. Todd wrote to him inviting him
visit Dublin. But he never lived
see Ireland. He died three years afte
the publication of the "Grammatic
n Celtica."
:. DR.. Joyce gave on black-boar
~ some highly interesting illustrations {