The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-08-05

fully answered 10000 times by Catholic writers. Of these same Macauley, surely no Catholic partisan, once spoke sarcas- tically. These stories'' he said are now altogether exploded. They have been abandoned by statesmen to aldermen, by aldermen to clergymen, by clergymen to old women, and by old women to Sir
 Harcourt Lees.
 However. there is one statement in
 MT. Schools letter, that, being historical
 and literary, tOh, please let us keep to
 history and literature, and give the re-
 ligious quarrels of bygone days. and the
 religious differences of our own day as
 wide a berth as possible) l take issue
 with. Mir. School says that common
 schools in Germany wero started With
 the Reformation. Here I say "nego," and
 say it positively. and assert that long
 before that age. indeed almost from tho
 beginning of Christianity. such schools ex-
 isted, that is, schools where not alone re-
 ligious but secular learning was impart-
 ed, and not alone to clerics but to secu-
 lars. to those not intended for the re-
 ligous life. These have been known as
 catchetical, monastc. cathedral, chans
 try, guild and, in our own day. parochial
 schools.
 Catheehetical schools are brought into
 existence about the middle of the second
 century of the Christian era. through the
 conflict of Christianity with Pagan phi-
 losophy True they were expressly for
 the training of clerics. but we have req sons to believe that in some, as in the school of Prolegenes of Edessa (about 1S0), elementary branches were taught As time went on, these schools increased In the council of Vavison (529) the priests of Gaul were commanded to take boys into their households and to teach them Ito read the Psalms and the Holy Scrip 1T nd tfa Inc ttpf in, 1,a lox nf God"
 Episcopal schools instituted after the state schools of the empire had fallen into decay. Although they were instituted primarily for the education of clerica
 candidates, still secular scholars were ad | mitted. The pupils had the right to enter the married state on reaching the age oi maturity (cum ad aetatem perfectam per. venerienp.
 Monastic schools had their rise In tho early middle ages. In Ireland the monks as Archbishop Healy shows in "lreland's Ancient Schools and Scholars taught the children of rich and poor alike. Tc i Ireland not only eleries but laymen from England and the continent came to re- l ceive an education. About the nintl century the monasteries had two classes l of "cloistered" for the novices | of the order, and extern in which tn, children of the neighboring villages ant l the sons of the nobility were taught | There was a similar custom in the con I vents as appears from the enactments of Bishop St. Caesarius of Aries and his successors. At Aries, as Muteau in his work, Les ecoles ct colleges en Pro | vence'' shows. open schools (ecole. 1 ouvertes) were held by the nuns for the l benefit of the entire neighborhood. These 1 external schools were encouraged by the l bishops of the various dioceses. and ir | time their maintenance by the church was economically enacted, as witness the decree of the third council of Laterar l Q170 that every Catholic church have
 teacher. who is to teach poor scholars | and others, and that no one receive fec I for permission to teach"
 l Cathedral schools co-existed with the monastic schools. Chrodegang, Bishop oi | Metz (742-66) is said to be the founder of these schools, which consisted of CD ele-
 mentary school. in which reading. writ
 ing, psalmody was taught. @ the higher schcool, teaching grammar, rhetoric, and l dialectic.
 1 Chantry schools similar in character to monastic and cathedral schools. These