of the position of the Christian edu cator at knowledge and study of the masterpieces of antiquity might INTROD. fitly and advantageously, under certain limitations, find a place in the education of Christian youth. At the time, however, that Jerome wrote, those who upheld the former view laboured under one sigual disadvantage-that in the West no distinct scheme of Christian education had as yet been put forth as a substitute for the scheme of paganism. Unless therefore all system and method were to be discarded, the Christian schoolmaster could only follow in the track marked out by the imperial schools, and thus, as we shall shortly see, was still compelled to have recourse to pagan authors. The Difficulties man might be censured for devoting his mature powers to the study of profane literature; but the boy and the youth must perforce still derive their training from the page of Horace and Vergil, of Terence and Pliny, of Quintilian and this period. Donatus. It is easy also to understand that in times when, notwithstanding the activity of thought and speculation, all technical knowledge was experiencing a general decline, the teachers in those schools to which southern Gaul was indebted for so much of her renown felt little inclined to depart from their inherited traditions. Autun, already famed for her schools in the days of Tacitus, and rejoicing in the proud appellation of the Celtic Rome'-Trèves, which had imparted to St. Ambrose his Gallic style, and within whose precincts Lactantius had composed treatises which recalled the classic eloquence of Cicero-Clermont, where the principles of Roman jurisprudence were taught and elucidated— Besançon, Lyons, Vienne, Narbonne, Toulouse and Bordeaux, schools of scarcely inferior note-all alike exhibited that tenacious adherence to tradition which is nowhere more conspicuous than in the history of the great centres of learning. d. 390. During the period that the Church found itself con- Ausonius, b. 310; fronted by this dilemma, the name most prominently associated with education is undoubtedly that of Ausonius, whose long life extended nearly from the commencement to the close of the fourth century. The education generally imparted in his day might well have exercised the capacity of a great reformer. It had become almost all that education ought of the education in the imperial schools. INTROD. not to be-mechanical, lifeless, artificial, and wanting in Character everything that could stimulate the reasoning and reflective powers. In the arts' course, grammar and rhetoric were the imparted only subjects that received much attention; the former, however, as defined by Suetonius, had long been employed to denote much more than a technical knowledge of the laws of speech, and included an extended and critical acquaintance with the principal Latin authors. Even in Ausonius' own time there were grammarians' who were also philologists and students of comparative jurisprudence. But, for the most part, the study, as pursued in his day, was closely associated with rhetoric, and in common with that art had acquired a singularly effete and meretricious character. Ever since the time when Vespasian founded the imperial schools the training there imparted had remained unaltered, though the less genuine elements more and more preponderated over the more useful and solid. It was the training of which the letters of the younger Pliny 2 reflect the influence and also supply an interesting record, and which is more broadly discernible in the writings of Tertullian, Arnobius, and Apuleius-the training of the dialectician and rhetorician, wherein all mental culture was made subservient to the supposed requirements of the forensic orator. Its most prominent feature was the committing to memory long passages from the poets and orators, a practice which, however beneficial in moderation, was carried to an injurious excess. The memory acquired abnormal strength, but its developement was out of all just proportion to the finer mental powers, and tended to an almost entire extinction of originality of thought. Even in their own compositions the scholars generally fell back for ideas on Cicero, Horace, or Vergil, and their theses became one continuous process of ingenious but mechanical reproduction. Sometimes—a far more rational exercise-they rendered a passage from the poets into their own prose; sometimes themselves attempted the art of metrical composition. But, in either case, it was 1 See author's History of the University of Cambridge, p. 7, n. 2. * See especially Epist. 1 13; v 3; vii 17; vin 12 and 26. a mere trickery of words, wherein the thought was entirely INTROD. subordinated to the expression, while the fantastic diction and far-fetched imagery combined to form a style which could only be paralleled by the compositions of Les Précieuses or those of our English Euphuists. Greek, though it would appear to have been familiar to the scholars of the extreme south, of Arles and Marseilles, was almost unknown in the more northern cities. Ausonius himself appears to have learned nothing more than the rudiments as a boy. In short, of the system of public instruction that prevailed from the first to the fifth century, it may with justice be said, that by the prominence which it assigned to the mere ornamenta of pagan culture, to the rejection of the more intellectual and useful elements, it afforded the best justification of the veto which the Church had already pronounced with respect to the whole body of pagan literature. nities stances for beneficial reforms. Such were the tendencies of learning in the age wherein OpportuAusonius was called upon to act, and rarely does the history afforded of letters present to our notice a more disappointing career. by his high posiHis experience was considerable; his opportunities were tion and great. He had been educated at Toulouse, and had himself by circumtaught grammar for five years in his native city of Bordeaux. He had subsequently been appointed a public instructor in rhetoric; and after a lengthened tenure of this post had been made the tutor of the youthful Gratian at Trèves. By his imperial pupil he was, it is no exaggeration to say, trusted and honoured as no tutor had ever been before. He succeeded to the quaestorship; he was twice appointed prefect. The first time, as prefect of Italy, he had jurisdiction over not only the great cities of the peninsula, but also those of Africa-over Carthage, then in the zenith of her literary fame. The second time, as prefect of the Gauls, he ruled not only the cities of his native land, but also those of Spain and of Britain. The dignity of the consulship crowned the imposing array of his distinctions. If we add to this widely extended political influence the respect commanded by his excellent moral qualities, it is difficult to suppose that there was any reasonable amount of reform which he could not have effected INTROD. in the educational institutions of his time. Status of Circumstances again were highly favourable to such reform. At no period the public do we find the function of the public teacher more respectfully instructor, regarded by the public at large. That robust good sense Scope afforded for private enterprise in instruction. which, in spite of many defects, distinguished the legislation 1 Sin absque honore connectivae cujuslibet scholae regimen fuerint nacti, absolutos militia inter eos, qui duces fuerint provinciarum, numerari jubemus.' Cod. Theod. lib. VI, tit. 13 (ed. Haenel), p. 545; see also p. 1321. 2 Vita pariter et facundia idoneus vel novum instituat auditorium vel repetat intermissum.' Ibid. p. 1322, dat. II Id. Janu. 364. 3 Per omnem dioecesim commissam Magnificentiae tuae, frequentissimis in civitatibus quae pollent et eminent claritudine praeceptorum optimi quique erudiendae praesideant juventuti, rhetores loquimur et grammaticos atticae romanaeque doctrinæ.' Impp. Valens, Gratianus et Valentinianus Antonio Pf. P. Galliarum, Ibid. p. 1325. 'Nos ad Grammaticen studium convertimus et mox Nec fora non celebrata mihi; sed cura docendi Exactisque dehinc per trina decennia fastis Asserui doctor municipalem operam.' Quoted by Kaufmann, von Raumer, Hist. Taschenbuch (1869), p. 91. which modern experience seems to have finally accepted as re- INTROD. presenting a just mean between purely legislative and purely spontaneous action. The state, by fixing and securing a certain standard, protected the public from mere charlatans and adventurers; while the opportunities afforded, on the other hand, for private enterprise acted as a check upon a too perfunctory discharge of the official duties. The most zealous reformer could scarcely have asked for more favourable conditions; and had Ausonius, in that plenitude of power and confidence which he enjoyed, been endowed with the capacity to discern the critical character of his time, he might not improbably have arrested the growing illiberality of the Church and have rendered signal and lasting service to the cause of learning. the occa of his Unfortunately, he was wholly unequal to the occasion. Ausonius He either failed to realise the opportunity, or he preferred not unequal to to grapple with the difficulty. Ampère has very happily sion. compared him and his brother rhetoricians to a set of Chinese mandarins, expending their energies on a series of literary futilities, and perfectly content so to do, while comfortably conscious that, whatever the abstract value of their productions, they were thus advancing themselves on the path that led to emolument and high office. Ausonius indeed owes his reputation with posterity mainly to his Mosella, a really admirable description of the scenery of the beautiful river. Whether, as some critics hold, the predominance of Character poetry of this character is always to be regarded as a sign of genius. a degenerating literary taste is a question into which we cannot here enter, but it is undeniable that the admirers of graceful Latin verse and the admirers of descriptive poetry alike still turn with pleasure to this fine poem. Admirably true to nature, the accuracy of its details may still be recognised by the wanderer along the river's course. Cuvier, it is said, found it of real service in enabling him to identify the different species of fish that formerly existed in those waters. Otherwise there is little that Ausonius has bequeathed to posterity which, regarded simply as poetry, might not very well be spared. Feats of perverted ingenuity |