THE “DARK AGES” ILLUMINATED BY THE LONDON TIMES.

New Zealand Tablet, 29 May 1919, Page 42

THE “DARK AGES” ILLUMINATED BY THE LONDON TIMES .

The first page of the London Times' educational oKupplement for January, 2, suggests either that some crafty Papist slipped in during the editor’s absence or that the editor ‘has recently applied himself to the study of medieval history. He has actually discovered that “the educational activity of the Papacy” during this long night of ignorance, “was remarkable.” “The medieval' Church gave the world an educational conference in almost perpetual session. One of the chief affairs of the Pope sitting in council was the control and organisation of European education! And very effective was the work. The organisation and control of the universities of Europe was an achievement that is a deathless laurel in the Papal crown. In educational matters there was universal confidence in the judgment and justice of the Papacy from the days of Eugenius 11. in the ninth century to the days of the CounterReformation in the sixteenth.”

Nor was the zeal of the Popes in the cause of education confined to the universities. On the contrary, they successfully endeavored to set up schools of all kinds;—“But it was not only in university matters that the educational activity of the Papacy was so remarkable. Whether we regard Canon 34 of the canons promulgated at the Concilium liomanum in 826, or the decrees of the Third Lateran Council in 1179, of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, and of other Councils, such as that of Vienna in 1311,. we always find that the medieval Church is seeking to advance learning of all grades, and to co-ordinate educational effort of all kinds. And the efforts of the Central Conference were amply supplemented by what .were, in effect, diocesan conferences.”

But “the very necessary Reformation,” continues the Time*, involved a certain “loss.” That comment is a masterpiece of understatement;—“The partial break-up of the Roman machinery of educational control, which inevitably followed the very necessary Reformation, involved a loss of method and organisation which has never been replaced. The Papal conception of unity of command in education must be revived to-dav.”

It took the Timex a long period of years to reach the light. But even now it is the common teaching in non-Catholic American colleges, fostered by rubberstamp professors who regard Draper and White as “authorities,” that in the Middle Ages, as at present, the Catholic Church “discouraged education.” Is this simple ignorance, or a simple violation of the Eighth Commandment ?