" But probably such shifts were not
unusual before the Reformation. The monasteries indeed had schools
attached to them in many instances. In Elizabeth's time a complaint is
made by the Speaker of the Commons, that the number of such places of
education had been reduced by a hundred, in consequence of the
suppression of the religious houses. Still it must often have happened
(thickly scattered as the monasteries were) that the child lived at an
inconvenient distance from any one of them; mothers, too, might not have
liked to trust less robust children to the clumsy care of a fraternity;
and probably little was learned in these academies after all. Erasmus
makes himself merry with the studies pursued in them; and it is
remarkable that no sooner did the love of learning revive, than the
popularity of the monasteries declined. For thirty years before the
Reformation, there were few or no new religious foundations, whilst
schools, on the other hand, began to multiply in their stead; a fact
which sufficiently marks the state of public opinion with regard to the
monasteries as places of education--for education began now to be the
desire of the day.
Pages:
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57