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wish to take them with him or they be lent out anywhere, or any one make a copy from them."

The plea for translation is modern in its spirit. We want, he says, the translation of those books which are most needful for men to learn; we want also all the youth of England-all the sons of freemen-to learn how to read. Those who are rich enough and of higher rank may afterwards learn Latin; but let us give books in English for the guidance of everybody. Of all Alfred's work this preface seems to me the most human, the wisest, and the most sympathetic.

Part of his design in the rebuilding of the monasteries was the restoration of the monastic schools. There was in every convent of the time they were all under Benedictine rulethe school. The House was not only the retreat of pious men and women, but it was also the only possible home of learning and the only place for a school.

It is long since we have regarded a monastery as a seat of learning, or the proper place for a school. Go back to Alfred's time and consider what a monastery meant in a land still full of violence, in which morals had been lost, justice trampled down, learning destroyed, no schools or teachers left. The monastery stood as an example and a reminder of self-restraint, peace, and order; a life of industry and such works as the most ignorant must acknowledge to be good; where the poor and the sick were received and cared for, the young taught, and the old sheltered. It was the life which the monastery

rule professed the aim rather than any lower standards accepted by the monks-which made a monastery in that age like a beacon steadily and brightly burning, so that the people had always before their eyes a reminder of the selfgoverned life.

They had also before their eyes the spectacle of the scholar's life; learning, to be sure, was at a low ebb, still it was learning—of a kind.

In the cause of education, indeed, Alfred was before his age, and even before our age. He desired universal education. At his court he provided instructors for his children and the children of the nobles. They learned to read and write, they studied their own language and its poetry, they learned Latin, and they learned what they called the "liberal sciences,” among them the art of music. But he thought also of the poorer class. "My desire," he says, "is that all the freeborn youths of my people may persevere in learning until they can perfectly read the English Scriptures." Unhappily he was unable to carry out this wish. Only in our own days has been at last attempted the dream of the Saxon king-the extension of education to the whole people.

The ordinary monastic school taught the novices and the abbot's wards, and whatever scholars came from the outside, the elements of reading and writing, with Catechism, or question and answer on common things, the poetry of the country, and some elements of Latin. But there were 66 High Schools," as we might call them, in which the studies were carried much

further, including the scholastic philosophy, grammar, versification, and such science as was then attainable. Greek, as well as Latin, is said to have been taught in these schools, but to what extent I know not; certainly there were MSS. of Aristotle.

Some of the grammar schools still existing in this country have been traced back to times before the Norman Conquest. It would be interesting if we could connect any of them with the foundations of Alfred.

He would have educated the whole people. That is the cardinal fact as regards Alfred's position as an educator.

CHAPTER VII

ALFRED AS WRITER

ALFRED, above all and before all, was a reformer; he was a conservative reformer who desired to. rebuild the past, to restore the past, to present the past on new foundations and with a view to possible developments in the future. Now the reformer, in all ages, is liable to the same error or danger. If he is one in authority, king or minister, he is generally contented with giving an order. History is crammed full of the most praiseworthy and excellent orders. Their enforcement is entrusted to officers, overseers, and

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the police. What happens continually is that the executive betrays its trust; either it imposes the new orders upon the people oppressively and harshly, or it neglects them altogether, or it attempts against the will of the people to enforce them occasionally and fitfully, with the result of exasperating them and making the law odious. There have been more hindrances to advancement caused by the enactment of good laws than by the neglect of bad laws. Above all, this may be seen in the continual proclamation of ordinance for the better government of London. There must be no neglected streets, there must be no throwing of refuse into the streets, there must be no fires, and therefore no timbered houses, there must be no beggars, vagabonds, or masterless men in the City, there must be lights in every street after dark, no taverns must be open after curfew, no one must walk the streets at night, no one must carry arms at night, and so on; these laws were proclaimed over and over again, yet they all became so many dead letters.

In the same way, the reformer who is not in authority clamours perpetually for new laws; he also leaves the enforcement of the new laws to the executive, with the same result. It never occurs to the reformer or the Radical, that even if he had his own way, even if he got his laws passed, the world would be no further advanced unless the new laws represented the mind and the will of the people. Nor does the Radical reformer even reflect that the wise statesman attempts no reform unless he knows that the

mind of the people is with him. He waits, as Gladstone said, until the question is ripe.

This digression may seem to have little or nothing to do with Alfred. On the contrary, it has everything to do with him; for he accompanied all his endeavours in civilizing and advancing the people, not by new laws which would be strange to them, and would only embarrass and fetter and irritate them, but by educational steps, and by personal supervision. He did not put his trust in new laws; he did, however, put his trust in the old laws newly edited; he did not leave the carrying out of new laws to any officers, nor even to his judges; he did not hope for reform by the imposition of new laws and the introduction of new customs. He worked by means of the old things. He founded monasteries, but according to the old Benedictine Rule with which the people were acquainted; he filled them with scholars and divines, not with those who might, perhaps, if they proved zealous, become scholars and divines. In everything that he attempted he inducted an educational method which should prepare the way for new advance upon old lines. Especially is this to be remarked in his writings, every one of which was intended for educational purposes. Among the many points, for instance, in which the ignorance of his people was an obstacle to their improvement was their ignorance of the outer world. To the ordinary man of Wessex, thane or ceorl, the bright light of day shone only upon his own farm, village, or settlement; outside, mist

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