have been unproductive in the field
of historical writing had monasticism not existed during the middle
ages. While, also, the monks should be thanked for preserving the
classics, it should not be supposed that all knowledge of Latin and
Greek literature would have perished but for them.

It is surprising that the literary men of the medieval period should
have written so little of interest to the modern mind, or that helps us
to an understanding of the momentous events amid which they lived.
Unfortunately the monkish mind was concentrated upon a theology, the
premises of which have been largely set aside by modern science. Their
writings are so permeated by grotesque superstitions that they are
practically worthless to-day. Their hostility to secular affairs blinded
them to the tremendous significance of the mighty political and social
movements of the age.

It is undeniable that the monks never encouraged a love of secular
learning. They did not try to impart a love of the classics which they
preserved. The spirit of monasticism was ever at war with true
intellectual progress. The monks imprisoned Roger Bacon fourteen years,
and tried to blast his fair name by calling him a magician, merely
because he stepped beyond the narrow limits of monkish inquiry. Many
suffered indignities, privations or death for questioning tradition or
for conducting scientific researches.

So while it is true that the monks rendered many services to the cause
of education, it is also true that their monastic theories tended to
narrow the scope of intellectual activity. "This," says Guizot, "is the
foundation of their instruction; all was turned into commentary of the
Scriptures, historical, philosophical, allegorical, moral commentary.
They desired only to form priests; all studies, whatsoever their nature,
were directed to this result." There was no disinterested love of
learning; no desire to become acquainted with God's world. In fact, the
old hostility to everything natural characterizes all monastic history.
Europe did not enter upon that broad and noble intellectual development
which is the glory of our era, until the right arm of monasticism was
struck down, the dread of heresy banished from the human mind, and
secular learning welcomed as a legitimate and elevated field for
mental activity.

Hamilton W. Mabie, in his delightful essay on "Some Old Scholars,"
describes this step from the gloom of the cloister to the light of God's