ate, as Tenkai and Soden were in after times under the
Tokugawa, and they practically commanded the shoguns. One reason
operating to produce this result was that, in an age when lineage or
military prowess was the sole secular step to fortune, men of civil
talent but humble birth had to choose between remaining in hopeless
insignificance or entering the priesthood where knowledge and virtue
were sure passports to distinction. It was thus that in nearly every
monastery there were found men of superior intellect and erudition.
The fact was recognized. When Ashikaga Takauji desired to take
counsel of Muso Kokushi, he repaired to that renowned priest's temple
and treated him as a respected parent; and Yoshimitsu, the third of
the Ashikaga shoguns, showed equal respect towards Gido, Zekkai and
Jorin, whose advice he constantly sought.

It was strange, indeed, that in an age when the sword was the
paramount tribunal, the highest dignitaries in the land revered the
exponents of ethics and literature. Takauji and his younger brother,
Tadayoshi, sat at the feet of Gen-e as their preceptor. Yoshimitsu
appointed Sugawara Hidenaga to be Court lecturer. Ujimitsu, the
Kamakura kwanryo, took Sugawara Toyonaga for preacher. Yoshimasa's
love of poetry impelled him to publish the Kinshudan.* Above all,
Yoshihisa was an earnest scholar. He had a thorough knowledge of
Chinese and Japanese classics; he was himself a poetaster of no mean
ability; he read canonical books even as he sat in his palanquin;
under his patronage Ichijo Kaneyoshi wrote the Shodan-chiyo and** the
Bummei Ittoki; Fujiwara Noritane compiled the Teio-keizu; Otsuki
Masabumi lectured on the analects and Urabe Kanetomo expounded the
standard literature of the East.

*The Embroidered Brocade Discourse.

**Rustic Ideals of Government.

Yet, side by side with these patrons of learning stood a general
public too ignorant to write its own name. Military men, who formed
the bulk of the nation, were engrossed with the art of war and the
science of intrigue to the exclusion of all erudition. The priests
were always available to supply any need, and the priests utilized
the occasion. Nevertheless, it stands to the credit of these bonzes
that they made no attempt to monopolize erudition. Their aim was to
popularize it. They opened temple-seminaries (tera-koya) and exercise
halls (dojo) where youths of all classes could obtain instruction and
where an excellent series of text-boo