EDUCATION, SCHOLASTIC

A system of education, created by the scholastics of the Middle Ages. The term scholastic, derived from the Latin schola (school), designates both the curriculum of studies and the method of teaching employed.

The foundation of scholastic education was the seven liberal arts, taught in an elementary way in the grammar school and in greater detail in the arts faculty of the university. In grammar school the principal emphasis was on Latin grammar learned from Priscian and Donatus, verified in the Latin Psalter, and developed in simple composition. In grammar school only the simplest elements of arithmetic were taught; logic and the more difficult parts of the quadrivium were taught in the arts faculty of the university. By the middle of the 13th century the university curriculum was fully formed. Although the arts faculty had lectures on all the major books of Aristotle, the main emphasis was on logic. The reason for this was the prominence given to scholastic disputations in all the faculties, including theology and law; without the tool of logic, such scholastic exercises would have been impossible.

The method of teaching consisted of two distinct features (see scholastic method). The first feature, the basis, was the lecture (lectio ), or explanation of an authoritative text. Medieval teachers considered it essential to explain first what great thinkers of the past had contributed to human knowledge. They used Aristotle for logic and philosophy, Cicero for rhetoric, Donatus for grammar, Ptolemy for astronomy, Euclid for geometry, and Boethius for arithmetic and harmonics. The second feature, unique to scholastic education, was the disputation (disputatio ), or dialectical debate on critical issues arising from or occasioned by the text (see dialectics in the middle ages). The purpose of the formalized sic et non debate in all subjects was to secure a deeper rational and critical appreciation of the problem and principles involved. The scholastic disputation followed a strict order of discipline (ordo disciplinae ) in raising questions for discussion; this order was a re-creation of the original order of discovery (ordo inventionis ). The conspicuous emphasis on order and logical procedure in scholastic education led to a healthy rationalism in all areas of study, including theology, medicine, law, and philosophy. While the immediate purpose of the scholastic method was knowledge and science, the masters had the additional obligation to form the morals of their students. For this reason, the vote of the masters on the students was always "concerning behavior and knowledge" (de moribus et scientiis ). Only a small part of scholastic education remains today in Catholic seminaries; authentic scholastic disputations have been replaced, in large measure, by seminars.

See Also: scholasticism; scholastic philosophy; scholastic theology.

Bibliography: g. a. parÉ et al., La Renaissance du XII ^e siécle: Les Écoles et l'enseignement (Paris 1933). h. rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, ed. f. m. powicke and a. b. emden, 3 v. (new ed. Oxford 1936). f. c. copleston, History of Philosophy (Westminster, MD 1946–) v. 2–3. h. o. taylor, The Mediaeval Mind, 2 v. (4th ed. London 1938). e. s. duckett, The Gateway to the Middle Ages, 3 v. (New York 1938; pa. Ann Arbor 1961).

[e. g. ryan/

j. a. weisheipl]