Life of S. Ealdhelm, First Bishop of Sherborne (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 Excerpt: ...'What they ought to do'; I mean one who has really known the joys and drudgeries of teaching. Now if any one were to do me the honour to ask me, who was the first Headmaster of Sherborne School, I should not hesitate to answer, S. Ealdhelm. He had been a teacher most of his life, he was starting at Sherborne a new centre of religion and learning, for the English of the newer Wessex; teachers were not too common then, as indeed they are not too common now, perhaps in consequence of the somewhat unnecessary abundance of 'educationists.' To tell me that Ealdhelm, who possessed not only the powers but also the foibles which a teacher is almost bound to develope, could start a school--a bishop's school--without himself taking some part in the teaching while he was at Sherborne, and acting as the head of it, as the man who directed its methods and started it on its long and honourable career, is to tell me something which I cannot accept as likely. The seventh century of our era was a period of the utmost importance in English history; it is the age of the conversion of our own people to Christianity, and their introduction to literature and intellectual training. This age begins with S. Augustine and ends with Bede; Bede is indeed a marvellous man, in him it culminates. But what would Bede have been without the giants that preceded him? Important though Augustine's mission to Kent was, it can scarcely be called successful; little progress was made. Forty years afterwards came a second Roman mission to Wessez, that of Birinus; here too good work was done, more successful perhaps than Augustine's. But the new knowledge had still to struggle for existence. We must not forget however that this knowledge reached the English from two different sources; in the south of...