[Sidenote: Aristotle, Euclid, Boëthius, and Ptolemy.]
=The Methods and Texts.=--The general method of teaching in the monastic schools was that of question and answer. As copies of the various books were scarce, the instructor often resorted to dictation, explaining the meaning as he read, and the pupils took the passage down upon tablets and committed it. The reading books preparatory to the study of literature, many of which are still extant, were generally arranged by each teacher, and careful attention was given to the etymological and literary study of the authors to be read. As to texts, the leading works upon grammar were at first the elementary work of Donatus (fourth century) and the more advanced treatise of Priscian (sixth century), but by the thirteenth century there had sprung up a series of simplified grammars, which, for the sake of memorizing, were often written in verse. As rhetoric was no longer much concerned with declamation, Cicero and Quintilian were rarely used as texts, but various mediæval treatises upon official letters, legal documents, and forms came into use. Dialectic was studied through translations of the _Organon_ of Aristotle, Euclid furnished the text on geometry, the works of Boëthius were generally used for arithmetic and music, and in astronomy adaptations of the treatises of Aristotle and Ptolemy became the texts.
[Sidenote: Maintenance of classical literature and education.]
=Effect upon Civilization of the Monastic Schools.=--Thus monasticism accomplished not a little for civilization. While the works produced in the monasteries were uncritical and superstitious, they compose most of our historical documents and sources in the Middle Ages. And, although monastic schools were decidedly hostile to classical literature as representing the temptations of the world, and at all times their rigid orthodoxy prevented every possibility of science and the development of individualism, they, together with the cathedral schools, preserved a considerable amount of Græco-Roman culture. Without the cathedral and monastic schools, the Latin and Greek manuscripts and learning could scarcely have survived and have been available at the Renaissance.