What may be termed the empirical bent of modern education is, in the opinion of most educationists, directly traceable to the Reformation and the ‘news-thought’ that arose from it. The teaching of natural science has, at least in primary and secondary education, almost entirely replaced the mediaeval study of philosophy.

Contrary, however, to modem popular notions on the subject, education in the Middle Ages was far in advance of that of modern times in essentials. It is true that a universal level standard cannot be claimed. For instance, in the thirteenth century, universities such as Bologna, Padua and Naples took students through a long and allembracing course, while Paris specialised in philosophy and theology. Germany was noted for its convent schools where both elementary and higher studies were catered for. In England, the founding of Oxford University in the twelfth century and Cambridge in the thirteenth guaranteed for English youths a good all-round training.

Whatever the standard and scope of mediaeval education, it had one characteristic by which it differs from general education to-day: it was inseparably bound up with religion. The customary elementary course of grammar, rhetoric and logic was often the preliminary to a higher course that embraced philosophy and theology; and girls as well as boys sometimes studied theology.

Arising out of the association of all education with philosophy and theology was the fact of its stimulus to thought. Even the elementary course aimed at making the student a thinker, while the higher course, even when not specifically theological, tended in the same direction.