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Pedagogical Techniques: Augustine and Hugo of St. Victor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Clara P. McMahon
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Extract

It is sometimes helpful, in this age of mass education with its attendant anxiety over and concern for any and all pedagogical techniques that will aid the learning process, to remember that no age has been without such concern nor without teachers who have attempted to solve such problems. There were a number of teachers in the early middle ages who realized that students and teachers alike could profit from advice in such matters and who accordingly devoted themselves to assisting either students to learn or teachers to present subject matter in such a way that students could profit accordingly. Two such individuals were Augustine of Hippo and Hugo of St. Victor who, though separated from his predecessor and objet d'admiration by at least 700 years, nevertheless followed him to such a degree that he was known as the “alter Augustinus.”

Type
Research Article
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , March 1963 , pp. 30 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © 1963, University of Pittsburgh Press 

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References

Notes

1. See my earlier article on “The Teaching of History in the Twelfth Century,” History of Education Quarterly, II (March, 1962), 47–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Augustinus, Aurelius, Saint, Bishop of Hippo. De Catechizandis Rudibus (trans., with an introduction and commentary by Joseph Patrick Christopher). The Catholic University of America Patristic Studies, Volume VIII. (Washington, D. C., 1926).Google Scholar

3. Ibid., 15 (23), 69.Google Scholar

4. Ibid., 3 (5), 23.Google Scholar

5. Ibid., 10 (14), 45–47.Google Scholar

6. Ibid., 12 (17), 55; 13 (18), 57.Google Scholar

7. Ibid., 13 (19), 59. Christopher points out that this passage indicates Augustine's recognition of the subtle and intimate connection between the spiritual and the corporal. Augustine himself was said to have had a very weak constitution, and this may account for his sensitivity to others' discomfort.Google Scholar

8. Ibid., 15 (23), 67–69.Google Scholar

9. See translation of the preface which follows the body of the article.Google Scholar

10. Roy, J. Ferrari. Hugo of St. Victor on the Sacraments of the Christian Faith. (Cambridge, Mass., 1951), ix–x.Google Scholar

11. Tractatus de translatione Imperii or de praerogativa Romani Imperii, cited in Paret, G., Brunet, A., and Tremblay, P., La Renaissance du XII Siècle Les Écoles et L'Enseignement (Refont Complete de L'Ouvrage de G. Robert, 1909). Publications de L'Institute d' Études Médiévales d' Ottawa, III (1933), 35.Google Scholar

12. Lib. I, tom. II, col. 709, as given in Hugonin, Flavien, “Essai Sir Lá Fondation de l'École de Saint-Victor de Paris,” Patrologiae Latinae, CCXXV (1879), lxvii. Hugonin gives a French translation as well as the original Latin version.Google Scholar

13. This is a translation of Hugo's preface (or prologue) to his chronicle, which William Green has edited and published in his article, “Hugo of St. Victor, De Tribus Maximiis Circumstantiis Gestorum,” in Speculum 18 (1943), 484–93. My translation is a fairly literal one, since I have attempted to retain Hugo's somewhat cumbersome and sometimes difficult style.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. The chronological list of tables appears in the article mentioned in footnote 1.Google Scholar