" And at the same time that he thus took part in
the great ecclesiastical questions, Charlemagne paid zealous attention
to the instruction of the clergy whose ignorance he deplored. "Ah," said
he one day, "if only I had about me a dozen clerics learned in all the
sciences, as Jerome and Augustin were!" With all his puissance it was
not in his power to make Jeromes and Augustins; but he laid the
foundation, in the cathedral churches and the great monasteries, of
episcopal and cloistral schools for the education of ecclesiastics, and,
carrying his solicitude still further, he recommended to the bishops and
abbots that, in those schools, "they should take care to make no
difference between the sons of serfs and of free men, so that they might
come and sit on the same benches to study grammar, music, and
arithmetic." Thus, in the eighth century, he foreshadowed the extension
which, in the nineteenth, was to be accorded to primary instruction, to
the advantage and honor not only of the clergy, but also of the whole
people.
After so much of war and toil at a distance, Charlemagne was now at
Aix-la-Chapelle, finding rest in this work of peaceful civilization.
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