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Irish Tutelage of England
the mere brutal jargon of uncouth savages. On the face
of it it taxes our credulity to invite us to believe, as is
as is discernible in
uniformly done, that such development
England at that time was mainly due to their labor. There
is no real evidence even that Theodore did any actual
teaching outside of his preaching. The Roman tradition,
plainly voiced by Gregory the Great in respect
to the
impropriety of a bishop teaching secular subjects, could
not have but influenced Theodore. It is true that Bede
praises both of them highly. It is true that from Theodore
and Adrian some of the natives actually learned
Latin and Greek. It is likewise true that such knowledge
speedily died out, as the very passage of Bede relating to
it indicates. But a mere consideration of indubitable
facts makes it clear that we must look elsewhere for the
real source of such civilized progress as the English tribes
were then making. That source lay in the impassioned
efforts of strenuous, accomplished Irishmen in every
corner of England. Wherever real progress was evident,
wherever books were being written, wherever scholars of
note appeared, wherever a school showed real results,
wherever the arts were being cultivated, there Irishmen
were in the midst of it. Count the number of scholars in
England during the Anglo-Saxon period who left anything
behind them. Almost without exception they were
Irish-trained. Canterbury has hardly a single scholar
worth mentioning to show. Aldhelm, Bede, Alcuin,
Fredegis, Egbert, Caedmon, Cynewulf, Dunstan, were
everyone of them associated with Irish teachers and Irish
foundations. Up to the period of the Conquest Anglo-
Saxon manuscripts were written entirely, as has been said,
in the Irish script. Not a single document exists in the
Roman script with the dubious exception of a small chart,
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