ABSTRACT
This unity of mediæval Christendom was not merely a union in doctrine and religious observance, not merely an adherence to tradition in the fine arts, it included the regulation
of manufacture and trade by gilds, and the domination of public policy by a feudal order in which riches and power were derived chiefly from the native soil, centring round
stock and crops. The dealer in the Middle Ages could not assert his individuality: he only came into his own when piracy and traffic in East and West made him the master of the market. We are not therefore going too far in insisting
that the history of Education, regarded as the study of influences affecting the mind of youth, must give due weight at that era to the opportunities which Cunningham described. For if the argument in Chapter II be recalled we shall picture the average man as being still concerned with the primary needs of existence, with getting his living, procuring a surplus,
making personal progress in his homestead, his farm, his shop. The artist, the scholar, the clergyman may repeat to him that "man does not live by bread alone", but he has always replied that man must live; as we have seen, the urge towards livelihood has always carried with it an absorbing interest in means for making this livelihood more congenial and attractive.
