tion. To shave a man's head, give him a new
name, and clothe him in strange garments, does not change his nature.
Monks grown rich and powerful will become idle, and the vows of poverty,
chastity and obedience are then mere jokes and jests.

No man knew this better than Benedict, who lived in the Sixth Century.
The profligacy, ignorance and selfishness of the fat and idle monks
appalled him. With the aid of Cassiodorus he set to work to reform the
monasteries by interesting the inmates in beautiful work. Cassiodorus
taught men to write, illumine and bind books. Through Italy, France and
Germany he traveled and preached the necessity of manual labor, and the
excellence of working for beauty. The art impulse in the nunneries and
monasteries began with Benedict and Cassiodorus, who worked hand in hand
for beauty, purity and truth. Benedict had the greater executive
ability, but Cassiodorus had the more far-reaching and subtle intellect.
He anticipated all that we have to say today on the New Education--the
necessity of playing off one faculty of the mind against another through
manual labor, play and art creation. He even anticipated the primal idea
of the Kindergarten, for he said, "The pleasurable emotion that follows
the making of beautiful forms with one's hands is not a sin, like unto
the pleasure that is gained for the sake of pleasure--rather to do good
and beautiful work is incense to the nostrils of God."

In all Benedictine monasteries flagellations ceased, discipline was
relaxed, and the inmates were enjoined to use their energies in their
work, and find peace by imitating God, and like Him creating beautiful
things.

Beautiful bookmaking traces its genesis almost directly to Benedict and
Cassiodorus.

But a hundred years after the death of these great men, the necessity of
reform was as great as ever, and other men took up the herculean task.

And so it has happened that every century men have arisen who protested
against the abuses inside the Church. The Church has tried to keep
religion pure, but when she has failed and scandalized society at large,
monasteries were wiped out of existence and their property confiscated.
Since the Fifteenth Century, regularly once every hundred years, France
has driven the monks from her borders, and in this year of our Lord
Nineteen Hundred Three she is doing what Napoleon did a hundred years
ago; what Cromwell did in England in Sixteen Hundred Forty-five; what
has been