SOURCE: West, Andrew Fleming. “The Educational Writings of Alcuin.” In Alcuin and the Rise of the Christian Schools, pp. 89-116. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1892.

In the following essay, West surveys Alcuin's didactic works.

Alcuin's writings have been preserved to us in tolerable completeness, and may be classified under a fourfold division. First come his theological works, which embrace the greater part, perhaps two-thirds, of all that he wrote. This theological portion may in turn be divided into four parts, exegetical, dogmatic, liturgical and practical, and lives of the saints. Of the remaining third of his writings, the major parts is embraced in his epistles, and least in extent are the didactic treatises and poems which make up the rest.

It will thus be seen that the greater part of Alcuin's writings have little connection with the history of education, and yet, even his theological works have incidental...