SOURCE: Baumstein, Paschal. “Benedictine Education: Principles of Anselm's Patronage.” American Benedictine Review 43, no. 1 (March 1992): 3-11.

In the following essay, Baumstein outlines the influence of Anselm's character and ideals on the fundamental principles of Benedictine education.

When creating the Benedictine college in Rome in 1687, Innocent XI promulgated the Apostolic Constitution Inscrutabili. That decretal invested Anselm of Bec (1033-1109) as the athenaeum's titular. It also lent him empire, ordaining that his thought, his perspective, should be embraced as the topos of all Benedictine education. The school's faculty was bound to vigilant fidelity to Anselm's teaching, while academics throughout the Order were to reflect the genius and consequence of his thought.

The present study considers the standards an Anselmian temper should lend to Benedictine education. Anselm wrote no educational treatise. Principles used here are drawn primarily from the design and categories of his thought, an endeavor made practicable by the consistency...