S. S. Laurie, “The Rise and Early Constitution of Universities, with a Survey of Mediæval Education.” New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1887. Gabriel Compayré, “Abelard and the Origin and Early History of Universities.” New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1893. Hastings Rashdall, “The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages.” Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1895. J. B. Mullinger, article “Universities” in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, 11th edition. CHAPTER VIII. THE PERIOD OF THE RENAISSANCE AND THE REFORMATION. The universities of the Middle Ages had made their contribution to the intellectual advancement of Europe, but they could not break the bands of ecclesiastical tyranny that still fettered the human mind. It required the joint action of other and more potent forces to provide escape from a conception of the world and the flesh which associated them with the devil, and to weaken the authority of that theological dogma which centered the thought and imagination of men for centuries upon the rewards and punishments of a future state and meanwhile paralyzed or thwarted every effort to master the resources or investigate the phenomena of the material universe. Man’s rightful heritage upon this earth was not yet restored to him. In some way the feeling of personal dignity and independence must be aroused, the spirit of emulation provoked, and his powers of achievement challenged as they had never been before. Among the chief factors in this process of transition from the medieval to the modern world was the Revival of Learning, that appreciative study of the Greek and Latin classics and all the long-neglected records of ancient civilization which supplied the Western nations with a new ideal of life and culture. The recovered masterpieces of literature and art excited the passionate admiration of scholars; they revelled in the free existence of what seemed to them a Golden Age, rich in such treasures as they had begun already to covet for themselves. To the Italian “humanists” of the fifteenth century we owe what is still known as a classical education. The greatest school-master of them all was Vittorino da Feltre (1378-1446), who undertook the training of the sons of Marquis Gian Francesco Gonzaga at Mantua in 1423. So earnest and successful was this teacher and so widely did his fame extend that other pupils were added from time to time, until most of the princely houses of Italy, together with some in foreign countries, were represented at the school, to which many in humbler station were also admitted. Latin, Greek, and classical archeology formed the basis and main body of instruction. The chief end was to enable pupils to read and understand the best works of the ancients and to express themselves with elegance in these foreign languages. It was, in fact, an attempt to train new citizens of Greece and Rome, and to reproduce for them the life of the past.