Little is known of the social position of Baruch Spinoza’s parents, nor can much be inferred from the fact that he received an excellent education, since in all classes, and at all periods, Jews have made an effort to secure for their children the best that was obtainable in the way of knowledge. The course of instruction in Jewish schools was almost entirely confined to the Hebrew language and literature, but this course, as in the ancient _Kallahs_,[53] was made to include a very wide range of subjects. In the more advanced classes analysis and mathematics were taught, and Maimonides and Ibn Ezra were the text-books for philosophy and theology. The students, too, were kept well abreast of the physical and natural science of the age. Manasseh ben Israel was one of Spinoza’s teachers, and the Rabbi Saul Morteira was another. Latin and German he seems to have studied outside of the community, under a physician named Van den Ende. The French and Italian languages also he mastered, and he gained something more than a rudimentary knowledge of Greek. Spanish was more or less to him, as to all of the Maranno-descended Jews, a native tongue. He was clever, too, at drawing, but this long list of his acquirements gives no accurate idea of his powers, for much scholarship is not in itself a guarantee of ability. A mind may be filled full as a storehouse with facts, and yet be empty of ideas, and feeble in intellectual grasp. Spinoza not only learnt, but he thought. He not only acquired information, but be propounded theories. The community was a little distrustful of originality, and rather liked knowledge to run into ready-made moulds. This young man, too, was unobservant of forms, and imprudently free-spoken in his opinions. Though not above making use, as his subsequent philosophical writings show, of ideas and principles and arguments contained in Jewish works, he yet felt some contempt for the tendency of current Jewish scholarship, and would express himself very openly concerning Bible and Talmud and everything that was dear and holy to Jews. On many grounds the Amsterdam Jews were afraid of nonconforming members. They dreaded a relapse into nominal Judaism. They felt it a duty to keep dangerous elements at arm’s length, from a not unworthy fear that another Judaism might be set up before this hardly regained Judaism of theirs was firmly established in hearts and homes. And besides, not only for the sake of the synagogue had they to be careful to guard themselves from disunion, but the new and uncertain toleration which Jews enjoyed among Christians might easily be imperilled by unseemly religious differences in the congregation. So much or so little must justly be said in explanation of the attitude of the Amsterdam community towards Spinoza. Not as much can be urged in defence of their subsequent action.