Yet it is not so great a matter of wonder that the movements for the instruction of the deaf took organized shape so late in the world's civilization. Learning or schooling was in no sense popular till some time after the passing away of the so-called dark ages. For long it was rather the privilege of the rich and powerful. The great mass of the people were not deemed worthy of learning, and education itself in any general application did not have a recognized standing in society. After the Renaissance, however, had ushered in a new age, and when the desire for learning was the master passion among many men in Southern and Western Europe, it is natural to suppose that efforts should have more frequently been made to instruct the deaf child; and after this time we are prepared to find an increasing number of instances of the instruction of the deaf. This was all the more true when an air of mystery was felt to surround these silent ones, and to bring the light of the new learning to these afflicted creatures was considered well worth the attempt. The earliest instance recorded of instruction given to the deaf in the English language is that of the Venerable Bede about the year 691, who tells of a deaf person taught to speak by Bishop John of York, related as though it were a miracle. After many years we meet accounts of other cases. Rudolph Agricola (1443-1485) of Groeningen, Holland, and later a professor at Heidelberg, cites in his "_De Inventione Dialecta_" a deaf man who could write. In Italy a little later we find certain deaf children whose instruction is mentioned by Pietro de Castro; while in the sixteenth century Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576), the distinguished physician of Pavia, attempted to state the principles of the education of the deaf, demonstrating the use of a written language for them, and advocating the teaching of speech. He further invented a manual alphabet, which was one of the first of its kind. In 1616 Giovanni Bonifaccio also wrote regarding the "art of signing" and speech for the deaf.