As a matter of fact, however, the Church did quite as much for science as for literature and art and charity, There has never been any question that under her fostering care philosophy developed in a very marvelous way. The scholastic philosophers are no longer held in the disrepute so ignorantly accorded them in the last century. It is recognized that scholastic philosophy represents a supremely great development of human thinking with regard to the relations of man to his Creator, to his fellow man, and to the universe. Even those who do not accept its conclusions now, if themselves educated men, no longer make little of those wonderful thinkers, but sympathize with their magnificent work. Only those who are ignorant of scholastic philosophy entirely, still continue to re-echo the expressions of critics whose opinions were founded on second-hand authorities and who confessedly had been unable to make anything out of the scholastics themselves. This field of philosophy was the real danger point for faith and the Church, yet its study was encouraged in every way, provided the philosophers kept within the bounds of their subject. Just exactly the same thing was true in the realm of natural science. Strange as it may seem to those {23} who have allowed themselves to be led into thinking that only for the last century or a little more have men made observations on nature, and only comparatively recently have the conclusions which they reached with regard to natural phenomena been of any real significance, there is no doubt at all that men made great achievements in physical science in the Middle Ages, some of which unfortunately were lost sight of later, but many of which remained to form the basis on which our modern scientific knowledge has been built. In order to obtain a proper appreciation of this, all that is necessary is to study the works of the investigating scholars of the early history of the universities, and see how much that is considered very modern they anticipated in their writings. They must be read for themselves, not be judged by excerpts chosen by prejudiced readers, much less by critics who were bent on not finding anything good in the Middle Ages. There is need of sympathetic interpretation to replace the ignorant contempt which has so far dominated this period of the history of education. The precious lesson that men may learn from the unfortunate misunderstanding, however, is how much old-time prejudice still dominates the attitude even of scholars--nay, even of scientists and educators, with regard to certain periods in history.