German Higher Schools Author:James E. Russell Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II THE RISE OF PROTESTANT SCHOOLS 1490-1618 The characteristic theme of the Middle Ages was the restoration and glorification of the kingdom of Go... more »d on earth. Only so much knowledge of God and Man and Nature was tolerated as the Church thought safe to promulgate. The authority of the Church was supreme, not only in religious matters but in intellectual, social and political as well. The mediaeval world, however, was not wholly enshrouded in intellectual night; there was considerable store of classical learning. But learning having sought refuge in the monasteries, became the handmaid of theology. The civilization ' of the Middle Ages was fendal and clerical. Both fendalism and the Church conspired to set at nought the natural rights of man. The fifteenth century saw the first-fruits of a new ideal. The key-note of the new movement was the glorification of man, his greatness and his fame; the worship of the individual, his genins, his power, his immeasurable natural freedom. " The revival of classic learning broke through the barriers set by the Church ; antiquity was discovered anew ; the feeling of kinship with the spirit of its art and philosophy permeated and renovated the western world, and in the admiration and imitation of these works of classic paganism, men felt their relationship, not merely with Christians, but with the whole human race. Their mode of thought became humanistic at the same time with their studies ; art and philosophy followed in the same direction."' Interest in the humanities led to a revival of interest in the classic view of Nature. Thus science gained a place in the thought of the age, and to the conquest of the historical treasures of Greece and Rome were quickly added the discovery of a new world in geography and a new solar system...« less