mongering and empty discussions, which people frequently take for wisdom. They waste the day in refined and tedious disputations, and, to use a fitting expression, in riddles, which in the course of centuries have found no Edipus to solve them, and will find none. With this sort of learning they torture the ears of their pitiable youths. To such nourishment they drive their students, as it were, by force. Thus they destroy promising talent, and kill the fruit in the bud."

To give fluency and worth to discourse, Agricola recommended the study of the best authors with translations into the mother tongue. "It will be very useful to you," he says in writing to a friend, "to express in the most fitting words of the mother tongue all that you read in the classic authors. For through this exercise you will bring it about that, when you must write or speak anything, you will in meditating the subjects, at once associate the Latin expressions with idioms of the mother tongue. Further, when you wish to express anything in writing, it is to be recommended that you conceive of the matter fully and correctly in the mother tongue, and then express it in pure and appropriate Latin. In this way the exposition will be clear and exhaustive." Grace of style seemed to him a matter of secondary consideration.

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METHOD OF STUDY.-As to methods of study, he expressed himself very clearly and forcibly. Whoever in the acquisition of a science," he says, "wishes to obtain results answerable to his trouble, must especially consider three things. He must clearly and correctly apprehend, faithfully retain in memory what he has apprehended, and put himself in a position, by means of what he has learned, to produce something of himself. Therefore, the first requisite is careful reading, the second a trustworthy

memory, and the third continued practise." In reading he held it necessary to understand the scope as well as the details of books. "Nevertheless, it is not well to spend too much time in clearing up obscurities; one often finds elucidation further on. One day gives light to another."

THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY.-Agricola recommended especially the study of philosophy, in which he included ethics and physics. "If you cherish the correct idea," he writes, “that what is noble is to be sought for its own sake, then I advise you to turn to philosophy, that is, to give yourself the trouble to gain a correct knowledge of all subjects and the ability to give fitting expression to what you have learned. Now knowledge, just as the nature of the things that form its object, is twofold. The one department aims at our acts and morals. Upon it rests the whole theory of a righteous and well-ordered life. It detaches from the trunk of philosophy the science of ethics, and deserves very especially our attention. But we need not seek it alone with the philosophers who treat it as a branch of literature, as Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, and others, but also with the historians, poets, and orators. They by no means teach ethics systematically, but they show-and that is precisely the most effective teaching— through praise of the good, through censure of the bad, and through the presentation of examples, virtue and its opposite, as it were, in a mirror. Through a reading of these authors one should pass on to the Holy Scripture. For according to its precepts, one must order his life, and trust it as an experienced guide in matters of the soul's salvation." The study of natural philosophy seemed to him less important. Though not strictly necessary in the development of a morally good man, it is still favorable to virtue." For when a genuine interest for scientific

investigation has once laid hold of a man, there is no longer room in his soul for common and ignoble pursuits."

B. Reuchlin

BIOGRAPHICAL FACTS.-One of the greatest representatives of the new learning was Reuchlin, who was born at Pforzheim, Germany, in 1455. At the age of eighteen he went to Paris, where he studied under a native Greek. After leaving Paris, he taught Latin and Greek at Basel, and subsequently became a professor at Tübingen. He resided for a time at Heidelberg, and in the interests of Greek scholarship issued several elementary text-books of Greek, which were used in Germany for many years. Melanchthon, the distinguished scholar and reformer, was his nephew and adopted son.

HEBREW STUDIES.-But Reuchlin's studies were not confined to the Latin and Greek classics. He took a profound interest in the Hebrew language, and is justly regarded as the father of Hebrew studies in Germany. In 1498 he was sent on an embassy to Rome, where he employed all his leisure in studying Hebrew under a learned Jew, and in collecting Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. The motive that urged him to prosecute his studies in Hebrew is explained in a letter to Cardinal Hadrian: “I devoted myself to the Hebrew language because I perceived the great value which it would have for religion and true theology. To this end I have always directed my labors, and continue to direct them more than ever. As a true worshiper of our Lord, I have done all for the restoration and glorification of the true Christian Church.” On the publication of his Hebrew grammar and lexicon, in 1506, the first work of the kind prepared in Germany,

he could exclaim, in the language of Horace: "I have erected a monument more durable than brass." Luther wrote him, in appreciation of his labors: "The Lord has been at work in you, that the light of Holy Scripture might begin to shine in that Germany where for so many years, alas! it was not only stifled but extinct.”

A BITTER CONTROVERSY.-In the year 1510 there began in Germany a long and acrimonious controversy about Hebrew literature, in which Reuchlin became a prominent figure. A baptized Jewish rabbi, John Pfefferkorn, with the zeal of a proselyte, appealed to the Emperor Maximilian to have all Jewish books, except the Bible, destroyed. Reuchlin, having been asked to give his opinion, advised the destruction of only such books as were written against Christianity. "The best way," he added, "to convert the Israelites would be to establish two professors of the Hebrew language in each university, who should teach theologians to read the Bible in Hebrew, and thus refute the Jewish doctors." This attitude brought upon Reuchlin a most virulent attack from the Dominican friars of Cologne. The controversy became general. The friends of learning naturally rallied to the support of the great Hebrew scholar; and after a conflict of nine years, the pope, to whom the case had been appealed, decided in Reuchlin's favor.

During this controversy Erasmus wrote to Cardinal Raphael: "In supporting Reuchlin, you will earn the gratitude of every man of letters in Germany. It is to him. really that Germany owes such knowledge as it has of Greek and Hebrew. He is a learned, accomplished man, respected by the Emperor, honored among his own people, and blameless in life and character. All Europe is crying shame that so excellent a person should be harassed by a detestable

persecution, and all for a matter as absurd as the ass's shadow of the proverb. The princes are at peace again. Why should men of education and knowledge be still stabbing each other with poisoned pens ?"

C. Erasmus

BIOGRAPHICAL.-Erasmus, born in Rotterdam in 1467, was perhaps the acutest scholar of his day. In his youth he gave promise of the eminence he afterward attained. His teacher at Deventer, who belonged to the Brethren of the Common Life, once enthusiastically embraced him with these words: "You will one day attain the highest summits of knowledge." In his youth Erasmus was persuaded to become an Augustinian monk; but finding conventual life entirely unfitted to his tastes and character, he was released by the Bishop of Cambray, and sent to the University of Paris. To eke out his meager allowance he took pupils in Greek, the elements of which he had acquired by private study. "I have given up my whole soul to Greek learning," he wrote, "and as soon as I get any money I shall buy Greek books, and then I shall buy some clothes."

At various times he visited England, France, Germany, and Italy, and everywhere his wit, learning, and fame secured him a cordial reception. In 1497 he went to England, where he met Thomas More, then a young man of twenty, heard Colet lecture at Oxford, and admired the learning of Linacre and Grocyn—all, like himself, enthusiastic humanists. "I have found in Oxford," he wrote, "so much polish and learning that now I hardly care about going to Italy at all, save for the sake of having been there. When I listen to my friend Colet, it seems like listening to Plato himself. Who does not wonder at the wide