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About Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 1879)
inn TATUONAOK OK CAVITATj AND TUB UKXAI SS.VNCK. VOL. VITI, on the mi ml by different studies, the pleas ure lo lie derived from tlio studios ilium selves, the knowledge which they impart, and in what manner, if at all, it may he otherwise obtained, can determine what studies are host adapted to his wants. In this manner he examines and weighs the testimony, then decides for himsclt. Young writers often make a mistake in choosing subjects. Instead of selecting those with which llioy are best acquainted, they write upon topics entirely unfamil iar to them. Thus we notice among the students that nearly all the opposers of classical study are either pursuing some other course or have not succeeded in the classical course. They arc not competent to discuss the merits or demerits of these languages as a factor of education. Let such confine themselves to the excellcn. cies of their own course and leave the relative value ol studies to scholars of rip. er years, and long experience. Too much time has already been occu pied by this article, for me to enter into the special merits of classical studies, but perhaps some of my colleagues will enter upon that discussion in a iuture number. Whoever has disparaged these studies, it has not been one who has attained a (air degree of classical scholarship. Instead of reducing tho number of educating me diums, let it be increased as fast as the re sources of our country will admit. I. PATRONAGE OF CAPITAL THE HENAISSANOE. AND JjfuIE practical growth of Christian !k power and inlluence was simultane ous with the ruin and decay of pagan grandeur. Impelled by a ceaseless tide of spiritual fanaticism, the Church from its origin, and by virtue of its canons was forced to look upon the external for. malitius of the Pontiffs with a loathsome tolerance, and, as the power of the Rom an Church increased, and as her authority became exacting; the toleration of an ac knowledged evil was the prince of crimes. Thus by the linal settlement of Iconoclast controversy, fell in the west, the emblems and antiquated svir.bols of religious awe and veneration. The sculptor, conscious that his highest conception embodied in Parian nimble, would no longer arouse the fettered imag ination of mankind, dropped the chisel from his well-trained hand. Back upon the palette fell tho brush and the art of colors and secret blending, a relic of Egyptian niagni licence, was buried in ob livion. Architecture and masonry became the prey of piraolical warfare. The orator became the sainted bishop, the statesman the ponlillcal envoy. Tho poet bereft of his muse sighed for the sovcii.gr.tcd Thebes and the magnificence of Olym pins' Court. The corruption of the Athenian com monwealth, and the tyrannical magistrates of Rome, filled the hearts of men with strange forobodings. This terror now worked upon by spiritual agents of an in fallible pope, rendered nicii at the close of the eleventh century childish and in sane. The credulity and fanaticism of the tenth century was the outgrowth of (he millomium. Hut when the sun rose on the fatal day, and passed beyond thchori. zon, and men yot lived and moved, the prayers that arose from Europe on that day reechoed mockery to the dignity and true character of man. Men now saw their folly and delusion, and some there were who possessed the moral strength to cast aside superstition and appreciate once more the relics of a pagan Renaissance. The crumbling tern, pics at Piestum and Ephcsus and the en. tombed statuary of the same, became the guides and furnished patterns am' models for the Renaissance. The manuscripts found in the monasteries of Italy, Ger many and France, were brought forth and the fall of Constantinople deluged the world with the learning that had been accumulated through a thousand years. And ere long, a now Homer, a new Soph-