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§ 11. We cannot help speculating what would have been the effect of the discovery of printing if it had been made at another time. As there may be literature without books, so there may be books without literature. If at the time of the invention of printing there had been no literature, no creations of individual minds embodied in permanent forms of speech, books might have been used as apparatus in a mental gymnasium, or they might have been made the means of conveying information. But just then the intellect of Europe was tired of mental gymnastics. It had taken exercise in the Trivium like a squirrel in its revolving cage, and was vexed to find it made no progress.[5] As for information there was little to be had. The age of observation and of physical science was not yet. So the printing press was entirely at the service of the new passion for literature and the scholars dreamed of the general diffusion of literary culture by means of printed books.

§ 12. For some two centuries the literary spirit had supreme control over the intellect of Europe, and the literary spirit could then find satisfaction nowhere but in the study of the ancient classics. The natural consequence was that throughout this period the “educated man” was supposed to be identified with the classical scholar. The great rival of the literary spirit, the scientific spirit which cares for nothing but sequences independent of the human mind, began to show itself early in the seventeenth century: its first great champion was Francis Bacon. But by this time the school course of study had been settled, and two centuries had to elapse before the scientific spirit could unsettle it again. Even now when we speak of a man as “well-educated” we are commonly understood to mean that in his youth he was taught the two classical languages.