_, Jesuit
Education; _Dr. Ludwig Pastor_, History of the Popes, Vol. I, p. 54,
etc.

As the fifteenth century drew to a close there were unmistakable
evidences of the dawn of a better day, and the long period known as the
"Dark Ages" was to be succeeded by a brighter and more glorious era. The
sway of the Church over the consciences, lives, and material interests
of men was disputed; the feudal system had begun to disintegrate; the
world had been aroused to new enterprise by the discovery and
exploration of distant continents, by the invention of paper, the
printing press, gunpowder, and the mariner's compass; the Ptolemaic
system of astronomy had been superseded by that of Copernicus; the great
empires of the Middle Ages had disappeared, and upon their ruins had
been constructed smaller nationalities which spoke a language of their
own. The period in which these remarkable changes were taking place is
known as that of the Renaissance. It cannot be confined to definite
chronological limits, but is the period of transition from one
historical stage to another, in which there was a "gradual metamorphosis
of the intellectual and moral state of Europe." The Renaissance must be
viewed as "an internal process whereby spiritual energies latent in the
Middle Ages were developed into actuality and formed a mental habit for
the modern world." It prepared the way for the Reformation, and
introduced the era of wonderful progress upon which modern civilization
has entered. It was the new birth, the regeneration (renascence) of the
world.

A most important instrumentality for carrying forward the great work
thus inaugurated was the Teutonic race. The despised northern
barbarians, who had conquered Rome, had become civilized and
Christianized, and were found to possess the sterling qualities which
made them capable of bearing the great responsibilities of progressive
civilization. The proud Roman Empire had at last succumbed to its
internal weaknesses and vices, and had disappeared forever from the face
of the earth.

With the greater enlightenment of men had come once more an appreciation
of the value of the classic languages, and Greek, the language of the
Eastern Empire, was no longer regarded with antipathy. The revival of
learning, which had its inception in Italy and spread northward, found
its most important expression in the new interest awakened in the
classic languages. It is in this, the so-called humanistic phase of