learned of the day.

We have perhaps said enough to indicate roughly the sources of the
Renaissance fashion for travel which gave rise to the essays we are
about to discuss. The scholar's desire to specialize at a foreign
university, in Greek, in medicine, or in law; the courtier's ambition to
acquire modern languages, study foreign governments, and generally fit
himself for the service of the State, were dignified aims which in men
of character produced very happy results. It was natural that others
should follow their example. In Elizabethan times the vogue of
travelling to become a "compleat person" was fully established. And
though in mean and trivial men the ideal took on such odd shapes and
produced such dubious results that in every generation there were
critics who questioned the benefits of travel, the ideal persisted.
There was always something, certainly, to be learned abroad, for men of
every calibre. Those who did not profit by the study of international
law learned new tricks of the rapier. And because experience of foreign
countries was expensive and hard to come at, the acquirement of it gave
prestige to a young man.

Besides, underneath worldly ambition was the old curiosity to see the
world and know all sorts of men--to be tried and tested. More powerful
than any theory of education was the yearning for far-off, foreign
things, and the magic of the sea.

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