almost as an unexhaustible source of knowledge, was wholly unacquainted
with scientific research. Furthermore they declare that education then
was almost at its minimum stage. A little study will show that the
people of that era were not unacquainted with the scientific spirit and
it will also prove that if education did not prevail, in the sense that
everybody had an opportunity to read and write--a consummation hardly to
be expected--education in the sense of efficiency--education in the
etymological sense, i.e. the training of the faculties so that the
individual might develop creative self-expression and especially that he
might bring out what was best in him, all which meant knowledge highly
useful to himself and others--that kind of education was not uncommon.

To give an idea of the scientific inquiry and sharp observation of mind
in those days, I might cite Dante as a master exponent of nature study,
and adept of science. Passing over his experiment in optics given in
Paradiso, given so naturally as to justify the inference that
investigation in physics was then not an uncommon mode of gaining
knowledge, I call your attention to an observation made by Alexander
Von Humboldt, the distinguished scientist, to prove that nothing escaped
the eyes of Dante, intent equally upon natural phenomena and the things
of the soul. Von Humboldt suggests that the rhetorical figure employed
by Dante in his description of the River of Light with its banks of
wonderful flowers (Par. XXX, 61) is an application of our poet's
knowledge of the phosphorescence of the ocean. If you have ever looked
down the side of a steamship at night as it ploughed its way forward,
and if you have ever observed in the sea the thousand darting lights
just below the water line your enjoyable experience will enable you
to appreciate the beauty of this passage. I now quote:

"I saw a glory like a stream flow by