round. In 1507 Waldenseemueller published his _Introduction to Geography_,
a book that was widely read, and one which laid the foundations of this
modern study.

The effect of these discoveries in broadening the minds of men can be
imagined. The religious theories and teachings of the Middle Ages as to
the world were in large part upset. New races and new peoples had been
found, a round earth instead of a flat one had been proved to exist, new
continents had been discovered, and new worlds were now ready to be opened
up for scientific exploration and colonization.

ABOUT 1500 A STIMULATING TIME. The latter part of the fifteenth century
and the earlier part of the sixteenth was a stimulating period in the
intellectual development of Christian Europe. The Turks had closed in on
Constantinople (1453) and ended the Eastern Empire, and many Greek
scholars had fled to the West. Though the Revival of Learning had
culminated in Italy, its influence was still strongly felt in such cities
as Florence and Venice, while in German lands and in England the reform
movement awakened by it was at its height. Greek and Hebrew were now
taught generally in the northern universities. Everywhere the old
scholastic learning and methods were being overturned by the new humanism,
and scholastic teachers were being displaced from their positions in the
universities and schools. The new humanistic university at Wittenberg,
founded in 1502, was exerting large influence among German scholars and
attracting to it the brightest young minds in German lands. Erasmus was
the greatest international scholar of the age, though ably seconded by
distinguished humanistic scholars in Italy, France, England, the Low
Countries, and German lands. The court schools of Italy (R. 135) and the
municipal colleges of France (R. 136) were marking out new lines in the
education of the select few. Colet was founding his reformed grammar