QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. In what way was the fact that Dante wrote his _Divine Comedy_ in
Italian instead of Latin an evidence of large independence?

2. Was it a good thing for peace and civilization that the modern
languages arose, instead of all speaking and writing Latin? Why?

3. Of what value to one is a "sense of the past behind him, and a
conception of the possibilities of the future before him," by way of
giving perspective and self-confidence? Do we have many mediaeval-type
people to-day?

4. Show how the work of Petrarch required a man with a strong historic
sense.

5. Show the awakening of the modern scientific spirit in the critical and
reconstructive work of the scholars of the Revival.

6. Of what was the exposure of the forgery of the "Donation of
Constantine" a precursor?

7. Contrast the modern and the mediaeval spirit as related to learning.

8. Suppose that we should unexpectedly unearth in Mexico a vast literature
of a very learned and scholarly people who once inhabited the United
States, and should discover a key by which to read it. Would the interest
awakened be comparable with that awakened by the revival of Greek in
Italy? Why?