Then only five or six million people would be able to
read him. To be understood by the rest of Europe and America,
his publishers would be obliged to translate his books into
twenty different languages. That would cost a lot of money
and most likely the publishers would never take the trouble
or the risk.
Six hundred years ago that could not happen. The greater
part of the people were still very ignorant and could not read
or write at all. But those who had mastered the difficult art
of handling the goose-quill belonged to an international republic
of letters which spread across the entire continent and which
knew of no boundaries and respected no limitations of language
or nationality. The universities were the strongholds of
this republic. Unlike modern fortifications, they did not follow
the frontier. They were to be found wherever a teacher
and a few pupils happened to find themselves together. There
again the Middle Ages and the Renaissance differed from our
own time. Nowadays, when a new university is built, the
process (almost invariably) is as follows: Some rich man
wants to do something for the community in which he lives or
a particular religious sect wants to build a school to keep its
faithful children under decent supervision, or a state needs doc-
tors and lawyers and teachers. The university begins as a
large sum of money which is deposited in a bank.
Pages:
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225