Humanism - Discussion 1

Humanism, as thought of present day, is the study of classical Greece and Rome with an emphasis grammar, rhetoric, and eloquence, applied to everyday life. This movement, while still prevalent in public education, took root in Italy during the 14th Century.  Humanism was a large contributing factor in ushering in the Renaissance, a time when the greatest artists, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Botticelli, and Titian lived and worked. However, this idealistic view of humanism, one where knowledge and the study of classics was highly encouraged across all society, is not entirely realistic as Martines argues in "Humanism: A Program for Ruling Classes".

The main focus of the article is that while humanism encouraged education in history, ethics, Latin, and grammar in order to make the pupil "a complete man", the aim was not to educate the student for a "mere money-making pursuit." The aim was in fact to encourage a leisurely pursuit of knowledge, as well as civic duty. This means that humanists largely had little to no income, and were living off of previously earned or inherited wealth- therefore one had to be of an elite class in order to maintain the humanist way of life.  While Martines does explain that a few humanists argued on the behalf of lower class boys to receive the same education, it is also pointed out that this did not often happen because it was believed that boys of a lower class would cling to the ideals that they were raised with. 

One group that would have been left out of the educational revolution that the article did not discuss was women, and to what extent. Would a woman of an elite class receive an education of humanist origins, or would it be considered a waste on the emotional sex? It is important to remind oneself that while humanism greatly effected perhaps the most artistically rich era of all time, it did have limitations on who it reached.