The State in which these sentiments were uttered abounded in fine schools for girls, among which were Mount Holyoke and Wheaton Seminaries.
A rapid survey of some of the educational conditions that led to the state of things existing when suffrage associations were formed will be in place. Learning seemed incompatible with worship early in the Christian era. The faith that worked by love was "to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness." That great battle between the felt and the comprehended, which in this era we have named the conflict between science and religion, was decided in the mind of the apostle to the Gentiles when he wrote: "We know in part, and we prophesy in part; when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away." He recalled the accusation, "Thou art beside thyself, much learning hath made thee mad," and he hastened to assure the unlettered fishermen and the simple and devout women who were followers of Christ, that "all knowledge" was naught if they had not love; that even faith was vain if it led to the rejection of the diviner wisdom that a little child could understand.
The great learning of Augustine and the Fathers brought into the Church pagan speculations of God and morality, as well as pagan knowledge in art, science, and literature. The Church became corrupted, and a great outcry was made against the learning itself, which was falsely supposed to be the cause of the degeneration of faith. Symonds says that during the dark ages that followed upon this first battle between faith and sight, the meaning of Latin words derived from the Greek was lost; that Homer and Virgil were believed to be contemporaries, and "Orestes Tragedia" was supposed to be the name of an author. Milman says that "at the Council of Florence in 1438, the Pope of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople being ignorant, the one of Greek and the other of Latin, discoursed through an interpreter." It was near the time of the Reformation that a German monk announced in his convent that "a new language, called Greek, had been invented, and a book had been written in it called the New Testament." "Beware of it," he added, "it is full of daggers and poison."
But the tradition of the love that book revealed had crept into the heart of the world, and now awoke. Through what struggles the "spirit of all truth" promised by Christ was leading, and would lead the world, the history of civilization can tell. Women shared in some degree the outward benefits of the revival of learning. They became in not a few instances doctors of law and professors of the great universities that sprang up, as well as teachers, transcribers, and illuminators in the great nunneries.
