Classical Humanism and the Challenge of Modernity

Conclusion

The history of classical education in 18^th- and 19^th-century Germany is usually written from the perspective of modernity. The large majority of studies published between the Second World War and our own time, both on the German humanistic Gymnasium and on German academic scholarship, have sought to expose classical education’s complex interrelation with the genesis of modern society. Vast scholarly interest has been spurred by the transformation of classical studies into a professional academic discipline called Altertumswissenschaft, by the rise of the humanistic Gymnasium as a breeding ground for officials of the modern bureaucratic state and by classical education’s role in the formation of the typically 19^th-century Bildungsbürgertum. ...