Classical Humanism and the Challenge of Modernity

3. The Challenge of Christianity

Introduction

In 1843, the Berlin Literarische Zeitung published a series of anonymous articles criticising the Gymnasien in a fashion that we have not yet encountered.⁶⁴⁹ “With few exceptions,” it was passionately stated in the opening article, “(…) we have nothing but people of Bildung, scholarly and general Bildung; Bildung and nothing other than Bildung we find in them, hardly a trace of ethos (Gesinnung), character, assertiveness (Tatkraft); the new God [of Bildung] has overthrown with triumphant violence the old giants of the Middle Ages.”⁶⁵⁰ With these words, the Protestant classical philologist Theodor Rumpel (1815 – 1885), who later made himself known as the author,⁶⁵¹ poignantly summarised a fundamental ...