'968 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
recedit, nec contemptori relinquitur conquestionis locus.” 1 In. 
this passage John has summed up his arguments for the study 
of the classics. He has shown how this study works hand in 
hand with the Divine Grace in making a man good, and thereby 
has left his opponents no ground on which to base any conten¬ 
tion. Continuing in this strain he repeats his motto: “Hon 
•est enim ejusdem hominis, litteris et carnalibus vitiis inservire” 
a motto which would do honor to any humanist of later ages. 
He ends his defense of the subject with a quotation from 
Quintilian on the praise of grammar. “Haec est igitur liber- 
alium artium prima, necessaria pueris, jucunda senibus, dulcis 
secretorum comes; et quae sola, in omni studiorum genere, plus 
habet operis, quam ostentationis.” 2 
Such is the attitude of John of Salisbury toward the study 
of the classics. They should not be an end in themselves but 
“ad haec non modo pedum aut temporum ibi ratio habenda est, 
sed aetatum, locorum, temporum, aliorumque, quae sigillatum 
referre ad praesentem attinet ; cum omnia a naturae officina 
proveniant.” To study the past for the purpose of understand¬ 
ing and guiding the present became that cool, critical, 
contemplative mind, and the lines at the opening of the Poli- 
craticus “Me curialibus nugiis paulisper ademi, illud volvens 
in animo, quia otium sine litteris mors est, et vivi hominis 
sepultura,” show that John loved his letters as well, and prob¬ 
ably quite as sincerely, as the humanists of the later Renais¬ 
sance. It will be the aim of the remainder of this paper to 
show that he had not only an opportunity to satisfy his de¬ 
sire and love for the classics but that he also took advantage of 
this opportunity. 
1 Migne, p. 853. 
2 Migne, p. 856. 
