said that Vittorino, unlike many of the humanists, was an orthodox, even a devout, Churchman, an earnestly religious man, whose precepts were enforced by his practice. Like almost all the great humanist teachers, he was a layman, engaged in creating a type of education which might be contrasted with the ecclesiastical type that had preceded it: but there was no tinge of paganism in his view of religion or of ethics: he was one of those men who, like Pico della Mirandola, recognised the unity of knowledge,—separated the gold of the new treasure-trove from the dross,—and neither felt nor sought any conflict between the classical and the Christian ideal.
It is interesting for Englishmen to remember that Winchester College was built in Vittorino's boyhood, and that the Mantuan public school was at its zenith when Henry VI. founded Eton. Both those illustrious foundations, since so distinguished as seats of humanistic training, arose before humanism had come to England, and were originally of the ecclesiastical type. Towards the end of the fifteenth century, a few Oxford scholars, who had visited Italy,—William Selling, Grocyn, William Latimer, Thomas Linacre,—brought the taste for humane letters to England, where it was presently quickened by the visits of Erasmus. St Paul's School, founded by the friend of Erasmus, Dean Colet, is the oldest in England which was humanistic from its origin. Its first High Master, William Lily, of Magdalen College, appointed by the founder
