...The best and brightest men of the Renaissance wished to promote the best in word and deed, trusting that models of thought and action would inspire a better world, one enamored with classical paideia. Devotees of studia humanitatis valued human achievement and the originality arising from the more talented minds-- like Petrarch's-- even though they did not believe all people to be equallt capable of contributing to civilization's greatness. Yet no one possessed of intelligence was lost. Students who could not so contribute might at least distinguish themselves by imitating the best and noblest from the past. Their schools were not nurseries for geniuses so much as workshops for the culturally competent.
~T. L. Simmons, Climbing Parnansus: A New Apologia for Greek and Latin
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