entirely suited to this purpose. For knowing the “take-off” or 
new dimensions for visual experience and organization which 
began shortly after printing, it is interesting to observe how 
much this visual stress was anticipated in a variety of areas 
quite unrelated to Gutenberg technology. The look we have just 
taken at the ways in which ancient grammatica  persisted in 
oral relation to medieval writing and textual study, helps to 
show how little the manuscript culture was designed to 
intensify the visual faculty to the point of splitting it away from 
the other senses.

     Smalley observes (p. xiv): “Teachers in the middle ages 
regarded the Bible as a schoolbook par excellence. The little 
clerk learned his letters from the Psalter, and the Bible would be 
used in teaching him the liberal arts. Hence Bible study is linked 
with the history of institutions from the very beginning.”