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08922_Field_TCGG T687.txt
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1996-04-10
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The “old lawless democratic spirit” has reference to the
decentralist, oral organization of society that preceded print
and nationalism. Centralism of the newly released national
energies required greatly increased interdependence. Here the
printed text books made themselves felt very soon. And just as
papyrus made the Roman road, print made for the speed and
visual precision felt in the new monarchies of the Renaissance.
It is fascinating to move ahead a century and to Cambridge to
observe the strong centralist action of the printed book.
Christopher Wordsworth tells the story of the strange reversals
and interplay of the written and the oral modes in his Scholae
Academicae: Some Account of the Studies at the English
Universities in the Eighteenth Century (p. 16):
Before entering upon the details of the university
exercises and examinations, we ought to try to divest