"The Middle Ages deserve our attention, partly because they contributed much to our modern civilization and because our study of them helps to explain many existing conditions. Then grew up our modern languages, then began modern literatures and universities, then developed the Roman Catholic Church and the states of France and England, then were discovered the mariner's compass, gunpowder, and printing. But the Middle Ages also merit our study because they had institutions and ideas which are gone and which are strange to us, but the study of which serves to widen our experience, broaden our outlook, and deepen our sympathies and understanding."