<P> Among the noted schoolmasters was Alexander Hegius, who taught at Deventer for nearly a quarter of a century, till his death in 1498 . At the age of 40 he was not ashamed to sit at the feet of Agricola . He made the classics central in education and banished the old text - books . Trebonius, who taught Luther at Eisenach, belonged to a class of worthy men . The penitential books of the day called upon parents to be diligent in keeping their children off the streets and sending them to school . </P> <Ul> <Li> Humanist Library of Sélestat </Li> </Ul> <Li> Humanist Library of Sélestat </Li> <P> The leading Northern humanists included Rudolph Agricola, Reuchlin and Erasmus . Agricola, whose original name was Roelef Huisman, was born near Groningen, 1443, and died 1485 . He enjoyed the highest reputation in his day as a scholar and received unstinted praise from Erasmus and Melanchthon . He has been regarded as doing for Humanism in Germany what was done for Italy by Petrarch, the first life of whom, in German, Agricola prepared . After studying in Erfurt, Louvain and Cologne, Agricola went to Italy, spending some time at the universities in Pavia and Ferrara . He declined a professor's chair in favor of an appointment at the court of Philip of the Palatinate in Heidelberg . He made Cicero and Quintilian his models . In his last years, he turned his attention to theology and studied Hebrew . Like Pico della Mirandola, he was a monk . The inscription on his tomb in Heidelberg stated that he had studied what is taught about God and the true faith of the Saviour in the books of Scripture . </P>

When humanism took root in the north it did so as french humanism