permanent value is a short educational treatise, _De formando studio_,
which he wrote in 1484, and addressed to Barbiriau--some compensation
to the men of Antwerp for his refusal to come to them. His work was to
learn and to teach rather than to write. To learn Greek when few
others were learning it, and when the apparatus of grammar and
dictionary had to be made by the student for himself, was a task to
consume even abundant energies; and still more so, if Hebrew, too, was
to be acquired. But though he left little, the fire of his enthusiasm
did not perish with him; passing on by tradition, it kindled in others
whom he had not known, the flame of interest in the wisdom of the
ancients.

Another member of the Adwert gatherings was Alexander of Heck in
Westphalia, hence called Hegius (1433-98). He was an older man than
Agricola, but was not ashamed to learn of him when an opportunity
offered to acquire Greek. His enthusiasm was for teaching; and to that
he gave his life, first at Wesel, then at Emmerich, and finally for
fifteen years at Deventer, where he had many eminent humanists under
his care--Erasmus, William Herman, Mutianus Rufus, Hermann Busch, John
Faber, John Murmell, Gerard Geldenhauer. Butzbach, who was the last
pupil he admitted, and who saw him buried in St. Lebuin's church on a
winter's evening at sunset, describes him at great length; and besides
his learning and simplicity, praises the liberality with which he gave
all that he had to help the needy: living in the house of another
(probably Richard Paffraet, the printer) and sharing expenses, and
leaving at his death no possessions but his books and a few clothes.
And yet he was master of a school which had over 2000 boys.

Rudolph Langen of Munster (1438-1519) was another who was known at
Adwert. He matriculated at Erfurt in the same year as Agricola, and