part of Knapski’s Thesaurus, an esteemed work even at the present day, was first published in 1621, and may therefore be considered as a production of this period.  But the practical use, which so many gifted writers made of the language for a variety of subjects, contributed still more to its cultivation.  The point in which it acquired less perfection, and which appeared the most difficult to subject to fixed rules, was that of orthography.  That the Latin alphabet is not fully adapted to express Slavic sounds, is evident in the Polish language.  Indeed the reputed harshness of this language rests partly on the manner in which they were obliged to combine several consonants, which to the eye of the occidental European can only be united by intermediate vowels.  On the other hand, it is just this system of letters which forms a connecting link between the Polish language and those of western Europe; and although most Slavic philologists regret that the Latin alphabet ever should have been adopted for any Slavic language in preference to the Cyrillic, yet Grimm (with whom we fully agree) thinks that “the adoption of the former, with appropriate additions corresponding to the peculiar sounds of each language and dialect, would have been beneficial to all European languages."[20]

Although the art of printing was introduced into Poland as early as 1488, when the first printing office was established at Cracow, yet printed books first became generally diffused between the years 1530 and 1540.  The first work printed in Poland was a calendar for the year 1490; the first book printed in the Polish language was Bonaventura’s life of Jesus, translated for the queen of Hungary, and published in 1522.  In the second half of the sixteenth century nearly every city, which had a considerable school, had also its printing office.[21] The schools were unfortunately confined to the cities; nothing was done for the peasantry, who have remained even to the most recent times in a state of physical and moral degradation, with which that of the common people of no other country except Russia can be compared.  A peasant who could read or write, would have been considered as a prodigy.  So much the more, however, was done for the national education of the nobility.  In the year 1579 the university of Wilna was instituted; in 1594, another university was created at Zamosc in Little Poland, by a private nobleman, the great chancellor Zamoyski; which however survived only a few years, and perished in the beginning of the seventeenth century.[22] Numerous other schools of a less elevated character were founded at Thorn, Dantzic, Lissa, etc. most of them for Protestants.