Once the germ implanted,
  Its growth, if slow, is sure.

As the history of this period is incomplete without an acquaintance with the lives of some of the Maskilim who sowed the seeds that burst into blossom under the favorable conditions of the “sixties,” I shall select, as specimens out of a multitude, the two who, more than any others, furthered the cause of Haskalah, Isaac Baer Levinsohn and Mordecai Aaron Guenzburg.[33]

Isaac Baer Levinsohn of Kremenetz, Volhynia (RiBaL, 1788-1860), was for many years a name to conjure with, not only among the Maskilim of all shades, but also among their opponents.  Long before he reached man’s estate, he had entered upon the career to which he was to dedicate his life.  Even in those times of numerous child prodigies, Levinsohn was distinguished for his intellectual precocity.  At the age of three he was ripe for the heder.  At nine he was the author of a work on Cabbala.  At ten he mastered the Talmud, and knew the entire Hebrew Bible by heart.  But what singled him out among his classmates was his passionate love of secular knowledge.  The son of Judah Levin, an erudite merchant who knew Hebrew and Polish to perfection, the grandson of Jekuthiel Solomon, famed for wealth and refinement, he evinced unusual ability in selecting and retaining what was good and true in everything he read.  At fourteen he was familiar with the literatures of several nations, so that during the Franco-Russian war (1812) he easily secured an appointment as interpreter and secretary in the local police department.  But excessive study caused ill-health, and at the suggestion of his physicians he went to Brody in Galicia, a fortunate incident in the otherwise solitary and gloomy life of the future reformer, for next to Germany Galicia played an important part in the Haskalah movement in Russia.  There he met Joseph Perl, the noted educator; Doctor Isaac Erter, the immortal satirist; M.H.  Letteris, the distinguished poet; S.L.  Rapoport, one of the first and profoundest of Jewish historians, and Nahman Krochmal, the saintly philosopher.  Into this circle of “shining ones” Levinsohn was introduced, and each and all left an impression, some greater, some less, upon his plastic soul.  It was there and then, in the congenial company of friends of about his own age, that Levinsohn determined to devote himself to improving the educational system of his people and began to plan his work on Learning in Israel (Te’udah be-Yisrael), which procured for its author the foremost place in the history of the Haskalah movement.