technical sense, humanism was a program of studies that aimed to replace the medieval scholastic emphasis of logic and metaphysics with the study of language, literature, history and ethics. Ancient literature was always preferred: the study of Latin classics was at the core of curriculum and whenever possible, the student was expected to advance to Greek.
Humanistic teachers argued that scholastic logic was too arid and irrelevant to practical concerns of life. They preferred humanities which were meant to make their students virtuous and prepare them for contributing best to the public functions of the state. Women were ignored but aristocratic women were sometimes given humanist training in order to make them appear more polished.
Humanism stressed the dignity of man as the most excellent of all Gods creature below the angels. Some renaissance thinkers argued that man was excellent because he alone of the earthly creatures could obtain knowledge of god.
The first humanist : Francis Petrarch (1304-1374).
Among the greatest accomplishment of Italian renaissance scholars and writers, the work of Francis Petrarch was the earliest of the humanists in the technical sense of the term.
Petrarch was a committed Christian who believed that scholasticism was entirely misguided because it concentrated on abstract speculation rather than teaching peoples how to behave properly and attain salvation.
He dedicated himself to searching for undiscovered ancient Latin texts and writing his own moral treatises in which he initiated classical style and quoted classical phrases.
Civic humanism (1400-1450)
It was developed