^Humanism is not the study of humans. "The term umanista was used, in fifteenth century Italian academic slang to describe a teacher or student of classical literature and the arts associated with it, including that of rhetoric. The English equivalent 'humanist' makes its appearance in the late sixteenth century with a similar meaning. Only in the nineteenth century, however, and probably for the first time in Germany in 1809, is the attribute transformed into a substantive: humanism, standing for devotion to the literature of ancient Greece and Rome, and the humane values that may be derived from them" (Nicholas Mann "The Origins of Humanism", Cambridge Companion to Humanism, Jill Kraye, editor [Cambridge University Press, 1996], p. 1–2).
