I was listening to an excellent episode of Catholic Stuff You Should Know (I'm a bit behind). Well, it's this episode here:
THE LITURGICAL IDEAL OF THE CHURCH
The guest, early on, makes a comment about the beginning of the 20th Century, end of the 19th, and mentions "archeology was new". I thought I'd misheard that, but he mentioned it again, and added sociology.
He explained it, but it really hit me.
Archeology, and sociology, in fact, were new. Many academic disciplines were.
Indeed, that's something we haven't looked at here before. People talk all the time about the decline of the classic liberal education (at a time that very few people attended university), but when did modern disciplines really appear?
Indeed, that's part of what make a century ago, +, more like now, than prior to now. Educational disciplines, based on the scientific method in part, really began to expand.
So, we can take, for example, and find the University of Wyoming recognizable at the time of its founding in 1886.
But would Princeton, as it is now, be recognizable in 1786?
And interesting also how this effected everything, in this case, the Church's look at its liturgy.
But also, everything, really, about everything, for good and ill.
