APÆDUSIA denotes ignorance or unskillfulness in what relates to learning and the sciences. Hence also persons un instructed and illiterate are called apædæutæ. The term apædæutæ was particularly used among the French in the time of Huet, when the men of wit at Paris were divided into two factions, one called by way of reproach apædæutæ, and the others eruditi. The apædæutæ are represented by Huet as persons who, finding themselves either incapable or unwilling to undergo a severe course of study in order to become truly learned, conspire to decry learning, and turn the knowledge of antiquity into ridicule, thus making a merit of their own incapacity. The apædæutæ in effect were the men of pleasure, the eruditi the men of study. The apædæutæ in every thing preferred the modern writers to the ancient, to supersede the necessity of studying the latter. The eruditi derided the moderns, and valued themselves wholly on their acquaintance with the ancients.