AOSTA, the chief town of the foregoing duchy, and the see of a bishop. It is situated on the river Doria, at the foot of the Alps, where the great commercial roads from Savoy and the Valais to Piedmont, over the Great and Little St Bernard, meet each other. The town, though large, is meanly built. It is remarkable for several monuments of the Romans, and for being the birthplace of Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury. Long. 7. 20. E. Lat. 45. 44. N. Pop. 7120.
APÆDUSIA (α, priv., and παιδεύω, I instruct), denotes ignorance or unskillfulness in what relates to learning and the sciences. Hence also persons uninstructed 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 other 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 fact were the men of pleasure, the eruditi the men of study. The apædæutæ in everything 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.