# Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Universities

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UNIVERSITIES
Original meaning of the term "university."THE mediæval Latin term universitas (from which the English word "university" is derived) was originally employed to denote any community or corporation regarded under its collective aspect. When used in its modern sense, as denoting a body devoted to learning and education, it required the addition of other words in order to complete the definition, the most frequent form of expression being "universitas magistrorum et scholarium" (or "discipulorum "). Its limitation in mediæval times.In the course of time, probably towards the latter part of the 14th century, the term began to be used by itself, with the exclusive meaning of a community of teachers and scholars whose corporate existence had been recognized and sanctioned by civil or ecclesiastical authority or by both. But the more ancient and customary designation of the university in mediæval times (regarded as a place of instruction) was "studium generale" (or sometimes "studium" alone), a term implying a centre of instruction for all. The expressions " universitas studii" and "universitatis collegium" are also occasionally to be met with in official documents.
It is necessary, however, to bear in mind, on the one hand, that a university often had a vigorous virtual existence long before it obtained that legal recognition which entitled it, technically, to take rank as a "studium generale," and, on the other hand, that hostels, halls, and colleges, together with complete courses in all the recognized branches of learning, were by no means necessarily involved in the earliest conception of a university. The university, in its earliest stage of development, appears to have been simply a scholastic guild,—a spontaneous combination, that is to say, of teachers or scholars, or of both combined, and formed probably on the analogy of the trades guilds, and the guilds of aliens in foreign cities, which, in the course of the 13th and 14th centuries, are to be found springing up in most of the great European centres. The design of these organizations, in the first instance, was little more than that of securing mutual protection,—for the craftsman, in the pursuit of his special calling,—for the alien, as lacking the rights and privileges inherited by the citizen. And so the university, composed as it was to a great extent of students from foreign countries, was a combination formed for the protection of its members from the extortion of the townsmen and the other annoyances incident in mediæval times to residence in a foreign state. It was a first stage of development in connexion with these primary organizations, when the chancellor of the cathedral, or some other authority, began, as we shall shortly see, to confer on their masters the right of teaching at any similar centre that either already existed or might afterwards be formed throughout Europe,—"facultas ubique docendi." It was a still further development when it began to be recognized that, without a licence from either pope, emperor, or king, no "studium generale" could be formed possessing this right of conferring degrees, which originally meant nothing more than licences to teach.
Chief facts in the history of learning before the university era.In order, however, clearly to understand the conditions under which the earliest universities came into existence, it is necessary to take account, not only of their organization, but also of their studies, and to recognize the main influences which, from the 6th to the 12th century, served before to modify both the theory and the practice of education. In the former century, the schools of the Roman empire, which had down to that time kept alive the traditions of pagan education, had been almost entirely swept away by the barbaric invasions. The latter century marks the period when the institutions which supplied their place—the episcopal schools attached to the cathedrals and the monastic schools—attained to their highest degree of influence and reputation. Between these and the schools of the empire there existed an essential difference, in that the theory of education by which they were pervaded was in complete contrast to the simply secular theory of the schools of paganism. The cathedral school taught only what was supposed to be necessary for the education of the priest; the monastic school taught only what was supposed to be in harmony with the aims of the monk. But between the pagan system and the Christian system by which it had been superseded there yet existed ​something that was common to both: the latter, even in the narrow and meagre instruction which it imparted, could not altogether dispense with the ancient text-books, simply because there were no others in existence. Certain treatises of Aristotle, of Porphyry, of Martianus Capella, and of Boetius continued consequently to be used and studied; and in the slender outlines of pagan learning thus still kept in view, and in the exposition which they necessitated, we recognize the main cause which prevented the thought and literature of classic antiquity from falling altogether into oblivion.
Revival in time of Charles the Great.Under the rule of the Merovingian dynasty even these scanty traditions of learning declined throughout the Frankish dominions; but in England the designs of Gregory the Great, as carried out by Theodorus, Bede, and Alcuin, resulted in a great revival of education and letters. The influence of this revival extended in the 8th and 9th centuries to Frankland, where Charles the Great, advised and aided by Alcuin, effected a memorable reformation, which included both the monastic and the cathedral schools; while the school attached to the imperial court, known as the Palace School, also became a famous centre of learned intercourse and instruction.
Its connexion with university of Paris doubtfulBut the activity thus generated, and the interest in learning which it served for a time to diffuse, well nigh died out amid the anarchy which characterizes the 10th century in Latin Christendom, and it is at least question able whether any real connexion can be shown to have existed between this earlier revival and that remarkable movement in which the university of Paris had its origin. On the whole, however, a clearly traced, although imperfectly continuous, succession of distinguished teachers has inclined the majority of those who have studied this obscure period to conclude that a certain tradition of learning, handed down from the famous school over which Alcuin presided at the great abbey of St Martin at Tours, continued to survive, and became the nucleus of the teaching in which the university took its rise. General causes of formation of first universities.But, in order adequately to explain the remarkable development and novel character which that teaching assumed in the course of the 12th and 13th centuries, it is necessary to take account of the operation of certain more general causes to which the origin of the great majority of the earlier universities may in common unhesitatingly be referred. These causes are (1) the introduction of new subjects of study, as embodied in a new or revived literature; (2) the adoption of new methods of teaching which were rendered necessary by the new studies; (3) the growing tendency to organization which accompanied the development and consolidation of the European nationalities.
That the earlier universities took their rise to a great extent in endeavours to obtain and provide instruction of a kind beyond the range of the monastic and cathedral schools appears to be very generally admitted, and this general fact has its value in assisting us to arrive at a conclusion with respect to the origin of the first European university, that of Salerno in Italy, which became known as a school of medicine as early as the 9th century. Rise of university of Salerno.The circumstances of its rise are extremely obscure, and whether it was monastic or secular in its origin has been much disputed. One writer derives its origin from an independent tradition of classical learning which continued to exist in Italy down to the 10th century. Another writer maintains that it had its commencement in the teaching at the famous Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, where the study of medicine was undoubtedly pursued. But various facts may be urged in contravention of such a theory. The school at Salerno, so far as its history can be traced, appears to have been entirely a secular community; it was distinguished also by its catholic spirit, and, at a time when Jews were the object of religious persecution throughout Europe, members of this nationality were to be found both as teachers and learners at Salerno. Situated, moreover, as it was on the seacoast, its communication with the neighbouring island of Sicily was easy and frequent; and it would accordingly seem far more probable that it was owing to the new knowledge gained from the Saracens, after their occupation of that island, that Salerno acquired its reputation. It was by a band of these invaders that Bertharius, abbot of Monte Cassino, and the author of certain medical treatises, was massacred along with his monks in the year 883. The Saracens were famed for their medical skill, and, by their translations of Galen and Hippocrates, did much to advance the study; and, according to Jourdain, there were translations from the Arabic into Latin long before the time of Constantino the African, but these versions have perished. In the course of the 11th century, under the teaching of Constantino the African (d. 1087), the celebrity of Salerno became diffused all over Europe. Ordericus Vitalis, who wrote in the first half of the 12th century, speaks of it as then long famous. In 1231 it was constituted by the emperor Frederick II. the only school of medicine in the kingdom of Naples.
Teaching of Irnerius at Bologna.It was at a considerable interval after the rise of the school at Salerno, about the year 1113, that Irnerius commenced at Bologna his lectures on the ci-vil law. This instruction, again, was of a kind which the monastic and Bologna. cathedral schools could not supply, and it also met a new and pressing want. The states of Lombardy were at this time rising rapidly in population and in wealth; and the greater complexity of their political relations, their increasing manufactures and commerce, called for a more definite application of the principles embodied in the codes that had been handed down by Theodosius and Justinian. But the distinctly secular character of this new study, and its intimate connexion with the claims and prerogatives of the Western emperor, aroused at first the susceptibilities of the Roman see, and for a time Bologna and its civilians were regarded by the church with distrust and even with alarm. These sentiments were not, however, of long duration. Gratian, Decretum of Gratian and the canon law.In the year 1151 the appearance of the Decretum of largely compiled from spurious documents, invested the studies of the canonist with fresh importance; and numerous decrees of past and almost forgotten pontiffs now claimed to take their stand side by side with the enactments contained in the Corpus Juris Civilis. They constituted, in fact, the main basis of those new pretensions asserted with so much success by the popedom in the course of the 12th and 13th centuries. It was necessary, accordingly, that the Decretum should be known and studied beyond the walls of the monastery or the episcopal palace, and that its pages should receive authoritative ex position at some common centre of instruction. Such a centre was to be found in Bologna. The needs of the secular student and of the ecclesiastical student were thus brought for a time into accord, and from the days of Irnerius down to the close of the 13th century we have satisfactory evidence that Bologna was generally recognized as the chief school both of the civil and the canon law. It has indeed been asserted that university degrees were instituted there as early as the pontificate of Eugenius III. (1145–53), but the statement rests on no goad authority, and is in every way improbable. There is, however, another tradition which is in better harmony ​Barbarossa grants privileges to foreign students at Bologna.with the known facts. When Barbarossa marched his forces into Italy on his memorable expedition of 1155, and reasserted those imperial claims which had so long lain dormant, the professors of the civil law and their scholars, but more especially the foreign students, gathered round the Western representative of the Roman Caesars, and besought his intervention in their favour in their relations with the citizens of Bologna. A large proportion of the students were probably from Germany; and it did not escape Frederick's penetration that the civilian might prove an invaluable ally in the assertion of his imperial pretensions. He received the suppliants graciously, and, finding that their grievances were real, especially against the landlords in whose houses they were domiciled, he granted the foreign students substantial protection, by conferring on them certain special immunities and privileges (November 1158). These privileges were embodied in the celebrated Authentica, ffabita, in the Corpus Juris Civilis of the empire (bk. iv. tit. 13), and were eventually extended so as to include all the other universities of Italy. In them we may discern the precedent for that state protection of the university which, however essential at one time for the security and freedom of the teacher and the taught, has been far from proving an unmixed benefit, the influence which the civil power has thus been able to exert being too often wielded for the suppression of that very liberty of thought and inquiry from which the earlier universities derived in no small measure their importance and their fame.
But, though there was a flourishing school of study, it is to be observed that Bologna did not possess a university so early as 1158. Its first university was not constituted until the close of the 12th century. The "universities" at Bologna.The "universities" at Bologna were, as Denifle has shown, really student guilds, formed under influences quite distinct from the protecting clauses of the Authentica, and suggested, as already noted, by the precedent of those foreign guilds which, in the course of the 12th century, began to rise throughout western Europe. They had their origin in the absolute necessity, under which residents in a foreign city found themselves, of obtaining by combination that protection and those rights which they could not claim as citizens. These societies were modelled, Denifle considers, not on the trade guilds which rose in Bologna in the 13th century, but on the Teutonic guilds which arose nearly a century earlier in north-western Europe, being essentially "spontaneous confederations of aliens on a foreign soil." Originally, they did not include the native student element.
Democratic character of these communities.The power resulting from this principle of combination, when superadded to the privileges conferred by Barbarossa, gave to the students of Bologna a superiority of which they were not slow to avail themselves. Under the leader ship of their rector, they extorted from the citizens con cessions which raised them from the condition of an op pressed to that of a specially privileged class. The same principle, when put in force against the professors, reduced the latter to a position of humble deference to the very body whom they were called upon to instruct, and imparted to the entire university that essentially democratic character by which it was afterwards distinguished. It is not surprising that such advantages should have led to an imitation and extension of the principle by which they were obtained. Denifle considers that the "universities" at Bologna were at one time certainly more than four in number, and we know that the Italian students alone were subdivided into two, the Tuscans and the Lombards. Other similar communities in Italy.In the centres formed by secession from the parent body a like subdivision took place. At Vercelli there were four "universitates," composed respectively of Italians, English, Provencals, and Germans; at Padua there were similar divisions into Italians, French (i.e., Frandgenae, comprising both English and Normans), Provencals (including Spaniards and Catalans). When accordingly we learn from Odofred that in the time of the eminent jurist Azo, who lectured at Bologna about 1200, the number of the students there amounted to some ten thousand, of whom the majority were foreigners, it seems reasonable to conclude that the number of these confederations of students ("societates scholarium") at Bologna was yet greater. It is certain that they were not formed simultaneously, but, similarly to the free guilds, one after the other, the last in order being that of the Tuscans, which was com posed of students from Tuscany, the Campagna, and Rome. Nor are we, again, to look upon them as in any way the outcome of those democratic principles which found favour in Bologna, but rather as originating in the traditional home associations of the foreign students, fostered, however, by the peculiar conditions of their university life. As the Tuscan division (the one least in sympathy, in most respects, with Teutonic institutions) was the last formed, so, Denifle conjectures, the German "university" may have introduced the conception which was successively adopted by the other nationalities.
The rector.In marked resemblance to the guilds, these confederations were presided over by a common head, the "rector scholarium," an obvious imitation of the "rector societatum" or "artium" of the guild, but to be carefully distinguished from the " rector scholarum," or director of the studies, with whose function the former officer had, at this time, nothing in common. Like the guilds, again, the different nations were represented by their "consiliarii," a deliberative assembly with whom the rector habitually took counsel.
Mature age of the students.While recognizing the essentially democratic character of the constitution of these communities, it is to be remembered that the students, unlike the majority at Paris and later universities, were mostly at this time of mature years. As the civil law and the canon law were at first the only branches of study, the class whom they attracted were often men already filling office in some department of the church or state, archdeacons, the heads of schools, canons of cathedrals, and like functionaries forming a considerable element in the aggregate. It has been observed, indeed, that the permission accorded them by Frederick I. of choosing, in all cases of dispute, their own tribunal, thus constituting them, to a great extent, sui juris, seems to presuppose a certain maturity of judgment among those on whom this discretionary power was bestowed.
Amalgamation of the "universitates" in two divisions.With the middle of the 13th century, these various confederations became blended, for the first time, into one or other of the two great divisions already referred to, those of thellltramontani and the Citramontani,JohannesdeVaranis being rector of the former and Pantaleon de Venetiis of the into two latter. Innocent IV., in according his sanction to the new divisions, statutes of the university in 1253, refers to them as drawn up by the "rectores et universitas scholarium Bononiensium." With the commencement of the 16th century, the two corporations were combined under one rector.
Faculties instituted.About the year 1200 were formed the two faculties of medicine and philosophy (or the arts), the former being ​somewhat the earlier. It was developed, as that of the civil law had been developed, by a succession of able teachers, among whom Thaddeus Alderottus was especially eminent. The faculty of arts, down to the 14th century, scarcely attained to equal eminence. The teaching of theology remained for a long time exclusively in the hands of the Dominicans; and it was not until the year 1360 that Innocent VI. recognized the university as a "studium generale" in this branch, in other words, as a place of theological education for all students, with the power of conferring degrees of universal validity.
Account of the university by Anglicus.In the year 1371 the cardinal legate, Anglicus, compiled, as chief director of ecclesiastical affairs in the city, an account of the university, which he presented to Urban V. The information it supplies is, however, defective, owing to the fact that only the professors who were in receipt of salaries from the municipality are mentioned. Of these there were twelve of civil law and six of canon law; three of medicine, three of practical medicine, and one of surgery; two of logic, and one each of astrology, rhetoric, and notarial practice. The professors of theology, who, as members of the religious orders, received no state remuneration, are unmentioned.
the earliest colleges.Colleges existed at Bologna at a very early date, but it is not until the 14th century that we find them possessing any organization. They were designed solely for necessitous students, not being natives of Bologna. A separate house, with a certain fund for the maintenance of a specified number of scholars, was all that was originally con templated. Such was the character of that founded by Zoen, bishop of Avignon, in February 1256 (O.S.), the same month and year, it is to be noted, in which the Sorbonne was founded in Paris. It was designed for the maintenance of eight scholars from the province of Avignon, under the supervision of three canons of the church, maintaining themselves in the university. Each scholar was to receive 24 Bolognese lire annually for five years. The college of Brescia was founded in 1326 by William of Brescia, archdeacon of Bologna, for poor foreign students without distinction as to nationality. The Spanish college, founded in 1364, for twenty-four Spanish scholars and two chaplains, is noted by Denifle as the one college founded in mediaeval times which still exists on the Continent.
Origin of university of Paris.Of the general fact that the early universities rose in response to new wants the commencement of the university of Paris supplies us with a further illustration. The study of logic, which, prior to the 12th century, was founded exclusively on one or two meagre compends, received about the year 1100, on two occasions, a powerful stimulus, in the first instance, from the memorable controversy between Lanfranc and Berengar; in the second, from the no less famous controversy between Anselm and Eoscellinus. A belief sprang up that an intelligent apprehension of spiritual truth depended on a correct use of prescribed methods of argumentation. Study of logic.Dialectic was looked upon as " the science of sciences "; and, when, somewhere in the first decade of the 12th century, William of Champeaux opened in Paris a school for the more advanced study of dialectic as an art, his teaching was attended with marked success. Among his pupils was Abelard, in whose hands the study made a yet more notable advance; so that, by the middle of the century, we find John of Salisbury, on returning from the French capital to England, relating with astonishment, not unmingled with contempt, how all learned Paris had gone well nigh mad in its pursuit and practice of the new dialectic.
Teaching of Abelard.Abelard taught in the first instance at the cathedral school at Notre Dame, and subsequently at the schools on the Montagne Sainte-Genevieve, of which he was the founder, and where he imparted to logic its new develop ment. Study of theology.But in 1147 the secular canons of Ste Genevieve gave place to canons regular from St Victor; and hence forth the school on the former foundation was merely a school for the teaching of theology, and was attended only by the members of the house. The schools out of which the university arose were those attached to the cathedral on the Île de la Cité, and presided over by the chancellor, a dignitary who must be carefully distinguished from the later chancellor of the university. For a long time the teachers lived in separate houses on the island, and it was only by degrees that they combined themselves into a society, and that special buildings were constructed for their class- work. But the flame which Abelard's teaching had kindled was not destined to expire. Lombard's Sentences.Among his pupils was Peter Lombard, who was bishop of Paris in 1159, and widely known to posterity as the compiler of the famous volume of the Sentences. The design of this work was to place before the student, in as strictly logical a form as practicable, the views (sententiæ) of the fathers and all the great doctors of the church upon the chief and most difficult points in the Christian belief. Conceived with the purpose of allaying and preventing, it really stimulated, controversy. The logicians seized upon it as a great storehouse of indisputable major premises, on which they argued with renewed energy and with endless ingenuity of dialectical refinement; and upon this new compendium of theological doctrine, which became the text-book of the Middle Ages, the schoolmen, in their successive treatises super Sententias, expended a consider able share of that subtlety and labour which still excite the astonishment of the student of metaphysical literature.
Rise of other early universities.It is in these prominent features in the history of these early universities the development of new methods of instruction concurrently with the appearance of new material for their application that we find the most probable solution of the question as to how the university, as distinguished from the older cathedral or monastic schools, was first formed. In a similar manner, it seems probable, the majority of the earlier universities of Italy Reggio, Modena, Vicenza, Padua, and Vercelli arose, for they had their origin independently alike of the civil and the papal authority. Instances, it is true, occur, which cannot be referred to this spontaneous mode of growth. The university of Naples, for example, was founded solely by the fiat of the emperor Frederick II. in the year 1224; and, if we may rely upon the documents cited by Denifle, Innocent IV. about the year 1245 founded in connexion with the curia a "studium generale" which was attached to the papal court, and followed it when removed from Rome, very much as the Palace School of Charles the Great ac companied that monarch on his progresses.
Early organization of university of Paris.As the university of Paris became the model, not only for the universities of France north of the Loire, but also for the great majority of those of central Europe as well as for Oxford and Cambridge, some account of its early organization will here be indispensable. Such an account is rendered still further necessary by the fact that the recent and almost exhaustive researches of Denifle, the Dominican father, have led him to conclusions which on some important points run altogether counter to those sanctioned by the high authority of Savigny.
The original university, as already stated, took its rise entirely out of the movement carried on by teachers on the ​The teaching that formed its nucleus.island, who taught by virtue of the licence conferred by the chancellor of the cathedral. In the second decade of the 13th century, it is true, we find masters withdrawing themselves from his authority by repairing to the left bank of the Seine and placing themselves under the jurisdiction of the abbot of the monastery of Ste Genevieve; and in 1255 this dignitary is to be found appointing a chancellor whose duty it should be to confer "licentia docendi" on those candidates who were desirous of opening schools in that district. But it was around the bestowal of this licence by the chancellor of Notre Dame, on the Île de la Cité, that the university of Paris grew up. It is in this licence that the whole significance of the master of arts degree is contained; Inception.for what is technically known as admission to that degree was really nothing more nor less than receiving the chancellor's permission to "incept," and by "inception" was implied the master's formal entrance upon, and commencement of, the functions of a duly licensed teacher, and his recognition as such by his brothers in the profession. Batchelor of arts.The previous stage of his academic career, that of bachelordom, had been one of apprenticeship for the mastership; and his emancipation from this state was symbolized by placing the magisterial cap (biretta) upon his head, a ceremony which, in imitation of the old Roman ceremony of manumission, was performed by his former instructor, "under whom" he was said to incept. He then gave a formal inaugural lecture, and, after this proof of magisterial capacity, was welcomed into the society of his professional brethren with set speeches, and took his seat in his master's chair.
The university formed.This community of teachers of recognized fitness did not in itself suffice to constitute a university, but some time between the years 1150 and 1170, the period when the Sentences of Peter Lombard were given to the world, the university of Paris came formally into being. Its first written statutes were not, however, compiled until about the year 1208, and it was not until long after that date that it possessed a "rector." Its earliest recognition as a legal corporation belongs to about the year 1211, when a brief of Innocent III. empowered it to elect a proctor to be its representative at the papal court. By this permission it obtained the right to sue or to be sued in a court of justice as a corporate body.
Difficulties attending its first development.This papal recognition was, however, very far from implying the episcopal recognition, and the earlier history of the new community exhibits it as in continual conflict alike with the chancellor, the bishop, and the cathedral chapter of Paris, by all of whom it was regarded as a centre of insubordination and doctrinal licence. Had it not been, indeed, for the papal aid, the university would probably not have survived the contest; but with that powerful assistance it came to be regarded as the great Trans-alpine centre of orthodox theological teaching. Successive pontiffs, down to the great schism of 1378, made it one of the foremost points of their policy to cultivate friendly and confidential relations with the authorities of the university of Paris, and systematically to discourage the formation of theological faculties at other centres. In 1231 Gregory IX., in the bull Parens Scientiarum, gave full recognition to the right of the several faculties to regulate and modify the constitution of the entire university, a formal sanction which, in Denifle's opinion, rendered the bull in question the Magna Charta of the university.
In comparing the relative antiquity of the universities of Paris and Bologna, it is difficult to give an unqualified decision. The university of masters at the former was probably slightly anterior to the university of students at the latter; but there is good reason for believing that Paris, in reducing its traditional customs to statutory form, largely availed itself of the precedents afforded by the already existing code of the Transalpine centre, while its rectorship, proctorships, and four "nations" are all clearly distinct adaptations of the corresponding divisions at Bologna. The "nations."These nations, which included both professors The and scholars, were—(1) the French nation, composed, in "nations." addition to the native element, of Spaniards, Italians, and Greeks; (2) the Picard nation, representing the students from the north-east and from the Netherlands; (3) the Norman nation; (4) the English nation, comprising, besides students from the provinces under English rule, those from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Germany. These several nations first came into existence some time before the year 1219, and all belonged to the faculty of arts; but the fully developed university was divided into four faculties, three "superior," viz., those of theology, canon law, and medicine, and one "inferior," that of arts. The head of each faculty was the dean; the head of each nation was the proctor. The rector, who in the first instance was head of the faculty of arts, by whom he was elected, was eventually head of the whole university. Each of the nations and each of the superior faculties, while subject to the general authority which he represented, was, like a royal colony, in a great measure self-governed, and made statutes which were binding simply on its own members. Congregations of the faculty of arts were pre sided over by the rector, who discharged the same function when general congregations of the whole academic community were convened. In the former the votes on any question were taken by nations, in the latter by faculties and nations. Only "regents," that is, masters actually engaged in teaching, had any right to be present or to vote in congregations. Neither the entire university nor the separate faculties had thus, it will be seen, originally a common head, and it was not until the middle of the 14th century that the rector became the head of the collective university, by the incorporation under him, first, of the students of the canon law and of medicine (which took place about the end of the 13th century), and, secondly, of the theologians, which took place about half a century later.
Paris and Bologna contrasted.Apart from the broad differences in their organization, Paris and the very conception of learning, it will be observed, was Bologna different at Bologna from what it was at Paris. In the former it was entirely professional, designed, that is to say, to prepare the student for a definite and practical career in after life; in the latter it was sought to provide a general mental training, and to attract the learner to studies which were speculative rather than practical. In the sequel, the less mercenary spirit in which Paris cultivated knowledge added immensely to her influence and reputation. The university became known as the great school where theology was studied in its most scientific spirit; and the decisions of its great doctors upon those abstruse questions which absorbed so much of the highest intellectual activity of the Middle Ages were regarded as almost final. Papal policy in relation to the universities.The popes themselves, although averse from theological controversies, deemed it expedient to cultivate friendly relations with a centre of such importance for the purpose of securing their influence in a yet wider field, Down therefore to the time of the great schism (1378), they at once conciliated the university of Paris and consulted what they deemed to be the interests of the Roman see, by discouraging the creation of faculties of theology elsewhere. The apparent exceptions to this policy are easily explained: the four faculties of theology which they sanctioned in Italy Pisa (1343), Florence (1349), Bologna (1362), and Padua (1363) were designed to benefit the Italian monasteries, by saving the monks the expense and dangers of a long journey beyond the Alps; while that at ​Toulouse (1229) took its rise under circumstances entirely exceptional, being designed as a bulwark against the heresy of the Albigenses. The popes, on the other hand, favoured the creation of new faculties of law, and especially of the canon law, as the latter represented the source from which Rome derived her most warmly contested powers and prerogatives. The effects of this twofold policy were sufficiently intelligible: the withholding of each charter which it was sought to obtain for a new school of theology only served to augment the numbers that flocked to Paris; the bestowal of each new charter for a faculty of law served in like manner to divert a certain proportionate number from Bologna. These facts enable us to understand how it is that, in the 13th and 14th centuries, we find, even in France, a larger number of universities created after the model of Bologna than after that of Paris.
In their earliest stage, however, the importance of these new institutions was but imperfectly discerned alike by the civil and the ecclesiastical power, and the first four universities of Italy, after Bologna, rose into existence, like Bologna itself, without a charter from either pope or emperor. Of these the first were those of Reggio and Modena, both of which are to be found mentioned as schools of civil law before the close of the 12th century. Foundation of universities of Reggio and Modena,The latter, throughout the 13th century, appears to have been resorted to by teachers of sufficient eminence to form a nourishing school, composed of students not only from the city itself, but also from a considerable distance. Both of them would seem to have been formed independently of Bologna, but the university of Vicenza was probably the outcome of a migration of the students from the former city, which took place in the year 1204. In the course of the century Vicenza,Vicenza attained to considerable prosperity; its students were divided into four nations, each with its own rector; and in 1264 it included in its professoriate teachers, not only of the civil law, but also of medicine, grammar, and dialectic. Padua, The university of Padua was founded in 1222 as the direct result of the migration of a considerable number of students from Bologna. Some writers, indeed, have inferred that the " studium " in the latter city was transferred in its entirety, but the continued residence of a certain proportion in Bologna is proved by the fact that two years later we find them appealing to Honorius III. in a dispute with the civic authorities. In the year 1228 the students of Padua were compelled by circumstances to transfer their residence to Vercelli, and the latter city guaranteed them, besides other privileges, the right to rent no less than five hundred lodging-houses at a fixed rental for a period of eight years. At first Padua was a school only of the civil and canon law; and during the oppressive tyranny of Ezzelin (1237-1260) the university maintained its existence with some difficulty. But in the latter part of the century it incorporated the faculties of grammar, rhetoric, and medicine, and became known as one of the most flourishing schools of Italy, and a great centre of the Dominicans, at that time among the most active promoters of learning.
Naples,The university of Naples was founded by the emperor Frederick II. in the year 1225, as a school of theology, jurisprudence, the arts, and medicine, his design being that his subjects in the kingdom of Naples should find in the capital adequate instruction in every branch of learning, and "not be compelled in the pursuit of knowledge to have recourse to foreign nations or to beg in other lands." In the year 1231, however, he decreed that the faculty of medicine should cease to exist, and that the study should be pursued nowhere in the kingdom but at Salerno. The university never attained to much eminence, and after the death of Frederick came for a time altogether to an end, but was restored in 1258 by King Manfred. In 1266 its faculty of medicine was reconstituted, and from 1272-74 Thomas Aquinas was one of its teachers of theology. Vercelli,The commencement of the university of Vercelli belongs to about the year 1228; it probably included, like Naples, all the faculties, but would seem to have been regarded with little favour by the Roman see, and by the year 1372 had ceased to exist, although mention of colleges of law and medicine is to be found after that date. Piacenza,The two universities of Piacenza and Pavia stand in close connexion with each other. The former is noted by Denifle as the earliest in Italy which was founded by virtue of a papal charter (6th February 1248), although the scheme remained for a long time inoperative. At length, in the year 1398, the university was reconstituted by Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti, duke of Milan, who in the same year caused the university of Pavia to be transferred thither. Piacenza now became the scene of a sudden but short lived academic prosperity. We are told of no less than twenty -seven professors of the civil law, among them the celebrated Baldus; of twenty-two professors of medicine; of professors of philosophy, astrology, grammar, and rhetoric; and of lecturers on Seneca and Dante. The faculty of theology would appear, however, never to have been duly constituted, and but one lecturer in this faculty is mentioned. With the death of Galeazzo in 1402, this precarious activity came suddenly to an end; and in 1404 the university had ceased to exist. Its history is, indeed, unintelligible, un less taken in conjunction with that of Pavia. Pavia,Even before Irnerius taught at Bologna, Pavia had been widely known as a seat of legal studies, and more especially of the Lom bard law, although the evidence is wanting which would serve to establish a direct connexion between this early school and the university which was founded there in 1361, by virtue of the charter granted by the emperor Charles IV. The new " studiurn " included faculties of jurisprudence, philosophy, medicine, and the arts, and its students were formally taken under the imperial protection, and endowed with privileges identical with those which had been granted to Paris, Bologna, Oxford, Orleans, and Montpellier; but its existence in Pavia was suddenly suspended by the removal, above noted, of its students to Piacenza. It shared again in the decline which overtook the university of Piacenza after the death of Giovanni Galeazzo, and during the period from 1404 to 1412 it altogether ceased to exist. But in October 1412 the lectures were recommenced, and the university entered upon the most brilliant period of its existence. Its pro fessors throughout the 15th century were men of distinguished ability, attracted by munificent salaries such as but few other universities could offer, while in the number of students who resorted thither from other countries, and more especially for the study of the civil law, Pavia had no rival in Italy but Padua. Arezzo,Arezzo appears to have been known as a centre of the same study so early as 1215, and its earliest statutes are assigned to the year 1255. By that time it had become a school of arts and medicine also; but for a considerable period after it was almost entirely deserted, and is almost unmentioned until the year 1338, when it acquired new importance by the accession of several eminent jurists from Bologna. In May 1355 it received its charter as a studium generale from Charles IV. After the year 1373 the school gradually dwindled, al though it did not become altogether extinct until about the year 1470. Rome,The university of Rome (which is to be carefully distinguished from the school attached to the curia) owed its foundation (1303) to Boniface VIII., and was especially designed by that pontiff for the benefit of the poor foreign students sojourning in the capital. It originally included all the faculties; but in 1318 John XXII. decreed that it should possess the power of ​ring degrees only in the canon and civil law. The university maintained its existence throughout the period of the residence of the popes at Avignon (see Popedom), and under the patronage of Leo X. could boast in 1514 of no less than eighty professors. This imposing array would seem, however, to be but a fallacious test of the prosperity of the academic community, for it is stated that many of the professors, owing to the imperfect manner in which they were protected in their privileges, were in the receipt of such insufficient fees that they were compelled to com bine other employments with that of lecturing in order to support themselves. An appeal addressed to Leo X. in the year 1513 represents the number of students as so small as to be sometimes exceeded by that of the lecturers ("ut quandoque plures sint qui legant quam qui audiant"). PerugiaScarcely any of the universities in Italy in the 14th century attracted a larger concourse than that of Perugia, where the study chiefly cultivated was that of the civil law. The university received its charter as a studium generale from Clement V. in the year 1308, but had already in 1306 been formally recognized by the civic authorities, by whom it was commended to the special care and protection of the "podesta." In common with the rest of the Italian universities, it suffered severely from the great plague of 1348-49; but in 1355 it received new privileges from the emperor, and in 1362 its first college, dedicated to Gregory the Great, was founded by the bishop of Perugia.Treviso,The university of Treviso, which received its charter from Frederick the Fair in 1318, was of little celebrity and but short duration. It is doubtful, indeed, whether it continued to exist after the city became subject to the republic of Venice in the year 1339; but in 1409 the Venetian senate issued a decree that no subjects of the republic should resort for study to any city in its dominions save that of Padua, and from this date the studium at Treviso must be held to have been no longer in existence. Florence,The circumstances of the rise of the university of Florence are unknown, but the earliest evidence of academic instruction belongs to the year 1320. The dispersion of the university of Bologna, in the March and April of the following year, afforded a favourable opportunity for the creation of a studium generale, but the necessary measures were taken somewhat tardily, and in the mean time the greater number of the Bolognese students had betaken themselves to Siena. The charter of foundation for Florence was accordingly not granted until 31st May 1349, when Clement VI. decreed that there should be instituted a studium generale in theology, jurisprudence, medicine, and every other recognized faculty of learning, the teachers to be professors who had obtained the degree of doctor or master either at Bologna or Paris, or "some other studium generale of celebrity." On 2d January 1364 the university also obtained the grant of imperial privileges from Charles IV. On 14th February 1388 it adopted a body of statutes which are still extant, and afford an interesting study in connexion with the university history of the period. The university now entered upon that brilliant period in its history which was destined to so summary an extinction. "It is almost touching," says Denifle, "to note how untiringly Florence exerted herself at this period to attract as teachers to her schools the great masters of the sciences and learning." In the year 1472, however, under the influence of Lorenzo de Medici, it was decided that Florence was not a convenient seat for a university, and its students were removed to Pisa. Siena,The commencement of the university of Siena belongs to about the year 1241, but its charter was first granted by the emperor Charles IV., at the petition of the citizens, in the year 1357. It was founded as a studium generale in jurisprudence, the arts, and medicine. The imperial charter was confirmed by Gregory XII. in 1408, and the various bulls relating to the university which he subsequently issued afford a good illustration of the conditions of academic life in these times. Residence on the part of the students appears to have been sometimes dispensed with. The bishop of Siena was nominated chancellor of the university, just as, says the bull, he had been appointed to that office by the imperial authority. The graduates were to be admitted to the same privileges as those of Bologna or Paris; and a faculty of theology was added to the curriculum of studies. Ferrara,The university of Ferrara owes its foundation to the house of Este,—Alberto, marquis of Este, having obtained from Boniface IX. in 1391 a charter couched in terms precisely similar to those of the charter for Pisa. In the first half of the 15th century the university was adorned by the presence of several distinguished humanists, but its fortunes were singularly chequered, and it would appear for a certain period to have been altogether extinct. It was, however, restored, and became in the latter part of the century one of the most celebrated of the universities of Italy. In the year 1474 its circle of studies comprised all the existing faculties, and it numbered no less than fifty-one professors or lecturers. In later times Ferrara has been noted chiefly as a school of medicine.
OxfordOf the universities modelled on that of Paris, Oxford would appear to have been the earliest, and the manner of its development was probably similar. Certain schools, opened within the precincts of the dissolved nunnery of St Frideswyde and of Oseney abbey, are supposed to have been the nucleus round which the university grew up. In the year 1133 one Robert Pullen, a theologian of considerable eminence (but whether an Englishman or a Breton is un certain), arrived from Paris, and delivered lectures on the Bible. He was followed a few years later by Vacarius, a native of Lombardy, who as a student at Bologna had inherited the tradition of the teaching of Irnerius. Al though both the pope and King Stephen regarded the civil law at this time with considerable distrust, Vacarius maintained his ground, and the study became one of the recognized faculties at Oxford. Towards the close of the 12th century Giraldus Cambrensis describes the town as a place "where the clergy in England chiefly flourished and excelled in clerkly lore." In one respect, indeed, Oxford was more favoured than even Paris, for the town authorities could not pretend to assert any right of interference with the university such as that to which the French monarch and the court frequently laid claim. In the 13th century mention first occurs of university "chests." especially the Frideswyde chest, which were benefactions designed as funds for the assistance of poor students. Halls, or places of licensed residence, for students, also began to be established. In the year 1257, when the bishop of Lincoln, as diocesan, had trenched too closely on the liberties of the community, the deputies from Oxford, when preferring their appeal to the king at St Albans, could venture to speak of the university as "schola secunda ecclesiae," or second only to Paris. Its numbers about this time were probably some three thousand; but it was essentially a fluctuating body, and whenever plague or tumult led to a temporary dispersion a serious diminution in its numerical strength generally ensued for some time after. Against such vicissitudes the foundation of colleges proved the most effectual remedy. Of these the three earliest were University College, founded in 1249 by William of Durham; Balliol College, founded about 1263 by John Balliol, the father of the king of Scotland of the same name; and Merton College, founded in 1264. The last-named is especially notable as associated with a new conception of university education, namely, that of collegiate ​discipline for the secular clergy, instead of for any one of the religious orders, for whose sole benefit all similar foundations had hitherto been designed. The statutes given to the society by Walter de Merton are not less noteworthy, as characterized not only by breadth of conception, but also by a careful and discriminating attention to detail, which led to their adoption as the model for later colleges, not only at Oxford but at Cambridge. Of the service rendered by these foundations to the university at large we have significant proof in the fact that, although representing only a small numerical minority in the academic community at large, their members soon obtained a considerable preponderance in the administration of affairs.
Cambridge,The university of Cambridge, although it rose into existence somewhat later than Oxford, may reasonably be held to have had its origin in the same century. There was probably a certain amount of educational work carried on by the canons of the church of St Giles, which gradually developed into the instruction belonging to a regular studium. In the year 1112 the canons crossed the river and took up their residence in the new priory in Barnwell, and their work of instruction acquired additional importance. Then, as early as the year 1224, the Franciscans established themselves in the town, and, some what less than half a century later, were followed by the Dominicans. At both the English universities, as at Paris, the Mendicants and other religious orders were admitted to degrees, a privilege which, until the year 1337, was extended to them at no other university. Their interest in and influence at these three centres was consequently proportionably great. In the years 1231 and 1233 certain royal and papal letters afford satisfactory proof that by that time the university of Cambridge was already an organized body with a chancellor at its head; and in 1229 and 1231 its numbers were largely augmented by migrations from Paris and from Oxford. Cambridge, however, in its turn suffered from emigration; while in the year 1261, and again in 1322, the records of the university were wantonly burnt by the townsmen. Through out the 13th century, indeed, the university was still only a very slightly and imperfectly organized community. Its endowments were of the most slender kind; it had no systematic code for the government of its members; the supervision of the students was very imperfectly provided for. An important step in the direction of reform in this last respect was, however, made in the year 1276, when an ordinance was passed requiring that every one who claimed to be recognized as a scholar should have a fixed master within fifteen days after his entry into the university. But the feature which most served to give permanence and cohesion to the entire community was, as at Oxford, the institution of colleges. The earliest of these was Peterhouse, first founded as a separate institution by Hugh Balsham, bishop of Ely, in the year 1286, with a code which was little more than a transcript of that given by Walter de Merton to his scholars at Oxford. About forty years later was founded Michaelhouse, and at nearly the same time (1326) Edward II. instituted his foundation of " king's scholars," afterwards forming the community of King's Hall. Both these societies in the 16th century were merged in Trinity College. To those succeeded Pembroke Hall (1347) and Gonville Hall (1348). All these colleges, although by no means conceived in a spirit of hostility to either the monastic or the Mendicant orders, were expressly designed for the benefit of the secular clergy. The foundation of Trinity Hall (1350) by Bishop Bateman, on the other hand, as a school of civil and canon law was probably designed to further ultramontane interests. That of Corpus Christi (1352), the outcome of the liberality of a guild of Cambridge townsmen, was conceived with the combined object of providing a house of education for the clergy, and at the same time securing the regular performance of masses for the benefit of the souls of departed members of the guild. But both Trinity Hall and Corpus Christi College, as well as Clare Hall, founded in 1359, were to a great extent indebted for their origin to the ravages caused among the clergy by the great plague of 1349.
Montpellier,Turning to France, or rather to the territory included within the boundaries of modern France, we find Montpellier a recognized school of medical science as early as the 12th century. William VIII., lord of Montpellier, in the year 1181 proclaimed it a school of free resort, where any teacher of medical science, from whatever country, might give instruction. Before the end of the century it possessed also a faculty of jurisprudence, a branch of learning for which it afterwards became famed. The university of medicine and that of law continued, however, to be totally distinct bodies with different constitutions. Petrarch was sent by his father to Montpellier to study the civil law. On 26th October 1289 Montpellier was raised by Nicholas IV. to the rank of a "studium generate," a mark of favour which, in a region where papal influence was so potent, resulted in a considerable accession of prosperity. The university also now included a faculty of arts; and there is satisfactory evidence of the existence of a faculty of theology before the close of the 14th century, although not formally recognized by the pope before the year 1421. In the course of the same century several colleges for poor students were also founded. The university of Toulouse Toulouse,is to be noted as the first founded in any country by virtue of a papal charter. It took its rise in the efforts of Rome for the suppression of the Albigensian heresy, and its foundation formed one of the articles of the conditions of peace imposed by Louis IX. on Count Raymond of Toulouse. In the year 1233 it first acquired its full privileges as a "studium generale" by virtue of a charter given by Gregory IX. This pontiff watched over the university with especial solicitude, and through his exertions it soon became a noted centre of theological and especially of Dominican teaching. As a school of arts, jurisprudence, and medicine, although faculties of each existed, it never attained to any reputation. The university of Orleans Orleans, had a virtual existence as a studium generale as early as the first half of the 13th century, but in the year 1305 Clement V. endowed it with new privileges, and gave its teachers permission to form themselves into a corporation. The schools of Orleans had an existence, it is said, as early as the 6th century, and subsequently supplied the nucleus for the foundation of a university at Blois; but of this university no records now exist. Orleans, in its organization, was modelled mainly on Paris, but its studies were complementary rather than in rivalry to the older university. The absorbing character of the study of the civil law, and the mercenary spirit in which it was pursued, had led the authorities at Paris to refuse to recognize it as a faculty. The study found a home at Orleans, where it was cultivated with an energy which attracted numerous students. In January 1235 we find the bishop of Orleans soliciting the advice of Gregory IX. as to the expediency of countenancing a study which was prohibited in Paris. Gregory decided that the lectures might be continued; but he ordered that no beneficed ecclesiastic should be allowed to devote himself to so eminently secular a branch of learning. Orleans subsequently incorporated a faculty of arts, but its reputation from this period was always that of a school of legal studies, and in the 14th century its reputation in this respect was surpassed by no other ​university in Europe. Prior to the 13th century it had been famed for its classical learning;Angers, and Angers, which received its charter at the same time, also once enjoyed a like reputation, which, in a similar manner, it exchanged for that of a school for civilians and canonists. The roll of the university forwarded in 1378 to Clement VII. contains the names of 8 professors utriusque juris, 2 of civil and 2 of canon law, 72 licentiates, 284 bachelors of both the legal faculties, and 190 scholars.Avignon, The university of Avignon was first recognized as a "studium generale" by Boniface VIII. in the year 1303, with power to grant degrees in jurisprudence, arts, and medicine. Its numbers declined somewhat during the residence of the popes, owing to the counter attractions of the "studium" attached to the curia; but after the return of the papal court to Rome it became one of the most frequented universities in France, and possessed at one time no less than seven colleges.Cahors, The university of Cahors enjoyed the advantage of being regarded with especial favour by John XXII. In June 1332 he conferred upon it privileges identical with those already granted to the university of Toulouse. In the following October, again following the precedent established at Toulouse, he appointed the scholasticus of the cathedral chancellor of the university. In November of the same year a bull, couched in terms almost identical with those of the Magna Charta of Paris, assimilated the constitution of Cahors to that of the oldest university. The two schools in France which, down to the close of the 14th century, most closely resembled Paris were Orleans and Cahors. The civil immunities and privileges of the latter university were not, however, acquired until the year 1367, when Edward III. of England, in his capacity as duke of Aquitaine, not only exempted the scholars from the payment of all taxes and imposts, but bestowed upon them the peculiar privilege known as privilegiumfori. Cahors also received a licence for faculties of theology and medicine, but, like Orleans, it was chiefly known as a school of jurisprudence.Grenoble,It was as a "studium generale" in the same three faculties that Grenoble, in the year 1339, received its charter from Benedict XII. The university never attained to much importance, and its annals are for the most part involved in obscurity. At the commencement of the 16th century it had ceased altogether to exist, was reorganized by Francis of Bourbon in 1542, and in 1565 was united to the university of Valence. Perpignan,The university of Perpignan, founded, according to Denifle, in 1379 by Clement VII. (although tradition had previously ascribed its origin to Pedro IV. of Aragon), and that of Orange,Orange, founded in 1365 by Charles IV., were universities only by name and constitution, their names rarely appearing in contemporary chronicles, while their very existence becomes at times a matter for reasonable doubt.
Palencia, Huesca, Lerida,To some of the earlier Spanish universities such as Palencia, founded about the year 1214 by Alfonso VIII.; Huesca, founded in 1354 by Pedro IV.; and Lerida, founded in 1300 by James II. the same description is applicable; and their insignificance is probably indicated by the fact that they entirely failed to attract foreign students.Valladolid, Valladolid, founded in 1346 by Pope Clement VI., attained, however, to some celebrity; and the foreign teachers and students frequenting the university became so numerous that in 1373 King Henry II. caused an enactment to be passed for securing to them the same privileges as those already accorded to the native element. But the total number of the students in 1403 was only 116, and grammar and logic, along with jurisprudence (which was the principal study), constituted the sole curriculum. Whatever reputation, indeed, was enjoyed by Spain for nearly five centuries after the commencement of the university era, centred mainly in Salamanca, to which Seville, in the south, stood in the relation of a kind of subsidiary Salamanca and Seville, school, having been founded in 1254 by Alfonso Wise, simply for the study of Latin and of the Semitic languages, especially Arabic. Salamanca was founded in 1243 by Ferdinand III. of Castile as a "studium generale" in the three faculties of jurisprudence, the arts, and medicine. Ferdinand extended his special protection to the students, granting them numerous privileges and immunities. Under his son Alfonso (above named) the university acquired a further development, and eventually included all the faculties save that of theology. But the main stress of its activity, as was the case with all the earlier Spanish universities, excepting only Palencia and Seville, until the commencement of the 15th century, was laid on the civil and the canon law. But, notwithstanding the favour with which Salamanca was regarded alike by the kings of Castile and by the Roman see, the provision for the payment of its professors was at first so inadequate and precarious that in 1298 they by common consent suspended their lectures, in consequence of their scanty remuneration. A permanent remedy for this difficulty was thereupon provided, by the appropriation of a certain portion of the ecclesiastical revenues of the diocese for the purpose of augmenting the professors salaries. The earliest of the numerous colleges founded at Salamanca was that of St Bartholomew, long noted for its ancient library and valuable collection of manuscripts, which now form part of the royal library in Madrid.
The one university possessed by Portugal had its seat Coimbra, in mediæval times alternately in Lisbon and in Coimbra, until, in the year 1537, it was permanently attached to the latter city. Its formal foundation took place in 1309, when it received from King Diniz a charter, the provisions of which were mainly taken from those of the charter given to Salamanca. In 1772 the university was entirely reconstituted.
Prague,Of the German universities, Prague, which existed as a "studium " in the 13th century, was the earliest, and was at first frequented mainly by students from Styria and Austria, countries at that time ruled by the king of Bohemia. On 26th January 1347, at the request of Charles IV., Pope Clement VI. promulgated a bull authorizing the foundation of a "studium generale" in all the faculties. In the following year Charles himself issued a charter for the foundation. This document, which, if original in character, would have been of much interest, has but few distinctive features of its own, its provisions being throughout adapted from those contained in the charters given by Frederick II. for the university of Naples and by Conrad for Salerno,—almost the only important feature of difference being that Charles bestows on the students of Prague all the civil privileges and immunities which were enjoyed by the teachers of Paris and Bologna. Charles had himself been a student in Paris, and the organization of his new foundation was modelled on that university, a like division into four "nations" (although with different names) constituting one of the most marked features of imitation. The numerous students—and none of the mediaeval universities attracted in their earlier history a larger concourse—were drawn from a gradually widening area, which at length included, not only all parts of Ger many, but also England, France, Lombardy, Hungary, and Poland. Contemporary writers, with the exaggeration characteristic of mediaeval credulity, even speak of thirty thousand students as present in the university at one time,—a statement for which Denifle proposes to substitute two thousand as a more probable estimate. It is certain, however, that Prague, prior to the foundation of Leipsic, was one of the most frequented centres of learning in Europe, and Paris suffered a considerable diminution in ​her numbers owing to the counter attractions of the great stadium of Slavonia.
Cracow,The university of Cracow in Poland was founded in May 1364, by virtue of a charter given by King Casimir the Great, who bestowed on it the same privileges as those possessed by the universities of Bologna and Padua. In the following September Urban V., in consideration of the remoteness of the city from other centres of education, constituted it a "studium generale" in all the faculties save that of theology. It is, however, doubtful whether these designs were carried into actual realization, for it is certain that, for a long time after the death of Casimir, there was no university whatever. Its real commencement must accordingly be considered to belong to the year 1400, when it was reconstituted, and the papal sanction was given for the incorporation of a faculty of theology. From this time its growth and prosperity were continuous; and with the year 1416 it had so far acquired a European reputation as to venture upon forwarding an expression of its views in connexion with the deliberations of the council of Constance. Towards the close of the 15th century the university is said to have been in high repute as a school of both astronomical and humanistic studies.
Vienna,The Avignonese popes appear to have regarded the establishment of new faculties of theology with especial jealousy; and when, in 1364, Duke Rudolph IV. founded the university of Vienna, with the design of constituting it a "studium generale" in all the faculties, Urban V. refused his assent to the foundation of a theological school. Owing to the sudden death of Duke Rudolph, the university languished for the next twenty years, but after the ac cession of Duke Albert III., who may be regarded as its real founder, it acquired additional privileges, and its prosperity became marked and continuous. Like Prague, Vienna was for a long time distinguished by the comparatively little attention bestowed by its teachers on the study of the civil law.
No country in the 14th century was looked upon with greater disfavour at Rome than Hungary. It was stigmatized as the land of heresy and schism. When, accordingly, in 1367 King Louis applied to Urban V. for his sanction of the scheme of founding a university at Fünfkirchen,Fünfkirchen, although theological learning was in special need of encouragement in those regions, Urban would not con sent to the foundation of a faculty of theology; he even made it a condition of his sanction for a "studium generale" that King Louis should first undertake to provide for the payment of the professors. We hear but little concerning the university after its foundation, and it is doubtful whether it survived for any length of time the close of the century, having been about that period absorbed in allOfen, probability in the university of Ofen. The foundation of this university is also involved in considerable obscurity, and its original charter is lost. We only know that it was granted by Boniface IX., at the request of King Sigismund, in the year 1389. In the first half of the 15th century it ceased for a long period to exist, but was revived, or rather founded afresh, by King Mathias Corvinus, an eminent patron of learning, in the last quarter of the century. " The extreme east of civilized continental Europe in mediaeval times," observes Denifle, "can be compared, so far as university education is concerned, only with the extreme west and the extreme south. In Hungary, as in Portugal and in Naples, there was constant fluctuation, but the west and the south, although troubled by yet greater commotions than Hungary, bore better fruit. Among all the countries possessed of universities in mediæval times, Hungary occupies the lowest place a state of affairs of which, however, the proximity of the Turk must be looked upon as a main cause."
Heidelberg,The university of Heidelberg received its charter (23d October 1385) from Urban VI. as a "studium generale" in all the recognized faculties save that of the civil law,—the form and substance of the document being almost identical with those of the charter granted to Vienna. It was granted at the request of the elector palatine, Rupert I., who conferred on the teachers and students, at the same time, the same civil privileges as those which belonged to the university of Paris. In this case the functionary invested with the power of bestowing degrees was non resident, the licences being conferred by the provost of the cathedral at Worms. But the real founder, as he was also the organizer and teacher, of the university was Marsilius of Inghen, to whose ability and energy Heidelberg was indebted for no little of its early reputation and success. The omission of the civil law from the studies licensed in the original charter would seem to show that the pontiff's compliance with the elector's request was merely formal, and Heidelberg, like Cologne, included the civil law among its faculties almost from its first creation. No mediaeval university achieved a more rapid and permanent success. Regarded with favour alike by the civil and ecclesiastical potentates, its early annals were singularly free from crises like those which characterize the history of many of the mediaeval universities. The number of those admitted to degrees from the commencement of the first session (19th October 1386 to 16th December 1387) amounted to 579. Cologne,Owing to the labours of the Dominicans, Cologne had gained a reputation as a seat of learning long before the founding of its university; and it was through the advocacy of some leading members of the Mendicant orders that, at the desire of the city council, its charter as a "studium generale" (21st May 1388) was obtained from Urban VI. It was organized on the model of the university of Paris, as a school of theology and canon law, and "any other recognized faculty,"—the civil law being incorporated as a faculty soon after the promulgation of the charter. In common with the other early universities of Germany—Prague, Vienna, and Heidelberg—Cologne owed nothing to imperial patronage, while it would appear to have been, from the first, the object of special favour with Rome. This circumstance serves to account for its distinctly ultramontane sympathies in mediaeval times and even far into the 16th century. In a report transmitted to Gregory XIII. in 1577, the university expressly derives both its first origin and its privileges from the Holy See, and professes to owe no allegiance save to the Roman pontiff. Erfurt.Erfurt, no less noted as a centre of Franciscan than was Cologne of Dominican influence, received its charter (16th September 1379) from the anti-pope Clement VII. as a "studium generale" in all the faculties. Ten years later (4th May 1389) it was founded afresh by Urban VI., without any recognition of the act of his pretended predecessor. In the 15th century the number of its students was larger than that at any other German university—a fact attributable partly to the reputation it had acquired as a school of jurisprudence, and partly to the ardour with which the philosophic controversies of the time were debated in its midst.
The collegiate system is to be noted as a feature common to all these early German universities; and, in nearly all, the professors were partly remunerated by the appropriation of certain prebends, appertaining to some neighbouring church, to their maintenance.
Relations of the popes to the universities.Throughout the 15th century the relations of the Roman pontiffs to the universities continued much the same, although the independent attitude assumed at the great councils of Constance and Basel by the deputies from the ​universities, and especially by those from Paris, could not fail to excite their apprehensions. Their bulls for each new foundation begin again to indicate a certain jealousy with respect to the appropriation of prebends by the founders. Where such appropriations are made, and more particularly in France, a formal sanction of the transfer generally finds a place in the bull authorizing the foundation; while sometimes the founder or founders are them selves enjoined to provide the endowments requisite for the establishment and support of the university. In this manner the control of the pontiff over each newly-created seat of learning assumed a more real character, from the fact that his assent was accompanied by conditions which rendered it no longer a mere formality. The imperial intervention, on the other hand, was rarely invoked in Germany, Greifswald, Freiburg, and Tubingen being the only instances in which the emperor's confirmation of the foundation was solicited. But whatever influence the Roman see may have gained by increasing intervention was more than counteracted by those other tendencies which came into operation in the second half of the century. These were of a twofold character: the first directly modifying the studies themselves, as the results of the discovery of printing and the new spirit awakened by the teaching of the humanists; the second affecting the external conditions, such as the multiplication of schools, and the growing demand for skilled physicians and learned civilians, circumstances which afforded increased employment for the services of men of academic training. In northern Germany and in the Netherlands, the growing wealth and prosperity of the different states especially favoured the formation of new centres of learning. Foundation of Louvain,In the flourishing duchy of Brabant the university of Louvain (1426) was to a great extent controlled by the municipality; and their patronage, although ultimately attended with detrimental results, long enabled Louvain to outbid all the other universities of Europe in the munificence with which she rewarded her professors. In the course of the next century the "Belgian Athens," as she is styled by Lipsius, ranked second only to Paris in numbers and reputation. In its numerous separate foundations and general organization it possessed no less than twenty-eight colleges it closely resembled the English universities; while its active press afforded facilities to the author and the controversialist of which both Cambridge and Oxford were at that time almost destitute. It embraced all the faculties, and no degrees in Europe stood so high as guarantees of general acquirements. Erasmus records it as a common saying, that "no one could graduate at Louvain without knowledge, manners, and age." Sir William Hamilton speaks of the examination at Louvain for a degree in arts as "the best example upon record of the true mode of such examination, and, until recent times, in fact, the only example in the history of universities worthy of consideration at all." He has translated from Vernulaeus the order and method of this examination. In 1788 the faculties of jurisprudence, medicine, and philosophy were removed to Brussels, and in 1797 the French suspended the university altogether. When Belgium was formed into an independent state in 1831, the university was refounded as a Roman Catholic foundation.
Leipsic,The circumstances of the foundation of the university of Leipsic are especially noteworthy, it having been the result of the migration of almost the entire German element from the university of Prague. This element comprised (1) Bavarians, (2) Saxons, (3) Poles (this last-named division being drawn from a wide area, which included Meissen, Lusatia, Silesia, and Prussia), and, being represented by three votes in the assemblies of the university, while the Bohemians possessed but one, had acquired a preponderance in the direction of affairs which the latter could no longer submit to. Religious differences, again, evoked mainly by the preaching of John Huss, further intensified the existing disagreements; and eventually, in the year 1409, King Wenceslaus, at the prayer of his Bohemian subjects, issued a decree which exactly reversed the previous distribution of votes, three votes being assigned to the Bohemian nation and only one to all the rest. The Germans took deep umbrage, and seceded to Leipsic, where, a bull having been obtained from Alexander V. (9th September 1409), a new "studium generale" was founded by the landgrave of Thuringia and the margraves of Meissen. The members were divided into four nations composed of natives of Meissen, Saxony, Bavaria, and Poland. Two colleges were founded, a greater and a smaller, but designed, not for poor students, but for masters of arts, twelve being admitted on the former and eight on the latter foundation. Rostock,The first university of northern Germany was that of Rostock, founded by the dukes John and Albert of Mecklenburg, the scheme receiving the sanction of Martin V. in a bull dated 13th February 1419 as that of a "studium generale " in all the faculties excepting theology. The faculty of theology was added in the year 1432. Two colleges were also founded, with the same design and on the same scale as at Leipsic.
No little illustration is afforded by the circumstances attending the foundation of the French universities of the struggle that was going on between the crown and the Roman see. Poitiers,The earliest foundation in the 15th century was that of Poitiers. It was instituted by Charles VII. in 1431, almost immediately after his accession, with the special design of creating a centre of learning less favour able to English interests than Paris had at that time shown herself to be. Eugenius IV. could not refuse his sanction to the scheme, but he endeavoured partially to defeat Charles's design by conferring on the new "studium generale" only the same privileges as those possessed by Toulouse, and thus placing it at a disadvantage in comparison with Paris. Charles rejoined by an extraordinary exercise of his own prerogative, conferring on Poitiers all the privileges collectively possessed by Paris, Toulouse, Montpellier, Angers, and Orleans, and at the same time placing the university under special royal protection. Caen,The foundation of the university of Caen, in the diocese of Bayeux, was attended by conditions almost exactly the reverse of those which belonged to the foundation of that at Poitiers. It was founded under English auspices during the short period of the supremacy of the English arms in Normandy in the 15th century. Its charter (May 1437) was given by Eugenius IV., and the bishop of Bayeux was appointed its chancellor. The university of Paris had by this time completely forfeited the favour of Eugenius by its attitude at the council of Basel, and Eugenius inserted in the charter for Caen a clause of an entirely novel character, requiring all those admitted to degrees to take an oath of fidelity to the see of Rome, and to bind themselves to attempt nothing prejudicial to her interests. To this proviso the pragmatic sanction of Bourges was the reply given by Charles in the following year. On 18th May 1442 we find King Henry VI. writing to Eugenius, and dwelling with satisfaction on the rapid progress of the new university, to which, he says, students had flocked from all quarters, and were still daily arriving. On 30th October 1452 its charter was given afresh by Charles in terms which left the original charter unrecognized; both teachers and learners were made subject to the civil authorities of the city, while all privileges conferred in the former charter ​in cases of legal disputes were abolished. From this time the university of Caen was distinguished by its loyal spirit and firm resistance to ultramontane pretensions; and, although swept away at the French Revolution, it was afterwards restored, owing to the sense of the services it had thus once rendered to the national cause. Bordeaux, Valence, Nantes,No especially notable circumstances characterize the foundation of the university of Bordeaux (1441) or that of Valence (1452), but that of Nantes, which received its charter from Pius II. in 1463, is distinguished by the fact that it did not receive the ratification of the king of France, and the conditions under which its earlier traditions were formed thus closely resemble those of Poitiers. It seems also to have been regarded with particular favour by Pius II., a pontiff who was at once a ripe scholar and a writer upon education. He gave to Nantes a notable body of privileges, which not only represent an embodiment of all the various privileges granted to universities prior to that date, but afterwards became, with their copious and somewhat tautological phraseology, the accepted model for the great majority of university charters, whether issued by the pope or by the emperor, or by the civil authority. The bishop of Nantes was appointed head of the university, and was charged with the special protection of ite privileges against all interference from whatever quarter. Bourges,The bull for the foundation of the university of Bourges was given in 1465 by Paul II. at the request of Louis XI. and his brother. It confers on the community the same privileges as those enjoyed by the other universities of France. The royal sanction was given at the petition of the citizens; but, from reasons which do not appear, they deemed it necessary further to petition that their charter might also be registered and enrolled by the parlement of Paris.
Greifswald,In Germany, the first of the universities representing the new influences above referred to is that of Greifswald. A wealthy burgomaster, who had graduated as a master of arts at Rostock, was the chief mover; and, his proposal being cordially seconded by the city council, the duke of the province, and certain abbots of neighbouring monasteries, the necessary bull was obtained from Calixtus III. (29th May 1456). The first session was commenced in October of the same year. Three colleges were at the same time founded,—two for masters of arts, as at Leipsic and Rostock, and a third for jurists. The chairs in the different faculties were distributed as follows: theology 3, jurisprudence 5, medicine 1, arts 4,—the number of jurists showing that the study of the civil law still obtained a certain preponderance. Freiburg,The university of Freiburg was founded by the archduke Albert, brother of the emperor Frederick III.,—the papal bull being given 20th April 1455, and the imperial ratification in the following year. The first session was opened in 1460, under the presidency of Matthew Hummel, a privy councillor, and the original numbers soon received considerable additions by secessions from Vienna and from Heidelberg. The endowment was further augmented by an annual allowance from the city council, and by certain canonries and livings attached to neighbouring parishes. Basel,In the same year, and probably in a spirit of direct rivalry, was opened the university of Basel. The cathedral school in that ancient city, together with others attached to the monasteries, afforded a sufficient nucleus for a "studium," and Pius II., who, as Æneas Sylvius, had been a resident in the city, was easily prevailed upon to grant the charter (12th November 1459). In the character of its endowments, and in the relative importance attached to the study of the civil law, Basel much resembled Greifswald, but its success throughout the 15th century was marred by the languid character of the support afforded it by the civic authorities. Before he had signed the bull for the foundation of the university of Basel, Pius II., at the request of duke William of Bavaria, had issued another bull for the foundation of a university at Ingolstadt (7th April 1459). Ingo1stadt,But it was not until 1472 that the work of teaching was actually commenced there. Some long-existing prebends, founded by former dukes of Bavaria, were appropriated to the endowment, and the chairs in the different faculties were distributed as follows:—theology 2, jurisprudence 3, medicine 1, arts 6,—arts in conjunction with theology thus obtaining the preponderance. As at Caen, twenty-two years before, an oath of fidelity to the Roman pontiff was imposed on every student admitted to a degree. That this proviso was not subsequently abolished, as at Caen, is a feature in the history of the university of Ingolstadt which was attended by important results. Nowhere did the Reformation meet with more stubborn resistance, and it was at Ingolstadt that the Counter-Reformation was commenced. In 1556 the Jesuits made their first settlement in the university.
Treves,The next two universities took their rise in the archiepiscopal seats of Treves and Mainz. That at Treves received its charter as early as 1450; but the first academical session did not commence until 1473. Here the ecclesiastical influences appear to have been unfavourable to the project. The archbishop demanded 2000 florins as the price of his sanction. The cathedral chapter threw difficulties in the way of the appropriation of certain livings and canonries to the university endowment; and so obstinate was their resistance that in 1655 they succeeded in altogether rescinding the gift on payment of a very inadequate sum. It was not until 1722 that the assembly of deputies, by a formal grant, relieved the university from the difficulties in which it had become involved. Mainz,The university of Mainz, on the other hand, was almost entirely indebted to the archbishop Diether for its foundation. It was at his petition that Sixtus IV. granted the charter, 23d November 1476; and Diether, being himself an enthusiastic humanist, thereupon circulated a letter, couched in elegant Latinity, addressed to students throughout his diocese, inviting them to repair to the new centre, and dilating on the advantages of academic studies and of learning. The rise of these two universities, however, neither of which attained to much distinction, represents little more than the incorporation of certain already existing institutions into a homogeneous whole, the power of conferring degrees being superadded. Tübingen,But the university of Tübingen, founded by charter of Sixtus IV. (9th November 1476), represents an entirely new creation. Its real founder was Mathilda, the mother of Count Eberhard of Würtemberg, who appropriated five livings and eight prebends to the endowment. Of the chairs, 3 were for theology, 3 for the canon and 2 for the civil law, 2 for medicine, and 4 for arts. The general financial condition of this university in the year 1541-42, and the sources from whence its revenues were derived, have been illustrated by Hoffmann in a short paper which shows the fluctuating character of the resources of a university in those days,—liable to be affected, as they were, both by the seasons and the markets.
Upsala and Copenhagen,Nearly contemporaneous with these foundations were those of Upsala (1477) and Copenhagen (1479), which, although lying without the political boundaries of Germany, reflected her influence. The charter for Copenhagen was given by Sixtus IV. as early as 1475. The students ​attracted to this new centre were mainly from within the radius of the university of Cologne, and its statutes were little more than a transcript of those of the latter foundation.
Wittenberg, The electorates of Wittenberg and Brandenburg were now the only two considerable German territories which did not possess a studium generale, and the university founded at Wittenberg by Maximilian I. (6th July 1502) is notable as the first established in Germany by virtue of an imperial as distinguished from a papal decree. Its charter is, however, drawn up with the traditional phrase ology of the pontifical bulls, and is evidently not conceived in any spirit of antagonism to Rome. Wittenberg is constituted a "studium generale" in all the four faculties, the right to confer degrees in theology and canon law having been sanctioned by the papal legate some months before, 2d February 1502. The endowment of the university with church revenues duly received the papal sanction, a bull of Alexander VI. authorizing the appropriation of twelve canonries attached to the castle church, as well as of eleven prebends in outlying districts ut sic per omnem modum unum corpiis ex studio ft collegia praedictis fiat et constituatur. No university in Germany attracted to itself a larger share of the attention of Europe at its commencement. And it was its distinguishing merit that it was the first academic centre north the Alps where the antiquated methods and barbarous Latinity of the Frank- scholastic era were overthrown. Frankfort-on-der-Oder,The last university founded in Germany prior to the Reformation was that of Frankfort-on-the-Oder. The design, first conceived by the elector John of Brandenburg, was carried into execution by his son Joachim, at whose request Pope Julius II. issued a bull for the foundation, 15th March 1506. An imperial charter, identical in its contents with the papal bull, followed on 26th October. The university received an endowment of canonries and livings similar to that of Wittenberg, and some houses in the city were assigned for its use by the elector. St An-
St. Andrews,The first university in Scotland was that of St Andrews, founded in 1411 by Henry Wardlaw, bishop of that see, and modelled chiefly on the constitution of the university of Paris. It acquired all its three colleges St Salvator's, St Leonard's, and St Mary's before the Reformation, the first having been founded in 1456 by Bishop James Kennedy; the second in 1512 by the youthful archbishop Alexander Stuart (natural son of James IV.) and John Hepburn, the prior of the monastery of St Andrews; and the third, also in 1512, by the Beatons, who in the year 1537 procured a bull from Pope Paul III. dedicating the college to the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Assumption, and adding further endowments. The most ancient of the universities of Scotland, with its three colleges, was thus reared in an atmosphere of mediæval theology, and undoubtedly designed as a bulwark against heresy and schism. But "by a strange irony of fate," it has been observed, " two of these colleges became, almost from the first, the foremost agents in working the overthrow of that church which they were founded to defend." St Leonard's more especially, like St John's or Queens at Cambridge, became a noted centre of intellectual life and Reformation principles. That he " had drunk at St Leonard's well " became a current expression for implying that a theologian had imbibed the doctrines of Protestantism. Glasgow,The university of Glasgow was founded as a "studium generale" in 1453, and possessed two colleges. Prior to the Reformation it acquired but little celebrity; its discipline was lax, and the number of the students but small, while the instruction was not only inefficient but irregularly given; no funds were provided for the maintenance of regular lectures in the higher faculties; and there was no adequate executive power for the maintenance of discipline. Aberdeen,The university of Aberdeen, which was founded in 1494, at first possessed only one college, namely, King's. Marischal College, founded in 1593 by George Keith, fifth Earl Marischal, was constituted by its founder independent of the university in Old Aberdeen, being itself both a college and a university, with the power of conferring degrees. Bishop Elphinstone, the founder both of the university and of King's College (1505), had been educated at Glasgow, and had subsequently both studied and taught at Paris and at Orleans. To the wider experience which he had thus gained we may probably attribute the fact that the constitution of the university of Aberdeen was free from the glaring defects which then characterized that of the university of Glasgow. But in all the mediæval universities of Germany, England, and Scotland, modelled as they were on a common type, the absence of adequate discipline was, in a greater or less degree, a common defect. In connexion with this feature we may note the comparatively small percentage of matriculated students proceeding to the degrees of B.A. and M.A. when com pared with later times.Degrees taken at Leipsic,Of this disparity the following table, exhibiting the relative numbers in the university of Leipsic for every ten years from the year 1427 to 1552, probably affords a fair average illustration, the remarkable fluctuations probably depending quite as much upon the comparative healthiness of the period (in respect of freedom from epidemic) and the abundance of the harvests as upon any other cause:—
Years. Matriculations. Tears. B.A. JI.A. Percentage of B.A s. M. A S. 1427-1430 737 1429-1432 151 28 20-4 3-8 1437-1440 715 1439-1442 199 50 27-8 6-9 1447-1450 808 1449-1452 274 (50) 33-9 1457-1460 1,447 1459-1462 559 81 38-6 5: 6 1467-1470 1,137 1469-1472 410 61 36-0 5-4 1477-1480 1,163 1479-1482 458 49 39-4 4-2 1487-1490 1,858 1489-1492 714 62 38-4 3 4 1497-1500 1,288 1499-1502 497 59 38-5 4-6 1507-1510 1,948 1509-1512 510 65 26-1 3-4 1517-1520 1,445 1519-1522 247 35 17-0 2-4 1527-1530 419 1529-1532 77 33 18-4 7-9 1537-1540 686 1539-1542 122 27 17-8 3-9 1547-1550 1,318 1549-1552 200 72 15-2 5-5 14,969 4418 672 29-5 4-5
General aspects of German mediæval universities.The German universities in these times seem to have admitted for the most part their inferiority in learning to older and more favoured centres; and their consciousness of the fact is shown by the efforts which they made to attract instructors from Italy, and by the frequent resort of the more ambitious students to schools like Paris, Bologna, Padua, and Pavia. That they took their rise in any spirit of systematic opposition to the Roman see (as Meiners and others have contended), or that their organization was something external to and independent of the church, is sufficiently disproved by the foregoing evidence. Generally speaking, they were eminently conservative bodies, and the new learning of the humanists and the new methods of instruction that now began to demand attention were alike for a long period unable to gain ad mission within academic circles. Reformers such as Hegius, John Wessel, and Rudolphus Agricola carried on their work at places like Deventer remote from university influences. That there was a considerable amount of mental activity going on in the universities themselves is not to be denied; but it was mostly of that unprofitable kind which, while giving rise to endless controversy, turned upon questions in connexion with which the implied postulates and the terminology employed rendered all scientific ​investigation hopeless. At almost every university—Leipsic, Greifswald, and Prague (after 1209) being the principal exceptions the so-called Realists and Nominalists represented two great parties occupied with an internecine struggle. At Paris, owing to the overwhelming strength of the theologians, the Nominalists were indeed under a kind of ban; but at Heidelberg they had altogether expelled their antagonists. It was much the same at Vienna and at Erfurt,—the latter, from the ready reception which it gave to new speculation, being styled by its enemies "novorum omnium portus." At Basel, under the leadership of the eminent Johannes a Lapide, the Realists with difficulty maintained their ground. Freiburg, Tübingen, and Ingolstadt, in the hope of diminishing controversy, arrived at a kind of compromise, each party having its own professor, and representing a distinct "nation." At Mainz the authorities adopted a manual of logic which was essentially an embodiment of Nominalistic principles.
Abandonment of logical studies in Italy.In Italy, almost without exception, it was decided that these controversies were endless, and that their effects were pernicious. It was resolved, accordingly, to expel logic, and allow its place to be filled by rhetoric. It was by virtue of this decision, which was of a tacit rather than a formal character, that the expounders of the new learning in the 15th century, men like Emmanuel Chrysoloras, Guarino, Leonardo Bruni, Bessarion, Argyropulos, and Valla, carried into effect that important revolution in academic studies which constitutes a new era in university learning, and largely helped to pave the way for the Reformation. This discouragement of the controversial spirit, continued as it was in relation to theological questions after the Reformation, obtained for the Italian universities a fortunate immunity from dissensions like those which, as we shall shortly see, distracted the centres of learning in Germany. High reputation of Italian professors.The professorial body also attained to an almost unrivalled reputation. It was exceptionally select, only those who were in receipt of salaries being permitted, as a rule, to lecture; it was also famed for its ability, the institution of concurrent chairs proving an excellent stimulus. These chairs were of two kinds—"ordinary" and "extraordinary,"—the former being the more liberally endowed and fewer in number. For each subject of importance there were thus always two and sometimes three rival chairs, and a powerful and continuous emulation was thus maintained among the teachers. "From the integrity of their patrons, and the lofty standard by which they were judged," says Sir W. Hamilton, "the call to a Paduan or Pisan chair was deemed the highest of all literary honours. The status of professor was in Italy elevated to a dignity which in other countries it has never reached; and not a few of the most illustrious teachers in the Italian seminaries were of the proudest nobility of the land. While the universities of other countries had fallen from Christian and cosmopolite to sectarian and local schools, it is the peculiar glory of the Italian that, under the enlightened liberality of their patrons, they still continued to assert their European universality. Creed and country were in them no bar, the latter not even a reason of preference. Foreigners of every nation are to be found among their professors; and the most learned man in Scotland (Dempster) sought in a Pisan chair that theatre for his abilities which he could not find at home."
Events producing divisions in university history.The Reformation represents the great boundary line in the history of the mediæval universities, and also, for a long time after, the main influence in the history of those new foundations which subsequently arose in Protestant countries. Even in Catholic countries its secondary effects were scarcely less perceptible, as they found expression in connexion with the Counter-Reformation. In Germany the Thirty Years War was attended by consequences which were felt long after the 17th century. In France the Revolution of 1789 resulted in the actual uprooting of the university system.
The influences of the New Learning, and the special character which it assumed as it made its way in Germany in connexion with the labours of scholars like Erasmus, John Reuchlin, Ulrich von Hutten, and Melanchthon, augured well for the future. It was free from the frivolities, the pedantry, the immoralities, and the scepticism which characterized so large a proportion of the corresponding culture in Italy. It gave promise of resulting at once in a critical and enlightened study of the masterpieces of classical antiquity, and in a reverent and yet rational interpretation of the Scriptures and the fathers. Pernicious influences of sectarianism.The fierce bigotry and the ceaseless controversies evoked by the promulgation of Lutheran or Calvinistic doctrine dispelled, however, this hopeful prospect, and converted what might otherwise have become the tranquil abodes of the Muses into gloomy fortresses of sectarianism. Of the manner in which it affected the highest culture, the observation of Henke in his Life of Calixtus (i. 8), that for a century after the Reformation the history of Lutheran theology becomes almost identified with that of the German universities, may serve as an illustration.
Marburg.The first Protestant university was that of Marburg, founded by Philip the Magnanimous, landgrave of Hesse, 30th May 1527. Expressly designed as a bulwark of Lutheranism, it was mainly built up out of the confiscation of the property of the religious orders in the Hessian capital. The house of the Dominicans, who had fled on the first rumour of spoliation, was converted into lecture-rooms for the faculty of jurisprudence. The church and convent of the order known as the "Kugelherrn" was appropriated to the theological faculty. The friary of the Barefooted Friars was shared between the faculties of medicine and philosophy. The university, which was the object of the margrave's peculiar care, rapidly rose to celebrity; it was resorted to by students from remote countries, even from Greece, and its professors were of distinguished ability. How much, however, of this popularity depended on its theological associations is to be seen in the fact that after the year 1605, when, by the decree of Count Maurice, its formulary of faith was changed from Lutheran to Calvinistic, its numbers greatly declined. This dictation of the temporal power now becomes one of the most notable features in academic history in Protestant Germany. The universities, having repudiated the papal authority, while that of the episcopal order was at an end, now began to pay especial court to the temporal ruler, and sought in every way to conciliate his goodwill, representing with peculiar distinctness the theory,—cujus regio, ejus religio. This tendency was further strengthened by the fact that their colleges, bursaries, and other similar foundations were no longer derived from or supported by ecclesiastical institutions, but were mainly dependent on the civil power.
Königsberg.The Lutheran university of Königsberg was founded 17th August 1544 by Albert III., margrave of Brandenburg, and the first duke of Prussia, and his wife Dorothea, a Danish princess. In this instance, the religious character of the foundation not having been determined at the commencement, the papal and the imperial sanction were both applied for, although not accorded. King Sigismund of Poland, however, which kingdom exercised at that time a protectorate over the Prussian duchy, ultimately gave the necessary charter (29th September 1561), at the same time ordaining that all students who graduated as masters in the faculty of philosophy should rank as nobles of the ​Polish kingdom. When Prussia was raised to the rank of a kingdom (1701) the university was made a royal foundation, and the "collegium Fridericianum," which was then erected, received corresponding privileges. In 1862 the university buildings were rebuilt, and the number of the students is now nearly one thousand.
Jena. The Lutheran university of Jena had its origin in a gymnasium founded by John Frederick the Magnanimous, elector of Saxony, during his imprisonment, for the express purpose of promoting Evangelical doctrines and repairing the loss of Wittenberg, where the Philippists had gained the ascendency. Its charter, which the emperor Charles V. refused to grant, and which was obtained with some difficulty from his brother, Ferdinand I., eventually enabled the authorities to open the university, 2d February 1558. Distinguished for its vehement assertion of Lutheran doctrine, its hostility to the teaching of Wittenberg was hardly less pronounced than that with which both centres regard Roman Catholicism. For a long time it was chiefly noted as a school of medicine, and in the 17th and 18th centuries it was in bad repute for the lawlessness of its students, among whom duelling prevailed to a scandalous extent. The beauty of its situation and the eminence of its professoriate have, however, generally attracted a considerable proportion of students from other countries. Its numbers in 1885 were 566.
Helmstädt.The Lutheran university of Helmstädt, founded by Duke Julius (of the house of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel), and designated after him in its official records as "Academia Julia," received its charter, 8th May 1575, from the emperor Maximilian II. No university in the 16th century commenced under more favourable auspices. It was munificently endowed by the founder and by his son; and its "Convictorium," or college for poor students, expended in the course of thirty years no less than 100,000 thalers, an extraordinary expenditure for an institution of such a character in those days. Beautifully and conveniently situated in what had now become the well-peopled region between the Weser and the lower Elbe, and distinguished by its comparatively temperate maintenance of the Lutheran tenets, it attracted a considerable concourse of students, especially from the upper classes, not a few being of princely rank. Throughout its history, until suppressed in 1809, Helmstädt enjoyed the special and powerful patronage of the dukes of Saxony.
Altdorf.The "Gymnasium Ægidianum" of Nuremberg, founded in 1526, and removed in 1575 to Altdorf, represents the origin of the university of Altdorf. A charter was granted in 1578 by the emperor Rudolph II., and the university was formally opened in 1580. It was at first, however, empowered only to grant degrees in arts; but in 1623 the emperor Ferdinand II. added the permission to create doctors of law and medicine, and also to confer crowns on poets; and in 1697 its faculties were completed by the permission given by the emperor Leopold I. to create doctors of theology. Like Louvain, Altdorf was nominally ruled by the municipality, but in the latter university this power of control remained practically inoperative, and the consequent freedom enjoyed by the community from evils like those which brought about the decline of Louvain is thus described by Hamilton: "The decline of that great and wealthy seminary (Louvain) was mainly determined by its vicious patronage, both as vested in the university and in the town. Altdorf, on the other hand, was about the poorest university in Germany, and long one of the most eminent. Its whole endowment never rose above £800 a year; and, till the period of its declension, the professors of Altdorf make at least as distinguished a figure in the history of philosophy as those of all the eight universities of the British empire together. On looking closely into its constitution the anomaly is at once solved. The patrician senate of Nuremberg were too intelligent and patriotic to attempt the exercise of such a function. The nomination of professors, though formally ratified by the senate, was virtually made by a board of four curators; and what is worthy of remark, as long as curatorial patronage was a singularity in Germany, Altdorf maintained its relative pre-eminence, losing it only when a similar mean was adopted in the more favoured universities of the empire."
Giessen.The conversion of Marburg into a school of Calvinistic doctrine gave occasion to the foundation of the universities of Giessen and of Rinteln. Of these the former, founded by the margrave of Darmstadt, Louis V., as a kind of refuge for the Lutheran professors from Marburg, received its charter from the emperor Rudolph II., 19th May 1607. When, however, the margraves of Darmstadt acquired possession of Marburg in 1625, the university was transferred thither; in 1650 it was moved back again to Giessen. The number of matriculated students at the commencement of the century was about 250; in 1887 it was 484. In common with the other universities of Germany, but with a facility which obtained for it a specially unenviable reputation, Giessen was for a long time wont to confer the degree of doctor in absentia in the different faculties without requiring adequate credentials. This practice, however, which drew forth an emphatic protest from the eminent historian Mommsen, has within the last few years been entirely abandoned. Rinteln.The university of Rinteln was founded 17th July 1621 by the emperor Ferdinand II. Almost immediately after its foundation it became the prey of contending parties in the Thirty Years War, and its early development was thus materially hindered. It never, however, attained to much distinction, and in 1819 it was suppressed. Strasburg.The university of Strasburg was founded in 1621 on the basis of an already existing academy, to which the celebrated John Sturm stood, during the latter part of his life, in the relation of "rector perpetuus," and of which we are told that in 1578 it included more than a thousand scholars, among whom were 200 of the nobility, 24 counts and barons, and three princes. It also attracted students from all parts of Europe, and especially from Portugal, Poland, Denmark, France, and England. The method of Sturm's teaching became the basis of that of the Jesuits, and through them of the public school instruction in England. In 1621 Ferdinand II. conferred on this academy full privileges as a university; in the language of the charter, "in omnibus facultatibus, doctores, licentiates, magistros, et baccalaureos, atque insuper poetas laureates creandi et promovendi." In 1681 Strasburg became French, and remained so until 1870.
Dorpat.The university of Dorpat (now Russian) was founded by Gustavus Adolphus in 1632, and reconstituted by the emperor Alexander I. in 1802. A special interest attaches to this university from the fact that it has for a long time been the scene of the contending influences of Teutonism and Slavonianism. Situated in Livonia, which at the time of its foundation represented a kind of debateable land between Russia and Poland, its gradual monopoly by the former country has not been without resistance and protests on the part of that Teutonic element which was at one time the more potent in its midst. The study of the Slavonic languages has here received considerable stimulus, and by a decree in May 1887 the use of the Russian language having been made obligatory in all places of instruction through the Baltic provinces, Russian has now taken the place of German as the language of the lecture-room. Dorpat possesses a fine library of over 80,000 volumes, and is also noted for its admirable botanical collection. The ​Russian minister has also recently instituted a professorship of the comparative grammar of the Slavonic dialects (now filled by J. Baudouin de Courtenay). The general influence of the university has been rapidly extending during the last few years far beyond the Baltic provinces. Prague.The number of students, which in 1879 was 1106, in 1886 was 1751. A like contest between contending nationalities has recently met with a final solution at Prague, where a Czech university has been established on an independent basis, the German university having commenced its separate career in the winter session of 1882-83. The German foundation retains its endowments, but the state subvention is divided between the two.
The repudiation on the part of the Protestant universities of both papal and episcopal authority evoked a counter-demonstration among those centres which still adhered to Catholicism, while their theological intolerance gave rise to a great reaction, under the influence of which the mediæval Catholic universities were reinvigorated and reorganized (although strictly on the traditional lines), while new and important centres were created. It was on the tide of this reaction, aided by their own skill and sagacity, that the Jesuits were borne to that commanding position which made them for a time the arbiters of education in Europe. Bamberg.The earliest university whose charter represented this reaction was that of Bamberg, founded by the prince-bishop Melchior Otto, after whom it was named "Academia Ottoniana." It was opened 1st September 1648, and received both from the emperor Frederick III. and Pope Innocent X. all the civil and ecclesiastical privileges of a mediæval foundation. At first, however, it comprised only the faculties of arts and of theology; to these was added in 1729 that of jurisprudence, and in 1764 that of medicine. In this latter faculty Dr Ignatius Dollinger (the father of the historian) was for a long time a distinguished professor. Innsbruck.The university of Innsbruck was founded in 1672 by the emperor Leopold I., from whom it received its name of "Academia Leopoldina." In the following century, under the patronage of the empress Maria Theresa, it made considerable progress, and received from her its ancient library and bookshelves in 1745. In 1782 the university underwent a somewhat singular change, being reduced by the emperor Joseph II. from the status of a university to that of a lyceum, although retaining in the theological faculty the right of conferring degrees. In 1791 it was restored to its privileges by the emperor Leopold II., and since that time the faculties of philosophy, law, and medicine have been represented in nearly equal proportions. In 1886 the number of professors was 74, and of students 869. Breslau.The foundation of the university of Breslau was contemplated as early as the year 1505, when Ladislaus, king of Hungary, gave his sanction to the project, but Pope Julius II., in the assumed interests of Cracow, withheld his assent. The Jesuits in the University.Nearly two centuries later, in 1702, under singularly altered conditions, the Jesuits prevailed upon the emperor Leopold I. to found a university without soliciting the papal sanction. When Frederick the Great conquered Silesia in 1741, he took both the university and the Jesuits in Breslau under his protection, and when in 1774 the order was suppressed by Clement XIV. he established them as priests in the Royal Scholastic Institute, at the same time giving new statutes to the university. In 1811 the university was considerably augmented by the incorporation of that at Frankfort-on-the-Oder. At the present time it possesses both a Catholic and a Lutheran faculty. Its medical faculty is in high repute. The total number of students in 1887 was 1347.
In no country was the influence of the Jesuits on the universities more marked than in France. The civil wars in that country during the thirty years which preceded the close of the 16th century told with disastrous effects upon the condition of the university of Paris, Condition of the university of Paris.and with the commencement of the 17th century its collegiate life seemed at an end, and its forty colleges stood absolutely deserted. To this state of affairs the obstinate conservatism of the academic authorities not a little contributed. The statutes by which the university was still governed were those which had been given by the cardinal D'Estouteville, the papal legate, in 1452, and remained entirely unmodified by the influences of the Renaissance. In 1579 the edict of Blois promulgated a scheme of organization for all the universities of the realm (at that time twenty-one in number), a measure which, though productive of unity of teaching, did nothing towards the advancement of the studies themselves. The eminent lawyers of France, unable to find chairs in Paris, distributed themselves among the chief towns of the provinces. The Jesuits did not fail to profit by this immobility and excessive conservatism on the part of the university, and during the second half of the 16th century and the whole of the 17th they had contrived to gain almost a complete monopoly of both the higher and the lower education of provincial France. Colleges of the Jesuits in France.Their schools arose at Toulouse and Bordeaux, at Auch, Agen, Rhodez, Perigueux, Limoges, Le Puy, Aubenas, Béziers, Tournon, in the colleges of Flanders and Lorraine, Douai and Pont-à-Mousson,—places beyond the jurisdiction of the parlement of Paris or even of the crown of France. Their banishment from Paris itself had been by the decree of the parlement alone, and had never been confirmed by the crown. "Lyons," says Pattison, "loudly demanded a Jesuit college, and even the Huguenot Lesdiguières, almost king in Dauphiné, was preparing to erect one at Grenoble. Amiens, Rheims, Rouen, Dijon, and Bourges were only waiting a favourable opportunity to introduce the Jesuits within their walls." The university was rescued from the fate which seemed to threaten it only by the excellent statutes given by Richer in 1598, and by the discerning protection extended to it by Henry IV.
EdinburghThe "college of Edinburgh" was founded by charter of James VI., dated 14th April 1582. This document contains no reference to a studium generale, nor is there ground for supposing that the foundation of a university was at that time contemplated. In marked contrast to the three older centres in Scotland, the college rose comparatively untrammelled by the traditions of mediævalism, and its creation was not effected without some jealousy and opposition on the part of its predecessors. Its first course of instruction was commenced in the Kirk of Field, under the direction of Robert Rollock, who had been educated at St Andrews under Andrew Melville, the eminent Covenanter. "He began to teach," says Craufurd, "in the lower hall of the great lodging, there being a great concourse of students allured with the great worth of the man; but diverse of them being not ripe enough in the Latin tongue, were in November next put under the charge of Mr Duncan Narne, . . . who, upon Mr Rollock's recommendation, was chosen second master of the college." In 1585 both Rollock and Nairne subscribed the National Covenant, and a like subscription was from that time required from all who were admitted to degrees in the college.
Results of the Thirty Years' War.Disastrous as were the effects of the Thirty Years War upon the external condition of the German universities, resulting in not a few instances in the total dispersion of the students and the burning of the buildings and libraries, they were less detrimental and less permanent than those which were discernible in the tone and temper of these ​communities. A formal pedantry and unintelligent method of study, combined with a passionate dogmatism in matters of religious belief, and a rude contempt for the amenities of social intercourse, became the leading characteristics, and lasted throughout the 17th century. Halle.But in the year 1693 the foundation of the university of Halle opened up a career to two very eminent men, whose influence, widely different as was its character, may be compared for its effects with that of Luther and Melanchthon, and served to modify the whole current of German philosophy and German theology. Halle has indeed been described as "the first real modern university." It was really indebted for its origin to a spirit of rivalry between the conservatism of Saxony and the progressive tendencies of the house of Brandenburg, but the occasion of its rise was the removal of the ducal court from Halle to Magdeburg. The archbishopric of the latter city having passed into the possession of Brandenburg in 1680 was changed into a dukedom, and the city itself was selected as the ducal residence. This change left unoccupied some commodious buildings in Halle, which it was decided to utilize for purposes of education. A "Ritterschule" for the sons of the nobility was opened, and in the course of a few years it was decided to found a university. Saxony endeavoured to thwart the scheme, urging the proximity of Leipsic; but her opposition was overruled by the emperor Leopold I., who granted (19th October 1693) the requisite charter, and in the following year the work of the university commenced. Frankfort-on-the-Oder had by this time become a centre of the Reformed party, and the primary object in founding a university in Halle was to create a centre for the Lutheran party, but its character, under the influence of its two most notable teachers, Christian Thomasius and A. H. Francke, soon expanded beyond the limits of this conception to assume a highly original form. Influence of Thomasius and Franke.Thomasius and Francke had both been driven from Leipsic owing to the disfavour with which their liberal and progressive tendencies were there regarded by the academic authorities, and on many points the two teachers were in agreement. They both regarded with contempt alike the scholastic philosophy and the scholastic theology; they both desired to see the rule of the civil power superseding that of the ecclesiastical power in the seats of learning; they were both opposed to the ascendency of classical studies as expounded by the humanists—Francke regarding the Greek and Roman pagan writers with the old traditional dislike, as immoral, while Thomasius looked upon them with contempt, as antiquated and representing only a standpoint which had been long left behind; both again agreed as to the desirability of including the elements of modern culture in the education of the young. But here their agreement ceased. It was the aim of Thomasius, as far as possible, to secularize education, and to introduce among his country men French habits and French modes of thought; his own attire was gay and fashionable, and he was in the habit of taking his seat in the professorial chair adorned with gold chain and rings, and with his dagger by his side. Francke, who became the leader of the Pietists, regarded all this with even greater aversion than he did the lifeless orthodoxy traditional in the universities, and was shocked at the worldly tone and disregard for sacred things which characterized his brother professor. Both, however, commanded a considerable following among the students. Thomasius was professor in the faculty of jurisprudence, Francke in that of theology. And it was a common pre diction in those days with respect to a student who pro posed to pursue his academic career at Halle, that he would infallibly become either an atheist or a Pietist. But the services rendered by Thomasius to learning were genuine and lasting. He was the first to set the example, soon after followed by all the universities of Germany, of lecturing in the vernacular instead of in the customary Latin; and the discourse in which he first departed from the traditional method was devoted to the consideration of how far the German nation might with advantage imitate the French in matters of social life and intercourse. His more general views, as a disciple of the Cartesian philosophy and founder of the modern Rationalismus, exposed him to incessant attacks; but by the establishment of a monthly journal (at that time an original idea) he obtained a channel for expounding his views and refuting his antagonists which gave him a great advantage. On the influence of Francke, as the founder of that Pietistic school with which the reputation of Halle afterwards became especially identified, it is unnecessary here to dilate. J. C. Wolf, who followed Thomasius as an assertor of the new culture, was driven from Halle by the accusations of the Pietists, who declared that his teaching was fraught with atheistical principles. In 1740, however, he was recalled by Frederick II., and reinstated in high office with every mark of consideration and respect. Throughout the whole of the 18th century Halle was the leader of academic thought and culture in Protestant Germany, although sharing that leadership, after the middle of the century, with Göttingen. Göttingen.The university of Göttingen (named after its founder "Georgia Augusta") was endowed with the amplest privileges as a university by George II. of England, elector of Hanover, 7th December 1736. The imperial sanction of the scheme had been given three years before (13th January 1733), and the university was formally opened 17th September 1737. The king himself assumed the office of "rector magnificentissimus," and the liberality of the royal endowments (doubling those of Halle), and the not less liberal character of the spirit that pervaded its organization, soon raised it to a foremost place among the schools of Germany. Halle had just expelled Wolf; and Göttingen, modelled on the same lines as Halle, but rejecting its Pietism and disclaiming its intolerance, appealed with remarkable success to the most enlightened feeling of the time. It included all the faculties, and two of its first professors—Mosheim, the eminent theologian, from Helmstädt, and Böhmer, the no less distinguished jurist, from Halle—together with Gesner, the man of letters, at once established its reputation. Much of its early success was also due to the supervision of its chief curator (there were two), Baron Münchausen, himself a man of considerable attainments, who by his sagacious superintendence did much to promote the general efficiency of the whole professoriate. Not least among its attractions was also its splendid library, located in an ancient monastery, and now containing over 200,000 volumes and 5000 MSS. In addition to its general influence as a distinguished seat of learning, Göttingen may claim to have been mainly instrumental in diffusing a more adequate conception of the importance of the study of history. Before the latter half of the 18th century the mode of treatment adopted by university lecturers was singularly wanting in breadth of view. Profane history was held of but little account, excepting so far as it served to illustrate ecclesiastical and sacred history, while this, again, was invariably treated in the narrow spirit of the polemic, intent mainly on the defence of his own confession, according as he represented the Lutheran or the Reformed Church. The labours of the professors at Göttingen, especially Putter, Gatterer, Schlözer, and Spittler, combined with those of Mascov at Leipsic, did much towards promoting both a more catholic treatment and a wider scope. Not less beneficial was the example set at Göttingen of securing the appointment of its professors by a less prejudiced and partial body than a university ​board is only too likely to become. "'The great Münchausen, says an illustrious professor of that seminary, 'allowed our university the right of presentation, of designation, or of recommendation, as little as the right of free election; for he was taught by experience that, although the faculties of universities may know the individuals best qualified to supply their vacant chairs, they are seldom or never disposed to propose for appointment the worthiest within their knowledge,"' The system of patronage adopted at Göttingen was, in fact, identical with that which had already been instituted in the universities of the Netherlands by Douza (see infra, p. 850). Erlangen.The university of Erlangen, a Lutheran centre, was founded by Frederick, margrave of Baireuth. Its charter was granted by the emperor Charles VII., 21st February 1743, and the university was formally constituted, 4th November. From its special guardian, Alexander, the last margrave of Ansbach, it was styled "Academia Alexandrina." In 1791, Ansbach and Baireuth having passed into the possession of Prussia, Erlangen became subject to the Prussian Government. The number of the students, which at the commencement of the century was under 300, was 880 in 1887.
The English and German universities compared.On comparison with the great English universities, the universities of Germany must be pronounced inferior both in point of discipline and of moral control over the students. The superiority of the former in these respects is partly to be attributed to the more systematic care which they took, from a very early date, for the supervision of each student, by requiring that within a certain specified time after his entry into the university he should be registered as a pupil of some master of arts, who was responsible for his conduct, and represented him generally in his relations to the academic authorities. Marburg in its earliest statutes (those of 1529) endeavoured to establish a similar rule, but without success.. The development of the collegiate system at Oxford and Cambridge materially assisted the carrying out of this discipline. Although again, as in the German universities, feuds were not unfrequent, especially those between "north" and "south" (the natives of the northern and southern counties), the fact that in elections to fellowships and scholarships only a certain proportion were allowed to be taken from either of these divisions acted as a considerable check upon the possibility of any one college representing either element exclusively. In the German universities, on the other hand, the ancient division into nations, which died out with the 15th century, was revived under another form by the institution of national colleges, which largely served to foster the spirit of rivalry and contention. The demoralization induced by the Thirty Years War and the increase of duelling intensified these tendencies, which, together with the tyranny of the older over the younger students, known as "Pennalismus," were evils against which the authorities contended, but ineffectually, by various ordinances. The institution of "Burschenthum," having for its design the encouragement of good fellowship and social feeling irrespective of nationality, served only as a partial check upon these excesses, which again received fresh stimulus by the rival institution of "Landsmannschaften," or societies of the same nationality. The latter proved singularly provocative of duelling, while the arrogant and even tyrannical demeanour of their members towards the unassociated students gave rise to a general combination of the latter for the purposes of self-defence and organized resistance. At all the great German universities both these forms of association are to be found existing at the present day.
Extinction of German universities during 1798-1815.The political storms which marked the close of the last and the commencement of the present century gave the death-blow to not a few of the ancient universities of Germany. Mainz and Cologne ceased to exist in 1798; Bamberg, Dillingen, and Duisberg in 1804; Rinteln and Helmstadt in 1809; Salzburg in 1810; Erfurt in 1816. Altdorf was united to Erlangen in 1807, Frankfort-on-the-Oder to Breslau in 1809, and Wittenberg to Halle in 1815. Munich.The university of Ingolstadt was first moved in 1802 to Landshut, and from thence in 1826 to Munich, where it was united to the academy of sciences which was founded in the Bavarian capital in 1759. Of those of the above centres which altogether ceased to exist but few, however, were much missed or regretted,—that at Mainz, which had numbered some six hundred students, being the one notable exception. The others had for the most part fallen into a perfunctory and lifeless mode of teaching, and, with wasted or diminished revenues and declining numbers, had long ceased worthily to represent the functions of a university. Whatever loss may have attended their suppression has been far more than compensated by the activity and influence of the three great German universities which have risen in the present century. Munich has become a distinguished centre of study in all the faculties; and its numbers, allowing for the two great wars, have been continuously on the increase. The number of its professors in 1887 was over ninety, and that of its students at the commencement of the session 1886-87 3209.
Berlin.The university of Berlin, known as the Royal Friedrich Wilhelm university, was founded in 1809, immediately after the peace of Tilsit, when Prussia had been reduced to the level of a third-rate power. Under the guiding influence of Wilhelm von Humboldt, however, the principles which were adopted in connexion with the new seat of learning not only raised it to a foremost place among the universities of Europe, but also largely conduced to the regeneration of Germany. A notable characteristic in the university of Berlin at the time of its foundation was its entire repudiation of attachment to any particular creed or school of thought, and professed subservience only to the interests of science and learning. "Each of the eminent teachers with whom the university began its life—F. A. Wolf, Fichte, Savigny, Reil—represented only himself, the path of inquiry or the completed theory which he had himself propounded. Its subsequent growth was astonishing. In 1813 Berlin had only 36 teachers altogether; in 1860 there were 173 in all, 97 professors, 66 privatdocenten, and 7 lecturers." In 1886 there were 296 teachers and 5357 students; and among the former a large proportion of the names are already of world-wide reputation, while its classical school stands unrivalled in Europe.
Bonn.The university of Bonn, founded in 1818, and known as the Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm university, has 88 professors and 1125 students. Equally distinguished as a school of philosophy and a school of theology, it is notable for the manner in which it combines the opposed schools of theological doctrine, that of the Evangelical (or Lutheran) Church and that of the Roman Catholic Church here standing side by side, and both adorned by eminent names. This combination (which also exists at Tübingen and at Breslau) has been attended with complete success and (according to Dr Döllinger) with unmistakable advantages. When tried, however, a generation before, at Erfurt and at Heidelberg, its failure was not less conspicuous, and Erfurt was ruined by the experiment.
​UNIVERSITIES 849 Statistics Dr Conrad, professor of political science at Halle, has of Ger- recently made the statistics relating to the German uni versities the subject of a careful investigation and analysis, which offer some interesting results. The total cost of the universities of the German empire is shown to be much smaller than the total revenues of the English universities and colleges, although the number both of professors and students is much larger, and although 42 per cent, of the total expenditure is upon establishments, such as hospitals, museums, and so forth. But in Germany 72 per cent, of the cost of the universities is defrayed by the state, the students paying, in the shape of fees, only 9-3 per cent. To a great extent, however, the German universities are to be looked upon as professional schools, giving an education which directly fits a man to earn his bread as a clergyman, a lawyer, a judge, a physician, a schoolmaster, a chemist, an engineer, or an agriculturist. Notwith standing the rapid growth in the numbers of the students, the growth of the professoriate has fully kept pace with it. In 1880 there were 1809 teachers at work in the German universities, more than half of whom (967) were full professors ("ordinarii"), the proportion of teachers to students being 1 to 11. This is a much higher propor tion than that of Oxford and Cambridge, although in them there is a large staff of college lecturers, which is practic ally more important than the university staff. It is higher again than the proportion of the Scottish universities, where there are only some 105 professors to between 5000 and 6000 students, a proportion of 1 to between 50 and 60 students. The increase in Germany has taken place partly by adding on fresh teachers for the old subjects, such as Latin and Greek, but still more by founding new chairs for new subjects, such as Oriental and Romance languages, geography, and archaeology, and by subdividing departments which have been recently developed, such as those con nected with political economy, political science, physiology, and biology. Owing to the great development of natural science, the faculty of philosophy has at some centres in creased to such an extent as to equal in numbers all the other faculties put together. This inconvenience has been differently met at different universities. In those of Switzerland, no further remedy has been devised than that of appointing separate syndicates or boards of management for the two main divisions, the philosophico-historic and the mathematical and natural-scientific ; at Dorpat, Tubin gen, and Strasburg, on the other hand, these divisions have been represented by the formation of two distinct faculties ; while Tubingen, Munich, and Wiirzburg have created, in addition, a third faculty under which are grouped the several subjects of political economy, statis tics, and finance. The following table (taken from Conrad) exhibits the average of Averages the total number of matriculated students at the German universi- of ties for every five years from 1831 to 1884; it brings the tendency to students form large centres very forcibly before the view. The three largest at Ger- centres Berlin, Leipsic, Munich even in the first quinquennium man uni- appear as absorbing no less than 35 per cent, of the students, and versities. in the last as many as 42 per cent. At the same time, there has lately been a no less notable increase among the centres of second magnitude. A quarter of a century ago only two universities had more than a thousand students ; at present there are nine. 2 TO
CO so 00 T S 3 i
a oo CO 1 SO K3 00 SO 1 6 00 t* o 3 t~ i 00 00 t- 00 00 Ml CO Berlin 1820 1762 1715 1461 1599 1593 1972 2218 1948 3102 4867 Breslau Halle 902 810 681 655 707 712 766 671 822 639 831 710 957 768 927 838 1037 968 1279 1017 1479 1544 Greifswald ... Konigsberg.. Bonn 208 421 795 198 391 647 218 347 632 190 323 80(i 214 358 807 273 390 813 345 445 896 420 469 866 508 606 776 538 723 944 725 909 1037 Miinster Gottingen. .. Marburg Kiel 261 865 331 275 213 774 273 244 238 670 263 208 284 676 265 151 348 684 245 141 473 687 254 149 524 721 264 194 453 772 332 172 409 1007 401 175 289 1002 510 262 280 1064 720 352 Munich Wiirzburg. .. Erlangen Tiibingen.. .. Heidelberg .. Freiburg Leipsic Jena 1556 445 278 805 661 474 1145 500 1392 440 297 745 570 433 1002 433 1329 472 316 889 727 235 917 421 1695 582 396 832 661 291 970 402 1700 743 475 764 684 331 843 396 1292 648 528 697 584 313 854 427 1245 625 474 777 742 303 991 482 1215 613 369 755 632 277 1433 384 1142 890 404 862 651 289 2686 423 1582 930 452 1076 643 426 3044 491 2468 1167 730 1217 732 615 3433 566 Giessen Rostock 355 95 367 95 484 88 476 87 383 98 356 121 378 144 294 152 318 141 587 350 176 713 497 232 844 The following table, taken from Ascherson s Deutscher Univer- Table sitats-Kalendcr, 1887, supplies the most recent statistics respecting of pro- both the teaching and the student bodies in the different faculties fessors of the German-speaking universities on the Continent. and students. Universities. PROFESSORS, &c. STUDENTS. Ordinary Professors Extra ordinary Professors. Honorary Professors. Privat- docenten, Assistant Teachers, &lt;fec. Teachers of Languages &c. Total. Theology. Juris prudence, Political Economy, Forestry. Medicine, Surgei-y, Pharmacy Philosophy, Philology, Mathema tics, &lt;fec. Total of Matriculatec Students. Evan gelical. Catholic. GERMAX EJIPIKE 75 57 57 39 36 38 65 41 50 43 35 41 44 67 44 75 22 29 59 52 38 37 41 41 22 25 38 42 26 r&gt;0 41 39 54 83 83 31 33 15 9 27 23 30 28 24 11 24 38 15 15 10 3 20 16 10 13 6 23 3 13 5 6 17 11 14 20 55 7 2 3 1 1 2 i 6 8 12 5 1 "i "i "4 "i 11 "i 4 124 27 31 9 24 9 21 13 18 20 15 20 19 58 17 4 19 17 19 29 36 2!) 2 3 40 16 6 43 19 31 33 147 7 4 3 6 5 11 9 5 6 7 5 6 5 3 3 8 3 4 10 3 4 2 1 3 12 296 122 131 61 80
121 82 110 106 87 78 94 180 82 165 40 39 102 93 71 83 87 70 48 42 91 73 41 114 74 85 110 301 794 122 166 386 94 239 306 698 72 126 55 235 672 189 87 89 354 95 44 ? ? 9 41 235 86 165 116 146 312 160 179 "s 60 86 221 ? 9 204 1282 226 221 118 147 125 145 55 115 193 80 22 112 738 74 1136 "S5 195 348 218 43 164 &gt; &gt; ? 56 264 123 489 252 ? ? 1911 1297 292 362 267 428 138 233 441 315 202 210 234 237 781 271 1350 ioo 233 235 935 131 227 ? ? j 241 868 548 231 j &gt; 2318 1984 395 433 109 305 127 424 121 499 305 191 169 231 1040 360 544 163 105 331 150 179 85 96 ? ? ? 143 367 30 70 65 ? ? 460 5337 1121 1347 880 996 484 1041 923 1527 772 607 480 815 3231 894 3176 475 327 848 1247 1511 354 539 ? ? i 481 1734 213 1193 769 ? 9 4893 Bonn Breslau Freiburg Giessen Gottingen Greifswald Halle Heidelberg Jena Kiel Leipsic Marburg Munich Miinster Rostock Strasburg Tubingen Wiirzburg SWITZERLAND Basel Bern Geneva. Lausanne Zurich RUSSIA (Baltic Provinces) Dorpat AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY Czernowitz Graz Innsbruck Cracow Prague(Gertnan university) Vienna XXIII. 107 ​850 UNIVERSITIES In 1878 a comparison of the numbers of the students in the different faculties in the Prussian universities with those for the year 1867 showed a remarkable diminution in the faculty of theology, amounting in Lutheran centres to more than one-half, and in Catholic centres to nearly three-fourths. In jurisprudence there was an increase of nearly two-fifths, in medicine a decline of a third, and in philosophy an increase of one-fourth. During the last few years, however, the faculties of theology have made some progress towards regaining their former numbers. The universities of the United Provinces, like those of Protestant Germany, were founded by the state as schools for the maintenance of the principles of the Reformation and the education of the clergy, and afforded in the 16th and 17th centuries a grateful refuge to not a few of those Huguenot or Port-Royalist scholars whom persecution compelled to flee beyond the boundaries of France, as well as to the Puritan clergy who were driven from England. Leyden. The earliest, that of Leyden, founded in 1575, commemo rated the gallant and successful resistance of the citizens to the Spanish fleet under Requesens. Throughout the 17th century Leyden was distinguished by its learning, the ability of its professors, and the shelter it afforded to the more liberal thought associated at that period with Arminianism. Much of its early success was owing to the wise provisions and the influence of the celebrated James Douza : " Douza s principles," says Hamilton, " were those which ought to regulate the practice of all academical patrons; and they were those of his successors. He knew that at the rate learning was seen prized by the state in the academy would it be valued by the nation at large. .... He knew that professors wrought more even by example and influence than by teaching, that it was theirs to pitch high or low the standard of learning in a country, and that, as it proved easy or arduous to come up with them, they awoke either a restless endeavour after an even loftier attainment, or lulled into a self-satisfied conceit." Douza was, for Leyden and the Dutch, what Munchausen afterwards was for Gottingen and the German universities. " But with this difference : Leyden was the model on which the younger universities of the republic were constructed ; Gottingen the model on which the older universities of the empire were reformed. Both Miin- chausen and Douza proposed a high ideal for the schools founded under their auspices ; and both, as first curators, laboured with paramount influence in realizing this ideal for the same long period of thirty-two years. Under their patronage Leyden and Gottingen took the highest place among the universities of Europe ; and both have only lost their relative supremacy by the application in other semin aries of the same measures which had at first determined their superiority." The appointment of the professors at Leyden was vested in three (afterwards five) curators, one of whom was selected from the body of the nobles, while the other two were appointed by the states of the pro vince, the office being held for nine years, and eventually for life. With these was associated the mayor of Leyden Franeker. for the time being. The university of Franeker was founded in 1585 on a somewhat less liberal basis than Leyden, the professors being required to declare their assent to the rule of faith embodied in the Heidelberg Catechism and the confession of the " Belgian Church." Its four faculties were those of theology, jurisprudence, medicine, and " the three languages and the liberal arts." l For a period of twelve years (circ. 1610-1622) the reputa tion of the university was enhanced by the able teaching of William Ames ("Amesius"), a Puritan divine and moralist who had been driven by Bancroft from Cambridge and from England. His fame and ability are said to have 1 Statuta, et Leges, Franeker, 1647, p. 3. attracted to Franeker students from Hungary, Poland, and Russia. With like organization were founded in 1600 the uni- Harder- versity of Harclerwijk, in 1614 that of Groningen, and ^ J k -. in 1634 that of Utrecht. The restoration of the House G e r n nin " of Orange, and establishment of the kingdom of the utrecht. Netherlands (23d March 1815), was followed by important changes in connexion with the whole kingdom. The uni versities of Franeker and Harderwijk were suppressed, while their place was taken by the newly-founded centres at Ghent (1816) and Liege (1816). A uniform constitu- Ghent, tion was given both to the Dutch and Belgian universities. Liege. It was also provided that there should be attached to each a board of curators, consisting of five persons, " distin guished by their love of literature and science and by their rank in society." These curators were to be nomin ated by the king, and at least three of them chosen from the province in which the university was situated, while the other two were to be chosen from adjacent provinces. After the redivision of the kingdom in 1831, Ghent and Liege were constituted state universities, and each received a subsidy from the Government (see BELGIUM). The uni- Brussels, versity of Brussels, on the other hand, founded in 1834, is an independent institution, supported by the liberal party; while the reconstituted university at Louvain represents the party of Roman Catholicism, and is almost exclusively a theological school for the education of the Catholic clergy. The universities of Belgium are, however, somewhat hetero geneous bodies, and present in their organization a singu lar combination of French and German institutions. In Amster- Holland, the foundation of the university of Amsterdam flam - (1877) has more than repaired the loss of Franeker and Harderwijk, and the progress of this new centre during the ten years of its existence has been remarkably rapid, so that it bids fair to rival, if not to outstrip, both Utrecht and Leyden. The higher education of women has made some progress in the Netherlands; and in 1882-83 there were eighteen women studying at Amsterdam, eleven at Groningen, four at Leyden, and seven at Utrecht. In Sweden the university of Lund, founded in 1668 and Univer- modelled on the same plan as its predecessor at Upsala, sities of has adhered to its antiquated constitution with remarkable ^ e tenacity. At both these universities the mediaeval division Norway. into " nations " is still in force among the students, the Lund. number at Upsala being no less than thirteen. The pro- Upsala, fessoriate at both centres is much below the modern requirements in point of numbers. The university of Chris- Christiania in Norway, founded in 1811, and the Swedish tiama - universities are strongly Lutheran in character ; and all alike are closely associated with the ecclesiastical institu tions of the Scandinavian kingdoms. The same observa tion applies to Copenhagen, where, however, the labours of Rask and Madvig have done much to sustain the repu tation of the university for learning. The university of Kiel. Kiel (1665), on the other hand, has come much more under Teutonic influences, and is now a distinguished centre of scientific teaching. In France the fortunes of academic learning were even Univer- less happy than in Germany. The university of Paris was !^y of distracted, throughout the 17th century, by theological f^ the dissensions, in the first instance owing to the struggle i7th that ensued after the Jesuits had effected a footing at the century. College de Clermont, and subsequently by the strife occasioned by the teaching of the Jansenists. Its studies, discipline, and numbers alike suffered. Towards the close of the century a certain revival took place, and a succes sion of illustrious names Pourchot, Rollin, Grenan, Coffin, Demontempuys, Crevier, Lebeau appear on the roll of its teachers. But this improvement was soon inter rupted by the controversies excited by the promulgation ​UNIVERSITIES 851 of the bull Unigenitus in 1713, condemning the tenets of Quesnel, when Rollin himself, although a man of singu larly pacific disposition, deemed it his duty to head the opposition to Clement XI. and the French episcopate. At last, in 1762, the parlement of Paris issued a decree (August 6) placing the colleges of the Jesuits at the dis posal of the university, and this was immediately followed by another for the expulsion of the order from Paris. Concurrently with this measure the prospects of the uni versity assumed a more favourable character, the curri culum of its studies was extended, and both history and natural science began to be cultivated with a certain Univer- success. These better prospects were, however, soon ob- sities scured by the outbreak of the Revolution ; and on the sup " loth September 1793 the universities and colleges through- throughout France, together with the faculties of theology, out c medicine, jurisprudence, and arts, were abolished by a France, decree of the Convention. The College de France, when restored in 1831, was reconstituted mainly as a school of adult instruction, for the most part of a popular character, and entirely dissociated from the university. It now numbers thirty-nine chairs, among which is one of the Univer- Slavonic languages and literature. The university of sity of France (which succeeded to that of Paris) is at present created l^tle more than an abstract term, signifying the whole of the professional body under state control, and comprising Creation various faculties at different centres Paris, Montpellier, of new Xancy, ifcc., together with twenty-seven academical rector- res&gt; ates. Each of these rectors presides over a local " conseil d enseignement," in conjunction with which he elects the professors of lycees and the communal schoolmasters, whose formal appointment is then made by the minister of public instruction. There are ecclesiastics in some of the conseils d enseignement, but the rectors are all laymen Great who have graduated in one of the faculties. The great French schools have also in no small measure supplemented the s&lt; work of the universities by their advance in the direction of scientific instruction. Among the number the " ^cole Pratique des Hautes Etudes " in Paris (31st July 1868) and the " Ecole Poly technique," which traces its origin as far back as the year 1794, are especially distinguished. The course of instruction at the former is divided into five sections (1) mathematics, (2) physics and chemistry, (3) natural history and physiology, (4) history and philology, (5) economic science. At the latter the instruction is conceived solely with regard to the application of scientific principles to all branches of the public service, but more especially the military and mercantile. In 1875 the National Assembly passed an Act which enabled the Roman Catholic body to establish free universities of their own, and to confer degrees which should be of the same validity Lille and as those of the state university. At Lille and Angers such Angers, centres have been already organized. The university of Stras- Strasburg, which in the latter part of the last century had burg. been distinguished by an intellectual activity which became associated with the names of Goethe, Herder, and others, was also swept away by the Revolution. It was, however, restored 1st May 1872, after the city had reverted to Ger many, and was remodelled entirely on German principles. Since then its success has been marked and continuous. Univer- In Switzerland all the higher education is supported sities of mainly by the German and Protestant cantons. The four universities of Basel, Bern, Zurich, and Geneva have an Basel, aggregate of some 1400 or 1500 students, and all possess Bern. faculties of philosophy, jurisprudence, theology, and medi- Zurich. cine. Basel is, however, the chief centre for theology, as Geneva. ^ g ern j or j ur i s p ruc i ence an d Zurich for philosophy. At Geneva the famous academy of the 16th and 17th cen turies, long distinguished as a centre of Calvinistic teaching, is now represented by a university (first formed in 1876), where the instruction is given (mainly in the French lan guage) by a staff of forty-one professors, and where there is a rising school of science. Switzerland almost takes the lead in connexion with female education on the Continent, and in 1882-83 there were 52 women at the university of Geneva, 36 at Bern, and 24 at Zurich. In Spain the universities at present existing are those Univer- of Barcelona, Granada, Madrid (transferred in 1837 from sities Alcala), Oviedo, Salamanca, Santiago, Seville, Valencia, Valladolid, and Zaragoza. They are all, with the exception perhaps of Madrid, in a lamentably depressed condition, and mainly under the influence of French ideas and modelled on French examples. But in Portugal, Coimbra, which narrowly escaped sTippression in the 16th century as a sus pected centre of political disaffection, is now a flourishing school. Its instruction is given gratis ; but, as all members of the higher courts of judicature and administration in the realm are required to have graduated at the university, it is at the same time one of the most aristocratic schools in Europe. There are five faculties, viz., theology, jurispru dence, medicine, mathematics, and philosophy. Of these, that of law is by far the most flourishing, the number of students in this faculty nearly equalling the aggregate of all the rest. There is a valuable library, largely composed of collections formerly belonging to suppressed convents. As a school of theology Coimbra is distinctly anti-ultramontane, and the progressive spirit of the university is shown by the fact that the rector has been instructed by the govern ment to devise a scheme for the admission of women. In Italy the universities are numerically much in excess of Italy, of the requirements of the population, there being no less than sixteen state universities and four free universities. Very few of these possess theological faculties, and in no country are theological studies less valued. Education for the church is almost entirely given at the numerous " seminaries," where it is of an almost entirely elementary character. In 1875 a laudable effort was made by Bonghi, the minister of education, to introduce reforms and to assimilate the universities in their organization and methods to the German type. His plans were, however, to a great extent reversed by his successor, Coppino. In Austria the universities, being modelled on the same of system as that of Prussia, present no especially noteworthy features. Vienna is chiefly distinguished for its school of V medicine, which enjoyed in the last century a reputation almost unrivalled in Europe. The other faculties were, however, suffered to languish, and throughout the first half of the present century the whole university was in an extremely depressed state. From this condition it was in a great measure restored by the exertions of Count Thun. The number of the matriculated students in 1887 was 4893, and that of the professors 138 ; among the latter the names of Zschokke, Maassen, Sickel, Jellinek, and Biidinger are some of the most widely known. The uni- Olmiitz. versity of Olmiitz, founded in 1581, was formerly in pos session of what is now the imperial library, and contained also a valuable collection of Slavonic works which were carried off by the Swedes and ultimately dispersed. It was suppressed in 1853, and is now represented only by a theological faculty. The university of Graz, the capital of Graz. Styria, was founded in 1586, and is now one of the most flourishing centres, containing some 1200 students. The Salzburg, university of Salzburg, founded in 1623, was suppressed in 1810 ; that of Lemberg, founded in 1784 by the emperor Lemberg. Joseph II., was removed in 1805 to Cracow and united to that university. In 1816 it was opened on an inde pendent basis. In the bombardment of the town in 1848 the university buildings were burnt down, and the site was changed to what was formerly a Jesuit convent The fine library and natural history museum were at the same time ​852 UNIVERSITIES Czer- nowitz. Budapest. Klauseu- Acrram. De- breczin. Russian mniver- sities. Helsing- fors. Moscow. Kieff. Kazan. Khar- koflF. St Peters burg- Odessa. Athens. The English univer sities since the mediseval period. almost entirely destroyed. The university at the present time numbers over a thousand students. The most recent foundation is that of Czernowitz, founded in 1875, and numbering about 300 students. The universities of the Hungarian kingdom are three in number : Budapest, originally founded at Tyrnau in 1635, now possessing four faculties theology, jurisprudence, medicine, and philo sophy (number of professors in 1885 180, students 3117); Kolozsvar (Klausenburg), now the chief Magyar centre, founded in 1872 and also comprising four faculties, but where mathematics and natural science supply the place of theology (number of professors in 1877 64, students 391) ; Zagrab (Agram), the Slovack university, in Croatia, founded in 1869 but not opened until 1874, with three faculties, viz., jurisprudence, theology, and philosophy. The chief centre of Protestant education is the college at Debreczin, founded in 1531, which in past times was not unfrequently subsidized from England. It now numbers over 2000 students, and possesses a fine library. Russia possesses, besides Dorpat (supra, p. 845), seven other universities. (1) Helsingfors, in Finland, was origin ally established by Queen Christina in Abo (1640), and removed in 1826 to Helsingfors, where the original char ter, signed by the celebrated Oxenstierna, is still preserved. It has four faculties, 38 professors, and 700 students. (2) Moscow is really the oldest Russian university, having been founded in 1755; it includes the faculties of history, physics, jurisprudence, and medicine; the professors are 69 in number, the students about 1660. (3) The uni versity of St Vladimir at Kieff, originally founded at Vilna in 1803, was removed from thence to Kieff in 1833 ; the students number about 900, and the library contains 107,000 volumes. (4) Kazan (1804) includes the same faculties as Moscow ; the students are about 450 in num ber, and it has a library containing 80,000 volumes. (5) Kharkoff (1804) numbers 600 students, and its library 55,000 volumes. (6) St Petersburg (1819) includes the four faculties of history, physics, jurisprudence, and Orien tal languages, and numbers 1500 students. (7) Odessa, founded in 1865, represents the university of New Russia. Generally speaking, the universities of Russia are not frequented by the aristocratic classes ; they are largely subsidized by the Government, and the annual fees payable by students are less than 7 a head. In 1863 the statutes of all the universities were remodelled ; and since that time there has been a tendency to impress upon them a more national character, as distinguished from mere imita tion of those in Germany. The university of Athens (founded 22d May 1837) is modelled on the university systems of northern Germany, on a plan originally devised by Professor Brandis. It includes four faculties, viz., theology, jurisprudence, medi cine, and philosophy. The professors (ordinary and extra ordinary) are upwards of 60 in number, the students about 1500. There is also a school of pharmacy, chemistry, and anatomy, and a library of 130,000 volumes, with 800 manuscripts. The history of the two English universities during the 16th and following centuries has presented, for the most part, features which contrast strongly with those of the Continental seats of learning. Both suffered severely from confiscation of their lands and revenues during the period of the Reformation, but otherwise have generally enjoyed a remarkable immunity from the worst consequences of civil and political strife and actual warfare. Both long remained centres chiefly of theological teaching, but their intimate connexion at once with the state and with the Church of England, as "by law established," and the modifications introduced into their constitutions, prevented their becoming arenas of fierce polemical contentions like Renais sance. those which distracted the Protestant universities of Germany. The influence of the Renaissance, and the teaching of Influence Erasmus, who resided for some time at both universities, &lt; tlie exercised a notable effect alike at Oxford and at Cambridge. The names of Colet, Grocyn, and Linacre illustrate this influence at the former centre ; those of Bishop Fisher, Sir John Cheke, and Sir Thomas Smith at the latter. The labours of Erasmus at Cambridge, as the author of a new Latin version of the New Testament, with the design of placing in the hands of students a text free from the errors of the Vulgate, were productive of important effects, and the university became a centre of The Reformation doctrine some years before the writings of Luther became known in England. The foundation of Christ s College (1505) and St John s College (1511), bridge. through the influence of Fisher with the countess of Richmond, also materially aided the general progress of learning at Cambridge. The Royal Injunctions of 1535, embodying the views and designs of Thomas Cromwell, mark the downfall of the old scholastic methods of study at both universities ; and the foundation of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1546 (partly by an amalgamation of two older societies), represents the earliest conception of such an institution in England in complete inde pendence of Roman Catholic traditions. Trinity (1554) and St John s (1555) at Oxford, on the other hand, founded during the reactionary reign of Mary, serve rather as examples of a transitional period. In the reign of Elizabeth Cambridge became the centre Puritan- of another great movement that of the earlier Puritanism, St John s and Queens being the strongholds of the party led by Cartwright, Walter Travers, and others. Whitaker, the eminent master of St John s, although he sympathized to some extent with these views, strove to keep their expression within limits compatible with conformity to the Church of England. But the movement continued to gather strength ; and Emmanuel College, founded in 1584, owed much of its early prosperity to the fact that it was a known school of Puritan doctrine. Most of the Puritans objected to the discipline enforced by the uni versity and ordinary college statutes especially the wear ing of the cap and the surplice and the conferring of degrees in divinity. The Anglican party, headed by such Eliza- men as Whitgift and Bancroft, resorted in defence to a betnau repressive policy, of which subscription to the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity, and the Elizabethan statutes of 1570 (investing the " caput " with larger powers, and thereby creating a more oligarchical form of government), were the most notable results. Oxford, although the Puritans were there headed by Leicester, the chancellor, devised at the same time a similar scheme, the rigid dis cipline of which was further developed in the Laudian or Caroline statutes of 1636. It was under these respective Laudian codes the Elizabethan statutes of 1570 and the Laudian statutes statutes of 1636 that the two universities were governed until the introduction of the new codes of 1858. During the Commonwealth the Puritan occupation and adminis tration, at either university, were accompanied by little injury to the colleges, and were far less prejudicial to learn ing than the Royalist writers of the Restoration would lead us to suppose. William Dell, who was master of Caius College from 1649 to 1660, advocated the formation of schools of higher instruction in the large towns, a proposal which was then looked upon as one of but faintly masked hostility to the older centres. During the 17th century Cambridge became the centre The Cam- of another movement, a reflex of the influence of the p^ ge . Cartesian philosophy, which attracted for a time consider- ra o V ement able attention. Its leaders, known as the Cambridge ​UNIYEKSITIES 853 Platonists, among whom Henry More, Cudworth, and Whichcote were especially conspicuous, were men of high character and great learning, although too much under the influence of an ill-restrained enthusiasm and purely The New- speculative doctrines. The spread of the Baconian philo- tonian sophy, and the example of a succession of eminent phl |~ scientific thinkers, among whom were Isaac Barrow, P master of Trinity (1673-77), the two Lucasian profes sors, Isaac Newton (prof. 1669-1702) and his successor William Winston (prof. 1702-11), and Roger Cotes (Plumian prof. 1707-16), began to render the exact sciences more and more an object of study, and the insti tution of the tripos examinations in the course of the first half of the 18th century established the reputation of Cambridge as a school of mathematical science. At Oxford, where no similar development took place, and where the statutable requirements with respect to study and exercises were suffered to fall into neglect, the de generacy of the whole community as a school of academic culture is attested by evidence too emphatic to be gain said. The moral tone at both universities was at this time Method- singularly low ; and the rise of Methodism, as associated is- with the names of the two Wesleys and Whitefield at Oxford and that of Berridge at Cambridge, operated with greater effect upon the nation at large than on either of the two centres where it had its origin. With the advance of the present century, however, a perceptible change took Simeon- place. The labours of Simeon at Cambridge, in connexion ism. viib. the Evangelical party, and the far more celebrated Trac- movement known as Tractarianism, at Oxford, exercised tarian- considerable influence in developing a more thoughtful spirit at either university. At both centres, also, the range of studies was extended: written examinations took the place of the often merely formal viva voce ceremonies; at Cambridge classics were raised in 1824 to the dignity of a new tripos. The number of the students at both universities was largely augmented. Further schemes of improvement were put forward and discussed. And in 1850 it was decided by the Government to appoint com missioners to inquire what additional reforms might Reforms advantageously be introduced. Their recommendations of 1858. were no t all carried into effect, but the main results were as follows : " The professoriate was considerably increased, reorganized, and re-endowed, by means of contributions from colleges. The colleges were emancipated from their mediaeval statutes, were invested with new constitutions, and acquired new legislative powers. The fellowships were almost universally thrown open to merit, and the effect of this was not merely to provide ample rewards for the highest academical attainments, but to place the governing power within colleges in the hands of able men, likely to promote further improvements. The number and value of scholarships was largely augmented, and many, though not all, of the restrictions upon them were abolished. The great mass of vexatious and obsolete oaths was swept away; and, though candidates for the M.A. degree and persons elected to fellowships were still required to make the old subscriptions and declarations, it was enacted that no religious test should be imposed at matriculation or on taking a bachelor s degree." 1 Admis- In 1869 a statute was enacted at Cambridge admitting sion of students as members of the university without making it legate " imperative that they should be entered at any hall or students, college, but simply be resident either with their parents or in duly licensed lodgings. Abolition The entire abolition of tests followed next. After of tests, several rejections in parliament it was eventually carried as a Government measure, and passed the House of Lords in 1871. 1 Brodrick, University of Oxford, pp. 136, 137. In 1877 the reports of two new commissions were Reforms followed by further changes, the chief features of which f 1877. were the diversion of a certain proportion of the revenues of the colleges to the uses of the university, especially with a view to the encouragement of studies in natural science; the enforcement of general and uniform regulations with respect to the salaries, selection, and duties of professors, lecturers, and examiners ; the abolition (with a few excep tions) of all clerical restrictions on headships or fellow ships ; and the limitation of fellowships to a uniform amount. That these successive and fundamental changes have, on increase the whole, been in unison with the national wishes and in requirements may fairly be inferred from the remarkable num ^ )er3 - increase in numbers during the last quarter of a century, and especially at Cambridge, where the number of under graduates, which in 1862 was 1526, was in 1887 no less than 2979. In the academic year 1862-63 the number of matriculations was 448, and in 1886-87 1009. Scarcely less influential, as a means of recovering for Local the two universities a truly national character, has been examina- the work which both have been carrying on and aiding ns aj ?!i by the institution of local examinations and of university extension extension lectures. Of these two schemes, the former was lectures, initiated by both Oxford and Cambridge in the year 1858; the latter had its origin at Cambridge, having been sug gested by the success attending a course of lectures to women delivered by Mr (now Professor) James Stuart, in 1867, in Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, and Leeds. By the former the standard of education throughout the country has been raised, both in public and in private schools. By the latter, instruction of the character and method which characterize university teaching has been brought within the reach of students of all classes and ages throughout the land. So long ago as the year 1640 an endeavour had been Durham, made to bring about the foundation of a northern uni versity for the benefit of the counties remote from Oxford and Cambridge. Manchester and York both petitioned to be made the seat of the new centre. Cromwell, however, rejected both petitions, and decided in favour of Durham. Here he founded the university of Durham (1657), endow ing it with the sequestered revenues of the dean and chapter of the cathedral, and entitling the society " The Mentor or Provost, Fellows, and Scholars of the College of Durham, of the foundation of Oliver, cfcc." This scheme was cancelled at the Restoration, and not revived until the present century; but on the 4th July 1832 a bill for the foundation of a university at Durham received the royal assent, the dean and chapter being thereby empowered to appropriate an estate at South Shields for the establish ment and maintenance of a university for the advancement of learning. The foundation was to be directly connected with the cathedral church, the bishop of the diocese being appointed visitor, and the dean and chapter governors ; while the direct control was vested in a warden, a senate, and a convocation. A college, modelled on the plan of those at the older universities, and designated University Col lege, Durham, was founded in 1837, Bishop Hatfield s Hall in 1846, and Bishop Cosin s Hall (which no longer exists) in 1851. The university includes all the faculties, and in 1865 there was added to the faculty of arts a school of physical science, including pure and applied mathematics, chemistry, geology, mining, engineering, cfec. In 1871 the corporation of the university, in conjunction with some of the leading landed proprietors in the adjacent counties, gave further extension to this design by the foundation of a college of physical science at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, designed to teach scientific principles in their application to engineering, mining, manufactures, and agriculture. ​854 UNIVERSITIES Univer sity of London. King s College. Uni versity College. Victoria. Students who had passed the required examinations were made admissible as associates in physical science of the university. There is also a medical college which stands in similar relations to Durham, of which university Cod- rington College, Barbados, and Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone, are likewise affiliated colleges. The university of London had its origin in a movement initiated in the year 1825 by Thomas Campbell, the poet, in conjunction with Henry (afterwards Lord) Brougham, Mr (afterwards Sir) Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, Joseph Hume, and some influential Dissenters, most of them connected with the congregation of Dr Cox of Hackney. The scheme was originally suggested by the fact that Dissenters were practically excluded from the older universities ; but the conception, as it took shape, was distinctly non-theological. The first council, appointed December 1825, comprised names representative of nearly all the religious denomin ations, including (besides those above mentioned) Zachary Macaulay, George Grote, James Mill, William Tooke, Lord Dudley and Ward, Dr Olinthus Gregory, Lord Lans- tlowne, Lord John Russell, and the duke of Norfolk. On llth February 1826 the deed of settlement was drawn up ; and in the course of the year seven acres, constituting the site of University College, were purchased, the found ation stone of the new buildings being laid by the duke of Sussex 30th April 1827. The course of instruction was designed to include " languages, mathematics, physics, the mental and the moral sciences, together with the laws of England, history, and political economy, and the various branches of knowledge which are the objects of medical education." In October 1828 the college was opened as the university of London. But in the mean time a certain section of the supporters of the movement, while satisfied as to the essential soundness of the primary design as a development of national education, entertained considerable scruples as to the propriety of altogether dis sociating such an institution from the national church. This feeling found expression in the foundation and in corporation of King s College (14th August 1829), opened 8th October 1831, and designed to combine with the original plan instruction in " the doctrines and duties of Christi anity, as the same are inculcated by the United Church of England and Ireland." This new phase of the movement was so far successful that in 1836 it was deemed expedient to dissociate the university of London from University College as a " teaching body," and to limit its action simply to the institution of examinations and the conferring of degrees, the college itself receiving a new charter, and being thenceforth designated as University College, London, while the rival institution was also incorporated with the university, and was thenceforth known as King s College, London. In the charter now given to the uni versity it was stated that the king " deems it to be the duty of his royal office to hold forth to all classes and denominations of his faithful subjects, without any dis tinction whatsoever, an encouragement for pursuing a regular and liberal course of education." The charters of the university of London and of University College, London, were signed on the same day, 28th November 1836. In 1869 both the colleges gave their adhesion to the move ment for the higher education of women which had been initiated elsewhere, and in 1880 ladies were for the first time admitted to degrees. The Victoria University took its origin in the institution known as the Owens College, Manchester, so called after a wealthy citizen of that name to whom it owed its founda tion. The college was founded 12th March 1851, for the purpose of affording to students who were unable, on the ground of expense, to resort to Oxford or Cambridge an education of an equally high class with that given at those centres. The institution was, from the first, unsectarian in character. In July 1877 a memorial was presented to the privy council praying for the grant of a charter to the college, conferring on it the rank of a university, to be called the " university of Manchester." The localization implied in this title having met with opposition from the Yorkshire College at Leeds, it was resolved that the uni versity should be called the "Victoria University." Under this name the foundation received its charter 20th April 1880. " The characteristic features of the Victoria Uni versity, as compared with ottier British universities, are these: (a) it does not, like London, confer its degrees on candidates who have passed certain examinations only, but it also requires attendance on prescribed courses of academic study in a college of the university ; (6) the constitution of the university contemplates its (ultimately) becoming a federation of colleges; but these colleges will not be situated, like those of Oxford and Cambridge, in one town, but wherever a college of adequate efficiency and stability shall have arisen. University College, Liverpool, and the Yorkshire College, Leeds, having fulfilled these requirements, have become affiliated with the university. The university, like the older bodies in England and Scot land, is at once a teaching and an examining body, and there is an intimate rapport between the teaching and the examining functions. To give it a general or national character, the governing body consists partly of persons nominated by the crown and partly of representatives of the governing and teaching bodies of the colleges and of the graduates of the university. External examiners are appointed, who conduct the examinations in conjunction with examiners representing the teaching body. The grad uates of the university meet its teachers in convocation to discuss the affairs of the university. Convocation will elect future chancellors, and a certain number of representatives on the court" (Thompson, TJie Owens College, &c., p. 548). Like the Johns Hopkins University in America, the Vic toria University has instituted certain fellowships (styled the Berkeley fellowships) for the encouragement of research. In Scotland the chief change to be noted in connexion with the university of St Andrews is the appropriation in 1579 of the two colleges of St Salvator and St Leonard to the faculty of philosophy, and that of St Mary to theology. In 1747 an Act of Parliament was obtained for the union of the two former colleges into one. Glasgow, in the year 1577, received a new charter, and its history from that date down to the Restoration was one of almost continuous progress. The restoration of Episcopacy, however, in volved the alienation of a considerable portion of its revenues, and the consequent suspension of several of its chairs. In 1864 the old university buildings were sold and, a Government grant having been obtained, together with private subscriptions, the present new buildings were erected from the joint fund. The faculties now recognized at Glasgow are those of arts, theology, jurisprudence, and medicine. At Aberdeen an amalgamation, similar to that at St Andrews, took place, by virtue of the Universities Act of 1858, of the two universities of King s College and Marischal College. In conjunction with Glasgow, this uni versity returns a member to parliament. The peculiar constitution of the college at Edinburgh, as defined by its charter (the government being vested entirely in the lord provost, magistrates, and council, as patrons and guardians), involved the senate in frequent collisions with the town council. The latter, being a strictly representative body, included elements with which the senate of the university sometimes found it difficult to work harmoniously, and its disposition to dictate was strongly resented by the dis tinguished metaphysician and professor Sir William Hamilton. On the other hand, the council sometimes Changes in uni versities of St Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen. Changes in univer sity of Edin burgh. ​UNIVERSITIES 855 exercised a beneficial discretion by appointing professors of ability whom the senate might have regarded as ineligible on the ground of their religious tenets. The Disruption of 1843 emancipated the lay professors from subscription to the Established Church of Scotland, and resulted in many of the important changes which were subsequently introduced in the Universities Act of 1858. On the 28th October 1859 the town council, notwithstanding that their powers were already terminated by the provisions of the Act, availed themselves of a technical right to appoint a principal, their choice falling upon Sir David Brewster. The great landmark in the history of the Scottish as in that of the English universities is represented by the remodel ling of the several constitutions of these bodies in the year 1858. The commissioners of 1858-62 left the university of Edinburgh in the possession of constitutional autonomy, with its studies and degrees regulated by ordinances. The students also received the rectorial franchise, but were not, as at Glasgow and Aberdeen, divided into nations. In arts the B.A. degree was abolished, the M.A. representing the only degree in this faculty, as at the other Scottish universities. The course of study was divided into three departments: (1) classics; (2) mathematics, including natural philosophy ; (3) mental science and English liter ature. In each department it was required that there should be an additional examiner besides the professor, so that the candidates should not be entirely examined by their own teachers. It was also provided that, instead of one examination for the degree at the end of a student s course, examinations in each of the departments might be passed separately. In the twenty years beginning with 1863, 1400 M.A. degrees have been conferred, as against 250 in the twenty years preceding. In the faculty of medicine, the original single degree of doctor of medicine gave place to three classes bachelor of medicine (M.B.), master in sur gery (C.M.), and doctor of medicine (M.D.). In 1866 it was further laid down that theses should no longer be de manded from candidates for the lower degrees of M.B. and C.M., and, on the other hand, that the degree of M.D. should not be conferred on persons not showing any evidence of medical study after leaving the university, but that a thesis should be invariably required. Since the enactment of these ordinances the number of the medical students has increased from about 500 to over 1700. In the faculty of law the title of the degree was to be LL.B., and it was to be conferred only on those who had already graduated as M.A. But the minor degree, that of " bachelor of law " (B.L.), might be conferred if the candidate had attended one course of lectures in the faculty of arts, and passed a preliminary examination in (1) Latin, (2) Greek, French or German, and (3) any two of the three subjects logic, moral philosophy, and mathematics. The chair of public law, which had fallen into abeyance in 1832, was recon stituted, and the chair of universal civil history was con verted into a professorship of history and constitutional law. The degree of doctor of laws was left, as before, a purely honorary degree. Chairs of Sanskrit, engineering, geology, commercial and political economy, education, fine art, and the Celtic languages have also been founded. By the Representation of the People (Scotland) Act, 1868, the universities of Edinburgh and St Andrews were empowered to return jointly a member to the House of Commons. Parlia- A parliamentary return for the ten years ending 30th mentary March 1883 showed that the sums voted annually by l parliament or chargeable on the consolidated fund to the univer f ur universities had amounted during that period to sities. 65,821 for Aberdeen, 85,906 for Edinburgh, 66,182 for Glasgow, and 38,111 for St Andrews. In addition to these sums Edinburgh had received 80,000 and Glas gow 20,000 in the form of special grants in aid. Trinity College, Dublin, was founded in 1591, under Trinity the auspices of Sir John Perrot, the Irish viceroy. A College, royal charter nominated a provost and a minimum number L)u " lm - of three fellows and three scholars as a body corporate, empowered to establish among themselves " whatever laws of either of the universities of Cambridge or Oxford they may judge to be apt and suitable ; and especially that no other persons should teach or profess the liberal arts in Ireland without the queen s special licence." The first five provosts of Trinity College were all Cambridge men, and under the influence of Archbishop Loftus, the first provost, and his successors, the foundation received a strongly Puritan bias. Prior to the year 1873 the pro- vostship, fellowships, and foundation scholarships could be held only by members of the Church of Ireland ; but all such restrictions were abolished by Act 36 Viet. c. 21, whereby the requirement of subscription to any article or formulary of faith was finally abrogated. As at present constituted, the ordinary government is in the hands of the provost and senior fellows in conjunction with the visitors and council, the supreme authority being the crown, except so far as limited by Act of Parliament. The first departure in Ireland from the exclusive system Queen s of education formerly represented by the foundation at Univer- Dublin, dates from the creation of the Queen s University, sity&gt; incorporated by royal charter 3d September 1850. By this charter the general legislation of the university, together with its government and administration, was vested in the university senate. In 1864 the charter of 1850 was superseded by a supplementary charter, and the university reconstituted " in order to render more complete and satisfactory the courses of education to be followed by students in the colleges "; and finally, in 1880, by virtue of the Act of Parliament known as the University Education (Ireland) Act, 1879, the Queen s University gave place to the Royal University of Ireland, which was practically a Royal reconstitution of the former foundation, the dissolution of Univer- the Queen s University being decreed so soon as the newly constituted body should be in a position to confer degrees at the same time all graduates of the Queen s University were recognized as graduates of the new university with corresponding degrees, and all matriculated students of the former as entitled to the same status in the latter. The university confers degrees in arts (B.A., M.A., D.Litt.), science, engineering, music, medicine, surgerj T , obstetrics, and law. The preliminary pass examinations in arts are held at annually selected centres, those chosen in 1885 being Dublin, Belfast, Carlow, Cork, Galway, Limerick, and Londonderry. All honour examinations and all exam inations in other faculties are held in Dublin. The Queen s Colleges Colleges at Belfast, Cork, and Galway were founded in atBelfast December 1845, under an Act of Parliament "to enable Her Majesty to endow new colleges for the advancement of learning in Ireland," and were subsequently incorporated as colleges of the university. Their professors were at the same time constituted professors in the university, and conducted the examinations. But in the reconstruction of 1880 the chief share in the conduct of the examinations and advising the senate with respect to them was vested in a board of fellows, elected by the senate in equal numbers from the non-denominational colleges and the purely Catholic institutions. The colleges retain, however, their independence, being in no way subject to the control of the university senate except in the regulations with respect to the requirements for degrees and other aca demic distinctions. On the other hand, the obligation formerly imposed of a preliminary course of study at one or other of the colleges before admission to degrees was abolished at the foundation of the Royal University, the examinations being now open, like those of the university ​856 UNIVERSITIES Wales :- St David s, of London, to all matriculated students on payment o: certain fees. Colleges There is at present no university of Wales, although the bestowal of a royal charter before long is confidently "anticipated. The oldest college, that of St David s at Lampeter, possesses the right of conferring degrees. Il was founded in 1822 for the purpose of educating clergy men in the principles of the Established Church of England and Wales, mainly for the supply of the Welsh dioceses. The number of the professors in 1887 was 8, and the number of the students 120. The next college in order of foundation is Aberystwith. It was founded 9th October 1872, but possesses no charter, and is mainly supported by the Dissenting bodies. The staff of professors numbers 13, and the students number 150. The University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire at Cardiff was founded in 1883. The number of professors in 1887 was 9, lecturers 4, demonstrators 2 ; number of students 140. The University College of North Wales at Bangor received its charter 4th June 1885, its object being to "provide instruction in all the branches of a liberal education except theology." Its staff consists of a principal, 8 professors or lecturers, and 2 demonstrators; the number of the students is 127. There is also a hall of residence for women students. At each of these three last-named colleges students proceeding to degrees have to go through either a London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, or Dublin course of study, but at Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Dublin a certain proportion of the term of residence ordinarily required is remitted in their favour. with, Soutli Wales, North Wales. Calcutta. Bombay. Madras. Punjab univer sity. Sydney. In India, the three older universities all date from 1857, that of Calcutta having been incorporated January 24, Bombay July 18, Madras September 5, in that year. At these three universities the instruction is mainly in English. " A university in India is a body for examining candidates for degrees, and for conferring degrees. It has the power of prescribing text-books, standards of instruction, and rules of procedure, but is not an institution for teaching. Its governance and management are vested in a body of fellows, some of whom are ex officio, being the chief European functionaries of the state. The remainder are appointed by the Government, being generally chosen as representative men in respect of eminent learning, scientific attainment, official position, social status, or personal worth. Being a mixed body of Europeans and natives, they thus comprise all that is best and wisest in that division of the empire to which the university belongs, and fairly represent most of the phases of thought and philosophic tendencies observable in the country. The fellows in their corporate capacity form the senate. The affairs of the university are conducted by the syndicate, consisting of a limited number of members elected from among the fellows. The faculties comprise arts and philosophy, law, medicine, and civil engineering. A degree in natural and physical science has more recently been added " (Sir R Temple India in 1880, p. 145). The Punjab university was incorporated in 1883, the Punjab University College, prior to that date, having conferred titles only and not degrees. The main object of this university is the encouragement of the study of the Oriental lanmages and literature, and the rendering accessible to native students the results of European scientific teaching through the medium of their own vernacular. The Oriental faculty is here the oldest, and the degree of B.O.L. (bachelor of Oriental literature) is given as the result of its examinations. At the Oriental College the instruction is given wholly in the native languages. In 1887 the senate at Cambridge (mainly on the representations of Mr C. P Ilbert formerly vice-chancellor of the university of Calcutta) adopted resolutions whereby some forty-nine collegiate institutions already affiliated to the latter body were affiliated to the university of Cam bridge, their students thus becoming entitled to the remission of one year m the ordinary statutable requirements with respect to residence at Cambridge. It is at these institutions, and the colleges the first or second grade in the other presidencies, that the instruction is given. A l n ^ u , stral j a &gt; the university of Sydney was incorporated by an Act of the colonial legislature which received the royal assent 9th December 1851, and on 27th February 1858 a royal charter was granted conferring on graduates of the university the same rank Vi 6 - "2r Pr ec . eden ce a s are enjoyed by graduates of universities within the United Kingdom. Sydney is also one of the institutions associated with the university of London from which certificates of having received a due course of instruction may be received with a view to admission to degrees. There are four faculties, viz., arts law, medicine, and science. The design of the university is to supply the means of a liberal education to all orders and denomina tions, without any distinction whatever. An Act for the purpose of facilitating the erection of colleges in connexion with different religious bodies was, however, passed by the legislature during the session of 1884, and since that time colleges representing the Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic Churches have been founded. In 1885 the total number of students attending lectures in the university was 206. The university of Melbourne, Mel- m the colony of Victoria, was incorporated and endowed by royal bourne. Act 22d January 1853. This Act was amended 7th June 1881. Here also no religious tests are imposed on admission to any decree or election to any oflice. The council is empowered, after due examination, to confer degrees in all the faculties (excepting divinity) which can be conferred in any university within the British dominions. It is also authorized to affiliate colleges; and Trinity College (Church of England) was accordingly founded in 1870 and Ormond College (Presbyterian) in 1879. The founding of a university for Queensland is at the present time in contemplatfon. The university of Adelaide in Soutli Australia (founded mainly Adelaide, by the exertions and munificence of Sir AValter Watson Hughes) was incorporated by an Act of the colonial legislature in 1874, iu which year it was further endowed by Sir Thomas Elder. In 1881 letters patent were granted by the English crown whereby degrees conferred by the university were constituted of equal validity with those of any university of the United Kingdom. The faculties in the university are those of arts, medicine, law, science, and music. The number of matriculations since the foundation amounted in 1886 to 284, the number of undergraduates in that year being 90. The university of New Zealand, founded in 1870, and reconstituted New in 1874 and 1875, is empowered by royal charter to grant the Zealand. several degrees of bachelor and master of arts, and bachelor and doctor in law, medicine, and music. Women arc admitted to degrees. To this the Auckland University College, Nelson College, Canterbury College, and the university of Otago stand in 810 relation of affiliated institutions. This last-named institution was Otago. foanded in 1869 by an order of the provincial council, with the power of conferring degrees in arts, medicine, and law, and received as an endowment 100,000 acres of pastoral land. It was opened in 1871 with a staff of three professors, all in the faculty of arts. In 1872 the provincial council further subsidized it by a grant of a second 100,000 acres of land, and the university was now enabled to make considerable additions to the staff of professors and lecturers, to establish a lectureship in law, and to lay the founda tions of a medical school. In 1874 an agreement was made between the university of New Zealand and that of Otago, whereby the functions of the former were restricted to the examination of candidates for matriculation, for scholarships, and for degrees; while the latter bound itself to become affiliated to the university of New Zealand, to hold in abeyance its power of granting degrees, and to waive the claim which it had advanced to a royal charter! As the result of this arrangement, the university of Otago became possessed of 10,000 acres of land which had been set apart for university purposes in the former province of Southland. In 1877 a school of mines was established in connexion with the university. In Canada the M Gill College and University at Montreal was Montreal. founded by royal charter in 1821 (amended in 1852) on the founda tion of the Honourable James M Gill, who died at Montreal 19th December 1813. A number of colleges and schools throughout the province stand in the relation of affiliated institutions. The university is Protestant but undenominational. It includes the acuities of arts, applied sciences, medicine, and law. In 1885 the total number of students, including women, was 526. The uni- Toronto, versity of Toronto was originally established by royal charter in 1827, under the title of King s College, with certain religious restrictions, resembling those at that time in force at the English universities, but in 1834 these restrictions were abolished, and in 1849 the designation of the university was changed into that of the university of Toronto. In 1873 further amendments were made in the constitution of the university. The chancellor was made elective for a period of three years by convocation, which was at the same time reorganized so as to include all graduates in aw, medicine, and surgery, all masters of arts, and bachelors of arts of three years standing, all doctors of science, and bachelors of science of three years standing. The powers of the senate were also extended to all branches of literature, science, and the arts,

## o granting certificates of proficiency to women, and to affiliating

colleges. The work of instruction is performed by University Jollege, which is maintained out of the endowment of the provincial iniversity, and governed by a council composed of the residents ind the professors. Its several chairs include classical literature, ogic and rhetoric, mathematics and natural philosophy, chemistry and experimental philosophy, history and English literature, mineralogy and geology, metaphysics and ethics, meteorology and natural history, and lectureships on Oriental literature, German, French. Other universities and colleges with power to confer ​UNIVERSITIES 857 Other degrees are the Victoria University at Cobonrg (1836), supported Canadian by the Methodist Church of Canada ; Queen s University, Kingston uuiver- (1841), representing the Presbyterian body; and the university of sities. Trinity College, Toronto, founded in 1851 on the suppression of the faculty of divinity in King s College. Lennoxville is a centre for uni versity instruction in conformity with Church of England principles. In Africa, an Act for the incorporation of the university of the Cape of Good Hope received the royal assent 26th June 1873, the council being empowered to grant degrees in arts, law, and medicine. In the United States of America university education has received a great extension, without, however, exercising in Europe that reflex influence discernible in so many other relations. The report of the commissioners of education for 1883-84 gives a list of no less than 370 degree-giving universities or colleges ; but of these a large proportion are sectarian, others represent only a single faculty, and nearly nine-tenths have been founded within the last thirty- five years. Although a higher education has unquestion ably been thus very widely diffused, the undue multiplica tion of centres has, in some provinces, lowered the standard of attainment and led to a consequent depreciation in the value of university degrees. This tendency it was sought to counteract in the State of Ohio, some twenty-five years ago, by an organization of the different colleges. The in struction given is, in most cases, almost gratuitous, the charge to each student being less than 30 dollars a year. This cheapening of a higher education is not, however, attended with quite the same results as in Germany (where lads with little aptitude for a professional career are thus attracted to the professions), the rapidly increasing popula tion and the wider scope for mechanical or agricultural pursuits probably exercising a beneficial counteracting influence. The distinguishing characteristics which belong to these numerous centres are described by the president of the Johns Hopkins University, in an address delivered at Harvard in 1886, as suggestive of four different classes of colleges, (1) those which proceed from the original historic colleges, (2) those established in the name of the State, (3) those avowedly ecclesiastical, (4) those founded by private benefactions. To the first class belong Harvard College and Yale College with their offshoots. Of these two, the former was founded in 1638 at Cambridge, Mas sachusetts, by a former fellow of Emmanuel College at Cambridge in England, and represented the Puritan tenets for which the parent society was at that time noted ; the latter was founded in 1701 by the combined action of a few of the ministers of the State, a charter being given in the same year by the colonial legislature. It was for a long time chiefly supported by the Congregationalists, but is now unsectarian. The total number of students at Harvard in 1882 was 988, at Yale 692. The university of Pennsylvania was founded in 1751 by Thomas Penn and Richard Penn, on the lines of a scheme drawn up by Benjamin Franklin, and was from the first placed on a basis comprising all denominations. It is distinguished by the liberality with which it has opened its courses of instruc tion to the inhabitants of the city generally ; the degree of Ph.D. is conferred on all comers after due examina tion. At Haverford and Lafayette Colleges, and also at the Lehigh university, " advanced degrees " are offered " only for higher study, prolonged beyond the collegiate course," instead of being conferred as a matter of routine after a certain term of years. The Johns Hopkins Uni versity, also an unsectarian body, was founded at Baltimore in 1867, and is already a school of established reputation, and especially resorted to by those designing to follow the profession of teachers. It is also distinguished by the possession of fellowships, to be held only by students in tending to pursue some especial line of original research. Other steadily growing centres are Columbia College in New York, founded in 1754; the Cornell University, also unsectarian, recently enriched by the acquisition of a con siderable endowment ; Brown s University in Providence ; and those of Princeton, Michigan, Virginia, and California. At Amherst College, where the number of students in 1882 was 339, the experiment has recently been made of par tially dispensing with examinations during the course of Harvard College. Yale College. Univer sity of Pennsyl vania. Johns Hopkins Univer sity. Amherst College. States and Territories. No. of Colleges. Preparatory Department. Collegiate Department. Income from Productive Funds. Receipts in 1883 from Tuition Fets. Volumes in College Libraries. Value of Grounds, Buildings, and Apparatus. No. of Instructors. No. of Students. No. of Instructors. No. of Students. Alabama 4 5 11 3 3 1 1 G 29 15 19 8 15 10 3 10 7 9 5 3 JO 5 1 4 29 9 33 G 2 1 9 20 11 7 2 8 2 1 2 1 18 33 10 6 83 31 37 30 27 20 29 2!) 7 5 34 20 "2 76 18 106 9 59 17 34 25 3 28 6 1 9 8 169 665 1,211 295 176 2,795 1,577 2,3fi9 1,304 835 1,418 393 209 I,fi04 449 500 1,742 750 "(JS 2,289 373 4,002 589 1,828 478 1,712 1,274
49 9 J6 32 59 259 285 46 21 135 26 76 6 55 232 131 188 78 114 86 35 118 168 117 73 24 180 46 1C 76 443 66 327 34 295 17 46 151 97 20 78 15 93 7 63 14 332 230 933 86 958 58 459 1,998 1,615 1,266 459 1,182 372 339 821 2,010 1,029 499 241 2,057 127 232 602 3,641 758 2,601 2R3 2,19-) 270 371 1,284 1,161 102 803 210 631 100 442 "10 $24.000 750 109,500 4,422 84,991 4,980 17^500 98,724 52,217 59,455 18,050 56,825 14,556 45,883 228,734 364,592 84,825 51,064 1.200 81,773 3,360 30,000 71,500 619,811 20,750 170,713 1!),200 044,574 40,157 T.1.600 89,090 1,300 15,200 39,0-39 6,400 62,627 CO, G42 s s sao 46,200 2,007 119,393 " - 500 139,477 23,350 75,736 16,166 64,292 38,601 21,450 48,275 162,438 76,586 33,422 7,976 124,359 6,864 14,000 16,410 544,580 20,500 110,368 16,100 137,533 33,756 10,530 53,293 60,346 6,179 21,629 5,200 19,310 lo. sso 6,530 6,300 16,500 2,820 53,100 9,800 173,000 3,000 io, soo 145,649 80,594 61.581 33,300 4!), 290 38,078 61,050 74.400 312,551 80,865 26,037 10,800 94,707 17,087 55,000 68,000 274,334 38,600 169,052 10,330 185,718 53 522 2l oOO 60.334 12,948 34,855 92,100 7,000 54,585 132 44,000 2,913 2,350 $300,000 109,000 1,921,000 340,000 1,409,630 30.000 380,000 2,501,000 1,120,000 1,378,000 500,000 920,500 707,000 813,500 819,500 2,261,027 1,380,984 820,765 480,000 2,794 / OO 267,000 100,000 810,000 7,859.163 640,500 2,899,234 279,950 4,338,099 1,250,000 320,000 1,568,749 342,000 395,000 1,650,000 200,000 948,700 35,000 1,200,000 70,000 180.00J Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maryland Massachusetts Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New York North Carolina Ohio Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina Tennessee Texas Vermont Virginia West Virginia Wisconsin Dakota District of Columbia Utah Washington... Total 370 829 32,755 3,815 32,767 $3,018,624 $- ,105,565 2,541,782 $46,339,301 xxnr. 108 ​study, where the students give evidence of having made satisfactory progress. Considerable modifications have also taken place in the courses of study, nearly all the colleges having now adopted the system of "parallel courses," and the principle of selection between these. Female education has received in America an extension which it has attained in no other country, and one of the colleges (that of Wellesley) numbers several hundred students. Since the war of 1861 a greatly increased attention has been given throughout the universities to physical training and athletic exercises, and excellent gymnasia, constructed on German models, have been erected.
The accompanying table (p. 857), prepared by the council of education for the year 1883–84, shows the distribution of these centres in the different States, together with their numbers, revenues, libraries, and the estimated value of their endowments.
Authorities.—On the earlier history and organization of the mediæval universities, the student should consult F. C. von Savigny, Gesch. d. romischen Rechts im JUittelalter, 1 vols., 1826-51; for the university of Paris, Dfi Boulay, Historia Unirersitatis Parisiensis, 6 vols., Paris, 1GC5, Crevicr, Hist, de I Universite de J J aris, 7 vols., Paris, 1701, and C. Jourdain, Hist, de I Unicersite de J aris au XVII*" et ait XVI!!" Siecle, Paris, 1S62; of these the work of Du Boulay (Bulams) is one of great research and labour, but wanting in critical judgment, while that of Crevier is little more than a readable outline drawn from the tORDOr. The views of Du Boulay have been challenged on many important points by P. H. Dcnifle in the first volume of his Die Universitiiten ties Mittelalters bis 1UM (1885), and more particularly on those relating to the organization of the early universities. The work of Meiners, Gesch. d. Entstrhung u. Entwickelvngder hofien Schulen tinsers Erdtheils, 4 vols. (1802-5), must be regarded as almost superseded as a general history, and the same may be said of Iluber's work on the English universities, Die eiujlischen Universitiiten (Ca.ssel, 1JS3H-4 1 )), translated by F. W. Newman, 3 vols. (1845). Much useful criticism on both the English and the Continental universities will bo found in Sir W. Hamilton's Discussions, Ac., 1853. For the German universities, the works of Zarnck^/HedeuttcAm Universitiiten im Mittelalter (Leipsic, 1857), and Paulson, Gesc/i. d. gelchrten Unterrichts anf den deutschen Sc/itilen nnd Universitiiten (Leipsic, 1885), will bo found the most trust worthy, the former for the mediaeval, the latter for the modern period. To these maybe added two articles by Paulsen in vol. xlv. of Von Sybel's Historische Zeitschrifl: (1) G Kindling " and (2) u Organisation u.Lebensordnungen d. deutschen Universitatcnim Mittelaltcr"; Tholuck, Das akademische Leben des 17 Jahrhunderts, 2 vols. (Halle, 1853-54); Von Kuuiner, Gesch. d. fiidayogik, vol. iv. (4th ed., 1872); Dolch, Gesch. d. deutschen Studententlnims (1858); Sybel, Die deMschen Universitiiten (2d ed., 1874); and Dr J. Conrad, The German Universities for the last Fifty Years, translated by Hutchinson, with preface by James Bryce, M.P. (Glasgow, 1885). For Oxford, there are the laborious collections by Anthony Wood, History and Antiquities of the University and of the Colleges and Halls of Oxford, edited with continuation by Hev. J. Gutch, 5 vols. (1780-UG), and Athene and fasti Oxonienses, edited by Dr P. Bliss, 4 vols. (1813-20); also the publications of the Oxford Historical Society; A History of the University of Oxford from the Earliest Times to 1530, by H. C. Maxwell Lyte (188G); and Statutes of the University of Oxford compiled in 1G3G tinder Authority of Archbishop Laud, ed. Griffiths (Oxford, 1S88). For Cambridge, the researches of C. II. Cooper, greatly surpassing those of Wood in thoroughness and impartiality, are comprised in three series:Antialt of Cambridge, 4 vols. (1842-52); (2) Athena Cantabrigienscs, 1500-1CO!), 2 vols. (1858-G1); (3) Memorials of Cambridge, 3 vols. (new ed., 1884). The Architectural History of the University of Cambridge and of the Colleges, by the late Robert Willis, edited and continued by J. Willis Clark, 4 vols. (188C), is a work of admirable thoroughness and completeness. To these may be added Cambridge in the Seventeenth Century; Lives of Nicholas Ferrar and Matthew Robinson, by Prof. John E. B. Mayor, 2 vols. (1855, 1S5G); and Baker's History of the College of St John the Evangelist, Cambridge, edited by Mayor, 2 vols. (I860); t also J. B. Slullinger, History of the University of Cambridge from the Earliest Times to Accession of Charles J., 2 vols. (1873-85). For both universities sec the Documents issued by the Oxford and Cambridge Commissions of 1S58; also the Wood, Ilearne, Tanner, and liawlinson MSS., and the Cottonian, Harluiuii, Lansdowne (especially Kennett and Strype), Baker, and Cole collections. (J. B. M..)
Index.
* ↑ It is the design of the present article to exhibit the universities in their historical development, each being brought under notice, as far as practicable, in the order of its original foundation. In the alphabetical enumeration in the table at the end, the date of foundation thus serves to indicate approximately the place where any university is first referred to.
* ↑ Denifle, Die Universitäten des Mittelallers, i. 39.
* ↑ De Renzi, Storia Documentata della Scuola Medica di Salerno, ed. 1857, p. 145.
* ↑ Puccinotti, Storia della Medicina, i. 317-326.
* ↑ 3 Sur l'Âye et l'Origine des Traductions Latines, &c., p. 225.
* ↑ Denifle, Die Universitäten, &c., i. 48.
* ↑ See Savigny, Gesch. d. rom. Rechts, iii. 152, 491-492. See also Giesebrecht, Gesch. d. Kaiserzeit (ed. 1880), v. 51-52. The story is preserved in a recently discovered metrical composition descriptive of the history of Frederick I.; see Sitzungsberichte d. Bairisch. Akad. d. Wissenschaft, Phil.-Hist. Klasse, 1879, ii. 285. Its authenticity is called in question by Denifle, but it would seem to be quite in harmony with the known facts.
* ↑ The arts course of study was that represented by the ancient trivium (i.e., grammar, logic, and rhetoric) and the quadrivium (i.e., arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy), as handed down from the schools of the Roman empire. See J. B. Mullinger, History of the University of Cambridge, i. 24-27.
* ↑ 1 The view of Thurot (De l'Organisation de l'Enseignement dans l'Universite de Paris, pp. 4-7) that the university arose out of a combination of these several schools is rejected by Denifle (see Die Universitäten, &c., i. 653-694).
* ↑ 2 Where the words studium generale are placed within marks of quotation they occur in the original charter of foundation of the university referred to.
* ↑ See Ch. Desmaze, L'Université de Paris (1200-1875).
* ↑ The statistics of Hautz (Gesch. d. Univ. Heidelberg, i. 177-8) are corrected by Denifle (Die Entstehung der Universitäten, p. 385).
* ↑ Meiners, Gesch. d. hohen Schulen, i. 370.
* ↑ Dissertations and Discussions, Append, iii.
* ↑ Bekynton's Correspondence, i. 123.
* ↑ De la Rue, Essais Hist. sur la Ville de Caen, ii. 137-40.
* ↑ Meiners, i. 368.
* ↑ Paulsen, in speaking of this proviso as one "die weder vorher noch nachher sonst vorkommt," would consequently seem to be not quite accurate. See Die Gründung der deutschen Universitäten, p. 277.
* ↑ Oekonomischer Zustand der Universität Tübingen gegen die Mitte des 16ten Jahrhunderts, 1845.
* ↑ Fasti Aberdonenses, Pref. p. xvi
* ↑ For an excellent account of this movement, see Georg Voigt, Die Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums, 2d ed., 2 vols., 1880.
* ↑ Hamilton, Discussions, 2d ed., p. 373.
* ↑ Discussions, &c., 2d ed., pp. 388-9.
* ↑ Promulg. Acad. Privil., &c., Strasburg, 1628.
* ↑ See Die deutsche Universität Dorpat im Lichte der Geschichte, 1882.
* ↑ Life of Casaubon, p. 181.
* ↑ Craufurd, Hist. of the Univ. of Edinburgh, pp. 19-28.
* ↑ See Paulsen, Gesch. des gelehrten Unterrichts, &c., pp. 348-358.
* ↑ Hamilton, Discussions, p. 381.
* ↑ "Volumus neminem in hanc nostram Academiam admitti, aut per rectorem in album recipi, qui non habeat privatum atque domesticum preceptorem, qui ejus discipulum agnoscat, ad cujus judicium quisque pro sua ingenii capacitate atque Marte lecturas et publicas et privatas audiat, a cujus latere aut raro aut nunquam discedat." Koch expressly compares this provision with the discipline of Oxford and Cambridge, which, down to the commencement of the present century, was very much of the same character (Koch. Gesch. des academischen Pädagogiums in Marburg, p. 11)