# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Universities

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​UNIVERSITIES The medieval 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”). 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 such communities in medieval times (regarded as places of instruction) was “studium” (and subsequently “studium generale”), 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 gild—a spontaneous combination, that is to say, of teachers or scholars, or of both combined, and formed probably on the analogy of the trades gilds, and the gilds 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 medieval 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 accord to other masters permission to open other schools than the cathedral school in the neighbourhood of his church; a further stage was reached when a licence to teach—granted only after a formal examination—empowered a master to carry on his vocation 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.
In the north of Europe such licences were granted by the Chancellor Scholasticus, or some other officer of a cathedral Meaning of “studium generale.” church; in the south it is probable that the gilds of masters (when these came to be formed) were at first free to grant their own licences, without any ecclesiastical or other supervision. But in all cases such permissions were of a purely local character. Gradually, however, towards the end of the 12th century, a few great schools claimed from the excellence of their teaching to be of more than merely local importance. Practically a doctor of Paris or Bologna would be allowed to teach anywhere; while those great schools began to be known as studia generalia, i.e. places resorted to by scholars from all parts. Eventually the term came to have a more definite and technical signification. The emperor Frederick II. set the example of attempting to confer by an authoritative bull upon his new school at Naples the prestige which the earlier studia had acquired by reputation and general consent. In 1229 Gregory IX. did the same for Toulouse, and in 1233 added to its original privileges a bull by which any one who had been admitted to the doctorate or mastership in that university should have the right to teach anywhere without further examination. Other studia generalia were subsequently founded by papal or imperial bulls; and in 1292 even the oldest universities, Paris and Bologna, found it desirable to obtain similar bulls from Nicolas IV. From this time the notion began to prevail among the jurists that the essence of the studium generale was the privilege of conferring the jus ubicunque docendi, and that no new studium could acquire that position without a papal or imperial bull. By this time, however, there were a few studia generalia (e.g. Oxford) whose position was too well established to be seriously questioned, although they had never obtained such a bull; these were held to be studia generalia ex consuetudine. A few Spanish universities founded by royal charter were held to be studia generalia respectu regni. The word Origin of the term “university.” universitas was originally applied only to the scholastic gild (or gilds) within the studium, and was at first not used absolutely; the phrase was always universitas magistrorum, or scholarium or magistrorum et scholarium. By the close of the medieval period, however, the distinction between the terms studium generale and universitas was more or less lost sight of, and in Germany especially the term universitas began to be used alone.
In order, however, clearly to understand the conditions under which the earliest universities came into existence, it is necessary History of learning before the university era. 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 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.
Under the rule of the Merovingian dynasty even these scanty traditions of learning declined throughout the Frankish Revival in time of Charlemagne. 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 Charlemagne, 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.
But 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 questionable 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 General causes of formation of first universities. to survive, and became the nucleus of the teaching in which the university took its rise. 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 Rise of university of Salerno. the range of the monastic and cathedral schools appears to be very generally admitted, but with respect the origin of the first European university—that of Salerno in Italy, which became known as a school of Salerno medicine as early as the 9th century—the circumstances are pronounced by a recent investigator to be “veiled in impenetrable obscurity.” 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 beginning in the teaching at the famous Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, where the study of medicine was undoubtedly pursued. But the most authoritative researches point to the conclusion that the medical system of Salerno was originally an outcome of the Graeco-Roman tradition of the old Roman world, and the Arabic medicine was not introduced till the highest fame of the Civitas Hippocratica was passing away. It may have been influenced by the late survival of the Greek language in southern Italy, though this cannot be proved. In the first half of the 9th century the emperor at Constantinople sent to the Caliph ​Mamoun at Bagdad a considerable collection of Greek manuscripts, which seems to have given the earliest impulse to the study of the Hellenic pagan literature by the Saracens. The original texts were translated into Arabic by Syrian Christians, and these versions were, in turn, rendered into Latin for the use of teachers in the West. Of the existence of such versions we have evidence, according to Jourdain, long prior to the time when Constantine the African (d. 1087) began to deliver his lectures on the science at Salerno, although these early versions have since altogether disappeared. Under his teaching the fame of Salerno as a medical school became diffused all over Europe; 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. 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.
The great revival of legal studies which took place at Bologna about the year 1000 had also been preceded by a corresponding Bologna. activity elsewhere—at Pavia by a famous school of Lombard law, and at Ravenna by a yet more important school of Roman law. And in Bologna itself we have evidence that the Digest was known and studied before the time of Irnerius (1100-30), a certain Pepo being named as lecturing on the text about the year 1076. The traditional story about the “discovery” of the Pandects at Amalfi in 1135 was disproved even before the time of Savigny. Schulte has shown that the publication of the Decretum of Gratian must be placed earlier than the traditional date, i.e. not later than 1142. This instruction again was of a kind which the monastic and cathedral schools could not supply, and it also contributed to meet a new and pressing demand. The neighbouring states of Lombardy were at this time increasing rapidly in population and in wealth; and the greater complexity of their political relations, their growing manufactures and commerce, demanded 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 close 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. In the year 1151 the Decretum of Gratian and the canon law. appearance of the Decretum of Gratian, 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 exposition 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 good authority, and is in every way improbable. There is, however, another tradition which is in better harmony 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 Foreign students at Bologna. 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, Habita, 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 The “universities” at Bologna. as 1158. Its first university was not constituted until the close of the 12th century. The “universities” at Bologna were, as Denifle has shown, really student gilds, formed under influences quite distinct from the protecting clauses of the Authentica, and suggested, as already noted, by the precedent of those foreign gilds which, in the course of the 12th century, began to rise throughout western Europe. These were originally only two in number, the Ultramontani and the Citramontani, and arose out of 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, Denifie considers, not on the trade gilds which rose in Bologna in the 13th century, but on the Teutonic gilds 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 and were composed exclusively of students in law.
The power resulting from this principle of combination, when superadded to the privileges conferred by Barbarossa, Their democratic character. gave to the students of Bologna a superiority of which they were not slow to avail themselves. Under the leadership of their rector, they extorted from the citizens concessions which raised them from the condition of an oppressed 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 Other similar communities in Italy. Italian students alone were subdivided into two—the Tuscans and the Lombards. 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, Provençals and Germans; at Padua there were similar divisions into Italians, ​French (i.e. Francigenae, comprising both English and Normans), Provençals (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 gilds, one after the other—the last in order being that of the Tuscans, which was composed 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.
In marked resemblance to the gilds, these confederations were presided over by a common head, the “rector scholarium,” The rector. an obvious imitation of the “rector societatum” or “artium” of the gild, 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 gilds, again, the different nations were represented by their “consiliarii,” a deliberative assembly with whom the rector habitually took counsel.
While recognizing the essentially democratic character of the constitution of these communities, it is to be remembered Mature age of the students. 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.
Innocent IV., in according his sanction to the new statutes of the university in 1253, refers to them as drawn up by the Formation of the universitates. “rectores et universitas scholarium Bononiensium.”
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 Faculties instituted. 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 Bologna 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.
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. Account of the university by Anglicus. 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 significance of the term “college,” as first employed at Bologna, differed, like that of “university,” from that which it subsequently acquired. The collegia of the doctors no more connoted the idea of a place of residence than did the universitates of the students. There were the College of Doctors of Civil Law, the College of Doctors of Canon Law, the College of Doctors in Medicine and Arts and The universities at Bologna. (from 1352) the College of Doctors in Theology. Though the professors were largely dependent upon the students, they had separate organizations of their own, the college alone was concerned in the conferment of degrees. Each faculty was therefore at Bologna entirely independent of every other (except for the union of medicine and arts): the only connecting link between them was the necessity of obtaining their degrees (after 1219) from the same chancellor, the archdeacon of Bologna. The decline in the reputation of the studium from about 1250 was largely due to the successful efforts of the doctors to exclude all but Bolognese citizens from membership of the doctoral colleges (which alone possessed the valuable “right of promotion”), and from the more valuable salaried chairs. They even attempted and partially succeeded in restricting these privileges to members of their own families.
Colleges as places of residence for students existed, however, at Bologna at a very early date, but it is not until the The earliest colleges. 14th century that we find them possessing any organization; and the humble domus, as it was termed, was at first 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 contemplated. 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 medieval times which still exists on the Continent.
Of the general fact that the early universities rose in response to new wants the commencement of the university of Paris Origin of 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 Roscellinus. A belief sprang up that an intelligent apprehension of spiritual truth depended on a correct use of prescribed methods of argumentation. Dialectic was looked upon as “the Study of logic. 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.
Abelard taught in the first instance at the cathedral school at Notre Dame, and subsequently at the schools on Teaching of Abelard. the Montagne Ste Geneviève, of which he was the founder, and where he imparted to logic its new development. But in 1147 the secular canons of Ste Geneviève ​gave place to canons regular from St Victor; and henceforth Study of theology. 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. Among his pupils was Peter Lombard, who Lombard's “Sentences.” 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 (sententiae) 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 school men, in their successive treatises Super sententias, expended a considerable share of that subtlety and labour which still excite the astonishment of the student of metaphysical literature.
It is in these prominent features in the history of these early universities—the development of new methods of instruction Rise of other early universities. 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 accompanied that monarch on his progresses.
As the university of Paris became the model, not only for the universities of France north of the Loire, but also for the Early organization of the university of Paris. 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 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 Geneviève; 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. The previous stage of his academic career, that of The bachelor of arts. 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.
This community of teachers of recognized fitness did not in itself suffice to constitute a university, but some time between The university formed. 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.
This papal recognition was, however, very far from implying the episcopal recognition, and the earlier history of the Difficulties of first development. 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 Transalpine 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. The fully developed university was divided into four faculties—three “superior,” viz. those of theology, canon law and medicine, and one “inferior,” and that of arts, which was divided into four “nations.” These nations, which included both professors and scholars, were—(1) the French nation, composed, The “nations.” in 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. 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. In congregations of the university matters were decided by a majority of faculties; the vote of the faculty of arts was determined by a majority of nations. The chancellor of Notre Dame, whose functions were now limited to the conferment of the licence, stood as such outside the university or gild altogether, though as a doctor of theology he was always a member of that faculty. 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.
In the course of the 16th and 17th centuries this democratic constitution of the middle ages was largely superseded by the growth of a small oligarchy of officials. The tribunal of the university—the rector, deans and proctors—came to occupy a somewhat similar position to the old “Hebdomadal Board” of heads of colleges at Oxford and the Caput at Cambridge. Moreover, the teaching functions of the university, or rather of the faculty of arts, owing chiefly to the absence of any endowment for the regents or teaching graduates, practically passed to the colleges. Almost as much as the English universities, Paris came to be virtually reduced to a federation of colleges, though the colleges were at Paris less independent of university authority, while the smaller colleges sent their members to receive instruction in the larger ones (collèges de plein exercise), which received large numbers of non-foundation members. This state of things lasted till the French Revolution swept away the whole university system of the middle ages. It may be remarked that the famous Sorbonne was really the most The Sorbonne. celebrated college of Paris—founded by Robert de Sorbonne circa 1257—but as this college and the college of Navarre were the only college foundations which provided for students in theology, the close connexion of the former with the faculty and the use of its hall for the disputations of that body led to the word Sorbonne becoming a popular term for the theological faculty of Paris.
Apart from the broad differences in their organization, the very conception of learning, it will be observed, was 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 Paris and Bologna contrasted. 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, which about the middle of the 14th century may be said to have reached their apogee. It had forty colleges, governed either by secular or religious communities, and numbered among its students representatives of every country in Europe (Jourdain, Excursions historiques, c. xiv.). 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. The popes themselves, although averse from Papal policy. 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 nell' Emilia and Modena, both of which are to be found mentioned as schools of civil law before the close of the 12th century. The latter, throughout Reggio and Modena. the 13th century, appears to have been resorted to by teachers of sufficient eminence to form a flourishing 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 Vicenza. 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. During the next fifty years Vicenza attained to considerable prosperity, and appears to have been recognized by Innocent III.; 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. The university of Padua was unquestionably the direct result of the migration in 1222 of a Padua. 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 (1237–60) 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.
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, Naples. 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. The commencement of the university Vercelli. 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 off colleges of law and medicine is to be found after that date. The two universities of Piacenza and Pavia Piacenza. 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, unless taken in conjunction with that of Pavia. Even before Irnerius taught at Bologna, Pavia. Pavia had been widely known as a seat of legal studies, and more especially of the Lombard 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 “studium” 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 professors 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 Arezzo. rival in Italy but Padua. 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, although it did not become altogether extinct until about the year 1470. The university of Rome. 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 conferring degrees only in the canon and civil law. The university maintained its existence throughout the period of the residence of the popes of Avignon, 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 combine 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”). Scarcely any of the universities in Italy in the 14th century Perugia. 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 podestà. 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. The university of Treviso. Florence. Treviso, which received its charter from Frederick the Fair in 1318, was of little celebrity and but short duration. 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 meantime the greater number of the Bolognese students had betaken themselves to Siena, where for the space of three years twenty-two professors gathered round them a body of enthusiastic students. Eventually the majority returned to Bologna, and when in 1338 that city was placed under an interdict by Benedict XII. another exodus of students repaired to Pisa, which in 1343 received from Clement VI. its charter as a studium generale. Closed in 1406, Pisa, aided by the powerful intervention of Lorenzo de' Medici, reopened in 1473, to undergo, however, a long series of vicissitudes which at last found a termination in 1850, when its fortunes were placed on a more stable basis, and it gradually acquired the reputation of ranking among the foremost universities of a reunited Italy. The charter of foundation for Florence, on the other hand, was not granted until May 31, 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 the 2nd of 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, it was decided that Florence was not a convenient seat for a university, and its students joined the throngs which repaired to the reopened halls of Pisa. A special interest Siena. attaches to the rise of the university of Siena, as that of one which had made good its position prior to becoming recognized either by emperor or pope. Its beginning dates from 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. The university Ferrara. of Ferrara owes its foundation to the house of Este—Alberto, marquess 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.
Of the universities modelled on that of Paris, Oxford would appear to have been the earliest, and the manner of its development Oxford. 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 uncertain), arrived from Paris and delivered lectures on the Bible. It has been maintained, on the authority of Gervase of Canterbury, that Vacarius, a native of Lombardy, who, in the latter half of the 12th century, incurred the displeasure of King Stephen by lecturing in England on the civil law, delivered lectures at Oxford. H. S. Denifle, however (Die Entstehung der Universitäten, p. 241), maintains that the naming of Oxford is a gratuitous assumption on the part of Gervase, and that we have, at best, only presumptive evidence of a studium generale there in the 12th century. Of this, Mr Rashdall inclines to find the beginning in a migration of English students from Paris about 1167 or 1168. In the first-mentioned year we are told by John of Salisbury that “France, the mildest and most civil of nations,” has “expelled her foreign scholars” (Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, ed. Robertson, vi. pp. 235-36). At about the same time we hear of an edict of Henry II., during the quarrel with Becket, recalling all clerks holding benefices in England (as they loved their benefices), and forbidding all clerks in England to cross the Channel (ibid. i. pp. 53-54). The archbishop himself remarks that “The king wills that all scholars shall be compelled to return to their country or be deprived of their benefices” (ibid. vii. p. 146). Paris was at this time the great place of higher education for English students. No English school was a recognized studium generale. Immediately after 1168 allusions to Oxford as a studium and a studium generale begin to multiply. The natural inference is that the breaking off of relations between England and Paris in 1167 or 1168 led to the growth of a studium generale in Oxford, formed no doubt in the first instance of seceders from Paris. 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.
The university of Cambridge, although it rose into existence somewhat later than Oxford, may reasonably be held to have Cambridge. 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. In 1209 a body of students migrated thither from Oxford. Then, as early as the year 1224, the Franciscans established themselves in the town, and, somewhat 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—a dignitary appointed by the bishop of Ely for the express purpose of granting degrees and governing the studium. In 1229 and 1231 the 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 1381, the records of the university were wantonly burnt by the townsmen. Throughout 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. Although both Oxford and Cambridge were modelled on Paris, their higher faculties never developed the same distinct organization; and while the two proctors at Cambridge originally represented “north” and “south,” the “nations” are scarcely to be discerned. An important step in the direction of discipline 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. The traditional constitution of the English universities was in its origin an imitation of the Parisian chancellor, modified by the absence of the cathedral chancellor. As Oxford was not in the 12th century a bishop's see, the bishop (in 1214, if not earlier) appointed a chancellor for the express purpose of granting degrees and governing the studium. But he was from the first elected by the masters, and early obtained recognition as the head of the university as well as the representative of the bishop. The procuratores (originally also rectores) remained representatives of the faculty of arts and (there being at Oxford no deans) of the whole 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 1284, its earliest extant code being that given in 1344 by Simon de Montacute, which was little more than a transcript of that drawn up by Walter de Merton for his scholars at Oxford. In 1323 was founded Michaelhouse, and two years later, in 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 these 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 (Aula) in 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 gild 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 gild. 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. In the latter half of the same century, the coming change of feeling is shown by the fact that the chancellor was under the necessity of issuing a decree (1374) in order to protect the house of the Carmelites from molestation on the part of the students.
Returning to France, or rather to the territory included within the boundaries of modern France, we find Montpellier 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 generale,” 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 is to be Toulouse. 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 noted as a centre of that Dominican teaching which involved the extermination of the Catharists. As a school of arts, jurisprudence and medicine, although faculties of each existed, it never attained to any reputation. The university of Orleans had a virtual existence Orleans. 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 the city had an existence long prior—as early, it is said, as the 6th century—and subsequently supplied the nucleus for the foundation of a university at Blois; but of this university no records are extant. 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; and Angers, which received Angers. 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, Avignon. and 190 scholars. 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 Cahors. seven colleges. 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 scholastic us 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 privilegium fori. Cahors also received a licence for faculties of theology and medicine, but, like Orleans, it was chiefly known as a school of jurisprudence. It was as a “studium generale” in the Grenoble. 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 Perpignan. university of Valence. The university of Perpignan, founded, according to Denifle, in 1379 by Clement VII. (although tradition had previously ascribed its origin Orange. to Pedro IV. of Aragon), and that of 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.
To some of the earlier Spanish universities—such as Palencia, founded about the year 1214 by Alphonso VIII.; Huesca, Palencia, Huesca, Lerida. 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, which received its charter from Pope Clement VI. Valladolid. in 1346, attained, however, to great celebrity; and the foreign teachers and students frequenting the university became so numerous that in 1373 King Enriquez 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. In 1418, however, at the council of Constance, Martin V. not only decreed that Valladolid should take rank as a studium generale, but also as a “universitas theologiae,” and that the new faculty should possess the same privileges as those of the same faculty in Paris. From this time accordingly the advance of the university in numbers was steady and continuous throughout the 15th century, and, along with Salamanca, it served as the model Alcalà. for Alcalà in 1499. The university which rose on the banks of the Henares and became famous under the direction of the eminent Ximenes, was removed in 1623 to Madrid; and for the next century and a half the foremost place among the universities of Spain must be assigned to Salamanca, to which Seville, in the south, stood in the relation of a kind of subsidiary school, having been founded in 1254 by Alphonso the Wise, Seville and Salamanca. simply for the study of Latin and of the Semitic languages, especially Arabic. Salamanca had been founded in 1243 by Ferdinand III. of Castile as a studium generale in the three faculties of jurisprudence, the arts and medicine. The king also extended his special protection to the students, granting them numerous privileges and immunities. Under his son Alphonso (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 until the beginning of the 15th century, was laid on the civil and the canon law. The provision for the payment of its professors was, however, 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, and the efforts of Martin V. established a school of theology which was afterwards regarded almost as an oracle by Catholic Europe. About the year 1600 the students are shown by the matriculation books to have numbered over 5000. According to Cervantes they were noted for their lawlessness. 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 in medieval times alternately in Lisbon and in Coimbra, until, in Coimbra. 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.
Of the universities included in the present Austrian empire, Prague, which existed as a “studium” in the 13th century, was Prague. the earliest. It was at first frequented 'mainly by students from Styria and Austria, countries at that time ruled by the emperor Charles IV., who was also king of Bohemia, and at whose request Pope Clement VI., on the 26th of January 1347, 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 medieval 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 Germany, but also England, France, Lombardy, Hungary and Poland. Contemporary writers, with the exaggeration characteristic of medieval 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 Leipzig, 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 studium of Slavonia.
The university of Cracow in Poland was founded in May 1364, by virtue of a charter given by King Casimir the Great, who Cracow. 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.
The Avignonese popes appear to have regarded the establishment of new faculties of theology with especial jealousy; and Vienna. 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 asssent 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 accession 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 Fünfkirchen. founding a university at Fünfkirchen, Urban would not consent to the foundation of a faculty of theology, although theological learning was in special need of encouragement in those regions; the pontiff 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. “The extreme east of civilized continental Europe in medieval 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 medieval ​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.”
The university of Heidelberg (the oldest of those of the German realm) received its charter (October 23, 1385) from Heidelberg. 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 medieval 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 medieval 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.
Owing to the labours of the Dominicans, Cologne had gained a reputation as a seat of learning long before the founding of Cologne. 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 medieval 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 nominalist and realist controversies of the time were debated in its midst; its readiness in according a hearing to novel theories causing it to be known as novorum omnium portus.
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.
During the first half of the 15th century the relations of the Roman pontiffs to the universities continued much the same, although the independent attitude assumed by the deputies of those bodies at the great councils of Constance and Basel, and especially by those from Paris, could not fail to give rise Relations of the popes to the universities. to apprehensions. The papal bulls for each new foundation begin to indicate a certain jealousy with respect to the appropriation of prebends by the founders. Where such appropriations are recognized, and more particularly in France, a formal sanction of the transfer generally finds a place in the bull authorizing the foundation; but sometimes the founder or founders are themselves 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 Tübingen being the only instances in which the emperor's confirmation of the foundation was solicited. The inadequacy of the traditional studies to meet the growing wants of civilization, and the consequent lack of sympathy on the part of each civic population in which a new studium was founded, now become frequently apparent. Of such Würzburg. conditions the fortunes of the studium at Würzburg in Bavaria—founded in 1402 by a bishop, with a charter bestowed by Boniface IX.—illustrate the dangers. The students belonged chiefly to the faculties of law and theology, and the frequency of their conflicts with the citizens made it necessary before ten years had elapsed to close the university, which was not reopened until 1582. Under the patronage of the prince Bishop Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn, however, it soon became largely frequented by Catholic students. At the present time, under the patronage of the house of Wittelsbach, it is widely famed as a school of medicine.
In Turin the university founded in 1412 by the counts of Savoy had to be refounded in 1431. The efforts of Parma in the 14th century to raise itself by papal aid to the dignity of a university proved altogether abortive, and it was not until 1422 that, under the protection of the dukes of Milan, its object Catania. was attained. In Sicily, Catania, the earliest of its high schools, was created a university by Alphonso of Aragon in 1445. Five years later Barcelona Barcelona. received from Pope Nicholas V. the same privileges as Toulouse had obtained from Gregory IX. Among the Spanish universities, however, none has had a more chequered history, although now taking rank with foremost.
In Hungary, Mathias Corvinus obtained from Paul II. in 1465 permission to found a general studium where he thought best within his realms—a latitude of choice conceded probably in consequence of the dangers which menaced the kingdom alike from Bohemia and from the Turks; while the Budapest. fact that the university at Ofen (Hungarian Buda) was not actually founded until some ten years later, may have been owing to the resolute stand made by the youthful monarch against the claims to nominate bishops put forward not only by Pope Paul but by his successor Sixtus IV. (1471-84). After a series of eventful experiences, the university of Budapest remains, at the present time, almost exclusively Magyar. It has a school of law at Pressburg, which is all that remains of the university there founded by Mathias Corvinus in 1465.
In northern Germany and in the Netherlands. on the other hand, the growing wealth and prosperity of the different states Foundation of Louvain. especially favoured the formation of new centres of learning. 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.
In Germany the conditions under which the new centres were created reflect and illustrate the history of the country in a Leipzig. remarkable manner. Those connected with the rise of the university of Leipzig 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 Leipzig, where, a bull having been obtained from Alexander V. (September 9, 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.
At Rostock, in the north, the dukes John and Albert of Mecklenburg conceived the design of founding a university Rostock. from which the faculty of theology should be excluded. Pope Martin V., to whom they applied for his sanction, was scarcely in a position to refuse it, absorbed as he was with the pacification of Italy, the consolidation of his own temporal power, and the restoration of his almost ruinous capital. The university was accordingly founded as proposed in 1419; but in 1431 Eugenius IV. instituted a faculty of theology, and two colleges were founded with the same design and on the same scale as at Leipzig. Six years later the whole academic community having incurred the papal ban was fain to migrate to Greifswald, returning, however, to Rostock in 1443, but with one important exception, that of a master of arts named Henry Rubenow, who remained to become burgomaster of the former city, and succeeded in persuading Duke Wratislaw of Pommern to make it the seat of a university. Calixtus III. granted a bull in 1456, but it was stipulated that the rector should be a Greifswald. bishop, and the professorial chairs were also made partially dependent for endowment on canonries. Greifswald thus became exposed to the full brunt of the struggle which had ensued when the endeavour to nationalize the German church was terminated by the Concordat of Vienna (1448). Of its original statutes only those of the arts faculty are extant.
The universities of Freiburg in Baden and Tübingen in Württemberg, on the other hand, reflect the sympathies of Freiburg. the Catholic party under the Austrian rule. They alike owed their foundation to the countess Matilda, by whose persuasion her husband, the archduke of Austria, known as Albrecht VI., was induced to found Freiburg in 1455, and Count Eberhard (her son by a former marriage) to found Tübingen in 1477. The first session at Freiburg opened auspiciously in 1460 under the supervision of its rector, Matthew Hummel of Villingen, an accomplished and learned man, and its numbers were soon largely augmented by migrations of students from Vienna and from Heidelberg, while its resources, which originally were chiefly an annual grant from the city council, were increased by the bestowal of canonries and prebends in the neighbouring parishes. Erasmus had made Freiburg his residence from 1529 to 1535, during which time he may have originated a tradition of liberal learning, but in 1620, under the rule of the archduke Maximilian, the control of the Humanistic studies and of the entire faculty of philosophy was handed over to the Jesuits, who also gained possession of two of the chairs of theology. Although Strassburg since 1872 has been able to offer considerable counter-attractions, Freiburg has held her own, and numbers over 1600 students. The university of Tübingen was founded in 1477 with four faculties—those of theology, law, medicine and the arts—and numbered Tübingen. scholars such as John Reuchlin and Melanchthon among its teachers; while in the last century it was famous both for its school of medicine and that of theology (see Tübingen). Its general condition in the year 1541-1542, and the sources whence its revenues were derived, have been illustrated by Hoffmann in a short paper which shows the fluctuating nature of the resources of a university in the 16th century—liable to be affected as they were both by the seasons and the markets.
The earliest 15th-century university in France was that of Aix in Provence. It had originally been nothing more than a Aix in Provence. school of theology and law, but in 1409 it was reorganized under the direction of the local count as a studium generale on the model of Paris. The sphere of its activity is indicated by the fact that the students were divided into Burgundians, Provençals and Catalans. The Poitiers. next foundation, that of Poitiers, had a wider significance as illustrating the struggle that was going on between the French crown and the Roman see. It was instituted by Charles VII. in 1431, almost immediately after his accession, with the special design of creating a centre of learning less favourable 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” simply 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. The foundation of the university of Caen, in the diocese of Bayeux, was attended by conditions almost Caen. 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 famous Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges was Charles's rejoinder in the following year. On the 18th of 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. Ten years later, when the English had been expelled, its charter was given afresh by Charles in terms which left the original charter unrecognized; both teachers and learners were subject to the civil authorities of the city, and all privileges made previously conferred 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 Bordeaux, Valence, Nantes. thus once rendered to the national cause. 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 its privileges Bourges. against all interference from whatever quarter. 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.
Founded about the same time, and probably in a spirit of direct rivalry to Freiburg, the university of Basel was opened Basel. in 1460 under the auspices of its own citizens. 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 Aeneas Sylvius, had been a resident in the city, was easily prevailed upon to grant the charter (November 12, 1459). During the first seventy years of its existence the university prospered, and its chairs were held by eminent professors, among them historical scholars, such as Sebastian Brant and Jacob Wimpheling. But with the Reformation, Basel became the arena of contests which menaced the very existence of the university itself, the professors being, for the most part, opposed to the new movement with which the burghers warmly sympathized. Eventually, the statutes were revised, and in the latter half of the 16th century the university may be said to have attained its apogee. Before he had signed the bull for the foundation of the university of Basel, Pope Pius, at the request of Duke William of Bavaria, had issued another bull for the foundation of a university at Ingolstadt Ingolstadt. (7th April 1459). 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.
The next two universities took their rise in the archiepiscopal seats of Treves and Mainz. That at Treves received its charter Treves. 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. The Mainz. 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, 23rd 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.
Nearly contemporaneous with these foundations were those of Upsala (1477) and Copenhagen (1479), which, although Upsala and Copenhagen. 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.
The electorates of Wittenberg and Brandenburg were now the only two considerable German territories which did not possess Wittenberg. 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 phraseology 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, on the 2nd of 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 corpus ex studio et collegio 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 of the Alps where the antiquated methods and barbarous Frankfort-on-the-Oder. Latinity of the scholastic era were overthrown. 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 the 26th of 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.
​The first university in Scotland was that of St Andrews, founded in 1411 by Henry Wardlaw, bishop of that see, and St Andrews. 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 medieval 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 Glasgow. the doctrines of Protestantism. 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. The university of Aberdeen, which was founded in 1494, at first possessed only one college, Aberdeen. namely, King's, which was coextensive with the university and conferred degrees. 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 also 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 medieval 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 degree of B.A. and M.A. when compared with later times. Of this disparity the table on next Degrees taken at Leipzig. column, exhibiting the relative numbers in the university of Leipzig 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. | Years. | B.A. | M.A. | Percentage of | Percentage of |
| Years. | Matriculations. | Years. | B.A. | M.A. | 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 |
The German universities in these times seem to have admitted for the most part their inferiority in learning to older and more General aspects of German medieval universities. 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 an assertion somewhat qualified 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 admission 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—Leipzig, Greifswald and Prague (after 1409) 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.
In Italy, almost without exception, it was decided that these controversies were endless and that their effects were pernicious. Abandonment of logical studies in Italy. 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 High reputation of Italian professors. learning in Germany. 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, Thomas Dempster, sought in a Pisan chair that theatre for his abilities which he could not find at home.”
To such catholicity of sentiment the Spanish universities during the same period offer a complete contrast, their history being so strongly modified by political and religious movements that some reference to these becomes indispensable. Valencia, founded in 1501 as a school Valencia. Seville.not only of theology and of civil and canon law, but also of the arts and of medicine, and sanctioned at the petition of its council by Alexander VI. (see Denifle, i. 645–46), and Seville, sanctioned by Julius II. in 1505, appear both to have been regarded without mistrust at Rome. But although the latter pontiff had approved the foundation of the university of Santiago as early as 1504, the bull for its creation was not granted by Clement VII. until 1526. While, again, the design of establishing a university at Granada had been approved by Charles V. in the same year, it was not until 1531 that Clement gave his consent, and even then the work of preparation was deferred for another six years. Little indeed is to be learnt respecting the Granada. new society until the foundation of the liberally endowed College de Sacro Monte by the archbishop of the province in 1605. These delays are partly to be accounted for by the well-known political jealousies that existed between the monarch and the pontiff; but it is also to be noted that at precisely the same period a movement of no slight importance, whereby it was sought to gain the recognition by the church of the writings and teaching of Erasmus, had been going on in the universities of Spain, and had ultimately died out. It died out at the uncreating voice of the Dominican Melchior Cano, who revived the ancient scholasticism and the teaching of Aquinas. Then followed the Jesuits, whom Cano himself had once denounced as “precursors of Antichrist,” and under their direction the scholastic philosophy, together with a certain attention to Greek and Hebrew, became the dominant study. And when the council of Trent had done its work, and doctrinal controversy seemed to have been finally laid to rest, Gregory XIII. in 1574 authorized the Oviedo. foundation of the university of Oviedo; but this was not opened until 1608, and then only with a faculty of law. After this time the universities in Spain shared in the general decline of the country; and even after the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1769 no marked improvement is discernible in their schools. On the contrary, the departure of a body of very able instructors, who, whatever objections might be taken to their doctrinal teaching, were mostly good scholars and men in close touch with the outer world, distinctly favoured that tendency to lifeless routine and unreasoning tradition which characterizes the Spanish universities until the second half of the 19th century.
The comparative unimportance of the universities founded during the same period in Italy is partially explained by the number of those which previously existed. In the papal states Macerata and Camerino were founded at a wide interval; the former, Italian universities. Macerata. Camerino.according to tradition, by a bull of Nicholas IV. as early as the 13th century, the latter not until the year 1727 by a bull of Benedict XIII. Macerata, however, ceased to exist as a university in the last century, retaining only a faculty of law, but contributing to the maintenance of the medical faculty at Camerino, which was constituted one of the newly created “free universities” (along with Urbino, Ferrara and Perugia) in 1890, but continued to exist only with the aid of contributions levied on the local parishes. Urbino, originally opened as a studium under papal patronage in 1671, was also constituted a free university, its chief study being that of law. At Modena there had long existed a faculty of the Urbino. Modena. same study which enjoyed a high repute, but it was not until 1683 that it received its charter from Duke Francis II. of Este as the university of his capital. Like Camerino, Modena had to rely chiefly on funds collected in the commune, but was able nevertheless to acquire some reputation as a school of law and medicine, declining, when the Jesuits were installed by the Austrian authorities, to revive again in the general recovery which took place among the seats of learning after the unification of Italy. In Sicily, Palermo (1779) originated Sicily. Palermo. in an earlier institution composed mainly of subjects Palermo of Ferdinand IV., who had followed him on his expulsion from the throne of the Two Sicilies at Naples towards the end of the 18th century. It was closed in 1805, but reopened in 1850 to become a school of considerable importance in all the faculties with over 1000 students. The two universities of Sardinia—Sassari (1634) and Cagliari (1506)—were founded under the Spanish rule, and both died out Sassari. Cagliari. when that rule was exchanged for that of Austria. Under the auspices of the house of Savoy they were re-established, but neither can be said to have since achieved any marked success.
For the most part, however, the Reformation represents the great boundary line in the history of the medieval universities, and long after Luther and Calvin had passed away was still the main influence in the history of those new foundations which 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 influence of the Humanists, 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 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 Pernicious influences of sectarianism. the Scriptures and the Fathers. 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.
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 Marburg.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 landgrave’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.
The Lutheran university of Königsberg was founded 17th August 1544 by Albert III., margrave of Brandenburg, and Königsberg. 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 soon after rose to nearly a thousand.
The Lutheran university of Jena had its origin in a gymnasium founded by John Frederick the Magnanimous, elector of Jena. Saxony, during his imprisonment, for the express purpose of promoting Evangelical doctrines and repairing the loss of Wittenberg, where the Philippists had gained the ascendancy. Its charter, which the emperor Charles V. had refused to grant, and which was obtained with some difficulty from his brother, Ferdinand I., enabled the authorities to open the university on the 2nd of 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 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 1906 were 1281.
The Lutheran university of Helmstedt, founded by Duke Julius (of the house of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel), and designated Helmstedt. 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, Helmstedt enjoyed the special and powerful patronage of the dukes of Saxony.
The “ Gymnasium Aegidianum” of Nuremberg, founded in 1526, and removed in 1575 to Altdorf, represents the origin Altdorf. 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.”
The conversion of Marburg into a school of Calvinistic doctrine gave occasion to the foundation of the universities Giessen. of Giessen and of Rinteln. Of these the former, founded by the margrave of Hesse-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, which at the beginning of last century was about 250, had risen before its close to over 800. 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 drew forth an emphatic protest from the eminent historian Mommsen, and Rinteln. was abandoned long before his death. 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. The university of Strassburg was founded Strassburg. in 1621 on the basis of an already existing academy, 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 laureatos creandi et promovendi.” In 1681 ​Strassburg became French, and remained so until 1872, when it was refounded by the Emperor William I., and before the close of the century numbered over 1100 students.
At the beginning of last century Russia possessed but three Moscow. Wilna. Dorpat. universities—that of Moscow (1755), founded by the Empress Elizabeth; of Wilna (1578), which was Polish and chiefly in the hands of the Jesuits; and of Dorpat [Yuriev] in Livonia, which was virtually German. Under the enlightened policy of Alexander I. was founded the university of Charkow (1804) for New Russia, Charkow. Kasan. St Petersburg. that of Kazan (1804) for the countries about the Volga, but designed also for the populations of Finland and Siberia, and that of St Petersburg (1819). Each of the foregoing six universities had a definite district assigned to it, from whence it was entitled to recruit students, and, as a further incentive to the pursuit of academic studies, a ukaz promulgated in 1809 proclaimed that in all appointments to official posts throughout the empire the holders of a university degree would receive the first consideration in the competition for vacancies. In 1826 the university Helsingfors. at Åbo in Finland was removed to Helsingfors, and still preserves the charter whereby, in its original home, it had been constituted a university by Queen Christina and her chancellor Oxenstiern in the year 1640. In 1832 the foundation of the St Wladimir University of Kiev Kiev. Odessa. absorbed both that at Wilna and the lyceum of Kremenetz. Odessa, founded in 1865, was designed to represent the university of New Russia. Although at St Petersburg considerable attention was regularly given to the teaching of languages, especially those of Armenia, Georgia, and Tatary, the general status of the Russian universities continued throughout the greater part of last century exceptionally low; and in 1884 they were all reconstituted by the promulgation of a “universal code”; with this the statutes of the universities at Dorpat (1632) and Warsaw (1886) are essentially in agreement. The former, originally founded at the suggestion of the governor-general, with the design of bringing “martial Livonia into the path of virtue and morality,” was at first almost exclusively taught by German professors, of whom, however, very few had retained their chairs at the conclusion of last century. The study of the Slavonic languages, on the other hand, received a considerable stimulus; and when, by a decree in May 1887, the use of the Russian language was made obligatory in all places of instruction throughout the Baltic provinces, Russian began to displace German as the language of the lecture-room, the only faculties in which the use of German continued to be permissible being Tomsk. those of theology and medicine. The university of Tomsk in western Siberia, founded in 1888, recruited its numbers chiefly from students in the same faculties. It was, however, without endowment, and depended chiefly on a grant from the state aided by private liberality.
During the ensuing twenty years the general influence of Dorpat rapidly spread far beyond the Baltic provinces, while Influence of Dorpat. the number of students, which in 1879 was 1106, rose to nearly 2000. In 1889, however, the appointment of the university officials was taken from the Senatus Academicus and entrusted to the state minister, a change which went far to deprive the university of its claim to be considered German. A like contest between contending nationalities Prague. met with a final solution at Prague, where a Czech university having been established on an independent basis, the German university began its separate career in the winter session of 1882-83. The German foundation retains certain revenues accruing from special 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 medieval 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 skilful teaching and practical sagacity, that the Jesuits were borne to that commanding position which made them for a time the arbiters of education in Europe. The earliest university Bamberg. 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 medieval 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 Döllinger (the father of the historian) was for a long time a distinguished professor. The university library is of especial interest, as including that of an earlier Jesuit foundation and also valuable collections by private donors. Its collection of manuscripts in like manner includes those contained in some thirty suppressed monasteries, convents, and religious institutions at the time of the “secularization.” 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, Innsbruck. 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. The foundation of the Breslau. 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.
Nearly two centuries later, in 1702, under singularly altered conditions, the Jesuits prevailed upon the emperor Leopold I. The Jesuits in the university. 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, and was ultimately reconstituted on lines similar to those of the newly founded university of Berlin. 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, and with Condition of the University of Paris. 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 theological instruction became largely absorbed by the episcopal colleges, and acquired, in the schools of the different orders, a narrower and more dogmatic character. 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. Their schools rose at Toulouse and Bordeaux, at Auch, Agen, Rhodez, Périgueux, Limoges, Le Puy, Aubenas, Colleges of the Jesuits in France. Béziers, Tournon, in the colleges of Flanders and Lorraine, Douai and Pont-a-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., while its higher culture was in some measure provided for by the establishment by Richelieu in 1635 of the Académie française.
The “college of Edinburgh” was founded by charter of James VI., dated 14th April 1582. This document contains Edinburgh. 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 medievalism, 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.
Disastrous as were the effects of the Thirty Years' War upon the external condition of the German universities, resulting Results of the Thirty Years' War. 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 Halle. lasted throughout the 17th century. 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 Leipzig; 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, Influence of Thomasius and Francke. Christian Thomasius and A. H. Francke, soon expanded beyond the limits of this conception to assume a highly original form. Thomasius and Francke had both been driven from Leipzig 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 ascendancy 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 countrymen 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 prediction in those days with respect to a student who proposed 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. Christian 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 advanced theology in Protestant Germany, although sharing that leadership, after the Göttingen. middle of the century, with 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 Helmstedt, and G. L. 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 Münchhausen, 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 Leipzig, 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 Münchhausen,’ 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. The Erlangen. 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 also became subject to the Prussian government, and, as the 19th century advanced, her theological faculty became distinguished by the fervour and ability with which it championed the tenets of Lutheranism.
On comparison with the great English universities, the universities of Germany must be pronounced inferior both in point The English and German universities compared. 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 infrequent, 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 “Burschentum,” 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.
The political storms which marked the close of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century gave the death-blow Extinction of German universities during 1798-1815. to not a few of the ancient universities of Germany. Mainz and Cologne ceased to exist in 1798; Bamberg, Dillingen and Duisburg in 1804; Rinteln and Helmstedt 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. The university of Ingolstadt was first moved in 1802 to Munich. 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. Münster in Prussia was for the first time constituted a university in four faculties by Maximilian Frederick (elector and archbishop) in Münster 1771. Its charter was confirmed by Clement XIV. in 1773, and again by the Emperor Joseph II. The university was abolished in the year 1818; but two faculties, those of theology and philosophy, continued to exist, and in 1843 it received the full privileges of a Prussian university together with the designation of a royal foundation. Of those of the above centres which altogether ceased to exist, but few 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, while the more studious in each centre were harassed by the frequency with which it was made an arena for political demonstrations. Whatever loss may have attended their suppression was more than compensated by the activity and influence of the three great German universities which rose in the last century.
Munich, after having been completely reorganized, soon became a distinguished centre of study in all the faculties; and ​its numbers, allowing for two great wars, have been continuously on the increase, the eminence of its professoriate, among whom have been Döllinger, Liebig, Schelling, Zeuss and Giesebrecht, having attracted students from all parts of Europe.
The university of Berlin, known as the Royal Friedrich Wilhelm University, was founded in 1809, immediately after the Berlin. 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, supported by the strong purpose of Frederick William III., the principles 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. It had not only incorporated at the time of its foundation the famous “Academy of Sciences” of the city, but expressly repudiated all 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. Wolfe, Fichte, Savigny, Reil—represented only himself, the path of inquiry or the completed theory which he had himself propounded. Its subsequent growth was astonishing, and before the 19th century closed the number of its matriculated students exceeded that of every other university except Vienna.”
The university of Bonn, founded in 1818 and also by Friedrich Wilhelm III., thus became known as the Rhenish Friedrich Bonn Wilhelm University—it being the design of the founder to introduce into the Rhine provinces the classic literature and the newly developed scientific knowledge of Germany proper. With this aim he summoned to his aid the best available talent, among the earlier instructors being Niebuhr, A. W. von Schlegel, with C. F. Nasse in the faculty of medicine and G. Hermes in that of theology. In the last-named faculty it further became noted for the manner in which it combined 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. After the war with Austria in 1859 the German universities underwent a considerable change owing to the enforced military service required by the law of 1867; and the events of 1870 were certainly not disconnected with the martial spirit which had been evoked in the student world, while in the universities themselves there had risen up a new and more lively interest in political affairs.
In 1878 a comparison of the numbers of the students in the different faculties in the Prussian universities with those for Fluctuations of numbers in the faculty of theology. the year 1867 showed a remarkable diminution in the faculty of theology, amounting in Lutheran centres to numbers 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.
The universities of the United Provinces, like those of Protestant Germany, were founded by the state as schools for the Universities of the United Provinces. 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 divines who were driven from England. The earliest, that of Leiden (in what was then the county Leiden. of Holland), founded in 1575, commemorated the gallant and successful resistance of the citizens to the Spanish forces under Requesens. Throughout the 17th century Leiden 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 Janus 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 Leiden and the Dutch, what Münchhausen afterwards was for Göttingen and the German universities. “But with this difference: Leiden was the model on which the younger universities of the republic were constructed; Göttingen the model on which the older universities of the empire were reformed. Both Münchhausen 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 Leiden and Göttingen took the highest place among the universities of Europe; and both have only lost their relative supremacy by the application in other seminaries of the same measures which had at first determined their superiority.” The appointment of the professors at Leiden 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 province—the office being held for nine years, and eventually for life. With these was associated the mayor of Leiden for Franeker. the time being. The university of Franeker was founded in 1585 on a somewhat less liberal basis than Leiden, 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.” For a period of twelve years (c. 1610-22) the reputation of the university was enhanced by the able teaching of William Ames (“Amesius”), a Puritan divine and moralist who had been driven by Archbishop Bancroft from Cambridge and from England. His fame and ability are said to have attracted to Franeker students from Hungary, Poland and Russia.
With similar organization were founded the universities of Harderwijk (1600), Groningen (1614) and Utrecht (1634), Harderwijk. Groningen. Utrecht. the last-named being much frequented in the 18th century by both English and Scottish students who repaired thither to obtain instruction of a kind that Oxford and Cambridge at that time failed altogether to impart—more than a fourth of the students of Utrecht about the year 1736 being of those nationalities. In the 19th century, however, political considerations began seriously to diminish such intercourse between different centres, and during the first Napoleon's tenure of the imperial dignity the universities in both the “kingdom of Holland” and the Austrian Netherlands (as they were then termed) were in great peril. But on the settlement of Europe in 1814-15 the restoration of the house of Orange and consequent formation of the “kingdom of the Netherlands” brought both realms under a single rule. The universities of Franeker and Harderwijk Ghent. Liége. were suppressed, and those of Ghent and Liége created, while a uniform constitution was given both to the Dutch and Belgian universities. It was also provided that there should be attached to each a board of curators, consisting of five persons, “distinguished by their love of literature and science and by their rank in society,” to be nominated by the king, and at least three of them to be chosen from the province in which the university was situated, the other two from adjacent provinces. After the lapse of another fifteen years, however, the kingdom of the Netherlands having been reduced to its present limits and the kingdom of Belgium (identical for the most part with the Austrian Netherlands) newly created, an endeavour was made in dealing with the whole question of secondary education to give a fuller recognition to both traditional creeds and ethnic affinities. At Louvain, the chief Catholic centre, the faculties of law, medicine ​and philosophy had already, in 1788, been removed to Brussels—an Brussels. almost unique example of a university which owed its origin neither to a temporal nor an ecclesiastical authority—and in 1834 Brussels was constituted a free and independent university with a new fourth faculty of natural science, and supported mainly by contributions from the Liberal party. Having, however, no charter, it continued incapable by law of possessing property. While Louvain and Brussels thus represented to a great extent the two chief political parties in the realm, the universities of Ghent on the Scheldt and Liége on the Meuse recruited their students mainly from the two chief races—the Flemish and the Walloon. In Holland, on the other hand, where no such marked racial differences exist, the universities of Groningen, Leiden and Utrecht have been assimilated (1876) in constitution, each being administered by a consistory of five rectors with a senate composed of the professors in the respective faculties. The foundation of the Amsterdam. university of Amsterdam (1877) more than repaired dam the loss of Franeker and Harderwijk, and the progress of this new centre during the first ten years of its existence was remarkably rapid. The higher education of women has made some progress in the Netherlands.
In Sweden the foundation of the university of Upsala, sanctioned in 1477 by Sixtus IV. as a studium generale on the Universities of Sweden and Norway. Lund. Upsala. model of Bologna, was followed at a long interval, by that of Lund (1666), which was created during the minority of Charles XI. with statutes and privileges almost identical with those of Upsala and with an endowment largely derived from the alienated revenues of the chapter of the cathedral. The students were recruited from Denmark, Germany and Sweden; and Puffendorf, the civilian, was one of its first professors. During Charles's reign its resources were in turn confiscated, and the university itself was closed in 1676 in consequence of the war with Denmark. When again opened it remained for a long time in a very depressed condition, from which it failed to rally until the 19th century, when it took a new departure, and the erection of its handsome new buildings (1882) invested it with additional attractions. The royal university of Upsala, roused to new life in the 17th century by the introduction of the Cartesian philosophy, has been throughout (notwithstanding its singularly chequered history), the chief home of the higher Swedish education. In the 18th century lectures began to be delivered in Swedish; while the medieval division of the students into “nations” continued, as at Lund, until the second quarter of the 19th. The various changes and events during the interesting period 1872 to 1897 have been recorded at length in the national tongue by Reinhold Geijer in a handsome quarto which appeared in 1897. Gothenburg, on the other hand, with its society of science and literature, dating from 1841, has represented rather a popular institution, existing independently of the state, maintained chiefly by private contributions, and governed by a board called the Curatorium. For a long time it was not empowered to hold examinations. Stockholm (1878) still remains a gymnasium, but its curriculum is to a certain extent supplemented by its connexion with Upsala, from which it is little more than forty miles distant by rail. The university of Christiania in Norway, founded in 1811, Christiania. and the Swedish universities are strongly Lutheran in character; and all alike are closely associated with the ecclesiastical institutions of the Scandinavian kingdoms. The same observation applies to Copenhagen—where, however, the labours of Rask and Madvig have done much to sustain the reputation of the university for learning. Kiel. The royal university of Kiel was founded in 1665 by Duke Christian Albrecht of Holstein (who himself assumed the office of rector) with faculties of theology, law, medicine and philosophy. It maintained its ground, although not without difficulty, amid the feuds that frequently arose between its dukes and the kings of Denmark, and under the rule of Catherine II. of Russia and after the incorporation of Schleswig-Holstein with the kingdom of Denmark made a marked advance. In the latter half of last century it acquired new buildings and rose into high reputation as a school of chemistry, physiology and anatomy, while its library in 1904 exceeded 250,000 volumes.
The number of universities founded in the last century is in striking contrast to the paucity which characterizes the two preceding centuries, an increase largely resulting, however, from the needs of English colonies and dependencies. In the Genoa. Messina. Marseilles. Mediterranean, Genoa (1812), Messina (1838) and Marseilles (1854) were foundations which supplied a genuine want and have gradually attained to a fair measure of success. The first had previously existed a school of law and medicine, but when, along with the rest of the Ligurian republic, it became incorporated in the empire under Napoleon I., the emperor, in order to conciliate the population, raised it to the rank of a university in 1812. The university subsequently fell into the hands of the Jesuits, who maintained their tenure of the principal chairs until the unification of the Italian kingdom under Victor Emmanuel, when Messina, which had been founded during the rule of the Bourbons over the Two Sicilies, became similarly included under Italian rule. Of Marseilles mention has above been made.
In France the fortunes of academic learning were even less happy than in Germany. The university of Dôle in Franche Dôle. Comté had for two hundred years been a flourishing centre of higher education for the aristocracy, and was consequently regarded with envy by Besançon. In 1691, however, when the country had been finally ceded to France, and Savoy had been subjugated by the arms of Catina, Louis XIV. was induced, on the payment of a considerable sum, to transfer the university to Besançon. Here it forthwith acquired enhanced importance under the direction of the Jesuits. But Dijon. in 1722, on the creation of a university at Dijon, the faculty of law was removed to that city, where it continued to exist until the Revolution.
The university of Paris indeed was distracted, throughout the 17th century, by theological dissensions—in the first University of Paris from the 17th century. instance owing to the struggle that ensued after the Jesuits had effected a footing at the Collège de Clermont, and subsequently by the strife occasioned by Paris 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 succession of illustrious names—Pourchot, Rollin, Grenan, Coffin, Demontempuys, Crevier, Lebeau—appear on the roll of its teachers. But this improvement was soon interrupted by the controversies excited by the promulgation of the bull Unigenitus in 1713, condemning the tenets of Quesnel, when Rollin himself, although a man of singularly 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 disposal of the university, and this was immediately followed by another for the expulsion of the order from Paris, the university being installed in possession of their vacated premises. Concurrently with this measure, the curriculum of prescribed studies assumed a more hopeful character, and both history and natural science began to be cultivated with a certain success. These innovations, however, were soon lost sight of in the more sweeping changes which followed upon the Revolution. On the 15th of September 1793 the universities and colleges throughout France, together with the faculties of theology, medicine, jurisprudence and arts, were abolished by a decree of the convention, and the whole system of national education may be said to have remained in abeyance, until, in 1808, Napoleon I. promulgated the scheme which in its essential features is almost identical with that which at present obtains—the whole system of education, both secondary and primary, being made subject to the control and direction of the state. In pursuance of this conception, the “university of France,” as it was henceforth styled, became little more ​than an abstract term signifying collectively the various centres of professional education in their new relations to the state. All France was divided into seventeen districts, designated “academies,” each administered by its own rector and council, but subject to the supreme authority of the minister of public instruction, and representing certain faculties which varied at different centres in conformity with the new scheme of distribution for the entire country.
While, accordingly, three new “academies”—those of Lille, Lyons and Rennes—date their commencement from 1808, Lille, Lyons and Rennes. many of the pre-existing centres were completely suppressed. In some cases, however, the effacement of an ancient institution was avoided by investing it with new importance, as at Grenoble; in others, the vacated premises were appropriated to new uses connected with the department, as at Avignon, Cahors and Perpignan. Each rector of an “academy” was also constituted president of a local conseil d'enseignement, in conjunction with which he nominated the professors of lycées and the communal schoolmasters, these appointments being subsequently ratified by a promotion committee sitting in Paris. In 1895, however, Institution of “free faculties.” the government was prevailed upon to sanction the institution of certain “free faculties,” as they were termed, to be placed under the direction of the bishop, and depending for support upon voluntary contributions, and each including a faculty of theology. The faculty at Marseilles, on the other hand, which originated in an earlier “faculty of sciences” founded in 1854, was now called upon to share the governmental grant with Aix, and the two centres Aix-Marseille. became known as the Académie d'Aix-Marseille—the faculties in the latter being restricted to mathematics and natural science (including a medical school), while faculties of law and philosophy were fixed at Aix, which possesses also the university library properly so termed. In the capital itself, the university of Paris, and the École Pratique des Hautes Études carried on the work of higher instruction independently of each other—the former with faculties of Protestant theology, law, medicine, science, letters and chemistry distributed over the Quartier Latin; the latter with schools of mathematics, natural science, history, philology, and history of religions centred at the Sorbonne.
The Collège de France, founded in the 16th century by Francis I., was from the first regarded with hostility both Collège de France. by the university and by the Sorbonne. It became, however, so highly esteemed as a school of gratuitous instruction in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, that it not only held its ground, but at the Revolution ultimately survived alike the universities and their hostility. As reconstituted in 1831 it became chiefly known as an institution for the instruction of adults, and its staff of professors, some fifty in number (including their deputies), has comprised from time to time the names of not a few of the most distinguished scholars Strassburg. and men of science in the country. The university of Strassburg, which in the latter part of the 18th century had 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 revived in 1804 as a Protestant “academy,” but four years later incorporated in the newly created “academy ” of Nancy, with a faculty of Protestant theology which lasted only until 1818.
In Switzerland the universities shared in the conflicts handed down from the days when the Helvetic republic had been Switzerland. first created, and each with somewhat similar experiences. In 1832, Basel having joined the Sarner Bund or League of the Catholic Cantons, the Confederates divided the canton into two, and agreed to raise the flourishing Hochschule which already existed at Zürich to the Zürich. rank of a university—a measure which may be said to mark a turning-point in the history of the higher education of the republic. In 1839, however, the teaching of D. F. Strauss, who had been installed in the chair of theology at Zürich soon after his expulsion from Tübingen, gave rise to a popular demonstration which not only brought about the overthrow of the governing body, but placed the existence of the university itself in jeopardy. But the storm was successfully weathered, and in 1859 the statutes were revised and a considerable addition made to the professoriate. The gymnasium Bern. of Bern, originally established under the teaching of Ulrich Zwingli, developed in 1834 into a university with all the faculties, those of medicine and philosophy rising with the advance of the century into high repute. Lausanne. As early as 1586 Lausanne had been a noted school for the education of Protestant ministers, but it was not until 1806 that chairs of philosophy and law were established, to which those of natural science and literature were added in 1836, and, somewhat later, that of medicine. It was not, however, until 1891 that Lausanne was formally constituted Geneva. a university. At Geneva the famous academy of the 16th and 17th centuries, long distinguished as Geneva a centre of Calvinistic teaching, became merged in 1876 in a university, where the instruction (given mainly in the French language) was carried on by a staff of forty-one professors. With this was also incorporated an earlier school of science, in which De Saussure and De Candolle had once been teachers. Fribourg. Fribourg, founded in 1889 as university of the canton so named, began with only two faculties—those of law and philosophy, to which one of theology was added in the following year. A certain spirit of innovation characterized most of the Swiss universities at this time, especially in connexion with female education. At Zürich, in 1872 (and somewhat later at Geneva and Bern), women were admitted to the lectures, and in 1892 were permitted themselves to lecture, a lady, Frau Dr Emilie Kempin, succeeding to the chair of Roman law. At Fribourg the proposition was first brought forward that all professors should be appointed only for a specified period, a limitation which along with other questions affecting the professorial body gave rise to much divergence of opinion.
In Spain the act of 1857 introduced a radical change similar to that in France, the whole system of education being placed under the responsible control of the minister for that department, while the entire kingdom was at the same time divided into ten university districts—Madrid, Barcelona, Granada, Oviedo, Salamanca, Santiago, Seville, Valencia, Valladolid and Saragossa—the rector of the universities in each district representing the chief authority. The degrees to be conferred at Spain and Portugal. each were those of bachelor, licentiate and doctor. Each university received a rector of its own, selected by the government from among the professors, and a precise plan of instruction was prescribed in which every hour had its appointed lecturer and subject. Philosophy, natural science, law and medicine were to be studied at all these universities, and at the majority a school of chemistry was subsequently instituted, except at Oviedo, which was limited to a faculty of law and a school for notaries. But at Salamanca, Valladolid, Seville and Saragossa no school of chemistry was instituted, and at the first three that of medicine ultimately died out. No provision was made for instruction in theology, this being relegated to the seminaries in the episcopal cities. The university of Manila in the Philippines was opened in 1601 as a school for the nobility, and ten years later the famous college of St Thomas was founded by the Dominican order; but it was not until 1857 that the university, properly speaking, Coimbra. was founded by royal Spanish decree. In Portugal, Coimbra, which narrowly escaped suppression in the 16th century and was removed from 1380 to 1537 to Lisbon, has long been 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. Of its five faculties, theology, jurisprudence, medicine, mathematics and philosophy, that of law is by far the most flourishing, the number of students in this faculty nearly equalling the aggregate of all the rest. In 1772 the university received new statutes and was to a great extent reorganized. There is a valuable library, largely composed of collections formerly belonging to suppressed convents. As a school of theology Coimbra has always been distinctly anti-ultramontane.
In Italy, as in Spain, education for the church has been relegated almost entirely to the numerous “seminaries,” where it Italy. is of an almost entirely elementary character. In 1875 a laudable effort was made by R. 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 system as those of the German Empire, present no especially Austria-Hungary. Vienna. noteworthy features, except that the sphere of the functions of a rector corresponds precisely with that of the rector in those German universities which have no curator, and the faculties are represented by the ordinary professors as a body along with two representatives of the “Privatdozents.” Vienna has long been chiefly distinguished for its school of 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 last 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 university of Olmütz, founded in 1581, was formerly in possession of what is Olmütz. 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 Styria, was founded in 1586, Graz. Salzburg. Lemberg. and has long been one of the most flourishing centres, with nearly 2000 students, chiefly in law and philosophy. The university of Salzburg, founded in 1623, was suppressed in 1810; that of Lemberg, founded in 1784 by the Emperor Joseph II., was removed in 1805 to Cracow and united to that university. In 1816 it was opened on an independent 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 almost entirely destroyed. The most recent foundation is that of Czernowitz. Czernowitz (1875), with faculties of theology (Greek Church), law and political economy, and philosophy. The universities of the Hungarian kingdom are three in number:—Budapest, originally founded at Tyrnau in 1635 Budapest. under the auspices of the Jesuits, now possessing four faculties—theology, jurisprudence, medicine and philosophy (number of professors in 1903, 180; students, 3223); Kolozsvar (Klausenburg), the chief Magyar centre, founded in 1872 and also comprising four faculties, but where Klausenburg. Agram. mathematics and natural science supply the place of theology; Zágráb (Agram), the Slovack university, in Croatia, originally founded by Maria Theresa in 1776 from some suppressed schools of the Jesuits, and reopened in 1874 with three faculties, viz. jurisprudence, theology and philosophy. The chief centre of Protestant Debreczen. education is the college at Debreczen, founded in 1531, which in past times was not infrequently subsidized from England. It has faculties of law and theology, courses of instruction in philosophy, and a school for teachers, and possesses a fine library.
In Japan there are two imperial universities—Tokyo (1868) and Kioto (1897)—the former representing the union of two pre-existing foundations, on which occasion it was placed under the control of the minister of instruction with yearly grants Japan. from the treasury. The ordinary course of studies was limited to three years, that of medicine being extended to four. Kioto was formed out of four previously existing colleges of law, medicine, science and engineering.
The “National University” of Athens (founded May 22, 1837) was modelled on the university systems of northern Athens. Germany, on a plan originally devised by Professor Brandis. It originally included only four faculties, viz. theology, jurisprudence, medicine and philosophy, to which one of applied mathematics was subsequently added.
In European Turkey the university of Jassy (1860) in Rumania was founded by its ruler, Prince Cuza, and together with the Turkey and Bulgaria. newly founded university of Bucharest received its completed organization in 1864. Both were constituted state institutions and were represented in the senate, although not receiving any fixed revenues from the government. Its students are instructed and examined gratuitously. In the university of Sophia (1888) in Bulgaria, faculties were established, in the course of the ensuing four years, of history, philology, physics, mathematics and jurisprudence, the main object in view being the training of competent teachers of schools and of lawyers, and affording them the means of gaining an intelligent insight into the real wants of the native population. The university of Constantinople was founded in 1900 at the jubilee festival in honour of the sultan's succession to the throne. It included five faculties and was placed under the control of a director and sub-director, the former being invested with authority over teachers and scholars alike.
The history of the two English universities during the 16th and following centuries has presented, for the most part, features The English universities since the medieval period. 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 those which distracted the Protestant universities of Germany.
The influence of the Renaissance, and the teaching of Erasmus, who resided for some time at both universities, exercised a Influence of the Renaissance. 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 The Reformation at Cambridge. university became a centre of Reformation doctrine some years before the writings of Luther became known in England. The foundation of Christ's College (1505) tion at and St John's College (1511), 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 1547 (partly by an amalgamation of two older societies), represents the earliest conception of such an institution in England in complete independence 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 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 Puritanism at Cambridge. 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 university and ordinary college statutes—especially the wearing of the cap and the surplice and the conferring of degrees in divinity. The Anglican Elizabethan statutes of 1570. party, headed by such men as Whitgift and Bancroft, resorted in defence to a 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 discipline of which was further developed in the Laudian or Caroline statutes of 1636. It was under these Laudian statues of 1636. respective codes—the Elizabethan statutes of 1570 and the Laudian statutes of 1636—that the two universities were governed until the introduction of the new codes of 1858. The fidelity with which both universities adhered to the royal cause in the Civil War caused them to be regarded with suspicion by the Puritan party, and under the Commonwealth both Oxford and Cambridge were for a brief period in great danger owing to the distrust, which culminated among the members of the “Nominated Parliament” (July-December 1653), of university education generally, as tending to foster contentiousness with respect to religious belief. It was even proposed by William Dell—himself the master of Caius College—to abolish the two universities altogether, as hopelessly pledged to antiquated and obsolete methods, and to establish in their place schools for the higher instruction throughout the country. They were saved, however, by the firmness of Cromwell, at that time chancellor of Oxford, and, although Aristotle and the scholastic philosophy no longer held their ground, a marked improvement was observable both in discipline and morality among the students, and the prescribed studies were assiduously pursued. At Oxford, under the influence and teaching of Dr Wilkins, Seth Ward and John Wallis, a flourishing school of mathematics was formed at a time when the study had died out at Cambridge.
After the Restoration Cambridge became the centre of a remarkable movement (a reflex of the influence of the Cartesian The Cambridge Platonist movement., which attracted for a time considerable attention. Its leaders, known as the Cambridge 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 Newtonian philosophy. speculative doctrines. The spread of the Baconian philosophy, and the example of a succession of eminent scientific thinkers, among whom were Isaac Barrow, master of Trinity (1673-77), the two Lucasian professors, Isaac Newton (prof. 1669-1702) and his successor William Whiston (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 institution 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 the study had in turn declined, and where the statutable requirements with respect to lectures and exercises were suffered to fall into neglect, the degeneracy of the whole community as a school of academic culture is attested by evidence too emphatic to be gainsaid. The moral tone at both universities Methodism. was at this time singularly low; and the rise of Methodism as associated 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 next century, however, a perceptible change Simeonism. Tractarianism. took place. The labours of Charles Simeon at Cambridge, in connexion with the Evangelical party, and the far more celebrated movement known as Tractarianism, at Oxford, exercised 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 the study of the classics was raised in 1824 to the dignity of a new tripos. The number of the students at both universities increased, the matriculations at each rising to over four hundred. Further schemes of improvement were put forward and discussed. And in 1850 it was decided by the government to appoint commissioners to inquire what additional reforms might advantageously Reforms of 1858. be introduced. Their recommendations were not 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 medieval 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 were 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.”
In 1869 a statute was enacted at Cambridge admitting Admission of non-collegiate students. students as members of the university without making it imperative that they should be entered at any hall or college, but simply be resident either with their parents or in duly licensed lodgings.
The entire abolition of tests followed next. After Abolition of tests. being rejected on several occasions in parliament it was eventually carried as a government measure, and passed the House of Lords in 1871.
In 1877 the reports of two new commissions were followed by further changes, the chief features of which were the Reforms of 1877. 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 exceptions) of all clerical restrictions on headships or fellowships; and the limitation of fellowships to a uniform amount.
That these successive and fundamental changes were on the whole in unison with the national wishes and requirements may fairly be inferred from the remarkable increase in numbers at both universities, especially at Cambridge, where the number of undergraduates, which in 1862 was 1526, rose in 1887 to 2979. In the academic year 1862-63 the number of matriculations was 448, and in 1906-7 1083. The following universities Affiliated universities and colleges. and colleges, twenty-two in number, have since, in the order of their enumeration, sought and received the privilege of affiliation: University College, Nottingham; university of Sheffield; university of Adelaide; St David's College, Lampeter; university of Calcutta; university college of Wales, Aberystwyth; university of New Zealand; university of the Cape of Good Hope; university of Allahabad; Punjab University; university of Bombay; university of Toronto; St Edmund's College, Ware; university of Madras; university of Sydney; M‘Gill University, Montreal; university of Tasmania; university of New Brunswick; Hartley University ​College, Southampton; University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Cardiff; university of King's College, Windsor, Nova Scotia; university of Queen's College, Kingston, Ontario.
The changes introduced by the legislation of 1877 have been gradually carried out as the occurrence of vacancies in the colleges has made possible the appropriation of portions of their revenue for the foundation of professorships and other university purposes, though in some cases the intentions of the commissioners have been frustrated by the effects of agricultural depression upon college revenues. The general effect of the revolution has been a marked diminution in the clerical character of the college teaching bodies, the conversion of the college Further changes at Oxford and Cambridge. teaching staff from a temporary employment for bachelors awaiting livings or other preferment into a permanent profession, and the growth of a resident and working university professoriate. At the same time a change of almost equal significance has taken place in the teaching system of the university through the gradual growth of “inter-collegiate lectures.” At Oxford nearly all honour lectures given by college tutors and lecturers have been thrown open to all members of the university: the college tutor is now recognized by the university as a teacher in the faculty to which he belongs, and the institution of boards of faculties has done something to bring the organization of the university into harmony with that of universities outside the British Isles. At Cambridge the system of inter-collegiate lectures has also developed itself, but to a considerably smaller extent. At both the old English universities the great widening of the courses of study open to senior students (honour men), which began about the middle of the 19th century, has been continued, while there has been some widening and modernizing of the studies by which a pass or “poll” degree can be obtained. At Oxford there are now the following “Final Honour Schools”: Litterae Humaniores (Classics, Ancient History and Philosophy), Mathematics, Natural Science, Iurisprudence, Modern History, Theology, Oriental Languages, English Literature; and at Cambridge there are the following “Triposes”: Mathematics, Classics, Moral Sciences, Natural Sciences, Theology, Law, History, Oriental Languages, Medieval and Modern Languages, Mechanical Sciences (Engineering). Degrees in letters and science have also been instituted at both Oxford and Cambridge. The doctorate is given for original work. At Oxford the B.Litt. and B.Sc. can be taken by dissertation or original research, without passing the examination for B.A. At Cambridge the B.A. can be obtained in a similar manner by advanced students.
The strenuous efforts of both universities fully to meet the constantly increasing requirements of scientific education have necessitated appeals for public aid which have met with much generous response. Among the latest instances is that of the late Sir W. G. Pearce, who appointed to Trinity College, Cambridge, a certain trust fund over which he had a general power of appointment, and also bequeathed to the society the residue of a considerable estate.
So long ago as the year 1640 an endeavour had been made to bring about the foundation of a northern university for the Durham. 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), endowing 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, &c.” 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 establishment 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 College, 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, &c. 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 (subsequently designated Armstrong College), designed to teach scientific principles in their application to engineering, mining, manufactures and agriculture. Students who had passed the required examinations were made admissible as associates in physical science of the university. There is also at Newcastle the College of Medicine which stands in similar relations to Durham, of which university Codrington 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 University of London. 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 denominations, including (besides those above mentioned) Zachary Macaulay, George Grote, James Mill, William Tooke, Lord Dudley and Ward, Dr Olinthus Gregory, Lord Lansdowne, Lord John Russell and the duke of Norfolk. On 11th 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 foundation 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 meantime 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 dissociating such an institution from the national church. This feeling found expression in the foundation and ​incorporation 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 Christianity, 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 university 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 distinction 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 movement for the higher education of women which had been initiated elsewhere, and in 1880 women were for the first time admitted to degrees.
By the University of London Act 1898, and the statutes of the commissioners named therein (issued in 1900), the university of London was reconstituted. The senate is composed of the chancellor and fifty-four members, of whom four are appointed by the king in council, sixteen by the convocation (i.e. doctors and proctors) of the university, sixteen by the various faculties, and the remainder by various public bodies or institutions. The senate is the supreme governing body, and has three standing committees, of which one is the academic council for “internal students,” another the council for “external students” and the third a board to promote the extension of university teaching. Provision is made for the appointment of professors and other teachers by the university itself, and also for the recognition as teachers of professors and others teaching in such institutions in or near London as may be recognized as schools of the university. The following bodies are constituted schools of the university: University College and King's College, London; the Royal Holloway College, Egham, Bedford College, London and Westfield College, Hampstead (colleges for women); the Imperial College of Science and Technology; the medical schools of the principal London hospitals; the London School of Economics and Political Science; the South-Eastern Agricultural College, Wye; the Central Technical College of the City and Guilds of London Institute, and the East London College; and several theological colleges. The “appointed” and “recognized” teachers in each group of subjects form the various faculties of the university. Of these there are eight—theology, arts, law, music, medicine, science, engineering, economics and political science (including commerce and industry). Each faculty elects its dean. Courses of study are to be provided by the university for its “internal” students, i.e. those who pursue their studies in one of the schools of the university. Its degrees remain open to “external” students as heretofore, but separate examinations are in future to be held for “internal” and for “external” students respectively, and the senate is to “provide that the degrees conferred upon both classes of students shall represent, as far as possible, the same standard of knowledge and attainments.” The whole scheme may be described as a compromise between the views of various schools of reformers—as an attempt to create a teaching university without destroying the existing purely examining university or erecting two distinct universities of London, and at the same time, without any immediate endowments, to create a university which might hereafter expand by utilizing existing institutions. One of the most important of these, King's College, it may be observed, has, without losing its connexion with the Church of England, abandoned its theological test for members of its teaching body.
The Owens College, Manchester—so called after a wealthy citizen of that name, to whom it owed its foundation—was The university of Manchester. founded on the 12th of 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; and, for more than a quarter of a century, students desirous of obtaining a university degree availed themselves of the examinations conducted by the university of London. In July 1877, however, a memorial was presented to the privy council petitioning for the grant of a charter whereby the college should be raised to the rank of a university with power to grant degrees. This petition having received a favourable hearing, it was at first decided that the new university should be styled the university of Manchester, and the New University College at Liverpool and the Yorkshire College at Leeds were invited to become affiliated institutions. But before the charter was issued, exception having been taken to the localization implied in the above title, it was resolved that the new institution should be styled the “Victoria University of Manchester,” and under this name the university on the 20th of April 1880 received its charter. Since then, however, not only Liverpool (1881) and Leeds (1904), but the Mason University College at Birmingham (1900) and the University College at Sheffield (1905) have aspired to and attained like independence. The academic authorities at Manchester have accordingly since preferred, in other than legal documents, to revert to the original designation of the “university of Manchester.”
In Scotland the next change to be noted in connexion with the university of St Andrews is the appropriation in 1579 of Changes in universities of Scotland. the two colleges of St Salvator and St Leonard to the faculty of philosophy, and that of St Mary to theology. 1747 an act of parliament was obtained for the union of the two former colleges into one, while in 1880 the university college at Dundee was instituted as a general school both of arts and science in similar connexion. 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 re-establishment of episcopacy, however, involved the alienation of a considerable portion of its revenues, and the consequent suspension of several of its chairs. With the Revolution of 1689 it took a new departure, and several additional chairs were created. In 1864 the old university buildings were sold, and a government grant having been obtained, together with private subscriptions, new buildings were erected from the joint fund. By the act of 1858 important measures were passed in connexion with all the four universities. In Aberdeen, King's College and Marischal College, with their independent powers of conferring degrees, were amalgamated. In Glasgow the distribution of the “nations” was modified in order more nearly to equalize their respective numbers. The right of returning two members of parliament was bestowed on the four universities collectively—one representing Aberdeen in conjunction with Glasgow, the other Edinburgh in conjunction with St Andrews. Other important changes were enacted, which, however, became merged in turn in those resulting from the commission of 1889, whereby, after investigations extending over nearly ten years, a complete transformation was effected of both the organization and the curriculum of each university.
The government was transferred from the senatus to the courts, which were enlarged so as to include representatives from the senatus, the general councils of graduates, and the municipality within which the university is situated. In addition to these representatives, the principal, the lord rector, his assessor, the chancellor's assessor, and the lord provosts of the cities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow, and the provost of St Andrews have seats in the courts of their respective universities. The provost of Dundee occupies a seat in the university court of St Andrews. The lord rector is the president of the court. To the court is entrusted the management of the property and finances, and, in most cases, such patronage ​as does not belong to the crown; but in the case of Edinburgh, the patronage of some of the older chairs is in the hands of a body of curators. Disciplinary powers are retained by the senatus, and the general council remains, as under the act of 1858, a purely advisory body. Another advisory body—the students' representative council—was added by the commission. The curriculum of all the faculties (except divinity) was reorganized: the most important alterations consisted in the abolition of the once sacred six as compulsory subjects in arts (Latin, Greek, Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Logic and Moral Philosophy). The curriculum was greatly widened, an elaborate scheme of “options” introduced, and a new system of honours degrees was established. The length of residence required was reduced from four years to three, and the courts were empowered to institute summer sessions, and to admit women to lectures and degrees in all faculties.
There has been since the act of 1858 a great development of student life, illustrated by the institution of student's unions in all four universities, by the publication of undergraduate magazines, and by the growth, in Edinburgh, of combined residences and settlements.
Parliamentary grants to Scottish universities. All the four universities of Scotland were aided from time to time in the last century by grants from government, and in 1905 received a material addition to their resources by the magnificent donation of £2,000,000 from Mr Carnegie.
Trinity College, Dublin, was founded in 1591, under the auspices of Sir John Perrot, the Irish viceroy. A royal charter nominated a provost and a minimum number of Trinity College, Dublin. 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. The original statutes were mainly the work of Temple, the fourth provost, modified by Bedell, the eminent bishop of Kilmore, and the policy of Laud and Wentworth was to make the college more distinctly Anglican as regards its tone and belief. At the Restoration its condition was found to be that of a well ordered home of learning and piety, with its estates well secured and its privileges unimpaired. Under Bishop Jeremy Taylor, who succeeded to the vice-chancellorship, its progress in learning was considerable, and the statutes underwent a further modification. Prior to the year 1873 the provostship, fellowships and foundation scholarships could be held only by members of the Church of Ireland; but all such restrictions were abolished by Act 36 Vict. c. 21, whereby the requirement of subscription to any article or formulary of faith was finally abrogated.
The first departure from the above exclusive system dates from the creation of the Queen's University, incorporated by Queen's University. royal charter on the 3rd of 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. Royal University of Ireland, which was practically a reconstitution of the former foundation, the dissolution of 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, surgery, obstetrics and law. The preliminary pass examinations in arts were to be held at annually selected centres,—those chosen in 1885 being Dublin, Belfast, Carlow, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Londonderry—all honour examinations, and all examinations in other faculties, in Dublin. The Queen's Colleges at Belfast, Cork and Galway. Colleges at Belfast, Cork and Galway were founded in 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 Roman Catholic institutions. The colleges retained, 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 academic distinctions. In 1907 a scheme was projected by Mr Bryce (then chief secretary for Ireland) for reconstructing the university, University of Dublin. whereby Trinity College was to become merged in a new “University of Dublin,” in which the Queen's Colleges and a new college for Roman Catholics were also to be included. The control of the entire community was to be vested in a board, partly nominated by the crown and partly by the colleges and the general body of students. The scheme, however, was strongly opposed by the Dublin University Defence Committee on the ground that the ideals which had hitherto dominated the aims and teaching of Trinity College were incompatible with a system in which regard for the principle of authority and the repudiation of scientific theorization (as it finds expression in the Index) are leading features. On the other hand, the Irish bishops, while admitting the need for more efficient scientific instruction of the Catholic youth throughout their respective dioceses, declined to give support to measures whereby such students would be attracted into an atmosphere inimical to their religious faith. It was consequently next proposed by the government to establish two new universities—one in Dublin (side by side with Trinity College) and one in Belfast—in which, although no religious tests were to be enforced, it should be tacitly agreed that the former was to be the resort for Catholics, the latter for Presbyterians, Trinity College remaining, as before, the recognized Episcopalian centre. To this considerable exception was taken—the nonconformists, more especially, maintaining that such an arrangement could not fail to be prejudicial to the higher interests of the people by imparting to education a denominational bias which it was most desirable to avoid—and eventually Mr Birrell's measure was brought forward and ultimately adopted, whereby Trinity College has been left intact, but two new universities were created, one in Dublin and one in Belfast, the former involving the erection of another college (towards the expense of which the government was pledged to contribute) and the incorporation of the Queen's Colleges at Cork and Galway; while the college in Belfast was to form the nucleus of the second university. In order further to ensure their representative character, the new university of Dublin had a nominated senate of 36 members, of whom all but seven were to be Roman Catholics; that of Belfast had a similar body, of whom all but one were to be Protestants. In all these new centres there were to be no religious tests either for professors or students. 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 had been abolished at the foundation of the Royal University, the examinations being now open, ​like those of the university of London, to all matriculated students on payment of certain fees.
The university of Wales, which received the royal charter in 1893, incorporated three earlier foundations—the university Wales. colleges of Aberystwyth, Bangor and Cardiff. St David's College at Lampeter was founded in 1822 for the purpose of educating clergymen in the principles of the established Church of England and Wales, mainly for the supply of the Welsh dioceses, but, although affiliated to both Oxford and Cambridge, retained its independence and also the right of conferring the degrees of bachelor of arts and of divinity. Bangor in North Wales, on the other hand, which received its charter in 1885, is designed to “provide instruction in all the branches of a liberal education except theology.”
In India the three older universities all date from 1857—that of Calcutta having been incorporated January 24, Bombay July India. 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 textbooks, 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 languages 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, and the success of the institution was sufficiently demonstrated before the close of the 19th century by the fact that twelve centres of instruction at Lahore and elsewhere had been affiliated. The university of Allahabad was founded in 1887 as an examining university for the united provinces of Agra and Oudh. 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 Cambridge, their students becoming entitled to the remission of one year in the requirements with respect to residence at Cambridge.
If Australia the university of Sydney was incorporated by an act of the colonial legislature which received the royal assent 9th Australasia. December 1851, and on 27th February 1858 a royal charter was granted conferring on graduates of the university the same rank, style and precedence as 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. The design of the university is to supply the means of a liberal education to all orders and denominations, 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 the same year women were first admitted to degrees, and subsequently became an appreciable element, numbering before the close of the 19th century one-fifth of the entire number of students. The university of Melbourne, in the state of Victoria, was incorporated and endowed by royal act on the 22nd of January 1853. This act was amended on the 7th of June 1881. Here also no religious tests are imposed on admission to any degree or election to any office. 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), Ormond College (Presbyterian) and Queen's College (Methodist) were all established in the 19th century. The university of Adelaide in South Australia (founded mainly by the exertions and munificence of Sir Walter Watson Hughes) was incorporated by an act of the colonial legislature in 1874, in which year it was further endowed by Sir Thomas Elder. In 1881 degrees conferred by the university were constituted of equal validity with those of any university of the United Kingdom. The university of Tasmania at Hobart was founded in 1890 by act of parliament as a state university with an annual grant, and was subsequently affiliated both to Oxford and Cambridge.
The university of New Zealand, founded in 1870, and reconstituted in 1874 and 1875, was empowered by royal charter to grant the several degrees of bachelor and master of arts, and bachelor and doctor in law, medicine and music. Women have since been made admissible to degrees. To this university, University College at Auckland, Canterbury College at Christchurch, and the university of Otago at Dunedin have successively been admitted into connexion as affiliated institutions, while the university of New Zealand itself has become affiliated to that of Cambridge. Otago was founded 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 thereby enabled to establish a lectureship in law, and to lay the foundations 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 and to hold in abeyance its power of granting degrees. 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.
Prior to the union of the two provinces of Lower and Upper Canada, the M‘Gill College and University in the former province Canada. had been instituted in Montreal by royal charter in 1821, on the foundation of the Honourable James M‘Gill, who died in that city on the 19th of December 1813. It was designed to be Protestant but undenominational. With this a group of colleges in the same province—the Stanstead Wesleyan, Vancouver, Victoria, and King's—have since become associated as affiliated institutions, as also have the four Protestant colleges in Montreal itself, such affiliation, however, extending no further than the examinations in the faculty of arts. Into similar relation the Université Laval in Quebec, founded as a Catholic university in 1852, was admitted in 1878. Notwithstanding the difficulties presented by divergences of race, Montreal has prospered during the chancellorship of Lord Strathcona, and numbers over 1100 students. The university of Toronto in Upper Canada, or Ontario, was originally established by royal charter in 1827, under the title of King's College, with certain religious restrictions, but in 1834 these restrictions were abolished. In 1849 the designation of the university was changed into that of the university of Toronto, and the faculty of divinity was abolished. In 1853 the university was constituted with two corporations, “the university of Toronto” and “University College,” the latter being restricted to the teaching of subjects in the faculty of arts. 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 law, 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, to granting certificates of proficiency to women, and to affiliating colleges. The whole work of instruction was now assigned to University College, which is maintained out of the endowment of the provincial university, and governed by a council composed of the residents and the professors. Its several chairs include classical literature, logic 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 and French. Trinity College, in the same university, is the Church of England college, founded in 1852 in consequence of the above mentioned suppression of the theological faculty. Other universities and colleges with power to confer degrees are the Dalhousie College at Halifax, which obtained the rights of a university in 1841 and was subsequently organized as such in 1863, with the governor of Nova Scotia as supreme authority; the Victoria University at Cobourg (1836), supported by the Methodist Church of Canada; Queen's University, Kingston (1841).
In South America the beginning of the “national university” of Buenos Aires may be assigned (in the absence of any charter) to about the year 1890. Before the close of the century it had become a flourishing school of law, medicine and the exact sciences, ​with professors in all the faculties and considerably over 2000 students. Monte Video in Uruguay had its origin in a faculty South America. of medicine established in 1876, with courses of study extending over six years. It is here imperative when the diploma is taken by those who are not natives that it should be attested by the consul of their own country. Faculties of law and mathematics were subsequently created, and also a faculty of preparatory studies corresponding with the gymnasium or Realschule of Germany. The new “national university of La Plata” has recently (1905-1908) been opened in the city of that name, under the auspices of the university of Philadelphia. It claims to be the exponent of the most advanced theories in relation to subjects and methods of instruction and to university extension. In the north of the continent the academy at Caracas is little more than a branch of the royal Spanish academy for education in the Spanish language, and is subsidized by the Venezuelan government.
The university of the Cape of Good Hope (see Cape Colony) grants degrees, but is not a teaching institution. An inter-state South Africa. commission, appointed in 1907, recommended the establishment of a Federal University for South Africa with constituent colleges. While the colleges would possess freedom in management and teaching, it was recommended that the university should test all candidates seeking admission to the colleges and for the final examinations for degrees, &c. At the opening of the first Union parliament in November 1910 the ministry announced that a scheme for a national South African University would be submitted. It was also announced that the Beit bequest of £200,000 for a university at Johannesburg (q.v.) would be diverted towards the creation of a teaching university at Groote Schuur, and that Sir Julius Wernher would make a donation towards it of £300,000.
In 1903 a highly influential conference was held at Burlington House to promote closer relations between British and colonial universities, the sittings being presided over by Mr Bryce, Lord Strathcona and Sir Gilbert Parker. The conference held that Great Britain should help the colonial universities to co-operate one with another, and increase their own efficiency by combination and specialization.  (J. B. M.)
Universities in the United States.
In the United States the word “university” has been applied to institutions of the most diverse character, and it is only since 1880 or thereabouts that an effort has been seriously made to distinguish between collegiate and university instruction; nor has that effort yet completely succeeded. Harvard, William and Mary, and Yale, the three pioneers of colonial times, were organized in the days of colonial poverty, on the plans of the English colleges which constitute the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Graduates of Harvard and Yale carried these British traditions to other places, and similar colleges grew up in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, and later in many other Origins. states. The underlying principle in these institutions was discipline—mental, moral and religious. Dormitories and commons were provided, and attendance upon religious worship in the chapel was enforced. Harvard and Yale were the children of the Congregational churches, Columbia was fostered by the Episcopalians, Princeton by the Presbyterians, Rutgers by the Dutch Reformed and Brown by the Baptists. Around or near these nuclei, during the course of the 19th century, one or more professional schools were frequently attached, and so the word “university ” was naturally applied to a group of schools associated more or less closely with a central school or “college.” Harvard, for example, most comprehensive of all, has seventeen distinct departments, and Yale has almost as many. Columbia and Pennsylvania have a similar scope. In the latter part of the 19th century Yale, Columbia, Princeton and Brown, in recognition of their enlargement, formally changed their titles from colleges to universities. The ecclesiastical, or religious, note was a strong characteristic of these foundations. Protestant evangelical doctrines were taught with authority, especially among the undergraduates, who were spoken of as constituting “the college proper.” In the oldest and largest colleges this denominational influence has ceased to have the importance it once possessed.
Noteworthy innovations came when Thomas Jefferson, the philosophical statesman, returned to the United States from France, emancipated from some of the narrow views by which his countrymen were bound. He led the Virginians to establish, on a new plan, the university of Virginia as a child of the state; and the freshness of his advice, the importation of distinguished foreign teachers, and the freedom of the student from an enforced curriculum awakened admiration and emulation on the one hand, and animadversion on the other. But this university unquestionably led to broad conceptions of academic work, which appeared foreign and even questionable, if not irreligious, to the colonial universities already mentioned, although many of the features which were then regarded as doubtful peculiarities are now familiar everywhere. Following Virginia's example, many of the new states in the West established state universities, most of which included a central college of the colonial type and afterwards one or more professional schools. Freedom from ecclesiastical control is found in all the foundations that make up this second group—the state universities. Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and California present distinguished examples of such organizations. In earlier days, Maryland, North and South Carolina, Georgia and other states of the South had anticipated in a limited way the state support of higher education which was made so conspicuous in Virginia. In their plans of education, intellectual and moral, they adhered closely to the college methods which the Northern institutions had introduced from English antecedents. Since 1865 another class of universities has arisen, quite distinct from the colonial establishments and from the wards of the state. These are independent foundations due to individual generosity. The gifts of Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Rockefeller (University of Chicago), Tulane, De Pauw, Clark and Leland Stanford have brought into being universities which have no dependence upon state control, and when a denominational character is assured this fact is not made prominent.
Thus, looking at their origin, we see three impulses given to American high schools, from churches, states and individuals. It is true that all receive from the state some degree of authority as in corporations, but this authority is so easily obtained that in a single city there may be, and in some places there are, several incorporations authorized to bestow degrees and to bear the name of universities. A foreigner cannot understand nor can an American justify this anomaly. The most that can be said for it is that there is complete freedom of organization, and that the best, and only the best, are likely to survive. Another influence, proceeding from the national government, must also be borne in mind. During the Civil War, Congress, led by Senator Morrill of Vermont, bestowed upon every state a certain portion of the public domain in the Far West—“land-scrip,” as it was called—the proceeds of its sale to be devoted to the establishment and maintenance of one or more colleges in each state, where instruction should be given in agriculture and the mechanic arts, not excluding liberal studies, and including military tactics. In some states this bounty was directed to existing universities. New departments were organized in old institutions. Elsewhere new institutions were created. While all these schools were regarded as practical and technical at the first, most of them as they developed became liberal and scientific; and when Congress made later large appropriations for “experiment stations” in the sciences relating to agriculture, an impulse of the most valuable character was given to many departments of scientific research.
This sketch would not be complete without the mention of two foundations, each unique. The Catholic University in Washington has been created by the pope, and in its government the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church is made dominant. Already the Roman Catholics had established, especially under the charge of the Jesuit fathers and of the Sulpicians, excellent colleges for liberal education, as well as schools of theology; but the newer metropolitan university was distinctly organized on a broader plan, in closer accordance with the universities of continental Europe, and with a pronounced recognition of the importance of science. The university of the State of New York is a supervisory (not a teaching) ​body exercising a general control over all the schools of higher instruction in the state, and especially guarding the conditions upon which degrees are conferred.
The interior organization of these institutions may now be considered. Some of them have but one department, the philosophical, which includes the liberal arts and sciences; others have two, three or many correlated departments. Clark University, for example, has but one faculty, the philosophical; Harvard, as already stated, has many departments, including philosophy, law, medicine and theology. So has Yale. Princeton has four. Johns Hopkins has two, the philosophical and the medical. In most American universities a sharp Organization. distinction is made between undergraduates and graduates, between those who are candidates for the baccalaureate degree (A.B., S.B., and Ph.B.) and those who are engaged in higher professional study, like law, medicine and theology, or in the manifold branches of modern science, like philology, historical and political science (including economics), philosophy (including logic, ethics and psychology), mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, &c. In certain places, as at Johns Hopkins, since 1876, emphasis is given to the idea that college instruction is disciplinary, requiring definite, but not uniform methods, and a certain deference to the authority of a master; while university instruction is much freer, and the scholar is encouraged to inquire rather than to accept; to test and observe rather than to hear and recite; to walk with a friendly guide rather than to obey a commander. This distinction is not universally recognized. Indeed, it has been made but recently in American institutions, so that older men are often heard asking, “What is the difference between a college and a university?” But generally it is admitted that college training is one thing, and work in a university is another; that thorough instruction in language, history, mathematics, natural and physical sciences, and in morals, should precede the discipline of professional schools and the pursuit of the higher and more advanced studies in letters and science. In a complete university provision should be made, according to ancient and widespread usages, for the study of law, medicine and theology; but unfortunately the development of such schools in the United States has been fettered by narrow conditions. The schools of theology, with rare exceptions, are under denominational control; and so established is this usage, that in the state universities, and in most of the private foundations (Chicago being an exception), theological departments are not encouraged, because of the dread of religious rivalries and dogmatism. Until recently there have been no Professional schools. endowments for medical schools to any adequate extent, and consequently the fees paid by students have been distributed among the teachers, who have usually been the real managers of the institution although acting under the name of some university. It is nearly the same in law. There are many indications that changes are at hand in these particulars. Theological schools make their denominational characteristics less pronounced, and the old colleges no longer speak of the schools of law and medicine as “outside” departments. The rapid growth of the physical and natural sciences during the 19th century, and the extension of scientific methods of inquiry and verification to subjects which were formerly taught by the traditional methods of authority, have led to the development of laboratories and libraries. Everywhere special buildings, well equipped with the latest and best apparatus, are springing up, where the students of chemistry, physics, biology (in its numerous sub-departments—bacteriology among them) and electricity have every facility for study and research. The introduction of laboratories for psychology is specially noteworthy. Pathological laboratories have become essential in schools of medicine.
Libraries are—as they always have been and always will be—storehouses where the books and manuscripts of the past are preserved; but in American universities they have taken on another characteristic. Subdivided into special departments, or supplemented by fresh additions, they are the working-rooms of “seminaries,” where capable teachers, surrounded by scholars properly qualified, are engaged in teaching, studying and writing. Seminaries and laboratories distinguish the modern philosophical departments from those of old, where the lecture-room was the seat of instruction. Numerous memoirs and monographs proceed from this active life. Books, periodicals and dissertations are contributions to the advancement of knowledge. Two agencies have effected these changes, most of which are the product of the last quarter of the 19th century. In the first place, gifts for higher education have been munificent, sometimes, especially in the East, from private citizens—often, especially in the West, from the treasuries of separate states. Quite as important has been the growth of liberal ideas. Very many of the foremost professors in American universities are the scholars of European teachers, especially Germans. Candidates for professorships are resuming the usages which prevailed early in the 19th century, of studying in France and Great Britain. On their return it is essential that they should keep themselves familiar with the latest literature in their departments, whatsoever may be the language in which it appears. Hence the American universities are no longer provincial. They must be judged, for better or for worse, by the standard of universities established in Europe. The bestowal of academic degrees ought to be strictly governed by some recognized authority, and according to ancient usages it is one of the highest functions of a university. In the United States there is but little restraint proceeding from law, tradition or public opinion. Every “college” is at liberty to exercise this privilege. Hence the variety of academic titles that have been introduced; hence, also, occasional and scandalous frauds in the issue of diplomas. The best institutions exercise due diligence; the public may be protected by requiring that every one who claims the privileges of his degree, or who appends to his name the usual abbreviations indicative of professional or academic authority, should make it clear where, when and how he received his title.
The institutions in the United States which claim to be universities, in the world-wide use of that designation, recognize these principles and, so far as their means allow, adhere to these methods: 1. There is a disciplinary stage in education which is the requisite introduction to the higher and freer work of the university. This is the sphere of the colleges. 2. The success of the higher work depends upon the intellectual and moral qualities of the professors. No amount of material prosperity is of value unless the dominant authorities are able to discover, secure and retain as teachers men of rare gifts, resolute will, superior training and an indomitable love of learning. 3. The professors in a university should be free from all pecuniary anxiety, so that their lives may be consecrated to their several callings. Pensions should be given them in cases of disability, and, in case of premature death, to their families. In methods of instruction they should have as large an amount of freedom as may be consistent with due regard for the co-operation of their colleagues and the plans of the foundation. 4. The steady improvement of the libraries and laboratories is essential if the institution is to keep in the front line. The newest books and the best apparatus are indispensable, for instruments and books quickly deteriorate and must be superseded. 5. For all these outlays large endowments are required. To a considerable extent reliance must be placed on wealthy and public-spirited citizens. In order to enlist such support, the members of a faculty should manifest their interest in public affairs, and by books, lectures and addresses should inform the public and interest them in the progress of knowledge. 6. Publication is one of the duties of a professor. He owes it not only to his reputation but also to his science, to his colleagues, to the public, to put together and set forth, for the information and criticism of the world, the results of his inquiries, discoveries, reflections and investigations. Qualified students should also be encouraged, under his guidance, to print and publish their dissertations.
Closely associated with the development of the university idea since 1875 is the improvement of the American college. College improvements. Complaints are often made that the number of colleges is too large, and it is undoubtedly true that some institutions, inferior to city high schools, have usurped the names, the forms and some of the functions that should be restricted to establishments with larger endowments and better facilities for the promotion of scholarship; but while this is admitted, the great benefits which have resulted ​from the recognition, far and wide over the vast domain of the United States, of the value of higher education must not be forgotten. The support of churches of every name and the gifts of states, cities and private citizens, have been everywhere enlisted in behalf of learning. In every college worthy of the name, mathematics, ancient and modern languages, and the elements at least of modern science, are taught. More or less choice is permitted in the courses requisite to a bachelor’s degree. Moral and religious influences are brought to bear on the formation of character. All this is favourable to the enlightenment of the people, and excuses, if it does not justify, the multiplication which is so often deprecated. The establishment of colleges for women, fully equal to the colleges for men, and in many places the admission of women to colleges and universities not originally intended for women, is one of the most noteworthy of the advances in higher education. Opinions are still divided in respect of the widssdom of co-education, especially in the undergraduate period, but there is no longer any question as to the wisdom of giving to women the very best opportunities for intellectual culture; while the success that women have shown in the pursuit of many branches of science has led in many universities to their admission to the established laboratories and lecture-rooms. Separate colleges for women are now maintained in close connexion with Harvard, Columbia, Tulane and other institutions, and this mode, of procedure seems likely to be introduced elsewhere. At the same time, independent foundations like Vassar, Smith, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr and Goucher are supported with so much vigour, and with such able faculties, that it is not easy to say which organization is the best, and indeed there is no occasion to raise the question. In the Western universities generally, as in Michigan, Wisconsin, California, Chicago, &c., women are admitted to all courses on the same terms as men.  (D. C. G.)
Authorities.—On the earlier history and organization of the medieval universities, the student should consult F. C. von Savigny, Gesch. d. römischen Rechts im Mittelalter (7 vols., 1826–51); for the university of Paris, Du Boulay, Historia Universitatis Parisiensis (6 vols., Paris, 1665); Crevier, Hist. de l’université de Paris (7 vols., Paris, 1761); and C. Jourdain, Hist. de l’université de Paris au XVII $^e$ et au XVIII $^e$ siècle (Paris, 1862), and also articles on special points in the same writer’s Excursions historiques (1888).
The work of Du Boulay (Bulaeus) 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 former. The views of Du Boulay have been challenged on many important points by P. H. Denifle in the first volume of his Die Universitäten des Mittelalters bis 1400 (1885), and more particularly on those relating to the organization of the early universities. The results of Denifle’s researches have been largely incorporated in Mr Rashdall’s Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages (2 vols., Oxford, 1895), especially in connexion with the origines of Paris, Oxford and Cambridge; and the earlier works of Meiners, Gesch. d. Entstehung und Entwickelung der hohen Schulen (4 vols., 1802–5); and T. A. Huber, Die englischen Universitäten (Cassel, 1839–40), translation by F. W. Newman (3 vols., 1845), are thus to a great extent superseded. Much useful criticism on the comparative merits of the German and the English universities prior to the 19th century is to be found in the Discussions (1853) of Sir W. Hamilton. For the German universities exclusively, Zarncke’s Die deutschen Universitäten im Mittelalter (Leipzig, 1857); Heinrich von Sybel, Die deutschen Universitäten (2nd ed., 1874); and Georg Kaufmann’s Gesch. der deutschen Universitäten (2 vols.), are indispensable. Of the latter, vol. i. (1888) treats of the origines; vol. ii. (1896) carries the subject to the end of the middle ages, dealing generally with the history of academic institutions rather than the details of separate universities. Georg Voigt’s Die Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums (2 vols., 1880–81) throws much light on the history of both Italian and German scholarship at the time of the Renaissance, and supplies a useful bibliography. The work of Professor Friedrich Paulsen, Gesch. d. gelehrten Unterrichts auf den deutschen Schulen und Universitäten (2nd ed., 2 vols., 1906; English translation by M. E. Sadler, London, 1906), is a masterly survey of the whole modern period down to the close of last century. Tholuck, Das academische Leben des 17. Jahrhunderts (2 vols., Halle, 1853–54); Dolch, Gesch. des deutschen Studententhums (1858); J. Conrad, The German Universities for the Last Fifty Years, translated by Hutchinson, preface by Bryce (Glasgow, 1885); T. Ziegler, Der deutsche Student am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1895), all deal with special periods. Adolf Harnack, Geschichte der königlich-preussischen Academie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (4 vols., 1900), is also of high value, the first two volumes for the medieval, the latter two for the modern period. To these may be added, as useful for reference, the Geschichte der Erziehung vom Anfang an bis auf unsere Zeit (Stuttgart, 1896–1901), by Dr K. A. and Georg Schmidt, containing critical bibliographies at the beginning of each chapter; while the Bibliographie der deutschen Universitäten by Wilhelm Erman and Ewald Horn (3 vols., Leipzig, 1904–6) is most complete for the literature of the entire subject down to the close of last century. For a comparative estimate of the history of the different faculties, Die Universität Giessen von 1607 bis 1907 (2 vols., Giessen, 1907) is highly suggestive. The Monumenta Germaniae Paedagogica (20 vols., 1886–1900), though relating mainly to schools, often supplies valuable illustrative matter.
The statutes of the French universities, so far as ascertainable, have been edited by Fournier, Statutes et privilèges des universités françaises (1890); the Chartularium of the university of Paris, as edited by Denifle and Chatelain (4 vols., Paris, 1889–97), coming down to 1452. Works dealing with later history are Gréard, Nos adieux a la vieille Sorbonne (Paris, 1893); H. Schön, Die französischen Hochschulen seit der Revolution (Munich, 1896); L. Liard, L’Enseignement supérieur en France, 1789–1894 (2 vols., Paris, 1894); Joseph Prost, La Philosophie à l’académie protestante de Saumur, 1606–1685 (Paris, 1907).
For Italy, the origines of Bologna are dealt with by Chiapelli, Lo Studio Bolognese (Pistoia, 1888); Fitting, Die Anfänge der Rechtsschule zu Bologna (Bologna and Leipzig, 1888); Ricci, I primordi d. Studio di Bologna (2nd ed., Bologna, 1888). All the extant statutes are edited by Carlo Malagola, Statuti d. univ. e dei collegi d. studio bolognese (Bologna, 1888); and a new edition has appeared of the learned C. J. Sarti’s De claris Archigymnasii Bonaniensis Professoribus (Bologna, 1888, &c.). In connexion with Padua we have Die Statuten der Juristen-Universität Padua vom Jahre 1331, ed. H. Denifle, a reprint from the Archiv. For Spain, the work of De La Fuente (Madrid, 1855) gives a concise summary of the main facts in the growth of the universities and also of the other institutions for public instruction throughout the country; the Libro Memoria, by Solier and Vilches (1895) gives the necessary information down to a later period, in connexion with the central institution in Madrid. The history of the faculty of theology at the Portuguese university of Coimbra has been recorded on a more elaborate scale by Dr Manuel Eduardo da Motta Veiga (Coimbra, 1872). The Universidades y Colegios of Dr Joaquin v. Gonzáalez (Buenos Aires, 1907) contains an interesting account of the new university movement in Argentina. 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 Rev. J. Gutch (5 vols., 1786–96), and Athenae and Fasti Oxonienses, edited by Dr P. Bliss (4 vols., 1813–20); A History of the University of Oxford from the Earliest Times to 1530, by H. C. Maxwell Lyte (1886); and Statutes of the University of Oxford compiled in 1636 under Authority of Archbishop Laud, ed. Griffiths (Oxford, 1888). The publications of the late Joseph Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, 1500–1886 (8 vols.), supply the facts that are contained in the registers relating to the academic careers of graduates; his Oxford Men and their Colleges, 1880–92 (2 vols., 1893) contains, vol. i., college life and antiquities, with illustrations; vol. ii., completion of Alumni and Matriculation Register, 1880–92. The publications of the Oxford Historical Society include some valuable histories of separate colleges, that of Pembroke (by Macleane), Corpus Christi (by Fowler), Merton (by Brodrick); also Anthony Wood’s Life and Times, ed. Rev. Andrew Clark (4 vols.); Hearne’s Collections, ed. Doble and Rannie (4 vols.); and Early Oxford Press (to 1640), by Falconer Madan. The series of College Histories, originally published by F. E. Robinson (now by Hutchinson & Co.), is often serviceable both to the historian and the biographer. For Cambridge, the researches of C. H. Cooper, greatly surpassing those of Wood in thoroughness and impartiality, are comprised in three series: (1) Annals of Cambridge (5 vols., 1842–1908); (2) Athenae Cantabrigienses, 1500–1609 (2 vols., 1858–61); (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., 1886), is a work of admirable thoroughness and completeness. The Grace Books, in 3 vols., down to 1526, have been carefully edited and published by the University Press. J. B. Mullinger, History of the University of Cambridge from the Earliest Times to Accession of Charles I. (2 vols., 1873–85), vol. 3 at press, and Cambridge Described and Illustrated, by T. D. Atkinson and J. W. Clark (1897), deal chiefly with the course of education and learning, and with the antiquities respectively. To these may be added Thomas Baker’s History of the College of St John the Evangelist, edited by Professor Mayor (2 vols., 1869); also, by same editor, Admissions to St John’s (3 vols., 1630–1765); and Records of same society (2 series), edited by R. F. Scott—all three works being valuable aids both to the biography and history of contemporary times. Equally so is Dr Venn’s excellent Biographical History of Caius College (3 vols., 1897–1901). Mr J. A. Venn’s Statistical Chart, exhibiting conjointly the Matriculation Statistics at both universities from 1544 to 1906, has been reproduced, along with an explanatory article, in the Oxford and Cambridge Review for Lent term, 1908, and a similar chart for the colleges (in Cambridge) has been ​published by the same editor. For both universities see the Documents issued by the Oxford and Cambridge Commissions of 1858.
Mr M. E. Sadler's Special Report to the Education Office on the Admission of Women to the Universities is the most authoritative source of information on the subject. Of the existing endowments, faculties and professoriate of universities throughout the world, the serial entitled Minerva, edited by Dr K. Trübner (Trübner, Strassburg), has supplied trustworthy particulars since its first publication in 1891, together with concise information and references to original sources respecting the origin and history of the universities themselves.  (J. B. M.)
Academic Hoods
1. Great Britain and Ireland
Aberdeen.—D.D., scarlet cloth, lined purple; B.D., black, lined purple; LL.D., scarlet cloth, lined pale blue; LL.B., black, bordered pale blue; M.D., scarlet cloth, lined crimson; M.B., black, lined crimson; D.Litt., scarlet cloth, lined white; D.Phil., scarlet cloth, lined white; D.Sc., scarlet cloth, lined green; B.Sc., black, lined green; M.A., black, lined white.
Cambridge.—D.D., scarlet cloth, lined pink and violet shot, with loops of black cord; B.D., black, unlined; LL.M., black, lined white; LL.D., scarlet cloth, lined pink; LL.B., black silk or stuff, edged white fur; M.D. scarlet cloth, lined dark cherry colour; M.B., black, lined dark cherry colour; Mus. D., cream damask, lined cherry colour; Mus. B., dark cherry colour, lined white fur; Litt. D., scarlet cloth, lined scarlet; D.Sc., scarlet cloth, lined pink and light blue shot; M.A., black, lined white; B.A., black stuff or silk, edged white fur. Proctors as their Congregation habit wear the ruff and black and white hood; on other occasions they wear the hood “squared.”
Dublin.—(The hoods are the same for the Royal University, except M.B., Mus D. and divinity degrees, which it does not grant.) D.D., scarlet cloth, lined black; B.D., black, unlined; LL.D., scarlet cloth, lined pink; LL.B., black, bordered white; M.D., scarlet cloth, lined scarlet; M.B., black, lined white fur (Royal University, black, bordered scarlet); Mus. D., crimson cloth, lined white (Royal University, white damask, faced and lined rose satin); Mus. B., blue, lined white fur (rabbit-skin); Litt. D., scarlet cloth lined white; D.Sc., scarlet cloth, lined blue; M.A., black, lined blue; B.A., black, edged white fur; Proctor, black silk, lined “ermine.”
Durham.—D.D., scarlet “cassimere,” lined “palatinate purple”; B.D., black, unlined; D.C.L., scarlet cassimere, lined white; B.C.L., palatinate purple, edged white fur; M.D., scarlet cassimere, lined scarlet, bordered palatinate purple; M.B., scarlet silk, lined palatinate purple, edged white fur; » Mus. D., white brocade, lined palatinate purple; Mus. B., palatinate purple, edged white fur; Litt. D., scarlet cassimere, lined old-gold satin; Litt. B., old-gold satin, edged white fur; D.Sc., palatinate purple cassimere, lined scarlet; B.Sc., palatinate purple, edged white fur; M.A., black, lined palatinate purple; B.A., black stuff or silk, edged white fur.
Edinburgh.—D.D., black cloth, lined purple; B.D., black silk, lined purple, edged white fur; LL.D., black cloth, lined blue; LL.B., black silk, lined blue, edged white fur; B.L., black, bordered blue, edged white fur; M.D., black cloth, with cape attached, lined and faced crimson silk; M.B., black, lined crimson, edged white fur; Mus. D., scarlet cloth, lined white corded silk; Mus. B., scarlet silk, lined white, edged white fur; Litt. D., black cloth, lined royal blue shot with maize; D.Phil., black cloth, lined white, shot with “Vesuvius”; D.Sc., black cloth, lined green; B.Sc., black silk, lined green, edged white fur; M.A., black silk, lined white.
Glasgow.—D.D., scarlet cloth, lined white; B.D., black, lined light cherry colour, bordered scarlet cloth; LL.D., scarlet cloth, lined Venetian red; LL.B., black, lined Venetian red, bordered scarlet cloth; B.L., black, bordered Venetian red; M.D., scarlet cloth, lined scarlet; M.B., black, lined scarlet, bordered scarlet cloth: D.Sc., scarlet cloth, lined gold colour; B.Sc., black, lined gold colour, bordered scarlet cloth; M.A., black silk, lined “bell-heather” colour (purplish red); B.A., black silk or stuff, bordered bell-heather red.
London.—(Bachelors, if members of Convocation, have their hoods lined white silk, bordered with the colour of their faculty.) D.D., scarlet cloth, lined “sarum red”; B.D., black, bordered sarum red; LL.D., scarlet cloth, lined blue; LL.B., black, bordered blue; M.D., scarlet cloth, lined violet; M.B., and B.S., black, bordered violet; Mus. D., scarlet cloth, lined white, if a member of Convocation, if not, same as Mus. B., blue, lined white, watered silk; Litt. D., scarlet cloth, lined russet; D.Sc., scarlet cloth, lined gold colour; B.Sc., black, bordered gold colour; M.A., black, lined russet; B.A., black, bordered russet.
Oxford.—D.D., scarlet cloth, lined black; B.D., black, unlined; D.C.L., scarlet cloth, lined rose; B.C.L., light blue, edged white fur; M.D., scarlet cloth, lined rose; M.B., dark blue, edged white fur; Mus. D., white damask, lined crimson; Mus. B., light blue, edged white fur; Litt. D., scarlet cloth, lined slate colour; Litt. B., light blue, edged white fur; M.A., black, lined red; B.A., black silk or stuff, edged white fur; Proctors wear a “miniver” hood.
St Andrews.—D.D., violet silk or cloth, lined white satin; B.D., violet silk or cloth, lined white satin, edged white fur; LL.D., scarlet silk or cloth, lined white satin; LL.B., scarlet silk or cloth, lined white satin, edged white fur; M.D., crimson silk or cloth, lined white satin; M.B., crimson silk or cloth, lined white satin, edged white fur; Mus. D., cerulean blue silk or cloth, lined white satin; Mus. B., cerulean blue, lined white satin, edged white fur; D.Sc., “amaranth” silk or cloth, lined white satin; B.Sc., amaranth silk or cloth, lined white satin, edged white fur; M.A., black, lined red.
Victoria University.—LL.D., gold velvet or satin, lined light gold; LL.B., black, bordered violet; M.D., gold velvet or satin, lined light gold; M.B., black, bordered red; Litt. D., gold velvet or satin, lined light gold; D.Sc., gold velvet or satin, lined light gold; B.Sc., black, bordered pale red; M.A., black, lined pale blue; B.A., black, bordered pale blue.
University of Wales and Lampeter.—B.D. (Lampeter), black, lined violet, bordered white; B.A., black, bordered blue and green shot.
2. Australia
Sydney.—B.A., black stuff, edged white fur; M.A., black, lined blue; LL.B., black, bordered blue; LL.D., scarlet cloth, lined blue; B.Sc., black stuff, bordered amber; D.Sc., scarlet cloth, lined amber; B.E. (Engineering), black stuff, bordered light maroon; M.E., black, lined light maroon; M.B., black, bordered purple; M.C., black, lined French grey; M.D., scarlet cloth, lined purple.
Adelaide.—B.A., black, lined grey;, M.A., black, lined dark grey; LL.B., black, lined blue; LL.D., dark blue, lined light blue; B.Sc., black, lined yellow; D.Sc., dark yellow, lined light yellow; M.B., black, lined rose; M.C. (Surgery), black, lined dark rose; M.D., dark rose, lined light rose; Mus. B., black, lined green; Mus. D., dark green, lined light green.
Melbourne.—B.A., black, lined dark blue; M.A., black, lined violet; Litt. D., black, lined dark blue; LL.B., black, lined white fur; LL.M., black cloth, edged red silk, lined white; LL.D., black, lined white; B.Sc., black, lined moss-green, edged white fur; M.Sc., black, lined moss-green; D.Sc., scarlet cloth, lined moss green; B.E. (Engineering), black, lined light blue; M.B., black, lined yellow; M.B., black, lined white; M.C. (Surgery), black, lined dark amber; M.D., black, lined crimson; Mus. B., .black, lined lavender, edged white fur; Mus.D., black, lined lavender.
New Zealand.—B.A., black, lined pink, edged white fur; M.A., black, lined pink; LL.B., black, lined blue, edged white fur; LL.D., black, lined light blue; B.Sc., black, lined dark blue, edged white fur; D.Sc., black, lined dark blue; M.B., black, lined mauve, edged white fur; M.D., black, lined mauve; Mus. B., black, lined white, edged white fur; Mus. D., black, lined white.
3. Canada
These follow the British model, with the exception of Laval, Quebec, which grants the same degrees as the University of France, the distinctive mark of which is the scarf.
Dalhousie (N.S.).—B.A., black stuff, lined white fur; M.A., black stuff, lined crimson; B.L. (Letters), black stuff, lined White, bordered light blue; M.L., black stuff, lined light blue; LL.B., black, lined white, bordered gold; LL.D., black, lined purple; B.Sc., black stuff, lined white silk, bordered crimson; M.Sc., black stuff, lined crimson; B.E. (Engineering), black stuff, lined white silk, bordered purple; M.C., scarlet cloth, bordered white; M.D., scarlet silk, bordered white; Mus. B., black stuff, lined white, bordered lavender.
Fredericton (N.B.).—B.A., black stuff, edged white fur; M.A., black, lined blue; B.C.L., black, lined blue silk, edged white fur; D.C.L., scarlet cloth, lined pink.
McGill (Montreal).—B.A., black stuff, edged white fur; M.A., black, lined blue; Litt. D. (Literature), scarlet cloth, lined ale blue; B.C.L., black, lined French grey, edged white fur; D.C.L., scarlet cloth, lined French grey; B.Sc., black, lined yellow, edged white fur; M.Sc., black, lined yellow; D.Sc., scarlet cloth, lined yellow; M.B., black, lined dark blue; M.D., scarlet cloth, lined dark blue; D.V.S. (Doctor of Veterinary Science), scarlet cloth, lined fawn.
Toronto.—D.D. (Trinity College), scarlet cloth, lined black; B.D. (Trinity College), black, unlined; B.A., black stuff, edged white fur; M.A., black, lined crimson; LL.B., blue, lined white fur; LL.D., scarlet cloth, lined pink; M.B., blue, lined white fur; M.D., scarlet cloth, lined pink.
Windsor (N.S.).—B.A., black stuff, edged white fur; M.A., black, lined crimson; B.C.L., blue, edged white fur; D.C.L., scarlet cloth, lined pink.
4. India
These follow the British model, but also give Oriental degrees, the distinctive mark of which is a sash. They also grant the degree of Licentiate in certain subjects, which has a hood.
Allahabad.—B.A., black, bordered amber; M.A., black, lined amber; LL.B., black, lined blue; LL.D., pale blue.
Bombay.—B.A., black stuff, bordered garter blue; M.A., garter blue, lined same; LL.B., black, bordered scarlet cloth; B.Sc., ​black stuff, bordered garter blue; L.C.E. (Engineering), black stuff, bordered brown; M.E., brown, lined garter blue; L.M. and S. (Medicine and Surgery), black stuff, bordered crimson; M.D., crimson, lined garter blue; L.Ag. (Agriculture), black stuff, bordered green.
Calcutta.—B.A., black, bordered dark blue; M.A., black, lined blue; LL.B., black, bordered green; LL.D., scarlet, lined white satin; B.Sc., black, bordered light blue; B.E., black, bordered orange; M.E., black, lined green; M.B., black, bordered scarlet; M.D., black, lined scarlet.
Madras.—B.A., black, bordered crimson; M.A., black, lined crimson; LL.B., black, lined purple; M.L., purple silk; LL.D., scarlet silk; B.E., black, lined orange; M.B., black, lined light blue; L.M. and S., black, lined light blue; M.C., black, lined light blue; M.D., scarlet cloth, lined light blue; L.San. Sc. (Sanitary Science), black, bordered terra-cotta; L.T. (Teaching), black, lined gold.
Punjab.—B.A., purple, lined yellow; M.A., purple, lined claret; Litt. D., purple, lined scarlet; LL.B., white, lined blue; LL.D., scarlet silk; M.B., purple, lined purple cloth; M.D., purple, lined purple.
5. South Africa
Cape of Good Hope.—B.A., black, bordered orange-brown; M.A., black, lined orange-brown, bordered black; Litt. D., orange-brown, lined white, bordered black; LL.B., black, bordered red; LL.D., red, lined white, bordered black; B.Sc., black, bordered green; M.Sc., green, bordered black; D.Sc., green, lined white, bordered black; M.B., black, bordered blue; M.D., blue, lined white, bordered black; Mus. B., black, bordered purple; Mus. M., purple, bordered black; Mus. D., purple, lined white, bordered black.
6. United States
The American universities have adopted a uniform system, according to which the length and shape of the hood indicate the degree (bachelor, master, doctor), the silk lining displays the official colours of the university or college granting the degree (e.g. crimson for Harvard, blue for Yale, orange and black for Princeton, light blue and white for Columbia, royal purple and white for Cornell and red and blue for Pennsylvania), while the velvet trimming indicates the faculty or department. Thus the trimming for arts and letters is white, for theology scarlet, laws purple, philosophy blue, science gold-yellow, fine arts brown, medicine green, music pink, pharmacy olive, dentistry lilac, forestry russet, veterinary science grey and library science lemon. It is also usual in America for a graduate of a German university to wear a hood lined with the colours of the university charged with a trichevron of the German colours, black, white and red.
* ↑ It is the design of the present article to exhibit the universities in their general historical development; more detailed information respecting the present condition of each will be found in the separate articles under topographical headings.
* ↑ Denifle, Die Universitäten des Mittelalters, i. 1-29.
* ↑ Denifle i. 34-39.
* ↑ Rashdall, Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, i. 76.
* ↑ De Renzi, Storia Documentata della Scuola Medica di Salerno (ed. 1857), p. 145.
* ↑ Puccinotti, Storia della Medicina, i. 317-26.
* ↑ Sur l'âge et l'origine des traductions latines, &c., p. 225.
* ↑ Denifle, Die Universitäten, &c., i. 48.
* ↑ See Savigny, Gesch. d. röm. Rechts, iii. 152, 491-92. 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's History of the University of Cambridge, i. 24-27.
* ↑ The view of Thurot (De l'organisation de l'enseignement dans l'université 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. 653-94).
* ↑ Where the words studium generale are placed within marks of quotation they occur in the original charter of foundation of the university referred to.
* ↑ Aula denoting the building which the “college” of scholars was to inhabit; the society continued to retain this designation in order to distinguish it from Trinity College, founded in 1546.
* ↑ See Ch. Desmaze, L'Université de Paris (1200-1875).
* ↑ The statistics of Hautz (Gesch. d. Univ. Heidelberg, i. 177-178) are corrected by Denifle (Die Entstehung der Universitäten, p. 385).
* ↑ Meiners, Gesch. d. hohen Schulen, i. 370.
* ↑ Dissertations and Discussions, Append. iii.
* ↑ Ökonomischer Zustand der Universität Tübingen gegen die Mitte des 16ten Jahrhunderts (1845).
* ↑ Bekynton's Correspondence, i. 123.
* ↑ De la Rue, Essais hist. sur la ville de Caen, ii. 137-140.
* ↑ 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.
* ↑ Fasti Aberdonenses. Pref. p. xvi.
* ↑ For an excellent account of this movement, see Georg Voigt, Die Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums (2nd ed., 2 vols., 1880).
* ↑ Hamilton, Discussions, 2nd ed. p. 373.
* ↑ Discussions, &c., 2nd ed., pp. 388-89.
* ↑ Promulg. Acad. Privil., &c; (Strassburg, 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. 348-58.
* ↑ Hamilton, Discussions, p. 381.
* ↑ “Volumus neminem in hanc nostram Academiam admitti, aut per rectorem in album recipi, qui non habeat privatum atque domesticum praeceptorem, 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).
* ↑ Statuta et Leges (Franeker, 1647), p. 3.
* ↑ It retains a certain professional meaning, in that a student studying for the “university” is understood to be one who is himself aiming at the profession of a teacher in a lycée.
* ↑ The préfet of the department has since taken the place of the rector with regard to nominations.
* ↑ Brodrick, University of Oxford, pp. 136, 137.
* ↑ The proposed reforms initiated by Lord Curzon as chancellor of Oxford University, though largely administrative, may be mentioned here. In 1909 he issued his “Principles and Methods of University Reform.” Committees of Council were formed to prepare definite schemes in the various directions indicated, and in 1910 a volume on the subject was issued to the members of Congregation. It was proposed, inter alia, to make Greek an optional subject in Responsions, thus foreshadowing changes in Moderations and final schools. Responsions itself was to be replaced by an entrance examination, though it has long practically served as such. The creation of “a diploma specially suitable for candidates contemplating a commercial career” was recommended. Additional provision to assist poor students, including the resignation of their emoluments by non-necessitous students in favour of exhibition funds for necessitous students in the colleges, and changes in the system of college fellowships, with especial reference to the encouragement of research in combination with tutorial work, were also indicated. Among purely administrative reforms, besides certain changes in the rules governing eligibility to the Hebdomadal Council and Congregation, it was proposed to reconstitute the method of election to and membership of the boards of faculties, at the same time creating a general board of the faculties, to control the individual boards, and to “relieve the Hebdomadal Council of the greater part of the business connected with curricula and examinations.” A finance board was proposed to review the accounts of the university, all university institutions and colleges, and to act in an advisory and supervisory capacity.—[Ed.]
* ↑ At Edinburgh there was a seventh, viz. rhetoric and English literature.
* ↑ Cornell, however, received New York's share of the Congressional land grant of 1862, and the state is represented on its board of trustees. See Cornell University.
* ↑ Where not otherwise stated, the hood is of silk.