Readings in the History of Education | Page 3

universities, are
instructive: "... If we would completely understand the meaning of
offices, titles, ceremonies, organizations preserved in the most modern,
most practical, most unpicturesque of the institutions which now bear
the name of 'University,' we must go back to the earliest days of the
earliest Universities that ever existed, and trace the history of their
chief successors through the seven centuries that intervene between the

rise of Bologna or Paris, and the foundation of the new University of
Strassburg in Germany, or of the Victoria University in England."
Knowledge of the subject should, however, yield much more than
understanding: it should also influence the practical attitudes of those
who are concerned with university affairs. Here I take issue with those
historians who hold that history supplies no "information of practical
utility in the conduct of life"; no "lessons directly profitable to
individuals and peoples." The evidence cannot be exhibited here, but
such information notoriously has been of the utmost practical value in
education, both in shaping influential theories and in determining even
minute details of educational practice. There is no reason to suppose
that it may not continue to be thus serviceable. Other utilities of
university history are less direct, but not less important. The study of
individual institutions and their varying circumstances and problems
"prepares us to understand and tolerate a variety of usages"; the study
of their growth not only "cures us of a morbid dread of change," but
also leads us to view their progressive adaptation to new conditions as
necessary and desirable. If such study teaches only these two lessons to
those who may hereafter shape the course of educational affairs it more
than justifies itself. For to eradicate that intolerance of variety in
educational practice so characteristic of the academic man of the past,
and to diminish in future generations his equally characteristic
opposition to changes involving adaptation to new conditions, is to
render one of the greatest possible services to educational progress.

II
THE RENAISSANCE OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY
During the twelfth century a great educational revival manifested itself
in western Europe, following upon several centuries of intellectual
decline or relative inactivity. Though its beginnings may be traced into
the eleventh century, and though its culmination belongs to a much
later period, the movement is often called the Renaissance of the
Twelfth Century. In that century it first appears as a widely diffused

and rapidly growing movement, and it then takes on distinctly the
characteristics which mark its later development. The revival appears
first in Italy and France; from these regions it spreads during the next
three centuries into England, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and
Scotland.
Certain facts concerning this educational Renaissance should be clearly
understood in connection with the following selections:
1. To men of the times it first showed itself as a renewal of activity in
existing schools. Here and there appeared eminent teachers; to them
resorted increasing numbers of students from greater and greater
distances. In a few years some of these institutions became schools of
international fame. The newly roused enthusiasm for study in France at
the opening of the twelfth century is thus described by a modern writer:
The scholastic fever, which was soon to inflame the youth of the whole
of Europe, had already set in. You could not travel far over the rough
roads of France without meeting some footsore scholar, making for the
nearest large monastery or cathedral town. Before many years, it is true,
there arose an elaborate system of conveyance from town to town, an
organization of messengers to run between the chateau and the school;
but in the earlier days, and, to some extent, even later, the scholar
wandered afoot through the long provinces of France. Robbers,
frequently in the service of the lord of the land, infested every province.
It was safest to don the coarse frieze tunic of the pilgrim, without
pockets, sling your little wax tablets and stylus at your girdle, strap a
wallet of bread and herbs and salt on your back, and laugh at the
nervous folk who peeped out from their coaches over a hedge of pikes
and daggers. Few monasteries refused a meal or a rough bed to the
wandering scholar. Rarely was any fee exacted for the lesson given. For
the rest, none were too proud to earn a few sous by sweeping, or
drawing water, or amusing with a tune on the reed-flute; or to wear the
cast-off tunics of their masters.[1]
This account refers to the study of logic and theology, which soon
became dominant in Paris and in various cathedral schools in other
parts of France. With slight modifications it would describe also the

revival of interest in Roman law in Italy, especially at Bologna.
2. The revival was concerned mainly with professional,