Readings in the History of Education | Page 4

or--as later
appeared--university, education. The prevailing interest was in Law,
Medicine, Theology, and the philosophy of Aristotle. Schools of lower
grade were much influenced by the intellectual activity of the times, but
the characteristic product of this movement was the university. The
universities, organized as corporations, with their teachers divided into
faculties, their definite courses of study, their examinations, their
degrees, their privileges, and their cosmopolitan communities of
students, were not only the result of the revival, but they were
institutions essentially new in the history of education, and the models
for all universities which have since been established.
3. Between the latter part of the twelfth century and 1500 A.D. at least
seventy-nine universities were established in western Europe. There
may have been others of which no trace remains. Several of them were
short-lived, some lasting but a few years; ten disappeared before 1500.
Since that date twenty others have become extinct. The forty-nine
European universities of to-day which were founded before 1500 have
all passed through many changes in character and various periods of
prosperity and decline, but we still recognize in them the characteristic
features mentioned above, and the same features reappear in the "most
modern, most practical, most unpicturesque of the institutions which
now bear the name of 'University.'" This is one illustration of the
statement on page 2 that the daily and hourly conduct of university
affairs in the twentieth century is to a surprising degree influenced by
what universities did seven centuries ago.
4. The term "University" has always been difficult to define. In the
Middle Ages its meaning varied in different places, and changed
somewhat in the centuries between 1200 and 1500 A.D. In these pages
it signifies in general an institution for higher education; and
"institution" means, not a group of buildings, but a society of teachers
or students organized, and ultimately incorporated, for mutual aid and
protection, and for the purpose of imparting or securing higher
education. Originally, universities were merely guilds of Masters or

Scholars; as such they were imitations of the numerous guilds of
artisans and tradesmen already in existence. Out of the simple
organization and customs of these guilds grew the elaborate
organization and ceremonials of later universities.
There were two main types of university organization,--the University
of Masters, and the University of Students. In the former,--which is the
type of all modern universities,--the government and instruction of
students were regulated by the Masters or Doctors. In the latter, these
matters were controlled by the students, who also prescribed rules for
the conduct of the Masters. Paris and Bologna were, respectively, the
original representatives of these types. Paris was the original University
of Masters; its pattern was copied, with some modifications, by the
universities of England, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Scotland.
Bologna was the archetypal University of Students; its organization
was imitated, also with variations, by the universities Italy, France
(except Paris), Spain, and Portugal.
In and after the thirteenth century, the place or school in which a
university existed was almost always called a Studium Generale, i.e. a
place to which students resorted, or were invited, from all countries.
This term was used in contrast to Studium Particulare, i.e. any school
in which a Master in a town taught a few scholars. In the Studium
Generale instruction was given by several Masters, in one or more of
the Faculties of Arts, Law, Medicine, and Theology. In time the term
came to be synonymous with "University"; it is so used in this book.
5. The theoretically complete mediaeval university contained the four
faculties of Arts, Theology, Law, and Medicine. These we find
reproduced in some modern universities. Then, as now, however, it was
not common to find them all equally well developed in any single
institution; many possessed only two or three faculties, and some had
but one. There are rare instances of five faculties, owing to the
subdivision of Law. At Paris, the strongest faculties were those of Arts
and Theology; Law and Medicine were in comparison but feebly
represented. At Bologna, on the other hand, the study of Law was
predominant, although the Arts, Medicine, and Theology were also

taught there.
6. The studies pursued in the various faculties in and after the thirteenth
century were in general as follows:
In the Faculty of Arts:
1. The "three philosophies"--Natural, Moral, and Rational--of Aristotle,
together with his Logic, Rhetoric, and Politics. Of these, Logic and
Rhetoric are included below.
2. The Seven Liberal Arts, comprising
{Grammar. (_a_) {Rhetoric. {Logic.
{Arithmetic. (_b_) {Geometry. {Music. {Astronomy.
In the Faculty of Law:
1. The Corpus Juris Civilis, or body of Roman Civil Law, compiled at
Constantinople 529-533 A.D., under direction of the Roman Emperor
Justinian.
2. The Canon Law, or law governing the Church, of which the first part
was compiled by