The History of Education Part 21

Accordingly it came about in time that, after a number of years of study in the Arts under some master, a student was permitted to present himself for a test as to his ability to define words, determine the meaning of phrases, and read the ordinary Latin texts in Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic (the _Trivium_), to the satisfaction of other masters than his own. In England this test came to be known by the term _determine_. Its pa.s.sage was equivalent to advancing from apprenticeship to the ranks of a journeyman, and the successful candidate might now be permitted to a.s.sist the master, or even give some elementary instruction himself while continuing his studies. He now became an a.s.sistant or companion, and by the fourteenth century was known as a _baccalaureus_, a term used in the Church, in chivalry, and in the guilds, and which meant a _beginner_.

There was at first, though, no thought of establishing an examination and a new degree for the completion of this first step in studies. The bachelor's degree was a later development, sought at first by those not intending to teach, and eventually erected into a separate degree.

When the student had finally heard a sufficient number of courses, as required by the statutes of his guild, he might present himself for examination for the teaching license. This was a public trial, and took the form of a public disputation on some stated thesis, in the presence of the masters, and against all comers. It was the student's "masterpiece,"

a.n.a.logous to the masterpiece of any other guild, and he submitted it to a jury of the masters of his craft. [13] Upon his masterpiece being adjudged satisfactory, he also became a master in his craft, was now able to define and dispute, was formally admitted to the highest rank in the teaching guild, might have a seal, and was variously known as master, doctor, or professor, all of which were once synonymous terms. [14] If he wished to prepare himself for teaching one of the professional subjects he studied still further, usually for a number of years, in one of the professional faculties, and in time he was declared to be a Doctor of Law, or Medicine, or of Theology.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG 62. SEAL OF A DOCTOR, UNIVERSITY OF PARIS]

THE TEACHING FACULTIES. The students for a long time grouped themselves for better protection (and aggression) according to the nation from which they came, [15] and each "nation" elected a _councilor_ to look after the interests of its members. Between the different nations there were constant quarrels, insults were pa.s.sed back and forth, and much bad blood engendered. [16] On the side of the masters the organization was by teaching subjects, and into what came to be known as _faculties_. [17]

Thus there came to be four faculties in a fully organized mediaeval university, representing the four great divisions of knowledge which had been evolved--Arts, Law, Medicine, and Theology. Each faculty elected a _dean_, and the deans and councilors elected a _rector_, who was the head or president of the university. The _chancellor_, the successor of the cathedral school _scholasticus_, was usually appointed by the Pope and represented the Church, and a long struggle ensued between the rector and the chancellor to see who should be the chief authority in the university.

The rector was ultimately victorious, and the position of chancellor became largely an honorary position of no real importance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 63. NEW COLLEGE, AT OXFORD One of the oldest of the Oxford colleges, having been founded in 1379. The picture shows the chapel, cloisters (consecrated in 1400), and a tall tower, once forming a part of the Oxford city walls. Note the similarity of this early college to a monastery, as in Plate 1.]

The Arts Faculty was the successor of the old cathedral-school instruction in the Seven Liberal Arts, and was found in practically all the universities. The Law Faculty embraced civil and canon law, as worked out at Bologna. The Medical Faculty taught the knowledge of the medical art, as worked out at Salerno and Montpellier. The Theological Faculty, the most important of the four, prepared learned men for the service of the Church, and was for some two centuries controlled by the scholastics. The Arts Faculty was preparatory to the other three. As Latin was the language of the cla.s.sroom, and all the texts were Latin texts, a reading and speaking knowledge of Latin was necessary before coming to the university to study. This was obtained from a study of the first of the Seven Arts-- Grammar--in some monastery, cathedral, or other type of school. Thus a knowledge of Latin formed practically the sole requirement for admission to the mediaeval university, and continued to be the chief admission requirement in our universities up to the nineteenth century (R. 186 a).

In Europe it is still of great importance as a preparatory subject, but in South American countries it is not required at all.

Very few of the universities, in the beginning, had all four of these faculties. The very nature of the evolution of the earlier ones precluded this. Thus Bologna had developed into a _studium generale_ from its prominence in law, and was virtually const.i.tuted a university in 1158, but it did not add Medicine until 1316, or Theology until 1360. Paris began sometime before 1200 as an arts school, Theology with some instruction in Canon Law was added by 1208, a Law Faculty in 1271, and a Medical Faculty in 1274. Montpellier began as a medical school sometime in the twelfth century. Law followed a little later, a teacher from Bologna "setting up his chair" there. Arts was organized by 1242. A sort of theological school began in 1263, but it was not chartered as a faculty until 1421. So it was with many of the early universities. These four traditional faculties were well established by the fourteenth century, and continued as the typical form of university organization until modern times. With the great university development and the great multiplication of subjects of study which characterized the nineteenth century, many new faculties and schools and colleges have had to be created, particularly in the United States, in response to new modern demands. [18]

NATURE OF THE INSTRUCTION. The teaching material in each faculty was much as we have already indicated. After the recovery of the works of Aristotle he came to dominate the instruction in the Faculty of Arts. [19] The Statutes of Paris, in 1254, giving the books to be read for the A.B. and the A.M. degrees (R. 113), show how fully Aristotle had been adopted there as the basis for instruction in Logic, Ethics, and Natural Philosophy by that time. The books required for these two degrees at Leipzig, in 1410 (R. 114), show a much better-balanced course of instruction, though the time requirements given for each subject show how largely Aristotle predominated there also. Oxford (R. 115) kept up better the traditions of the earlier Seven Liberal Arts in its requirements, and cla.s.sified the new works of Aristotle in three additional "philosophies"--natural, moral, and metaphysical. From four to seven years were required to complete the arts course, though the tendency was to reduce the length of the arts course as secondary schools below the university were evolved. [20]

In the Law Faculty, after Theology the largest and most important of all the faculties in the mediaeval university, the _Corpus Juris Civilis_ of Justinian (p. 195) and the _Decretum_ of Gratian (p. 196) were the textbooks read, with perhaps a little more practical work in discussion than in Arts or Medicine. The Oxford course of study in both Civil and Canon Law (R. 116 b-c) gives a good idea as to what was required for degrees in one of the best of the early law faculties.

In the Medical Faculty a variety of books--translations of Hippocrates (p.

197), Galen (p. 198), Avicenna (p. 198), and the works of certain writers at Salerno and Jewish and Moslem writers in Spain--were read and lectured on. The list of medical books used at Montpellier, [21] in 1340, which at that time was the foremost place for medical instruction in western Europe, shows the book-nature and the extent of the instruction given at the leading school of medicine of the time. It was, moreover, customary at Montpellier for the senior students to spend a summer in visiting the sick and doing practical work. We have here the merest beginnings of clinical instruction and hospital service, and at this stage medical instruction remained until quite modern times. The medical courses at Paris (R. 117) and Oxford (R. 116 d) were less satisfactory, only book instruction being required.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 64. A LECTURE ON CIVIL LAW BY GUILLAUME BENEDICTI (After a sixteenth-century wood engraving, now in the National Library, Paris, Cabinet of Designs)]

Both Law and Medicine were so dominated by the scholastic ideal and methods that neither accomplished what might have been possible in a freer atmosphere.

In the Theological Faculty the _Sentences_ of Peter Lombard (p. 189) and the _Summa Theologiae_ of Thomas Aquinas (p. 191) were the textbooks used.

The Bible was at first also used somewhat, but later came to be largely overshadowed by the other books and by philosophical discussions and debates on all kinds of hair-splitting questions, kept carefully within the limits prescribed by the Church. The requirements at Oxford (R. 116 a) give the course of instruction in one of the best of the theological faculties of the time. The teachers were scholastics, and scholastic methods and ideals everywhere prevailed. Roger Bacon's (1214-1294) criticism of this type of theological study (R. 118), which he calls "horse loads, not at all [in consonance] with the most holy text of G.o.d,"

and "philosophical, both in substance and method," gives an idea of the kind of instruction which came to prevail in the theological faculties under the dominance of the scholastic philosophers.

Years of study were required in each of these three professional faculties, as is shown by the statement of requirements as given for Montpellier, Paris (R. 117), and Oxford (R. 116 a).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 65. LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LEYDEN, IN HOLLAND (After an engraving by J. C. Wouda.n.u.s, dated 1610) This shows well the chained books, and a common type of bookcase in use in monasteries, churches, and higher schools. Counting 35 books to the case, this shows a library of 35 volumes on mathematics; 70 volumes each on literature, philosophy, and medicine; 140 volumes of historical books; 175 volumes on civil and canon law; and 160 volumes on theology, or a total of 770 volumes--a good-sized library for the time.]

METHODS OF INSTRUCTION. A very important reason why so long a period of study was required in each of the professional faculties, as well as in the Faculty of Arts, is to be found in the lack of textbooks and the methods of instruction followed. While the standard textbooks were becoming much more common, due to much copying and the long-continued use of the same texts, they were still expensive and not owned by many. [22]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 4. A LECTURE ON THEOLOGY BY ALBERTUS MAGNUS An illuminated picture in a ma.n.u.script of 1310, now in the royal collection of copper engravings, at Berlin. The master in his chair is here shown "reading" to his students.]

To provide a loan collection of theological books for poor students we find, in 1271, a gift by will to the University of Paris (R. 119) of a private library, containing twenty-seven books. Even if the students possessed books, the master "read" [23] and commented from his "gloss" at great length on the texts being studied. Besides the mere text each teacher had a "gloss" or commentary for it--that is, a ma.s.s of explanatory notes, summaries, cross-references, opinions by others, and objections to the statements of the text. The "gloss" was a book in itself, often larger than the text, and these standard glosses, [24] or commentaries, were used in the university instruction for centuries. In Theology and Canon Law they were particularly extensive.

All instruction, too, was in Latin. The professor read from the Latin text and gloss, repeating as necessary, and to this the student listened.

Sometimes he read so slowly that the text could be copied, but in 1355 this method was prohibited at Paris (R. 121), and students who tried to force the masters to follow it "by shouting or whistling or raising a din, or by throwing stones," were to be suspended for a year. The first step in the instruction was a minute and subtle a.n.a.lysis of the text itself, in which each line was dissected, a.n.a.lyzed, and paraphrased, and the comments on the text by various authors were set forth. Next all pa.s.sages capable of two interpretations were thrown into the form of a question; _pro_ and _contra_, after the manner of Abelard. The arguments on each side were advanced, and the lecturer's conclusion set forth and defended. The text was thus worked over day after day in minute detail. Having as yet but little to teach, the masters made the most of what they had. A good example of the mediaeval plan of university instruction is found in the announcement of Odofredus, a distinguished teacher of Law at Bologna, about the middle of the thirteenth century, which Rashdall thinks is equally applicable to methods in other subjects. Odofredus says:

First, I shall give you summaries of each t.i.tle before I proceed to the text; secondly, I shall give you as clear and explicit a statement as I can of the purport of each Law (included in the t.i.tle); thirdly, I shall read the text with a view to correcting it; fourthly, I shall briefly repeat the contents of the Law; fifthly, I shall solve apparent contradictions, adding any general principles of Law (to be extracted from the pa.s.sage), and any distinctions and subtle and useful problems arising out of the Law with their solutions, as far as the Divine Providence shall enable me. And if any Law shall seem deserving, by reason of its celebrity or difficulty, of a Repet.i.tion, I shall reserve it for an evening Repet.i.tion.

It will be seen that both students and professors were bound to the text, as were the teachers of the Seven Liberal Arts in the cathedral schools before them. There was no appeal to the imagination, still less to observation, experiment, or experience. Each generation taught what it had learned, except that from time to time some thinker made a new organization, or some new body of knowledge was unearthed and added.

Another method much used was the debate, or disputation, and partic.i.p.ation in a number of these was required for degrees (R. 116). These disputations were logical contests, not unlike a modern debate, in which the students took sides, cited authorities, and summarized arguments, all in Latin.

Sometimes a student gave an exhibition in which he debated both sides of a question, and summarized the argument, after the manner of the professors.

As a corrective to the memorization of lectures and texts, these disputations served a useful purpose in awakening intellectual vigor and logical keenness. They were very popular until into the sixteenth century, when new subject-matter and new ways of thinking offered new opportunities for the exercise of the intellect.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 66. A UNIVERSITY DISPUTATION (From Fick's _Auf Deutschland's Hohen Schulen_)]

In teaching equipment there was almost nothing at first, and but little for centuries to come. Laboratories, workshops, _gymnasia_, good buildings and cla.s.srooms--all alike were equally unknown. Time schedules of lectures (Rs. 122, 123) came in but slowly, in such matters each professor being a free lance. Nor were there any libraries at first, though in time these developed. For a long time books were both expensive and scarce (Rs. 78, 119, 120). After the invention of printing (first book printed in 1456), university libraries increased rapidly and soon became the chief feature of the university equipment. Figure 65 shows the library of the University of Leyden, in Holland, thirty-five years after its foundation, and about one hundred and fifty years after the beginnings of printing. It shows a rather large increase in the size of book collections [25] after the introduction of printing, and a good library organization.

[ILl.u.s.tRATION: FIG 67. A UNIVERSITY LECTURE AND LECTURE ROOM (From a woodcut printed at Stra.s.sburg, 1608)]

VALUE OF THE TRAINING GIVEN. Measured in terms of modern standards the instruction was undoubtedly poor, unnecessarily drawn out, and the educational value low. We could now teach as much information, and in a better manner, in but a fraction of the time then required. Viewed also by the standards of instruction in the higher schools of Greece and Rome the conditions were almost equally bad. Viewed, though, from the standpoint of what had prevailed in western Europe during the dark period of the early Middle Ages, it represented a marked advance in method and content--except in pure literature, where there was an undoubted decline due to the absorbing interest in Dialectic--and it particularly marked a new spirit, as nearly critical as the times would allow. Despite the heterogeneous and but partially civilized student body, youthful and but poorly prepared for study, the drunkenness and fighting, the lack of books and equipment, the large cla.s.ses and the poor teaching methods, and the small amount of knowledge which formed the grist for their mills and which they ground exceeding small, these new universities held within themselves, almost in embryo form, the largest promise for the intellectual future of western Europe which had appeared since the days of the old universities of the h.e.l.lenic world (R. 124). In these new inst.i.tutions knowledge was not only preserved and transmitted, but was in time to be tremendously advanced and extended. They were the first organizations to break the monopoly of the Church in learning and teaching; they were the centers to which all new knowledge gravitated; under their shadow thousands of young men found intellectual companionship and in their cla.s.srooms intellectual stimulation; and in encouraging "laborious subtlety, heroic industry, and intense application", even though on very limited subject-matter, and in training "men to think and work rather than to enjoy" (R. 124), they were preparing for the time when western Europe should awaken to the riches of Greece and Rome and to a new type of intellectual life of its own. From these beginnings the university organization has persisted and grown and expanded, and to-day stands, the Synagogue and the Catholic Church alone excepted, as the oldest organized inst.i.tution of human society.

The manifest tendency of the universities toward speculation, though for long within limits approved by the Church, was ultimately to awaken inquiry, investigation, rational thinking, and to bring forth the modern spirit. The preservation and transmission of knowledge was by the university organization transferred from the monastery to the school, from monks to doctors, and from the Church to a body of logically trained men, only nominally members of the _clerici_. Their successors would in time entirely break away from connections with either Church or State, and stand forth as the independent thinkers and scholars in the arts, sciences, professions, and even in Theology. University graduates in Medicine would in time wage a long struggle against bigotry to lay the foundations of modern medicine. Graduates in Law would contend with kings and feudal lords for larger privileges for the as yet lowly common man, and would help to usher in a period of greater political equality. The university schools of Theology were in time to send forth the keenest critics of the practices of the Church. Out of the university cloisters were to come the men--Dante, Petrarch, Wycliffe, Huss, Luther, Calvin, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton--who were to usher in the modern spirit.

The universities as a public force. Almost from the first the universities availed themselves of their privileges and proclaimed a bold independence.

The freedom from arrest and trial by the civil authorities for petty offenses, or even for murder, and the right to go on a strike if in any way interfered with, were but beginnings in independence in an age when such independence seemed important. These rights were in time given up, [26] and in their place the much more important rights of liberty to study as truth seemed to lead, freedom in teaching as the master saw the truth, and the right to express themselves as an inst.i.tution on public questions which seemed to concern them, were slowly but definitely taken on in place of the earlier privileges. Virtually a new type of members of society--a new Estate--was evolved, ranking with Church, State, and n.o.bility, and this new Estate soon began to express itself in no uncertain tones on matters which concerned both Church and State. The universities were democratic in organization and became democratic in spirit, representing a heretofore unknown and unexpressed public opinion in western Europe. They did not wait to be asked; they gave their opinions unsolicited. "The authority of the University of Paris," writes one contemporary, "has risen to such a height that it is necessary to satisfy it, no matter on what conditions." The university "wanted to meddle with the government of the Pope, the King, and everything else," writes another. We find Paris intervening repeatedly in both church and state affairs, [27] and representing French nationality before it had come into being, as the so- called Holy Roman Empire represented the Germans, and the Papacy represented the Italians. In Montpellier, professors of Law were considered as knights, and after twenty years of practice they became counts. In Bologna we find the professors of Law one of the three a.s.semblies of the city. Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, and the Scottish universities were given representation in Parliament. The German universities were from the first prominent in political affairs, and in the reformation struggle of the early sixteenth century they were the battle-grounds.

In an age of oppression these university organizations stood for freedom.

In an age of force they began the subst.i.tution of reason. In the centuries from the end of the Dark Ages to the Reformation they were the homes of free thought. They early a.s.sumed national character and proclaimed a bold independence. Questions of State and Church they discussed with a freedom before unknown. They presented their grievances to both kings and popes, from both they obtained new privileges, to both they freely offered their advice, and sometimes both were forced to do their bidding. At times important questions of State, such as the divorce of Philip of France and that of Henry VIII of England, were submitted to them for decision. They were not infrequently called upon to pa.s.s upon questions of doctrine or heresy. "Kings and princes," says Rashdall, in an excellent summary as to the value and influence of the mediaeval university instruction (R. 124), "found their statesmen and men of business in the universities, most often, no doubt, among those trained in the practical science of Law."

Talleyrand is said to have a.s.serted that "their theologians made the best diplomats." For the first time since the downfall of Rome the administration of human affairs was now placed once more in the hands of educated men. By the interchange of students from all lands and their hospitality, such as it was, to the stranger, the universities tended to break down barriers and to prepare Europe for larger intercourse and for more of a common life.

On the ma.s.ses of the people, of course, they had little or no influence, and could not have for centuries to come. Their greatest work, as has been the case with universities ever since their foundation, was that of drawing to their cla.s.srooms the brightest minds of the times, the most capable and the most industrious, and out of this young raw material training the leaders of the future in Church and State. Educationally, one of their most important services was in creating a surplus of teachers in the Arts who had to find a market for their abilities in the rising secondary schools. These developed rapidly after 1200, and to these we owe a somewhat more general diffusion of the little learning and the intellectual training of the time. In preparing future leaders for State and Church in law, theology, and teaching, the universities, though sometimes opposed and their opinions ignored, nevertheless contributed materially to the making and moulding of national history. The first great result of their work in training leaders we see in the Renaissance movement of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, to which we next turn.

In this movement for a revival of the ancient learning, and the subsequent movements for a purer and a better religious life, the men trained by the universities were the leaders.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Why would the _studia publica_ tend to attract a different type of scholar than those in the monasteries, and gradually to supersede them in importance?

2. Show how the mediaeval university was a gradual and natural evolution, as distinct from a founded university of to-day.

3. Show that the university charter was a first step toward independence from church and state control.

4. Show the relation between the system of apprenticeship developed for student and teacher in a mediaeval university, and the stages of student and teacher in a university of to-day.

5. Show how the chartered university of the Middle Ages was an "a.s.sociation of like-minded men for worldly purposes."

6. To what university mother does Harvard go back, ultimately?

7. Show how the English and the German universities are extreme evolutions from the mediaeval type, and our American universities a combination of the two extremes.

8. Do university professors to-day have privileges akin to those granted professors in a mediaeval university?

9. What has caused the old Arts Faculty to break up into so many groups, whereas Law, Medicine, and Theology have stayed united?

10. Do universities, when founded to-day, usually start with all four of the mediaeval faculties represented?

11. Which of the professional faculties has changed most in the nature and character of its instruction? Why has this been so?