The History Of Education by Ellwood P. Cubberley (epub e reader .txt) 📖

[1] By the twelfth century the cathedral schools had passed the monastic schools in importance, and had obtained a lead which they were ever after to retain (R. 71).

[2] As contrasted with the monasteries, which were under a “Rule.” The opportunities offered by such open institutions in the Middle Ages can hardly be overestimated.

[3] Frederick I, of the mediaeval Holy Roman Empire of Germany and Italy.

[4] “No individual during the Middle Ages was secure in his rights, even of life or property, certainly not in the enjoyment of ordinary freedom, unless protected by specific guarantees secured from some organization.

Politically, one must owe allegiance to some feudal lord from whom protection was received; economically, one must secure his rights through merchant or craft guild; intellectual interests and educational activities were secured and controlled by the Church.” (Monroe, P., Text Book in the History of Education, p. 317.)

[5] At first the older institutions organized themselves without charter, securing this later, while the institutions founded after 1300 usually began with a charter from pope or king, and sometimes from both (R. 100).

[6] The degree of master was originally the license to practice the teaching trade, and analogous to a master shoemaker, goldsmith, or other master craftsmen.

[7] “The universities, then, at their origins, were merely academic associations, analogous, as societies of mutual guaranty, to the corporations of working men, the commercial leagues, the trade-guilds which were playing so great a part at the same epoch; analogous also, by the privileges granted to them, to the municipal associations and political communities that date from the same time.” (Compayr�, G., Abelard and the Rise of the Universities, p. 33.) [8] “M. Bimbenet, in his History of the University of Orleans (Paris, 1853) reproduces several articles from the statutes of the guilds, the provisions of which are identical with those contained in the statutes of the universities.” (Ibid., p. 35.)

[9] Bologna and Paris were the great “master” universities of the thirteenth century, while those founded on a model of either were more in the nature of “journeymen” institutions.

[10] Between 1600 and 1700, although most of the cities capable of supporting universities were provided with them, twenty-one more were created, chiefly in Germany and Holland. The first American university (Harvard) was established in 1636, and the second (Yale) in 1702. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, without counting the United States or any western-hemisphere country, forty more were created. Among the important nineteenth-century creations were Berlin, 1810; Christiana, 1811; St. Petersburg, 1819; Brussels, 1834; London, 1836; and Athens, 1836.

[11] See Compayr�, G., Abelard, pp. 87-90 for list of these “strikes.”

[12] “It is impossible to fix the period at which the system of degrees began to be organized. Things were done slowly. At the outset, and until towards the end of the twelfth century, there existed nothing resembling a real conferring of degrees in the rising universities. In order to teach it was necessary to have a respondent, a master authorized by age and knowledge….

“The ‘license to teach,’ nevertheless, became by slow degrees, as master and pupils multiplied, a preliminary condition of teaching, a sort of diploma more and more requisite, and of which the bishops (or their representatives, the chancellors) were the dispensers. Up to the fourteenth century there was hardly any other clearly-defined university title.” (Compayr�, G., Abelard, pp. 142-43.) [13] “It is manifest that the universities borrowed from the industrial corporations their ‘companionships,’ their ‘masterships,’ and even their banquets; a great repast being the ordinary sequel of the reception of the baccalaureate or doctorate.” (Compayr�, G., Abelard, p. 141.) [14] The term professor has become general in its significance, and is used in all countries. In England the term master was retained for the higher degree, while in Germany the term doctor was retained, and the doctorate made their one degree. America followed the English plan in the establishment of the early colleges, and the degree of A.B. and A.M. were provided for. Later, when the German university influence became prominent in the United States, the doctor’s degree was superimposed on the English plan.

[15] At Paris, for example, there were four nations—France, Picardy, Normandy, and England. These were again divided into tribes, as for example, there were five tribes of the French—Paris, Sens, Rheims, Tours, and Bourges. Orleans had ten nations—France, Germany, Lorraine, Burgundy, Champagne, Picardy, Normandy, Touraine, Guyenne, and Scotland. In those days these represented separate nationalities, who little understood one another, and carried their constant quarrels up to the very lecture benches of the professors.

[16] A contemporary writer, Jacobus de Vitriaco, has left us an account of student life at Paris, in which he says: “The students at Paris wrangled and disputed not merely about the various sects or about some discussions; but the differences between the countries also caused dissensions, hatreds and virulent animosities among them, and they impudently uttered all kinds of affronts and insults against one another.

“They affirmed that the English were drunkards and had tails; the sons of France proud, effeminate and carefully adorned like women. They said that the Germans were furious and obscene at their feasts; the Normans vain and boastful; the Poitevins traitors and always adventurers. The Burgundians they considered vulgar and stupid. The Bretons were reputed to be fickle and changeable, and were often reproached for the death of Arthur. The Lombards were called avaricious, vicious and cowardly; the Romans, seditious, turbulent and slanderous; the Sicilians, tyrannical and cruel; the inhabitants of Brabant, men of blood, incendiaries, brigands and ravishers; the Flemish, fickle, prodigal, gluttonous, yielding as butter, and slothful. After such insults from words they often came to blows.”

(Pa. Trans. and Repts. from Sources, vol. II, no. 3, pp. 19-20.) [17] In an American university the term college or school has largely replaced the term faculty; in Europe the term faculty is still used.

Thus we say College of Liberal Arts, or School of Law, instead of Faculty of Arts, etc.

[18] For example, one of our modern state universities is organized into the following faculties, schools, and colleges: (1) college of liberal arts;

(2) school of medicine;

(3) school of law;

(4) school of fine arts;

(5) school of pure science;

(6) college of engineering;

(7) college of agriculture;

(8) school of history, economics, and social sciences; (9) school of business administration; (10) college of education;

(11) school of household arts;

(12) school of pharmacy;

(13) school of veterinary medicine; (14) school of library science;

(15) school of forestry;

(16) school of sanitary engineering; (17) the graduate school; and

(18) the university-extension division.

[19] “He was called ‘The Philosopher’; and so fully were scholars convinced that it had pleased God to permit Aristotle to say the last word upon each and every branch of knowledge that they humbly accepted him, along with the Bible, the church fathers, and the canon and Roman law, as one of the unquestioned authorities which together formed a complete guide for humanity in conduct and in every branch of science.” (Robinson, J. H., History of Western Europe, p. 272.)

[20] This tendency increased with time, due both to the development of secondary schools which could give part of the preparation, and to the increasing number of students who came to the university for cultural or professional ends and without intending to pass the tests for the mastership and the license to teach. Finally the arts course was reduced to three or four years (the usual college course), and the master’s degree to one, and for the latter even residence was waived during the middle of the nineteenth century. The A.M. degree has recently been rehabilitated and now usually signifies a year of hard study in English and American universities, though a few eastern American institutions still play with it or even grant it as an honorary degree. In Germany the arts course disappeared, being given to the secondary schools entirely in the late eighteenth century, and the universities now confer only the degree of doctor.

[21] For a list of the books used in the faculty of medicine at Montpellier, in 1340, see Rashdall, H., Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, vol. II, pt. I, p. 123; pt. II, p. 780.

[22] After the latter part of the thirteenth century the book-writing and selling trade was organized as a guild industry, and the copying of texts for sale became common. Then arose the practice of erasing as much of the writing from old books as could be done, and writing the new book crosswise of the page. In this way the expense for parchment was reduced, and in the process many valueless and a few valuable books were destroyed.

Still, the cost for books during the days of parchment must have been high. Walsh estimates that “an ordinary folio volume probably cost from 400 to 500 francs in our [1914] values, that is, between $80 and $100.”

[23] In Germany the old mediaeval expression has been retained, and the announcements of instruction there still state that the professor will “read” on such and such subjects, instead of “offer courses,” as we say in the United States.

[24] Norton, in his Readings in the History of Education; Mediaeval Universities, pp. 59-75, gives an extract from a text (Gratian) and “gloss” by various writers, on the question—“Shall Priests be Acquainted with Profane Literature, or No?” which see for a good example of mediaeval university instruction and the manner in which a small amount of knowledge was spun out by means of a gloss.

[25] Not many early library catalogues have been preserved, but those which have all show small libraries before the days of printing. At Oxford, where the university was broken up into colleges, each of which had its own library, the following college libraries are known to have existed: Peterhouse College (1418), 304 volumes; Kings College (1453), 174

volumes; Queens College (1472), 199 volumes; University Library (1473), 330 volumes. The last two were just before the introduction of printing.

The Peterhouse library (1418) was classified as follows: Subject Chained Loanable Theology………… 61 63

Natural Philosophy.. 26 |

Moral Philosophy…. 5 | 19

Metaphysics……… 3 |

Logic…………… 5 15

Grammar…………. 6 |

Poetry………….. 4 | 13

Medicine………… 15 3

Civil Law……….. 9 20

Canon Law……….. 18 19

Totals………….. 152 152

(Clarke. J. W., The Care of Books, pp. 145, 147.) [26] Survivals of these old privileges still exist in the German universities which exercise police jurisdiction over their students and have a university jail, and in the American college student’s feeling of having the right to create a disturbance in the town and break minor police regulations without being arrested and fined.

[27] See Compayr�, G., Abelard, p. 201, for illustrations.