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

expanded, and to-day stands, the Synagogue and the Catholic Church alone excepted, as the oldest organized institution 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 institution 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 nobility, 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 assemblies 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 substitution of reason. In the centuries from the end of the Dark Ages to the Reformation they were the homes of free thought. They early assumed 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 pass 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 asserted 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 masses 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 classrooms 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 “association 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?

 

12. Enumerate a number of different things which have enabled the modern university greatly to shorten the period of instruction?

 

13. Aside from differences in teachers, why are some university subjects today taught much more compactly and economically than other subjects?

 

14. After admitting all the defects of the mediaeval university, why did the university nevertheless represent so important a development for the future of western civilization?

 

15. What does the long continuance, without great changes in character, of the university as an institution indicate as to its usefulness to society?

 

16. Does the university of to-day play as important a part in the progress of society as it did in the mediaeval times? Why?

 

17. Is the chief university force to-day exerted directly or indirectly?

Illustrate.

 

18. What is probably the greatest work of any university, in any age?

 

19. Compare the influence of the mediaeval university, and the Greek universities of the ancient world.

 

20. Explain the evolution of the English college system as an effort to improve discipline, morals, and thinking. Has it been successful in this?

 

21. Show how the mediaeval university put books in the place of things, whereas the modern university tries to reverse this.

 

22. Show how the rise of the universities gave an educated ruling class to Europe, even though the nobility may not have attended them.

 

23. Show how, in an age of lawlessness, the universities symbolized the supremacy of mind over brute force.

 

24. Show how the mediaeval universities aided civilization by breaking down, somewhat, barriers of nationality and ignorance among peoples.

 

25. Show how the university stood, as the crowning effort of its time, in the slow upward struggle to rebuild civilization on the ruins of what had once been.

 

SELECTED READINGS

 

In the accompanying Book of Readings the following selections are reproduced:

 

100. Rashdall and Minerva: University Foundations before 1600.

101. Fr. Barbarossa: Privileges for Students who travel for Study.

102. Philip Augustus: Privileges granted Students at Paris.

103. Count Rupert: Charter of the University of Heidelberg.

104. Philip IV: Exemption of Students and Masters from Taxation.

105. Vercelli: Privileges granted to the University by the City.

106. Villani: The Cost to a City of maintaining a University.

107. Pope Gregory IX: Right to suspend Lectures (Cessatio).

108. Roger of Wendover: a Cessatio at Oxford.

109. Henry III: England invites Scholars to leave Paris.

110. Pope Gregory IX: Early Licensing of Professors to teach.

111. Pope Nicholas IV: The Right to grant Licenses to teach.

112. Rashdall: A University License to teach.

113. Paris Statutes, 1254: Books required for the Arts Degree.

114. Leipzig Statutes, 1410: Books required for the Arts Degree.

115. Oxford Statutes, 1408-31: Books required for the Arts Degree.

116. Oxford, Fourteenth Century: Requirements for the Professional Degrees.

(a) In Theology. (c) In Civil Law.

(b) In Canon Law. (d) In Medicine.

117. Paris Statutes, 1270-74: Requirements for the Medical Degree.

118. Roger Bacon: On the Teaching of Theology.

119. Master Stephen: Books left by Will to the University of Paris.

120. Roger Bacon: The Scarcity of Books on Morals.

121. Balaeus: Methods of Instruction in the Arts Faculty of Paris.

122. Toulouse: Time-Table of Lectures in Arts, 1309.

123. Leipzig: Time-Table of Lectures in Arts, 1519.

124. Rashdall: Value and Influence of the Mediaeval University.

 

QUESTIONS ON THE READINGS

 

1. What does a glance at the page giving the university foundations before 1600 (100) show as to the rate and direction of the university movement?

 

2. How do you account for the very large privileges granted university students in the early grants (101, 102) and charters (103)? Should a university student to-day have any privileges not given to all citizens?

Why?

 

3. Do universities, when founded to-day, secure a charter? If so, from whom, and what terms are included? Do normal schools? What form of a charter, if any, has your university or normal school?

 

4. Compare the freedom from taxation granted to masters and students at Paris (104) with the grant to professors at Brown University