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.