Arabs and universities
The specialization of studies such as theology, medicine, or philosophy, together with the impulse derived from the Mohammedans in Africa and the Arabs in Spain, led to the establishment of the universities, which were, as before stated, composed of four faculties, or colleges. “They arose independently of both church and state.” The University of Paris “became the most distinguished seat of learning in Europe. At one time it was attended by more than twenty thousand students.”
Papacy seized universities
The growth of the universities was very rapid, and they threatened speedily to revolutionize the society of Europe and overthrow the papal hierarchy. “The influence and power of the universities were speedily recognized,” says Painter; “and though originally free associations, they were soon brought into relation with the church and the state, by which they were officially authorized and endowed.” If learning could not be suppressed, then it must be controlled by the church; and the “church sought to attach them [the universities] to itself, in order to join to the power of faith the power of knowledge. The first privileges that the universities received proceeded from the popes.” “While Rome was not the mother, she was yet the nurse of universities.” Scientific investigation had by this time received such an impulse from youth who had been students in the Arab schools that the church could not hope to crush it. The only hope of the papacy was to so surround the truth with fables and mysteries, and to so conduct the schools, that again the spirit of progress would be lost in its labyrinthine wanderings through empty forms. Monopoly in education works havoc in the same way that a monopoly in commerce leads to oppression. And so it was.
Character of students
“The students led a free and uncontrolled life, seeking and finding protection in their own university authorities even from the civil power.”[100]
Origin of courses and degrees
Youth from the age of twelve and upward attended these universities, making it necessary to teach the secondary studies which terminated in a bachelor’s degree. “Boys ... attended the Parisian university merely for instruction in ... grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic; and after three or four years’ study they received the title of Baccalaureus.” “When he reached ... the age of seventeen or eighteen, he then began the study for the mastership.”[101]
It will be remembered that the schools established by the early church were marked for the simplicity of their methods, and their singleness of purpose. Their object was to educate workers for the spread of the gospel. For the accomplishment of this object the course of instruction was arranged, and students were sent forth into the world commissioned of God, as were the disciples after their ordination. There was no call for the granting of degrees. These, it is true, were used in the pagan schools, and indicated that the receiver had been initiated, after years of study, into the hidden mysteries of Greek wisdom. Among the pagans, indeed, the principle of degrees and diplomas dated back to the days of Egyptian and Babylonian supremacy, where it was indicative of fellowship in the grossest forms of licentiousness.
Greece, the country which united the learning of Babylon and the wisdom of Egypt, and offered it to Europe in the form of Platonism, naturally enough made use of diplomas and degrees. And the fact that her wisdom was so complicated in its nature made it necessary to spend long years in mastering her sciences.