Paganism, moreover, has but one model for all men; its aim is ever to crush individuality and mold all characters alike. To accomplish this purpose the schools arranged their studies in courses, demanding that each student should pass over the same ground. This is characteristic of all educational systems aside from that one, the true education, which comes from God. If you look to China, you find it there, as it develops the disciples of Confucius; India educates her Brahmans in the same manner; the priests and wise men of Egypt were taught in schools of a similar type. The Jews had aped the fashion of the pagan world, and it was from this custom that Christ called his disciples. One of the surest signs that the schools established in the days of Christian purity had lost the spirit which characterized the apostolic teaching, is the fact that the schools of the Middle Ages had adopted this pagan custom.
Students were called into the universities when mere boys, and by hundreds and thousands were run through the “grind” which we term “course of instruction,” and were turned out at the end of ten, twenty, and sometimes even forty years with a degree, which, in dignity, corresponded to the years spent in completing the course.
This custom is papal. It is opposed to the very spirit of Christianity; and any institution of learning which deigns to accept the approval of the state, while at the same time passing as a Christian institution, is not only linking itself with the papacy, but with paganism as well. Of His followers Christ says, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”
“Older students, those especially in the theological faculty, with their fifteen or sixteen years’ course of study, achieved in this respect far greater notoriety. At the age of thirty or forty the student at the university was still a scholar.”[102] The idea of long courses is not, then, a modern one, and American colleges can truthfully point to the university of Paris for the precedent in this respect as in some others. In the granting of degrees another interesting subject is approached. Laurie continues: “Up to the middle of the twelfth century, anyone taught in the infant universities who thought he had the requisite knowledge.... In the second half of the twelfth century, when bishops and abbots, who acted, personally or through their deputies, as chancellors of the rising university schools, wished to assume to themselves exclusively the right of granting the license, ... Pope Alexander III forbade them, on the ground that the teaching faculty was a gift of God.”[103] This, however, must have been the work of a liberal pope, for earlier,—that is, in 1219,—“Pope Honorius III interfered with the granting of degrees; and in order to impose a check on abuses, directed that they should be conferred not by, but by permission of, the archdeacon of the cathedral, and under his presidency.”[104]
The church had gained control of the universities, and through her representative, usually the chancellor, granted degrees. Now, in order to keep the authority well in her own hands, no one was allowed to teach who did not hold a license granted by the university after an examination. Thus the educational trust developed, and the iron hand of Rome, though concealed in a silken glove, clinched her victories, and strove to crush all opponents.
Degrees and the papacy
Our modern B.S., M.A., LL.D., D.D., etc., were adopted into the universities at this stage of educational history. “Itter informs us,” says Laurie, “that ... a complete university course was represented by four degrees—bachelor, master, licentiate, and finally doctor, which last was usually taken at the age of thirty or thirty-five.” “The next development of the degree system was the introduction of the grades of bachelor and master, or licentiate, into each of the higher faculties—theology, law, and medicine. Thus a man who had finished his preliminary art studies, generally at the age of twenty-one, and wished to specialize in theology, medicine, or law, had to pass through the stages of bachelor of theology, or of medicine, or of law, and then of master or licentiate, before he obtained the title of doctor. The bachelorship of medicine or law was reached in three years, of theology in seven. Four years’ further study brought the doctor’s degree.”[105] “The conferring of degrees was originated by a pope.”[106] The educational monopoly appeared quite complete; and having gained the form of godliness and the civil power, the old scheme of killing the life and substituting those things which would recognize the papal hierarchy, were again introduced. Leading educators are awakening to the true situation. Christian education alone can deliver.
Form had replaced the life
“The moral tone of the universities was low,” says Painter; “there were brawls, outbreaks, and abominable immoralities. ‘The students,’ say the Vienna statutes, ‘shall not spend more time in drinking, fighting, and guitar playing than at physics, logic, and the regular courses of lectures; and they shall not get up public dances in the streets. Quarrelers, wanton persons, drunkards, those that go about serenading at night, or who spend their leisure in following after lewd women; thieves, those that insult citizens, players at dice—having been properly warned and not reforming, besides the ordinary punishment provided by law for those misdemeanors, shall be deprived of their academical privileges and expelled.’ These prohibitions give us a clear insight into university life of the time, for it was not worse at Vienna than at Paris and elsewhere.”[107]