The History of Education / Educational Practice and Progress Considered as a Phase of the Development and Spread of Western Civilization

by Ellwood Patterson Cubberley

[Illustration: FIG. 66. A UNIVERSITY DISPUTATION
(From Fick's Auf Deutschland's Höhen Schulen)]

In teaching equipment there was almost nothing at first, and but little for centuries to come. Laboratories, workshops, gymnasia, good buildings and classrooms—all alike were equally unknown. Time schedules of lectures (Rs. 122, 123) came in but slowly, in such matters each professor being a free lance. Nor were there any libraries at first, though in time these developed. For a long time books were both expensive and scarce (Rs. 78, 119, 120). After the invention of printing (first book printed in 1456), university libraries increased rapidly and soon became the chief feature of the university equipment. Figure 65 shows the library of the University of Leyden, in Holland, thirty-five years after its foundation, and about one hundred and fifty years after the beginnings of printing. It shows a rather large increase in the size of book collections [25] after the introduction of printing, and a good library organization.

[ILLUSTRATION: FIG 67. A UNIVERSITY LECTURE AND LECTURE ROOM
(From a woodcut printed at Strassburg, 1608)]

VALUE OF THE TRAINING GIVEN. Measured in terms of modern standards the instruction was undoubtedly poor, unnecessarily drawn out, and the educational value low. We could now teach as much information, and in a better manner, in but a fraction of the time then required. Viewed also by the standards of instruction in the higher schools of Greece and Rome the conditions were almost equally bad. Viewed, though, from the standpoint of what had prevailed in western Europe during the dark period of the early Middle Ages, it represented a marked advance in method and content—except in pure literature, where there was an undoubted decline due to the absorbing interest in Dialectic—and it particularly marked a new spirit, as nearly critical as the times would allow. Despite the heterogeneous and but partially civilized student body, youthful and but poorly prepared for study, the drunkenness and fighting, the lack of books and equipment, the large classes and the poor teaching methods, and the small amount of knowledge which formed the grist for their mills and which they ground exceeding small, these new universities held within themselves, almost in embryo form, the largest promise for the intellectual future of western Europe which had appeared since the days of the old universities of the Hellenic world (R. 124). In these new institutions knowledge was not only preserved and transmitted, but was in time to be tremendously advanced and extended. They were the first organizations to break the monopoly of the Church in learning and teaching; they were the centers to which all new knowledge gravitated; under their shadow thousands of young men found intellectual companionship and in their classrooms intellectual stimulation; and in encouraging "laborious subtlety, heroic industry, and intense application", even though on very limited subject-matter, and in training "men to think and work rather than to enjoy" (R. 124), they were preparing for the time when western Europe should awaken to the riches of Greece and Rome and to a new type of intellectual life of its own. From these beginnings the university organization has persisted and grown and 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?