Colleges in America

by John Marshall Barker

Among the first European schools was that of Salerno, in Italy, which was known as a school of medicine as early as the ninth century. The University of Bologna arose at the close of the twelfth century. In 1211 the University of Paris became a legal corporation. Oxford began as a secondary school, and passed to the rank of a university in 1140, and Cambridge was established in the year 1200. Professor Laurie says that "in the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there grew up in Europe ten universities; while in the fourteenth century we find eighteen added; and in the fifteenth century twenty-nine arose, including St. Andrew's (1411), Glasgow (1454), Aberdeen (1477). The great intellectual activity of the fourteenth century, which led to the rise of so many universities, coincides with the first revival of letters, or rather was one manifestation of the revival." The main center of this great intellectual movement was the University of Paris, the mother of universities, which gained pre-eminence in the great studies of theology and philosophy. It was chartered by Philip Augustus in the thirteenth century, and was fostered by France, Picardy, Normandy and England. These united and organized the Faculty of Arts, which became its chief glory. It taught the three arts, Latin grammar, rhetoric and dialectics, known as the trivium. The quadrivium, embracing arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music, was likewise taught. The Faculty of Theology was created in 1257, that of Law in 1271, and that of Medicine in 1274.

Matthew Arnold says that "the University of Paris was the main center of mediæval science, and the authoritative school of mediæval teaching. It received names expressing the most enthusiastic devotion, the Fountain of Knowledge, the Tree of Life, the Candlestick of the House of the Lord. * * * Here came Roger Bacon, Saint Thomas Aquinas and Dante; here studied the founder of the first university of the empire, Charles the Fourth, Emperor of Germany and King of Bohemia, founder of the University of Prague."

The intellectual lead which belonged to France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries passed to Italy in the fourteenth century. Some of the universities in Italy ranked among the best in Europe. They were chiefly distinguished for their studies in law and medicine. In the early part of the thirteenth century, the University of Bologna was famous throughout the world, having at one time 12,000 students from all parts of Europe. These universities continued to exert a powerful influence until Catholicism triumphed over the abortive attempts at religious reform, and there settled down over the brilliant Italy of the Renaissance an unprogressive and anti-intellectual influence from which she has never fully recovered.

"The importance of the university in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries," says Matthew Arnold, "was extraordinary. Men's minds were possessed with a wonderful zeal for knowledge, or what was then thought knowledge, and the University of Paris was the great fount from which this knowledge issued. The University and those depending on it, made at this time, it is said, actually a third of the population of Paris. * * * One asks oneself with interest, what was the mental food to which this vast, turbulent multitude pressed with such inconceivable hunger. Theology was the great matter; and there is no doubt that this study was by no means always that barren and verbal trifling which an ill-informed modern contempt is fond of representing it. It is evident that around the study of theology in the mediæval University of Paris there worked a real ferment of thought, and very free thought. But the University of Paris culminated as the exclusive devotion to theological study declined, and culminated by virtue of that declension."

The great business of the universities from the twelfth to the seventeenth century was that of scholastic philosophy, which largely governed their teaching.

The scholastic philosophy was "the legitimate development of the philosophy of Aristotle and his successors, and was the only philosophy possible in its day. Nay, it was an integral essential element in human progress. It taught men to distinguish and define, and has left its impress upon the language and thought of all civilized peoples, 'in lines manifold, deep-graven and ineffaceable.' Out of it has grown our modern civilization."

The schoolmen would freely canvass the deep problems of the mind and soul, but would blindly exclude the new influences at work in society. They had to meet the opposition of the humanists, who made the study of Latin and Greek the basis of culture. The humanists were great writers and artists, who worked for more modern ideas and a newer civilization. They introduced the Renaissance, which was a literary movement that began in Italy in the fourteenth century. It was believed that vital knowledge was gained by knowing oneself, and that the best way to attain this was to study poetry, philosophy, history and all knowledge that was created by the spirit of man. Unfortunately, the knowledge of letters in Italy tended to paganize its adherents. Infidelity spread and immorality abounded in all ranks of society.

The great movement of the Renaissance secured a stronghold in Germany, where its power was extended to the established systems of instruction and utilized in the interests of a purer Christianity. Melancthon and Erasmus and all the chief reformers except Luther, were eminent humanists and friends of classical learning. They were outside the established schools, and were the leading spirits in intellectual culture, so that the Renaissance triumphed with the Reformation. These two forces united and gave spirit and power to the humanists. The influence of the new learning in Germany was marked by comparative freedom from frivolities, skepticism and immoralities. There was a critical and enlightened study of classical literature and a reverent and rational study of the Bible. The literary treasures of antiquity were made to minister to religion. The Reformation also gave fresh impulses to all the schools and institutions of learning. The school teacher and preacher of the gospel joined hands in the common work of education.

The universities, however, under the control of the schoolmen, retrograded and decayed because they chose to remain mediæval. They refused to become the educational agencies of the times, and so failed to be at the head of a great intellectual movement. They could not be induced to assimilate the new studies and make themselves the organ of the Renaissance and the Reformation. The rapid growth of positive and experimental science, however, was fatal to scholasticism. The narrow scholastic spirit was exemplified by Cremonini, who is called the last of the schoolmen, and who was professor at Padua in 1631.

This countryman of Galileo, after the discovery of Jupiter's satellites, judging that this discovery contradicted Aristotle, would never consent to look through a telescope again. One could not have a better incident to end the career of the scholastic philosophy.