and Bologna, was distributed amongst a certain number of nations,' each ruled and publicly represented by a proctor of its own.2 A numerous body of sophists, in teaching the infinitely multifarious branches of knowledge which were supposed to be required by the perfect orator, discharged functions in the highest degree analogous, as we have already seen, to those of the magistri and doctores of mediæval Universities. The admission of the student into the academic body took place in both cases by means of a ceremony of matriculation (TeλεTý)3 which conferred the right to the title of σχο Xaσrikos, and the privilege of assuming, as its symbol, the philosophic pallium (rpißwv), or gown. By an usage followed even now in many Universities, this dress, was modified by various diversities of shape and color, in order to mark the miner divisions of the academic world. The gown of the Academicians is said to have been of a dark gray or russet color (pac), resembling probably that of the mantle worn by the Capucines of the present day, the sophists on the other hand were clad in robes of crimson, while the Stoics and Cynics were distinguished by a double gown of white, possibly not unlike that afterwards assumed by the order of Dominicans. Contrary to the practice which at present prevails in English Universities, the 1. Ἡ μὲν λὰρ Εψα, καθάπερ τι γέρας, Επιφανίῳ σαφὲς ἐξῄρητο· τὴν δὲ ̓Αραβίαν εἰλήχει Διόφαντος, Ηφαιστίων δὲ καταδείσας Προαιρέσιον ἀπῆλθεν ἐξ ̓Αθηνῶν τε καὶ ἀνθρώπων. Προαιρεσίῳ δὲ ὁ Πόντος ὅλος καὶ τὰ ἐκείνῃ πρόσοικα τούς ὁμιλητὰς ἀνέπεμπεν, ὥσπερ οἰκεῖ ον ἀγαθὸν τὸν ἄνδρα θαυμάζοντες. προσετέθη δὲ καὶ Βιθυνία πᾶσα καὶ ̔Ελλήσποντος, ὅσα ὑπὲρ Λυδίας διὰ τῆς καλουμένης νῦν ̓Ασίας ἐπὶ Καρίαν καὶ Λυκίαν τείνοντα πρὸς Παμφυ λίαν καὶ τὸν Ταῦρον ἀφορίζεται· Αἰγυπτός τε πᾶσα τῆς ἐπὶ τοῖς λόγοις ἀρχῆς καὶ κλήρου ἦν οἰκεῖος αὐτῷ, καὶ ὅσα ὑπὲρ Αἰγύπτου καὶ πρὸς Λιβύην συρόμενα τό τε ἄγνωστον τέλος έχει Kai Tò oikńσiμov. Eunap. vita Proaeresii. The ordinary number of nations appears from this passage to have been four, though two seem occasionally to have been combined under a single head. In the same manner the lectures of Himerius are said to have been attended by the Bithynians, Mysians, Pergameans, Galatians and Egyptians (Orat. XXII). The four nations of the University of Athens are supposed by Bulaeus to have been instituted in accordance with the four praetorian praefectures into which the empire was divided by Constantine (Hist. Univ. Par. I, p. 251). The academic population of Paris was divided into four nations, the French, English, Normans, and Picards. Under the French were included Spaniards, Italians, and Greeks. Under the English were comprehended not only all the nations of the British Isles but also Germans and Scandinavians. Each nation had its own examiners, beadles, register offices, archives, chapels, in short every thing pertaining to the complete organization of a political body (Bulaeus Hist. Univ. Par. III, p. 560). The scholars of Bologna were arranged according to the two great divisions of Citramontani and Ultramontani. The former were distributed amongst seventeen, the latter amongst eighteen nations. The number and names of these divisions often varied according to the number of students in each. Birth, not residence, was considered in making this distinction. The Germans enjoyed peculiar privileges, on the other hand the natives of Bologna in consequence of their connection with the antagonistic element of the town were not permitted to form a nation (Savigny Gesch. des Röm. Rechts im Mittelalter III, p. 170). 2. The proctors acted first as the representatives of the Nation to the world without, secondly as judges in all cases of internal litigation, and lastly as the bankers and trustees of those belonging to their respective nations. (Bulaeus Hist. Univ. Paris I, p. 252.) The proctors of Oxford were invested with authority over masters and scholars alike. 3. Phot. Biblioth., p. 110, Hoesch. academic dress was worn not only during residence, but even while absent in the provinces. The act of matriculation consisted in a species of lustral bath, a form not improbably suggested in the first instance by the religiously mystical meaning associated with that ceremony. At its conclusion a fee of considerable amount was paid to the principal sophists, who were herein said to receive the price of the gown (δέχεσθαι τὴν τοῦ τρίβωνος ἀξίαν) and the student was formally enrolled (évɛypápŋ) in the books of the University.' A ceremony of initiation, though differing in outward form from that of the period we are now describing, seems from its travesty in Aristophanes to have been known at the very earliest times of sophistic history.3 The mode of instruction in the Universities of Mediaeval Europe seems to have been almost identical with that which prevailed in all the learned institutions of antiquity. The μελέται, διαλέξεις, σκέμματα, λύσεις, and ἐπιδείξεις, by means of which the sophists, grammarians, and philosophers of classical times were trained to their respective callings, find an exact counterpart in the theses, exercises, and disputations of the schools of the middle ages. 5 58. We may further remark before taking leave of this portion of the subject, that the two great typical forms of the academic life of earlier European history are exemplified in Bologna and Paris, the one the fountain and headquarters of legal knowledge, the other maintaining a similar position with reference to theology and Philosophy. The former of those institutions served as the model for the Universities of Italy, Spain, and France (with the exception of Paris), the latter for those of England and Germany. The Italian Universities approximated far more closely to the external form and constitution of the Byzantine schools, in so far as existing records enable us to discover the peculiarities of the corporate arrangements of the latter. This resemblance is especially to be recognized in the fact that the University of Athens seems like Bologna to have been mainly an Universitas scholarium, and not magistrorum as was the case with Paris. In the last mentioned University the corporation consisted simply of the order of teachers, and the students were only noticed as the subjects of the body politic. In Bologna on the other hand the sovereign power was entirely vested in the rector and consiliari, 1. Liban. eis Evσtáblov tòv xâpa. init. 3. Aristoph. Nub. 268 sqq. 2. Cresoll. Theatr. Rhet. III. 16. 4 To the coincidences in externals above mentioned we may add the hat or symbol of the masters degree, the origin of which is no doubt indicated in the epigram where a grammarian dedicates the στεγανὰν κρατὸς (Jacobs e conj. σκέπανον) amongst other insignia of his office. (Anthol. II, p. 52. 2. Jacobs.) 5. Savigny Gesch. des R. R. im Mittelatler III, p. 124. or representatives of the Nations. The professors were regarded merely as individuals hired for the purpose of giving instruction to such of the students as thought fit to combine for this purpose. The former had no vote in the meetings of the University, except in those cases where they had previously held the office of rector, and were not even allowed to absent themselves from the town without the permission of the academic authorities.' In Athens both forms of government seem in a measure to have existed along side of each other. The appointments in philosophy were filled up principally by the vote of the diadoxn, a body apparently corresponding to the masters of Oxford and Paris. The sophistical chairs on the other hand are invariably described as dispossd of by the ἄνθρωποι καὶ νέοι, that is to say the citizens of the town, and the students of the University. An eminent instance of this circumstance we have already alluded to in the case of the celebrated Gregory of Nazianzus, upon whom the scholars of sophistry are said to have conferred the professorship of this subject.* 59. Plain and unmistakable as is the prominence assigned in the best ages of University history to philosophic study exhibiting itself as a practical and creative energy in the various forms of professional life, some difficulty may be occasioned by the circumstance that the plan of instruction which we have hitherto impugned as essentially unacademic, that namely in which the highest mental culture is sought to be attained by means of a course of general subjects, appears almost invariably associated with the educational arrangements of such institutions. The presence of the ¿ykúkλia μã‡ýμara in connection with all the highest teaching of ancient Greece, the Trivium and Quadrivium in the schools of the later empire, and the studies of the Faculty of Arts in the Universities of more modern times, may appear somewhat irreconcilable with the historical claims of an exclusively professional scheme of University instruction. 60. The answer to this objection is sufficiently obvious. Passing over the learned institutions of classical antiquity, whose looser organization and less strictly defined precision of outline has been al 1. The object of this apparently singular restriction was to prevent popular and possibly restless professors from betaking themselves to some of the other great schools of the time, and attracting thither the floating and unsettled portion of the learned body, a part of the population of the ancient Universities which was peculiarly large. 2. It is hardly necessary to observe that we are here speaking of the usage of the philosophic sects when they had already assumed the character of regularly organized and permanently es tablished corporations. In the earlier stages of their history the head of the school named at his own discretion the person whom he considered best qualified to succeed in his stead. Compare with reference to this point a very pleasing story in Aulus Gellius Noct. Att. XIII, 5. 3. Eunap. vit. Proaeresii. 4. Gregor. Presbyter. See also Gregor. Nazianz. de vita sua carmen, p. 4, ed Morell ready alluded to, we must remember that in the earlier periods of European history, the University did not, as at present, denote merely the culmination of a system of educational institutions. It comprehended nothing less than the entire literary and scientific life of those ages, from the humblest elements of rudimentary study to the loftiest flights of philosophic speculation, and united the functions of the preparatory school with the activity and influence which alone deserve to be regarded as properly its own. An irresistible argument in favor of thus engrafting upon the University a mode of education not strictly in accordance with its nature, was no doubt derived from the circumstance, that even when schools capable of affording the necessary amount of preliminary instruction had begun to come into existence, their connection with the University was too slight and ill defined for the purposes of mutual coöperation. The advanced age moreover of a very large proportion of those who became candidates for matriculation' strongly urged the necessity of a preparatory course in immediate conjunction with the University. The number of those who from poverty or other unfavorable circumstances had bee prenvented from obtaining in early life the requisite acquaintance with elementary subjects, and had subsequently embraced the resolution of qualifying themselves for a learned profession, would then be peculiarly large, while the want of books constituted an insuperable obstacle in the way of any attempt at making good their deficiencies by means of private study. Such persons even in acquiring the rudiments of scientific knowledge required to be taught upon a principle totally different from that which is applied in imparting instruction to children, and the University, which could not afford to shut its doors upon the entire body of indigent scholars, was obliged to retain permanently much of the furniture of those inferior and collegiate schools, out of which it had in so many instances itself originally grown. RELATION OF FACULTIES OF ARTS TO THOSE OF THEOLOGY, LAW AND MEDICINE. 61. In strict accordance with the preparatory and unacademic character of the instruction it proposed to convey, the Faculty of Arts was not recognized as coördinate with those of Theology, Medicine, and Law until the fifteenth century, at which period its studies began to assume a character essentially different from that which they had hitherto maintained. Thus we find that the classes of this portion of the University were commonly known as the scholae minores, 1. Savigny Gesch. des R. R. III, p. 138. to distinguish them from the scholae majores of Law, Medicine, and Divinity.1 The subject of critical philology remained so completely in its infancy until shortly before the Reformation that the corresponding department of the University could not possibly furnish scope for any higher teaching than that of elementary instruction. So long as classical learning and general erudition were confined to the knowledge of a few ancient authors, and a facility in reading and speaking the ecclesiastical Latin of the period, it was impossible to build up a system of professional teaching with materials so scanty, and so little susceptible of scientific method. The Bachelor's degree, which marked the termination of this preliminary course, denoted, according to Huber, simply a step in the school in which it was taken, and held no further reference to the University than as denoting the threshold of legitimate academic study. At Bologna in like manner the term Bachalarius designated no University degree. It was conferred upon a student who had lectured upon a book of Canon or Civil Law, or who had formally expounded a passage in either. Of the system of preparatory study which existed in connection with the academic institutions of antiquity we have already spoken. We may further mention that Olympiodorus alludes to a class of students who were not yet admitted to wear the gown. That this portion of the academic body was the same as the åkλŋro spoken of by Philo-tratus, is clear from a passage in the oration of Libanius ὑπὲρ τῶν ῥητόρων. They were no doubt utterly distinct from the pupils of those inferior schools mentioned by Himerius, which were designed to serve as the first preparation for the teaching of the sophists. Soldiers, old men, and merchants are specified amongst those who attended the instruction of Libanius, particularly in those initiatory classes which were taught in private." In individuals of this description, natives of North Britain will not fail to recognize the historical prototype of those Celtic Catos, who may be seen commencing Greek at fourscore in the junior classes of a Scotch University. 62 This subordinate position of the Faculty of Arts was not only put an end to, but completely reversed in the changes which took place in the University system at the great revival of letters in the fifteenth century. The zeal for the new world of learned research 1. Bulaeus Hist. Univ. Par. I, p. 97. See also Huber Hist. of the English Universities, I, p 34, 8qq. In Paris only those Masters of Arts who lectured on Logic, Physics, and Metaphysics in the Rue de la Fouarre were recognized as true regents. Those who taught grammar were not considered as possessing this character. (Crevier Hist. de l'Université de Paris IV, p. 248.) 2. Hist. of the English Universities, I, p. 31. 3. Savigny Gesch. des R. R. im Mittelalter, III, p. 220. 4. Photius Bibl. p. 110, Hoesch. 5. Reisk. ad Orat. #рós Пoλvæλ init. |