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 UNIVERSITIES

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UNIVERSITIES

lent satire contained much that was false or exagger- ated, and therefore calculated rather to add new dis- turbance than to effect the reform which was really needed. The better days of Scholasticism, in fact, had passed ; the universities had no longer such leaders of thought as the thirteenth century had produced; both studies and discipUne were on the decline. Humanism triumphed, in the first place, because, as a reaction and a novelty, it appealed to the younger men who were anxious to be free from the dryness of Scho- lastic exercises and the restrictions imposed by college statutes. Their unruly conduct and their ceaseless brawls with the townfolk afforded the princes and the city authorities a pretext to undertake university reforms; and the reforming was accomplished by placing the Humanists in control. These conflicts and remedial measures, however, were only the sur- face of a much deeper movement. Before it asserted itself in the universities. Humanism had won over the higher and more influential cUisses of the people by catering, in the form of hterature, to the spirit of luxury which tlie growth and increasing wealth of the cities had engendered. There was no doubt a charm in the elegant diction of the Humanists; but their attractive force lay in the rehabilitation of those views and ideals of life which the naturalism of the pagan world had expressed in perfect form and which brought men back to themselves and to earth. Aristotle had triumphed in the thirteenth century; he was overcome in the fifteenth by the orators and poets.

The Renaissance, originating in Italy, had thence spread to the northern countries. Its introduction into the universities of Italy and France did not lead to revolt against the Church; the popes were its patrons, and many distinguished Humanists remained loyal to CathoUeism. In Germany and England, on the contrary, the Renaissance coalesced with another movement which had far more serious consequences. Luther, though not in sympathy with Humanism, was bent on sweeping away Scholastic theology by returning, as he claimed, to the pure teaching of the Gospel; and he would have made an end of the uni- versities, which he denounced as the devil's workshops. The violent theological discussions aroused by the reform doctrine had a disastrous effect, not only on Humanism but also on the life of the universities. Some of these closed their doors, and nearly all were in danger of dissolution for want of students. Me- lanchthon declared that philosophy was the worship of idols and that the only knowledge necessary for a Christian was to be obtained from the Bible. But the reformers soon realized that their cause could not dis- pense with the higher education; and it was Me- lanchthon himself who reformed theexisting universi- ties and organized the new, i. e. Protestant, founda- tions, Marburg (1527), Konig.sberg (1.544), Helm- stadt (1574). The endowment was supplied chiefly from the revenues of confiscated monasteries and other church properties; Classic philology and the new theology took the place of Scholasticism; and the uni- versities became state institutions under the control of secular princes.

As a result, the universities lost in great part their international character. In place of the medieval sludium gt-ncrale, there arose a multitude of institu- tions each limited to its own territory and devoted to the creed of its founders. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the traditional organization was presers'cd; but Classical culture was on the wane, and there was httle progress in other hues. "At the end of the seventeenth century the German universi- ties had sunk to the lowest level which they ever reached in the public esteem and in their influence upon the intellectual Hfe of the fJernian people . . . Academic science was no longer in touch with reality and its controlling ideas; it was held fast in an obso-

lete system of instruction by organization and statutes and toilsome compilation was the sole result of its activity. Added to this was the prevailing coarse- ness of the entire life. The students had sunk to the lowest depths, and carousals and brawls, carried to the Umits of brutaUty and bestiaUty, largely filled their days" (Paulsen, "The German Universities", p. 42).

When Erasmus came to England in 1497, Classical studies imported from Italy were already cultivated at Oxford by men Uke Colet, Grocjn, Lynacre, and Sir Thomas More. In 1516, Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester, endowed the first lectureship in Greek and founded Corpus Christi College. In 1525, Wol- sey founded Cardinal College and engaged eminent teachers to "cultivate the new literature in the service of the old Church" (Huber). But his princely de- signs were checked by the question of Henry's divorce from Catharine of Aragon. At Cambridge also the Renaissance movement was furthered by the teaching of Erasmus and the exertions of Bishop Fisher; but at the same time the writings of Luther were being studied by a group of scholars under Tyndale and Latimer, and it was Cranmer, then a fellow of Jesus College, who suggested that the legaUty of Henry's marriage should be referred to the universities of Christendom. After some opposition both Oxford and Cambridge gave an opinion favourable to the king; and finally they declared for the separation from Rome which was consummated by the Act of 1.534. By the Royal Injunctions of 1535, the teaching of canon law and of the Sentences was abolished; Aris- totle, however, was retained, and the study of civil law, Hebrew, mathematics, logic, and medicine was encouraged. The spoliation of the monasteries, which had sheltered many of the poorer scholars, reduced the numbers at the universities. In 1549 a royal visitation eliminated from the statutes every trace of popery, and abolished numerous stipends that had formerly been given for Masses. In a spirit of iconoclasm, altars, images, and statues were torn from the college chapels, and many valuable manu- scripts of the libraries were burned. Under Mary's brief rule the Protestants in turn suffered; Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer perished at the stake at Oxford, and the anti-C^athoUc statutes were repealed. During Ehzabeth's reign and Leicester's chancellorship, every Oxford student above sixteen years of age was obliged at matriculation to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Royal Supremacy, a measure which made the university an exclusively Church of England institution. At Cambridge a royal mandate in 1613 required all candidates for B.D. or for the doctorate in any faculty to subscribe to the Three Articles. In both universities, Puritanism was a disturbing ele- ment, and a number of its adherents were obliged to withdraw from Cambridge. In 1570 the Elizabethan statutes were enacted "on account of the .again in- creasing audacity and excessive licence of men", as the preamble declares. These new regulations cir- cumscribed the powers of the proctors and provided that they should be elected, not as formerly, by the regents, but according to a cycle of colleges. The Elizabethan code remained in force for nearly three centuries. Under Charles I similar provisions were made for Oxford by the Laudian statutes (1636), and the whole administration of the tmiversity was en- trusted to the vice-chancellor, the proctors, and the heads of colleges. "This statute effectually stereotyi)ed the admini.slrative monopoly of the colleges, and destroyed all trace of the old democratic constitution which had been controlled only by the authority of the medieval Church" (Brodrick). Oxford was governed by this cotle until 1854.

In Scotland, after the abolition of papal jurisdiction and ratification of Protestant doctrine in 1.560, the universities suffered severely. "To St. Andrews, afi