Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/884

Rh Russian minister has also recently instituted a professorship of the comparative grammar of the Slavonic dialects (now filled by J. Baudouin de Courtenay). The general influence of the university has been rapidly extending during the last few years far beyond the Baltic provinces. The number of students, which in 1879 was 1106, in 1886 was 1751. A like contest between contending nationalities has recently met with a final solution at Prague, where a Czech university has been established on an independent basis, the German university having commenced its separate career in the winter session of 1882-83. The German foundation retains its endowments, but the state subvention is divided between the two.

The repudiation on the part of the Protestant universities of both papal and episcopal authority evoked a counter-demonstration among those centres which still adhered to Catholicism, while their theological intolerance gave rise to a great reaction, under the influence of which the mediæval Catholic universities were reinvigorated and reorganized (although strictly on the traditional lines), while new and important centres were created. It was on the tide of this reaction, aided by their own skill and sagacity, that the Jesuits were borne to that commanding position which made them for a time the arbiters of education in Europe. The earliest university whose charter represented this reaction was that of Bamberg, founded by the prince-bishop Melchior Otto, after whom it was named "Academia Ottoniana." It was opened 1st September 1648, and received both from the emperor Frederick III. and Pope Innocent X. all the civil and ecclesiastical privileges of a mediæval foundation. At first, however, it comprised only the faculties of arts and of theology; to these was added in 1729 that of jurisprudence, and in 1764 that of medicine. In this latter faculty Dr Ignatius Dollinger (the father of the historian) was for a long time a distinguished professor. The university of Innsbruck was founded in 1672 by the emperor Leopold I., from whom it received its name of "Academia Leopoldina." In the following century, under the patronage of the empress Maria Theresa, it made considerable progress, and received from her its ancient library and bookshelves in 1745. In 1782 the university underwent a somewhat singular change, being reduced by the emperor Joseph II. from the status of a university to that of a lyceum, although retaining in the theological faculty the right of conferring degrees. In 1791 it was restored to its privileges by the emperor Leopold II., and since that time the faculties of philosophy, law, and medicine have been represented in nearly equal proportions. In 1886 the number of professors was 74, and of students 869. The foundation of the university of Breslau was contemplated as early as the year 1505, when Ladislaus, king of Hungary, gave his sanction to the project, but Pope Julius II., in the assumed interests of Cracow, withheld his assent. Nearly two centuries later, in 1702, under singularly altered conditions, the Jesuits prevailed upon the emperor Leopold I. to found a university without soliciting the papal sanction. When Frederick the Great conquered Silesia in 1741, he took both the university and the Jesuits in Breslau under his protection, and when in 1774 the order was suppressed by Clement XIV. he established them as priests in the Royal Scholastic Institute, at the same time giving new statutes to the university. In 1811 the university was considerably augmented by the incorporation of that at Frankfort-on-the-Oder. At the present time it possesses both a Catholic and a Lutheran faculty. Its medical faculty is in high repute. The total number of students in 1887 was 1347.

In no country was the influence of the Jesuits on the universities more marked than in France. The civil wars in that country during the thirty years which preceded the close of the 16th century told with disastrous effects upon the condition of the university of Paris, and with the commencement of the 17th century its collegiate life seemed at an end, and its forty colleges stood absolutely deserted. To this state of affairs the obstinate conservatism of the academic authorities not a little contributed. The statutes by which the university was still governed were those which had been given by the cardinal D'Estouteville, the papal legate, in 1452, and remained entirely unmodified by the influences of the Renaissance. In 1579 the edict of Blois promulgated a scheme of organization for all the universities of the realm (at that time twenty-one in number), a measure which, though productive of unity of teaching, did nothing towards the advancement of the studies themselves. The eminent lawyers of France, unable to find chairs in Paris, distributed themselves among the chief towns of the provinces. The Jesuits did not fail to profit by this immobility and excessive conservatism on the part of the university, and during the second half of the 16th century and the whole of the 17th they had contrived to gain almost a complete monopoly of both the higher and the lower education of provincial France. Their schools arose at Toulouse and Bordeaux, at Auch, Agen, Rhodez, Perigueux, Limoges, Le Puy, Aubenas, Béziers, Tournon, in the colleges of Flanders and Lorraine, Douai and Pont-à-Mousson,—places beyond the jurisdiction of the parlement of Paris or even of the crown of France. Their banishment from Paris itself had been by the decree of the parlement alone, and had never been confirmed by the crown. "Lyons," says Pattison, "loudly demanded a Jesuit college, and even the Huguenot Lesdiguières, almost king in Dauphiné, was preparing to erect one at Grenoble. Amiens, Rheims, Rouen, Dijon, and Bourges were only waiting a favourable opportunity to introduce the Jesuits within their walls." The university was rescued from the fate which seemed to threaten it only by the excellent statutes given by Richer in 1598, and by the discerning protection extended to it by Henry IV.

The "college of Edinburgh" was founded by charter of James VI., dated 14th April 1582. This document contains no reference to a studium generale, nor is there ground for supposing that the foundation of a university was at that time contemplated. In marked contrast to the three older centres in Scotland, the college rose comparatively untrammelled by the traditions of mediævalism, and its creation was not effected without some jealousy and opposition on the part of its predecessors. Its first course of instruction was commenced in the Kirk of Field, under the direction of Robert Rollock, who had been educated at St Andrews under Andrew Melville, the eminent Covenanter. "He began to teach," says Craufurd, "in the lower hall of the great lodging, there being a great concourse of students allured with the great worth of the man; but diverse of them being not ripe enough in the Latin tongue, were in November next put under the charge of Mr Duncan Narne, who, upon Mr Rollock's recommendation, was chosen second master of the college." In 1585 both Rollock and Nairne subscribed the National Covenant, and a like subscription was from that time required from all who were admitted to degrees in the college.

Disastrous as were the effects of the Thirty Years War upon the external condition of the German universities, resulting in not a few instances in the total dispersion of the students and the burning of the buildings and libraries, they were less detrimental and less permanent than those which were discernible in the tone and temper of these