Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/98

 86 HISTORY OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE CHAPTER IV THE UNIVERSITIES AND OTHER CENTRES OF LEARNING All the men whose work has hitherto been described pursued, whether as writers or as teachers, the same high aim of making the treasures of learning the common property of the whole nation, and of promoting the reform of Church and State by careful attention to the instruction and education of the young and by the en- lightenments of science. Similar results were aimed at by the universities, those centres of universal learning, which at no other period of German history have ever had such enthusiastic and self-sacrificing support lavished on them as in the half-century from 1460 to 1510, and which at no other period made such tre- mendous strides in the way of progress. Endowments without end were made in favour of these institutions by men of all conditions — by the clergy of higher or lower degree, by princes and nobles, by burghers and peasants ; and legacies innumerable were bequeathed for the benefit of needy students, to whom it was desired that the advantages of learning should be made as accessible as to the wealthy. While the Universities of Prague, Vienna, Heidelberg, Cologne, Erfurt, Leipsic, and Eostock had already reached a high state of development, nine new ones were founded in Germany within the space of fifteen