Lectures on the Rise and Early Constitution of Universities (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1886. Excerpt: ... LECTURE XV. UNIVERSITY STUDIES AND THE CONDITIONS OF GRADUATION. In this, as in other university characteristics, there was an historical continuity. The work done in the mediaeval universities by the candidates for the bachelorship was the same as that which I have already described as constituting the trivial curriculum of monastery and cathedral schools, but somewhat more extensive and better organized. There was a distinct educational advance. But it has to be observed that, as in an account of the curriculum of the pre-university schools of Europe it was necessary to be guided by the practice of the best seminaries, so, in the case of the universities, we have to bear in mind that while the trivium--" grammar (including ancient literature), rhetoric, and dialectic"--has an imposing sound, the actual work accomplished, and consequently the attainments of bachelors, whose average age over Europe generally could not be more than seventeen or eighteen, were not very high. There was, I say, no sudden breach of continuity in the curriculum of instruction in so far as it contemplated a general education, and there was no better education in the humanities to be had in the universities than Bernard of Chartres was giving about the time the University of Paris began to exist. No doubt one or two teachers had preserved the tradition of Chartres till the end of the twelfth century; but this is all that can be said, if we are to attach due value to the complaints of John of Salisbury, who may be regarded as the humanist of that period, and afterwards of Grossteste, Roger Bacon, and others. It was in the higher development and specialization of medicine, civil law, and theology (with philosophy) that the university movement broke away from the mediaeval and monki...