The History of Education

[16] A contemporary writer, Jacobus de Vitriaco, has left us an account of student life at Paris, in which he says:

"The students at Paris wrangled and disputed not merely about the various sects or about some discussions; but the differences between the countries also caused dissensions, hatreds and virulent animosities among them, and they impudently uttered all kinds of affronts and insults against one another.

"They affirmed that the English were drunkards and had tails; the sons of France proud, effeminate and carefully adorned like women. They said that the Germans were furious and obscene at their feasts; the Normans vain and boastful; the Poitevins traitors and always adventurers. The Burgundians they considered vulgar and stupid. The Bretons were reputed to be fickle and changeable, and were often reproached for the death of Arthur. The Lombards were called avaricious, vicious and cowardly; the Romans, seditious, turbulent and slanderous; the Sicilians, tyrannical and cruel; the inhabitants of Brabant, men of blood, incendiaries, brigands and ravishers; the Flemish, fickle, prodigal, gluttonous, yielding as b.u.t.ter, and slothful. After such insults from words they often came to blows."

(Pa. Trans. and Repts. from _Sources_, vol. II, no. 3, pp. 19-20.)

[17] In an American university the term _college_ or _school_ has largely replaced the term _faculty_; in Europe the term _faculty_ is still used.

Thus we say College of Liberal Arts, or School of Law, instead of Faculty of Arts, etc.

[18] For example, one of our modern state universities is organized into the following faculties, schools, and colleges:

(1) college of liberal arts; (2) school of medicine; (3) school of law; (4) school of fine arts; (5) school of pure science; (6) college of engineering; (7) college of agriculture; (8) school of history, economics, and social sciences; (9) school of business administration; (10) college of education; (11) school of household arts; (12) school of pharmacy; (13) school of veterinary medicine; (14) school of library science; (15) school of forestry; (16) school of sanitary engineering; (17) the graduate school; and (18) the university-extension division.

[19] "He was called 'The Philosopher'; and so fully were scholars convinced that it had pleased G.o.d to permit Aristotle to say the last word upon each and every branch of knowledge that they humbly accepted him, along with the Bible, the church fathers, and the canon and Roman law, as one of the unquestioned authorities which together formed a complete guide for humanity in conduct and in every branch of science." (Robinson, J. H., _History of Western Europe_, p. 272.)

[20] This tendency increased with time, due both to the development of secondary schools which could give part of the preparation, and to the increasing number of students who came to the university for cultural or professional ends and without intending to pa.s.s the tests for the masters.h.i.+p and the license to teach. Finally the arts course was reduced to three or four years (the usual college course), and the master's degree to one, and for the latter even residence was waived during the middle of the nineteenth century. The A.M. degree has recently been rehabilitated and now usually signifies a year of hard study in English and American universities, though a few eastern American inst.i.tutions still play with it or even grant it as an honorary degree. In Germany the arts course disappeared, being given to the secondary schools entirely in the late eighteenth century, and the universities now confer only the degree of doctor.

[21] For a list of the books used in the faculty of medicine at Montpellier, in 1340, see Rashdall, H., _Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages_, vol. II, pt. I, p. 123; pt. II, p. 780.

[22] After the latter part of the thirteenth century the book-writing and selling trade was organized as a guild industry, and the copying of texts for sale became common. Then arose the practice of erasing as much of the writing from old books as could be done, and writing the new book crosswise of the page. In this way the expense for parchment was reduced, and in the process many valueless and a few valuable books were destroyed.

Still, the cost for books during the days of parchment must have been high. Walsh estimates that "an ordinary folio volume probably cost from 400 to 500 francs in our [1914] values, that is, between $80 and $100."

[23] In Germany the old mediaeval expression has been retained, and the announcements of instruction there still state that the professor will "read" on such and such subjects, instead of "offer courses," as we say in the United States.

[24] Norton, in his _Readings in the History of Education; Mediaeval Universities_, pp. 59-75, gives an extract from a text (Gratian) and "gloss" by various writers, on the question--"Shall Priests be Acquainted with Profane Literature, or No?" which see for a good example of mediaeval university instruction and the manner in which a small amount of knowledge was spun out by means of a gloss.

[25] Not many early library catalogues have been preserved, but those which have all show small libraries before the days of printing. At

The Peterhouse library (1418) was cla.s.sified as follows:

Subject Chained Loanable Theology............ 61 63 Natural Philosophy.. 26 | Moral Philosophy.... 5 | 19 Metaphysics......... 3 | Logic............... 5 15 Grammar............. 6 | Poetry.............. 4 | 13 Medicine............ 15 3 Civil Law........... 9 20 Canon Law........... 18 19 Totals.............. 152 152 (Clarke. J. W., _The Care of Books_, pp. 145, 147.)

[26] Survivals of these old privileges still exist in the German universities which exercise police jurisdiction over their students and have a university jail, and in the American college student's feeling of having the right to create a disturbance in the town and break minor police regulations without being arrested and fined.

[27] See Compayre, G., _Abelard_, p. 201, for ill.u.s.trations.

PART III

CHAPTER X

[1] One of the best known of the Troubadours was Arnaul de Marveil. The following specimen of his art reveals both the new love of nature and the reaction which had clearly set in against the "other-worldliness" of the preceding centuries:

"Oh! how sweet the breeze of April, Breathing soft as May draws near, While, through nights of tranquil beauty, Songs of gladness meet the ear: Every bird his well-known language Uttering in the morning's pride.

Reveling in joy and gladness By his happy partner's side.

"When around me all is smiling, When to life the young birds spring, Thoughts of love I cannot hinder Come, my heart inspiriting- Nature, habit, both incline me In such joy to bear my part: With such sounds of bliss around me Could I wear a sadden'd heart?"

[2] "In the Middle Ages man as an individual had been held of very little account. He was only part of a great machine. He acted only through some corporation--the commune, guild, the order. He had but little self- confidence, and very little consciousness of his ability single-handed to do great things or overcome great difficulties. Life was so hard and narrow that he had no sense of the joy of living, and no feeling for the beauty of the world around him, and, as if this world were not dark enough, the terrors of another world beyond were very near and real."

(Adams, G. B., _Civilization during the Middle Ages_, 2d ed., p. 363.)

[3] Adams, G. B., _Civilization during the Middle Ages_, 2d. ed., p. 364.

[4] Petrarch refused to have the works of the Scholastics in his library.

Though a university man, he was out of sympathy with the university methods of his time.

[5] "Florence was essentially the city of intelligence in early modern times. Other nations have surpa.s.sed the Italians in their genius... but nowhere else except at Athens has the whole population of a city been so permeated with ideas, so highly intellectual by nature, so keen in perception, so witty and so subtle, as at Florence." (Symonds, J. A., _The Renaissance in Italy_.)

[6] Sandys, J. E., in his _Harvard Lectures on the Revival of Learning_, pp. 35-41, gives a list of the more important later finds, which see.

[7] Of the Florentine scholars one of the most famous was Niccol Niccoli (1363-1436), of whom Sandys says: "Famous for his beautiful penmans.h.i.+p, he was much more than a copyist. He collected ma.n.u.scripts, compared and collated their various readings, struck out the more obvious corruptions, restored the true text, broke it up into convenient paragraphs, added suitable summaries at the head of each, and did much toward laying the foundation of textual criticism." (Sandys, J. E., _Harvard Lectures on the Revival of Learning_, p. 39.)

[8] For example, Laurentius Valla (1407-57) of Pavia, exceeded Niccoli in ability in textual criticism. He extended this method to the New Testament and, at the request of King Alphonso, of Naples, subjected the so-called "Donation of Constantine," a doc.u.ment upon which the Papacy based in part its claims to temporal power, to the tests of textual criticism and showed its historical impossibility. This, indeed, was a new and daring spirit in the mediaeval world, but it represented the spirit and method of the modern scholar.

[9] For example, Ciriaco, of Ancona (1391-1450), has been called "the Schliemann of his time." He spent his life in travel and in copying and editing inscriptions. After exploring Italy, he visited the Greek isles, Constantinople, Ephesos, Crete, and Damascus. One of his contemporaries, Flavio Blondo, of Forli (1388-1463), published a four-volume work on the antiquities and history of Rome and Italy. These two men helped to found the new science of cla.s.sical archaeology.

[10] Cla.s.sical scholars a.s.sert that Greek became extinct in the Italy of the Roman Church in 690 A.D. Greek was taught at Canterbury in the days of the learned Theodore, of Tarsus (R. 59 a), who died in 690. Irish monks, who carried Greek from Gaul to Ireland in the fifth century, brought it back in the seventh century to Saint Gall, founded by them in 614. "John the Scot," an Irish monk who was master of the Palace School under Charles the Bald (c. 845-55), is said to have been able to read Greek. Roger Bacon, the Oxford monk (1214-94), also knew a little Greek. William of Moerbeke, in 1260, was able to translate the _Rhetoric_ and _Politics_ of Aristotle for Thomas Aquinas. Greek monks were still found in the extreme south of Italy at the time of the Renaissance, and Greek has remained a living language in a few villages there up to the present time.

[11] Gian Antonio Campano; trans. by J. A. Symonds, _The Renaissance in Italy_, vol. II, p. 249.

[12] For long it was thought that the revival of the study of Greek in the West dated from the fall of Constantinople, in 1453, but this idea has been exploded by cla.s.sical scholars. The events we have enumerated in this chapter show this, and at least five of the important Greek scholars who taught in Italy came before that date. As the Turks closed in on this wonderful eastern city, for so long the home of Greek learning and culture, many other Greek scholars fled westward. The princ.i.p.al Greek authors had, however, been translated into Latin before then.

[13] Some of the Italian universities partic.i.p.ated but little in the new movement. Bologna and Pavia, in particular, held to their primacy in law and were but little affected by the revival.

[14] Bessarion (c. 1403-72), at one time Archbishop of Nicaea and afterwards a cardinal at Rome, is said to have been surrounded by a crowd of Greek and Latin scholars whenever he went out, and who escorted him every morning from his palace to the Vatican. He was a great patron of learned Greeks who fled to Italy. On his death he gave his entire library of Greek ma.n.u.scripts to Venice, and this collection formed the foundation of the celebrated library of Saint Mark's.

[15] Symonds, J. A., _The Renaissance in Italy_, vol. II, p. 139.

[16] In 1436, Niccol de Niccoli, a copyist of Florence, died, leaving his collection of eight hundred ma.n.u.scripts to the Medicean Library for the use of the public, meaning thereby any scholar. This is said to have been the first public-library collection in western Europe.

[17] Nicholas as a monk had had his enthusiasm for the new movement awakened, and had gone deeply into debt for ma.n.u.scripts. He was helped by Cosimo de' Medici. When he became Pope (1447-55) he collected scholars about him, built up the university at Rome, laid the foundations of the great Vatican Library, and made Rome a great literary center. After the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent at Florence, in 1492, the glory that had been Florence pa.s.sed to Rome, and it in turn became the cultural center of Christendom.

[18] Much earlier, another Oxford man had returned from study under Guarino at Ferrara--William Gray (1449)--but he seems to have made no impression. A few other scholars went before Linacre and Grocyn and Colet, but these men were the first to attract attention on their return.

[19] Agricola's real name was Roelof Huysman, meaning "Roelof the husbandman." In keeping with a common practice of the time he Latinized his name, taking the equivalent Roman word.

[20] This was bound in two volumes, and in 1911 a copy of it was sold at a sale of old books, in New York City, for $50,000.

[21] A second edition of this Psalter was printed two years later, and contains at the end, in Latin, a statement which Robinson translates as follows: "The present volume of the Psalms, which is adorned with handsome capitals and is clearly divided by means of rubrics, was produced not by writing with a pen, but by an ingenious invention of printed characters: and was completed to the glory of G.o.d and the honor of Saint James by John Fust, a citizen of Mayence, and Peter Schoifher of Gernsheim, in the year of our Lord 1459, on the 29th of August."

[22] The usual early edition was three hundred copies.

[23] At Florence about three hundred editions are said to have been printed before 1500; at Bologna, 298; at Milan, 625; and at Rome, 925.

[24] The following numbers of different editions are said to have been printed at the northern cities before 1500: Paris, 751; Cologne, 530; Stra.s.sburg, 526; Nuremberg, 382; Leipzig, 351; Basel, 320; Augsburg, 256; Louvain, 116; Mayence, 134; Deventer, 169; London, 130; Oxford, 7; Saint Albans, 4.

[25] By 1500 it is said that a book could be purchased for the equivalent of fifty cents which a half century before would have cost fifty dollars.

CHAPTER XI