Practical Essays, Alexander Bain [reading e books .txt] 📗

exemption from cares, and a considerable share of the positive gratifications, we can enjoy life on a very slender stock of health; otherwise, where should we be in the inevitable decline that age brings with it?]

[Footnote 14: This Society has since been dissolved.]

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VI.

THE UNIVERSITY IDEAL--PAST AND PRESENT.[15]

GENTLEMEN,

By your flattering estimate of my services, I have been unexpectedly summoned from retirement, to assume the honours and the duties of the purple, and to occupy the most historically important office in the Universities of Europe.

The present demands upon the Rectorship somewhat resemble what we are told of the Homeric chief, who, in company with his Council or Senate, the _Boule_, and the Popular Assembly, or _Agora_, made up the political constitution of the tribe. The functions of the chief, it is said, were to supply wise counsel to the _Boule_ (as we might call our Court), and unctuous eloquence to the _Agora_. The second of these requirements is what weighs upon me at the present moment.

Whatever may have been the practice of my predecessors, generally strangers to you, it would be altogether unbecoming in me to travel out of our University life, for the materials of an Address. My remarks then will principally bear on the UNIVERSITY IDEAL.

[THE HIGHER TEACHING IN GREECE.]

To the Greeks we are indebted for the earliest germ of the University. It was with them chiefly that education took that great leap, the greatest ever made, from the traditional teaching of the home, the shop, the social surroundings, to schoolmaster teaching properly so called. Nowadays, we, schoolmasters, think so much of ourselves, that we do not make full allowance for that other teaching, which was, for unknown ages, the only teaching of mankind. The Greeks were the first to introduce, not perhaps the primary schoolmaster, for the R's, but certainly the secondary or higher schoolmaster, known as Rhetorician or Sophist, who taught the higher professions; while their Philosophers or wise men, introduced a kind of knowledge that gave scope to the intellectual faculties, with or without professional applications; the very idea of our Faculty of Arts.

So self-asserting were these new-born teachers of the Sophist class, that Plato thought it necessary to recall attention to the good old perennial source of instruction, the home, the trade, and the society. He pointed out that the pretenders to teach virtue by moral lecturing, were as yet completely outrivalled by the influence of the family and the social pressure of the community. In like manner, the arts of life were all originally handed down by apprenticeship and imitation. The greatest statesmen and generals of early times had simply the education of the actual work. Philip of Macedon could have had no other teaching; his greater son was the first of the line to receive what we may call a liberal, or a general education, under the educator of all Europe.

[LOGIC IN THE MIDDLE AGES.]

THE MIDDLE AGE AND BOETHIUS.

I must skip eight centuries, to introduce the man that linked the ancient and the modern world, and was almost the sole luminary in the west during the dark ages, namely, Boethius, minister of the Gothic Emperor Theodoric. As much of Aristotle as was known between the 6th and the 11th centuries was handed down by him. During that time, only the logical treatises existed among the Latins; and of these the best parts were neglected. Historical importance attaches to a small circle of them known as the Old Logic (_vectus logica_), which were the pabulum of abstract thought for five dreary centuries. These consisted of the two treatises or chapters of Aristotle called the "Categories," and the "De Interpretatione," or the Theory of Propositions; and of a book of Porphyry the Neo-Platonist, entitled 'Introduction' (_Isagoge_), and treating of the so-called Five Predicables. A hundred average pages would include them all; and three weeks would suffice to master them.

Boethius, however, did much more than hand on these works to the mediaeval students; he translated the whole of Aristotle's logical writings (the Organon), but the others were seldom taken up. It was he too that handled the question of Universals in his first Dialogue on Porphyry, and sowed the seed that was not to germinate till four centuries afterwards, but which, when the time came, was to bear fruit in no measured amount. And Boethius is the name associated with the scheme of higher education that preceded the University teaching, called the _quadrivium_, or quadruple group of subjects, namely, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music and Astronomy. This, together with the _trivium_, or preparatory group of three subjects--Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic--constituted what was known as the _seven liberal arts_; but, in the darkest ages, the quadrivium was almost lost sight of, and few went beyond the trivium.

EVE OF THE UNIVERSITY.

In the 7th century, the era of deepest intellectual gloom, philosophy was at an entire stand-still. Light arises with the 8th, when we are introduced to the Cathedral and Cloister Schools of Charlemagne; and the 9th saw these schools fully established, and an educational reform completed that was to be productive of lasting good results. But the range of instruction was still narrow, scarcely proceeding beyond the Old Logic, and the teachers were, as formerly, the Monks. The 11th century is really the period of dawn. The East was now opened up through the Crusades, and there was frequent intercourse with the learned Saracens of Spain; and thus there were brought into the West the whole of Aristotle's works, with Arabic commentaries, chiefly in Latin translations. The effervescence was prodigious and alarming. The schools were reinforced by a higher class of teachers, Lay as well as Clerical; a marked advance was made in Logic and Dialectic; and the great controversy of Realism _versus_ Nominalism, which had found its birth in the previous century, raged with extraordinary vigour. We are now on the eve of the founding of the Universities; Bologna, indeed, being already in existence.

[TWO CLASSES OF MEDIEVAL CHURCHMEN.]

SEPARATION OF PHILOSOPHY FROM THEOLOGY.

The University proper, however, can hardly be dated earlier than the 12th century; and the important particulars in its first constitution are these:--First, the separation of Philosophy from Theology. To expound this, would be to give a chapter of mediaeval history. Suffice it to say that Aristotle and the awakening intellect of the 11th century were the main causes of it. Two classes of minds at this time divided the Church--the pious, devout believers (such as St. Bernard), who needed no reasons for their faith, and the polemic speculative divines (such as Abaelard), who wished to make Theology rational. It was an age, too, of stirring political events; the crusading spirit was abroad, and found a certain gratification even in the war of words. The nature of Universals was eagerly debated; but when this controversy came into collision with such leading theological doctrines as the Trinity and Predestination, it was no longer possible for Philosophy and Theology to remain conjoined.

A separation was effected, and determined the leading feature of the University system. The foundation was Philosophy, and the fundamental Faculty the Faculty of Arts. Bologna, indeed, was eminent for Law or Jurisprudence, and this celebrity it retained for ages; but the University of Paris, which is the prototype of our Scottish Universities, as of so many others, taught nothing but Philosophy--in other words, had no Faculty but Arts--for many years. Neither Theology, Medicine, nor Law had existence there till the 13th century.

Second, the system of conferring Degrees, after appropriate trials. These were at first simply a licence to teach. They acquired their commanding importance through the action of Pope Nicholas I, who gave to the graduates of the University of Paris, the power of teaching everywhere, a power that our own countrymen were the foremost to turn to account.

THE OFFICE OF RECTOR.

Third, the Organisation of the primitive University. Europe was unsettled; even in the capitals, the civil power was often unhinged. Wherever multitudes came together, there was manifested a spirit of turbulence. The Universities often exemplified this fact; and it was found necessary to establish a government within themselves. The basis was popular; but, while, in Paris, only the teaching body was incorporated, in Bologna, the students had a voice. They elected the Rector, and his jurisdiction was very great indeed, and much more important than speechifying to his constituents. His Court had the power of internal regulation, with both a civil and criminal jurisdiction. The Scotch Universities, on this point, followed Bologna; and that fact is the remote cause of this day's meeting.

[SCOTCHMEN ABROAD.]

THE UNIVERSITIES OF SCOTLAND FOUNDED.

So started the University. The idea took; and in three centuries, many of the leading towns in Italy, France, the German Empire, had their Universities; in England arose Oxford and Cambridge; the model was Paris or Bologna.

Scotland did not at first enter the race of University-founding, but worked on the plan of the cuckoo, by laying its eggs in the nests of others. For two centuries, Scotchmen were almost shut out of England; and so could not make for themselves a career in Oxford and Cambridge, as in later times. They had, however, at home, good grammar schools, where they were grounded in Latin. They perambulated Europe, and were familiar figures in the great University towns, and especially Paris. From their disputatious and metaphysical aptitude, they worked their upward way--


And gladly would they learn and gladly teach.


At length, the nation did take up the work in good earnest. In 1411, was founded the first of the St. Andrews' Colleges; 1451 is the date of Glasgow; 1494, King's College, Aberdeen. These are the pre-Reformation colleges; but for the Reformation, we might not have had any other. Their founders were ecclesiastics; their constitution and ceremonial were ecclesiastical. They were intended, no doubt, to keep the Scotch students at home. They were also expected to serve as bulwarks to the Church against the rising heretics of the times. In this they were a disappointment; the first-begotten of them became the cradle of the Reformation.

In these our three eldest foundations, we are to seek the primitive constitution and the teaching system of our Universities. In essentials, they were the same; only between the dates of Glasgow and Old Aberdeen occurred two great events. One was the taking of Constantinople, which spread the Greek scholars with their treasures over Europe. The other was the progress of printing. In 1451, when Glasgow commenced, there was no printed text-book. In 1494, when King's College began, the ancient classics had been largely printed; the early editions of Aristotle in our Library, show the date of 1486.


FIRST PERIOD--THE TEACHING BODY.

Our Universities have three well-marked periods; the first anterior to the Reformation; the second from the Reformation to the beginning of last century; the third, the last and present centuries. Confining ourselves still to the Faculty of Arts, the features of the Pre-Reformation University were these:--

First, as regards the teaching Body. The quadriennial Arts' course was conducted by so-called Regents, who each carried the same students through all the four years, thus taking upon himself the burden of all the sciences--a walking Encyclopaedia. The system was in full force, in spite of attempts to change it, during both the first and the second periods. You, the students of Arts, at the present day, encountering in your four years, seven faces, seven voices, seven repositories of knowledge, need an effort