460 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fruit in no measured amount. And Boethius is the name associated 

 with the scheme of higher education that preceded the university 

 teaching, called the quaclrivium, 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. 



In the seventh century, the era of deepest intellectual gloom, phi- 

 losophy was at an entire stand-still. Light arises with the eighth, 

 when we are introduced to the cathedral and cloister schools of Char- 

 lemagne ; and the ninth 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 w T ere, as formerly, 

 the monks. The eleventh 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 re-enforced 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 vigor. We are now on the eve of the founding 

 of the universities ; Bologna, indeed, being already in existence. 



The university proper, however, can hardly be dated earlier than 

 the twelfth century ; and the important particulars in its first consti- 

 tution 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 eleventh 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 Abelard), 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 univei'sals 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 fun- 

 damental faculty the Faculty of Arts. Bologna, indeed, was eminent 

 for law or jurisprudence, and this celebrity it retained for ages ; but 



