19G UXIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL viii 



is now part of Prussia, objected to the Frankish. 

 king's measures; no doubt the priests, who had 

 never hesitated about sacrificing all unbelievers in 

 their fantastic deities and futile conjurations, were 

 the loudest in chanting the virtues of toleration; 

 no d(^ubt they denounced as a cruel persecutor 

 the man who would not allow them, however 

 sincere they might be, to go on spreading de- 

 lusions which debased the intellect, as much as 

 they deadened the moral sense, and undermined 

 the bonds of civil allegiance; no doubt, if they 

 had lived in these times, they would have been 

 able to show, with ease, that the king's proceed- 

 ings were totally contrary to the best liberal 

 princii)les. But it may be said, in justification of 

 the Teutonic ruler, first, that he was born before 

 those principles, and did not suspect that the best 

 way of getting disorder into order was to let it 

 alone; and, secondly, that his rough and question- 

 a])le proceedings did, more or less, bring about the 

 end he had in view. For, in a couple of centuries, 

 the schools he sowed broadcast produced their crop 

 of men, thirsting for knowledge and craving for 

 culture. Such men gravitating towards Paris, as 

 a light amid>st the darkness of evil days, from 

 CJermany, from Spain, from Britain, and from 

 Scandinavia, came together by natural afTinity. 

 By degrees they banded themselves into a society, 

 which, as its end was the knowledge of all things 

 knowable, called itself a ^' Studium Gcncralej" 



