86 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion necessarily presupposed a knowledge of Latin, Greek, and even 

 Hebrew, because these languages were the keys to the knowledge the 

 student desired to obtain. But this had not always been so. At first 

 Latin alone was used. The introduction of Greek often met with in- 

 tense opposition, for instance, at Oxford. Greek stood then for new 

 ideas, it was the treasure-house of the most valuable knowledge, and the 

 professors of the old school thought then, as some of their colleagues 

 seem to think even now, that the old education had been good enough 

 for them, and therefore must be the best for every one else. But the 

 rising tide of the Reformation soon settled the question of Greek. The 

 demands of the times were of a religious nature, and the New Testa- 

 ment was written in Greek. And, besides, whatever there was to be 

 found out about science, political, mental, and even physical, had to 

 be searched for in Greek books. To be ignorant of Greek was then 

 as serious a drawback for a scholar as to be ignorant of German and 

 French is to-day. Latin was the native language, so to speak, of 

 every scholar. It was the common medium of social and learned in- 

 tercourse ; the speech in which the professor lectured and the student 

 answered when examined ; the language used in public disputations, 

 on the rostrum, in the courts, and even in the theatre. 



There were, of course, also the specialties of Latin and Greek 

 grammar and literature, as there are the specialties of English gram- 

 mar and literature in our colleges, but the general purpose and aim of 

 the college was to impart knowledge of facts, or what was taken for 

 facts, in matters historical, physical, philosophical, theological, and, 

 naturally enough, also philological and literary. 



In the discussion of this subject frequent reference has been made 

 to the higher schools of Germany. Now, it is a fact that the German 

 universities have continued the idea of the old university more faith- 

 fully than any others. The most successful old university, that of 

 Paris, had contained the four faculties of theology, law, medicine, and 

 the *' arts." The terms of admission, as far as scholarship is con- 

 cerned, are the same for all. They are still the same for all in the 

 modem German university, with one notable exception, of which we 

 will speak further on. The American college ought to correspond to 

 the faculty " of arts " ; it may at least be compared to it, though, as 

 a matter of fact, the preparation for the German school is more severe 

 and extensive than the preparation for the American college. As the 

 latter gives to its successful graduates the degree of bachelor " of 

 arts," the former used to confer on all who passed the proper exami- 

 nation the degree of master " of arts." What were these " arts " 

 originally ? They are enumerated in the following line : " Lingua, 

 tropus, ratio, numcrus, tenor, angulus, astra" — i. e., grammar, rhetoric, 

 dialectics, arithmetic, music, geometry, astronomy.* 



That is, the degree " of arts " meant proficiency in these branches, 

 * Raumer, " Geschicbte der deutschcn Universitaten." 



