196 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL vin 



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 doubt 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 

 principles. 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- 

 able 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 amidst the darkness of evil days, from 

 Germany, from Spain, from Britain, and from 

 Scandinavia, came together by natural affinity. 

 By degrees they banded themselves into a society, 

 which, as its end was the knowledge of all things 

 knowable, called itself a " Studium Generale ; " 



