45o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



filled up. The professed object of the work is to urge the necessity of a reform 

 in the mode of philosophizing, to set forth the reasons why knowledge had not 

 made greater progress, to draw back attention to the sources of knowledge 

 which had been unwisely neglected, to discover other sources which were yet 

 almost untouched, and to animate men in the undertaking of a prospect of the 

 vast advantages which it offered. In the development of this plan all the 

 leading portions of science are expanded in the most complete shape which they 

 had at that time assumed; and improvements of a very wide and striking kind 

 are proposed in some of the principal branches of study. Even if the work had 

 no leading purposes it would have been highly valuable as a treasure of the 

 most solid knowledge and soundest speculations of the time; even if it had 

 contained no such details it would have been a work most remarkable for its 

 general views and scope. 



As a matter of fact the universities of the middle ages, far from 

 neglecting science, were really scientific universities. Because the uni- 

 versities of the early nineteenth century occupied themselves almost 

 exclusively with languages and especially formed students' minds by 

 means of classical studies, we in our generation are prone to think that 

 such linguistic studies formed the main portion of the curriculum of 

 the universities in all the old times and particularly in the middle ages. 

 The study of the classic languages, however, came into university life 

 only after the renaissance. Before that the undergraduates of the 

 universities had occupied themselves almost entirely with science. It 

 was quite as much trouble to introduce linguistic studies into the old 

 universities in the renaissance time to replace science, as it was to 

 secure room for science by pushing out the classics in the modern time. 

 Indeed the two revolutions in education are strikingly similar when 

 studied in detail. Men who had been brought up on science before the 

 renaissance were quiet sure that that formed the best possible means of 

 developing the mind. In the early nineteenth century men who had 

 been formed on the classics were quite as sure that science could not 

 replace them with any success. 



There is no pretense that this view of the medieval universities is a 

 new idea in the history of education. Those who have known the old 

 universities at first hand by the study of the actual books of their pro- 

 fessors and by familiarity with their courses of study, have not been 

 inclined to make the mistake of thinking that the medieval university 

 neglected science. Professor Huxley in his " Inaugural Address as 

 Bector of Aberdeen University " some thirty years ago stated very defi- 

 nitely his recognition of medieval devotion to science. His words are 

 well worth remembering by all those who are accustomed to think of 

 our time as the first in which the study of science was taken up seri- 

 ously in our universities. Professor Huxley said : 



The scholars of the medieval universities seem to have studied grammar, 

 logic and rhetoric; arithmetic and geometry; astronomy, theology and music. 

 Thus their work, however imperfect and faulty, judged by modern lights, it 



