in the translation of them, from both the Greek and the Arabic, into the Latin as well as into modern tongues. For example, they had his old work on dialectics (then known as "the new logic ") Latinized by Boethius, with portions of the Organon interpreted by Porphyry; the Categories, translated into Latin by Victorinus; annotations of the Categories by Boethius. They also used the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, but not his Metaphysics, or his Natural Philosophy. Courçon was so far controlled by his conservative theology that he even forbade their use in the following terms: “Let no one read either the Metaphysics or the Natural Philosophy of Aristotle, or the abridgments of those works; nor the writings of David Dinant, the heretic Amauri, or the Spaniard Mauricius." As a matter of course the rejected works were bound to gain acceptance when better understood and universally desired. Even the bull of Gregory IX, in 1231, excluding his works on natural philosophy “until they shall have been examined and expurgated," could not long hinder their use. Consequently his Physics, the use of which had been prohibited under penalty of excommunication up to 1255; they, too, with his de Animalibus and his work on the soul, were officially approved. This made his victory complete. He was now supreme in the world of letters, science, and philosophy, and so remained right through the centuries.

The statute which next followed that of Courçon (1215 A. D.) came in 1254, and gives us more definite information, while at the same time furnishing gratifying evidence of a larger liberality. Besides Aristotle's Logic, prior and posterior, and his Ethics, it expressly names Physica, Metaphysica, de Anima, de Animalibus, de Generatione, de Sensu, de Sensato, de Somno et Vigilia, de Memoria at Reminiscentia, de Morte et Vita, de coelo et Mundo, the spurious Liber de Causis (saying nothing of his Politics, Economics, and Rhetoric, all of which there is good reason to believe were actually taught), and even the de Plantis, of quite doubtful origin, and another translation from the Arabic known as de Differentia Spiritus et Anima; while in grammar and rhetoric the Sex Principia of Gilbertus Porretanus, as well as the Divisions and Topics of Boethius, and the Barbarismus of Donatus are added to the works of the two Priscians.

These statutes also fixed the amount of time that could be given to the sereral studies, and were careful to devote a large portion of it to dialectics. In the language of Compayré—

Logic manifestly held the first place. To reason well had become the first duty of the studious man. There was no thought of knowing the history of humanity, still less of observing the phenomena of nature. If rhetoric was occasionally taken up, it was in order to draw from it certain rules of pure form, not to seek insight into the beauties of pure literature. The masterpieces of classic antiquity were unknown. Dialectics had invaded all things; the syllogism was of universal application.

Few changes were made in the studies regularly pursued during the next hundred years. The revision made by Cardinal St. Mare and Montaigne, în 1366, only substituted Alexandre de la Villedieu's Doctrinale Puerorum for Priscian's grammar, which held its ground to the end of the medieval period. Rashdall suggests that a considerable number of text-books less important than those above mentioned were also in use, since they are positively known to have been used in German schools during the period we are dealing with, which schools were chiefly planned and conducted after Parisian usage. Accepting this conclusion as justifiable, we may add the de Consolatione Philosophiæ, other of the more popular treatises of Boethius, and various logical text-books prepared by representatives of the different schools of medieval thought and so composed as to meet the needs of beginners in logic.

As relates to the distribution of studies in the courses prescribed for the Faculty of Arts, and the conditions to be fulfilled by candidates for the baccalaureate, for licentiate honors, and for the mastership, it may be sufficient to say, that during this period (later in the thirteenth and throughout the fourteenth centuries), the candidate for the "determinance "—that is, for the degree of bachelor of arts, "must have studied," to use the words of Compayré "either in ordinary or extraordinary courses, all of Aristotle's works on logic, Priscian's grammar, Boethius's Divisions and Topics, Donatus's Barbarisms, and the Six Principles of Gilbert de la Porrée."

The same author, in a more exhaustive treatment of the subject, states that a candidate for the degree of A. B. must have passed a satisfactory examination in grammar, logic, and psychology," have attended disputations throughout "one grand ordinary" [course], and himself responded in at least two disputations. He also says that, for the licentiate (the license to teach), a candidate was required to satisfy the examining board that, besides all the requisites to the bachelor's degree, he had added natural philosophy. He adds more fully: "Aspirants to the licentiate's degree must have studied the same books (those requisite to the bachelorship), and, further, must have heard Aristotle's treatises on physics, psychology, and ethics. They must also have attended a hundred lectures on mathematics and astronomy."

For the degree of master of arts, yet other attainments were necessaryat least a completion of the course in natural philosophy and moral philosophy. A decision as to the qualifications of a candidate for B. A. was finally reached only after, first, a preliminary test, known as "responsion," in which he disputed in both grammar and logic with a master; and, secondly, after a satisfactory issue of the disputation, an examination entitled the “ examen baccalaudorum," conducted by a board of examiners appointed by each of the nations for its own candidates. The examination was also a double test. There was, first, an examination by questions and demonstrations in the studies scheduled by his masters, as well as a careful inquiry into the faithfulness of his attendance upon the lectures given. If he passed all these he was then admitted to "determine," and could give cursory lectures should an opportunity offer, after taking the oath of obedience to the rector and faculty and to his proctor and nation. The ceremony of admitting the candidate into ranks of the bachelors consisted chiefly of receiving the bachelor's cappa, putting it on, and taking his seat for the first time among his comrades. But there was also a festive demonstration on the day of determination. Great effort was made by the new bachelors and their friends to fill the halls used for the occasion and to secure the attendance of as many dignitaries as possibleseizure of passers-by and literal compulsion being sometimes resorted to. The day ended with processions and feasting at the cost of the determiners, who were also expected to pay the master under whom they had more especially studied and determined for the use of his schoolrooms.

For the higher honors analogous tests were required, and like demonstrations (though on a more liberal scale and with something more of dignity) were made in honor of the newly made licentiates and masters; but in their case the honor was that of "inception" instead of "determination."

I should not omit to state that, while control of the university in general was slowly passing from the hands of the chancellor of the cathedral, he still held on to the right of examination for the licentiate. So that only after the determiner had completed some six years of study, had finished all the books prescribed by the faculty, had taken part in a given number of disputations, given a course of cursory " lectures, and reached the age of 20 could he present himself for the licentiate's examination. This, although at first serious, as con

ducted by the chancellor and four examiners in the studies, and by tests of ability in the giving of lectures and other forms of discourse, gradually lessened in its demands as confidence in the work of the masters increased and the responsibilities of the chancellor diminished.

After examination the successful candidates for the licentia docendi were sent to the chancellor in groups of a convenient number, their names being arranged in the order of merit, "The only approach," as Rashdall says, "to a competitive examination which the Parisian University admitted." He also says of the formalities attending the license:

*

On the day appointed for the conferment of the license the successful candidates in full academical dress (cappati) proceeded in state from the Mathurine Convent to the Episcopal Palace or the Abbey of St. Geneviève, as the case might be, accompanied by the rector and proctors and preceded by the bedels of the faculty. They were then presented to the chancellor, and, after the formal collations (expositions or lectures), received kneeling before him the solemn license, in the name of the Trinity, to incept or begin to teach in the faculty of arts, together with the apostolic benediction. * Before the actual ceremony of the birettatio the licentiate had to appear before a congregation of his nation and obtain its placet for his promotion. This being granted he was immediately sworn to obey the rector and his faculty and nation and to do or abstain from doing scores of things which had from time to time been enjoined or forbidden by the university faculty or nation. The evening of the day before the inception he took part in a peculiarly solemn disputation known as his "vespers." He was then free to give his formal inaugural lecture, or rather disputation, in the presence of the faculty, to receive the magisterial biretta and the book from the hands of the presiding regent, to receive the kiss of fellowship, and to take his seat upon the magisterial cathedra.

In the evening a banquet to the masters and others, at the expense of the inceptors, was given, as in the case of bachelors.

That there was much laxity in the examinations as time went on, as well as partiality based on the rank and assumed personal importance of candidates for degrees, is very certain. The records of statutes and manifestoes against unreasonable and grossly unjust practices in these regards would furnish ample proof of the correctness of this judgment if there were none other.

METHODS OF INSTRUCTION IN ARTS.

Having informed ourselves upon the subjects taught in the faculty of arts and concerning the authorities followed in the study of them, as well as upon the conditions to be fulfilled in acquiring academic titles, we naturally turn to the methods employed by those who taught. Before the day of Irnerius and Abelard the instruction of the schools generally, whether academic or professional, was about as dry, unphilosophical, and ineffectual as could be imagined, resting as it did upon an unvarying confidence in the correctness of the author and teacher followed, and upon unending repetitions by the scholar as a means of fixing the substance, and as far as feasible the very words of the instruction received, in the mind of the student. The reasoning faculty was in a large measure distrusted and the demands made upon it were correspondingly few, and naturally this was more especially the case where the subject considered was concerned with long-established convictions or a blind and determined acceptance of assumed truth, whether historic, scientific, social, political, or religious. The text-book appears to have been blindly accepted as final authority, just as was the case with the Bible in the theological world.

According to Thurot and Mullinger, both of whom gave much time to a study of this general subject, there were two very distinct and different methods, expressed by the terms expositio and questions: the first consisting in a critical and thorough examination, analysis, or dissection of the text; the second, in

discussing it, up and down, through and through, pro and con. In using the first method the lecturer, according to Thurot, as translated by Mullinger and quoted by Compayré, “commenced by discussing a few general questions having reference to the treatise which he was called upon to explain, and in the customary Aristotelian fashion treated of its material, formal, final, and efficient. causes. He pointed out the principal divisions, took the first division and subdivided it, divided again the subdivision, and repeated the process until he had subdivided it to the first chapter. He then again divided, until he had reached a subdivision which included only a single sentence or complete idea. He finally took this sentence and expressed it in other terms which might serve to make the conception more clear. He never passed from one part of the work to another, from one chapter to another, or even from one sentence to another, without a minute analysis of the reasons for which each division, chapter, or sentence was placed after that by which it was immediately preceded." It was by this slow and painful process of systematic analysis of the precise subject in hand that the professor hoped to fasten upon the minds of his hearers a knowledge of it.

On the other hand, what may be called the Abelardian method was that of applying to all questions admitting of a possible query the test of sic and non as employed by him. It was the method of the rack. If a portion of the text allowed a double interpretation, the opposing views were represented by opposing arguments logically framed and provoked to an exhausting conflict, like two contending armies, and with the least possible sympathy or prejudice. Last of all, having covered the ground pro and con, the professor presented his own view, supported and urged by such arguments, syllogistically ordered, as he could muster, though unfortunately without venturing much into the field of observation and experience.

As was said again by Thurot, "the distinction characteristic of instruction in the Middle Ages is, that science was not taught directly and in itself, but by the explanation of books which derived their authority solely from their writers."

Criticism of this method of instruction has been so well expressed by Compayré that I quote him freely:

But that in the middle ages so many successive generations of laborious and studious men should have consented for centuries to grow pale over a small number of texts, always the same, reread and commented to satiety, gnawing, as it were, at the same bone forever, is a thing that can only be explained by supposing a special cast of mind, an extraordinary intellectual passivity, a complete absence of initiative and spontaneity. Since there were hardly any books, it seems as if it would have been so simple to turn to another side and study things in themselves; to open, in fine, the great book of nature. But no; men preferred to keep on repeating, mechanically and laboriously, paraphrases scrutinized a hundred times already; to close their eyes to the realities of the world, in order to concentrate them ** * * on certain pages of marvelously bad Latin. * ** * It would not have been so bad had they clung to the spirit of an author in studying him. But no; it was the letter, the literal form, which they scrutinized. * The other characteristic of the pedagogy of the middle ages, its mania, was the taste, or rather passion, for disputation. Really independent researches being forbidden, discussion, by bringing two different and contrary interpretations into opposition, gave both scholars and masters at least the shadow of liberty of thought. Never has there been such an abuse of argumentation. When the sixteenth century brought into the world another spirit and better methods, it found all the educational institutions transformed into fencing schools of dialectics. "They dispute before dinner," said Vives, in 1531; "they dispute during dinner; they dispute after dinner; they dispute in private and in public, at all times and in every place." * They gave their adversary no time to explain himself. If he entered into any developments, they cried, "To the point! To the point! Reply categorically!" They had

no concern for truth, but sought merely to defend their opinions. Is a man too hard pressed, he eludes the objection by force of obstinacy; he denies insolently; he blindly strikes down all opposition in despite of evidence.

Dealing with method on the side of delivery, we find that, too, a matter of peculiar interest, though less important of course. Efforts were made for a long time to regulate delivery by legal enactments. Nevertheless the lecturers, the students, and the public had their own way in the end. The notion of the lawmakers was that delivery of all the lectures should be extempore instead of by reading from a manuscript. They even ventured to determine the slowness or rapidity of utterance, and were bold to make known their disapproval of a drawling delivery and their will that it should be rapid, regardless of the convenience of note takers on the ground or. on benches before them. This requirement was so opposed by the students that, as might have been expected of the times and circumstances, statutes with severe penalties became necessary to protect the offending lecturer from shoutings, hissings, and the throwing of sticks, and even stones, by students and their sympathizers; rude practices which had the effect in time to first soften and finally repeal all such enactments, and of course to modify the manner of the professors and other lecturers,

II.—THE FACULTY OF THEOLOGY.

Among the special, professional, or superior" faculties at Paris theology ranked first on several accounts: It was first to form and enter upon its work, first in the plans and purposes of the ruling powers, first in the recognized rank and importance of its subject and object, and, as a matter of fact, first in the attention it received in all quarters and in the patronage it enjoyed. It was the purpose of the church to make it the leading school of theology in the world, and it did not fail. It was accorded the rank of facultas prima et sacra et suprema. Said Jacques de Vitry:

Logic is good, for it teaches us to distinguish truth from falsehood; grammar is good, for it teaches how to speak and write correctly; rhetoric is good, for it teaches how to speak elegantly and to persuade. Good, too, are geometry, which teaches how to measure the earth, the domain of our bodies; arithmetic, or the art of computing, which enables us to estimate the fewness of our days; music, which reminds us of the sweet church of the blessed; astronomy, which causes us to consider the celestial bodies and the stars shining resplendently before God. But better is theology, which alone can be truly called a liberal art, since it alone delivers from its woes the human soul.

All the more attention and effort were given to the Parisian faculty of theology, because is was the fixed purpose of the church to make it an ideal faculty-the type to be followed by the other theological schools of Europe, some of which were already half planned in outline, and a considerable number of which were established not many years later.

In origin and constitution it was in fact what Thurot styled it, "a federation of religious and secular communities," and yet with so great a predominance of the representatives of the religious orders, after a little time, as to arouse the seculars, both in the theological faculty and in the faculty of arts.

By the middle of the first century of the university life a very large majority of both masters and students were members of one or another of the religious orders; the Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, Augustines, and Jacobins predominating. Indeed a great many of the convents had public chairs of theology, whose incumbents were also representatives in the university faculty—according to Compayré, 9 out of every 12, as early as 1253. And so with the students who aspired to the license and the doctorate, a majority were members of mendicant orders. The Dominicans were especially fortunate in