Strassburg became French, and remained so until 1872, when it was refounded by the Emperor William I., and before the close of the century numbered over 1100 students.
At the beginning of last century Russia possessed but three
Moscow.
Wilna.
Dorpat.
universities—that of Moscow (1755), founded by
the Empress Elizabeth; of Wilna (1578), which was
Polish and chiefly in the hands of the Jesuits; and of
Dorpat [Yuriev] in Livonia, which was virtually
German. Under the enlightened policy of Alexander I. was
founded the university of Charkow (1804) for New Russia,
Charkow.
Kasan.
St Petersburg.
that of Kazan (1804) for the countries about the
Volga, but designed also for the populations of
Finland and Siberia, and that of St Petersburg (1819).
Each of the foregoing six universities had a definite
district assigned to it, from whence it was entitled to
recruit students, and, as a further incentive to the pursuit
of academic studies, a ukaz promulgated in 1809 proclaimed
that in all appointments to official posts throughout the empire
the holders of a university degree would receive the first consideration
in the competition for vacancies. In 1826 the university
Helsingfors.
at Åbo in Finland was removed to Helsingfors,
and still preserves the charter whereby, in its original
home, it had been constituted a university by Queen
Christina and her chancellor Oxenstiern in the year 1640. In
1832 the foundation of the St Wladimir University of Kiev
Kiev.
Odessa.
absorbed both that at Wilna and the lyceum of
Kremenetz. Odessa, founded in 1865, was designed
to represent the university of New Russia. Although
at St Petersburg considerable attention was regularly given
to the teaching of languages, especially those of Armenia,
Georgia, and Tatary, the general status of the Russian universities
continued throughout the greater part of last century
exceptionally low; and in 1884 they were all reconstituted
by the promulgation of a “universal code”; with this the
statutes of the universities at Dorpat (1632) and Warsaw (1886)
are essentially in agreement. The former, originally founded
at the suggestion of the governor-general, with the design of
bringing “martial Livonia into the path of virtue and morality,”
was at first almost exclusively taught by German professors,
of whom, however, very few had retained their chairs
at the conclusion of last century. The study of the Slavonic
languages, on the other hand, received a considerable stimulus;
and when, by a decree in May 1887, the use of the Russian
language was made obligatory in all places of instruction
throughout the Baltic provinces, Russian began to displace
German as the language of the lecture-room, the only faculties
in which the use of German continued to be permissible being
Tomsk.
those of theology and medicine. The university of
Tomsk in western Siberia, founded in 1888, recruited
its numbers chiefly from students in the same faculties. It was,
however, without endowment, and depended chiefly on a grant
from the state aided by private liberality.
During the ensuing twenty years the general influence of Dorpat rapidly spread far beyond the Baltic provinces, while Influence of Dorpat. the number of students, which in 1879 was 1106, rose to nearly 2000.[1] In 1889, however, the appointment of the university officials was taken from the Senatus Academicus and entrusted to the state minister, a change which went far to deprive the university of its claim to be considered German. A like contest between contending nationalities Prague. met with a final solution at Prague, where a Czech university having been established on an independent basis, the German university began its separate career in the winter session of 1882-83. The German foundation retains certain revenues accruing from special endowments, but the state subvention is divided between the two.
The repudiation on the part of the Protestant universities of both papal and episcopal authority evoked a counter-demonstration among those centres which still adhered to Catholicism, while their theological intolerance gave rise to a great reaction, under the influence of which the medieval Catholic universities were reinvigorated and reorganized (although strictly on the traditional lines), while new and important centres were created. It was on the tide of this reaction, aided by their own skilful teaching and practical sagacity, that the Jesuits were borne to that commanding position which made them for a time the arbiters of education in Europe. The earliest university Bamberg. whose charter represented this reaction was that of Bamberg founded by the prince-bishop Melchior Otto, after whom it was named “Academia Ottoniana.” It was opened 1st September 1648, and received both from the emperor Frederick III. and Pope Innocent X. all the civil and ecclesiastical privileges of a medieval foundation. At first, however, it comprised only the faculties of arts and of theology; to these was added in 1729 that of jurisprudence, and in 1764 that of medicine. In this latter faculty Dr Ignatius Döllinger (the father of the historian) was for a long time a distinguished professor. The university library is of especial interest, as including that of an earlier Jesuit foundation and also valuable collections by private donors. Its collection of manuscripts in like manner includes those contained in some thirty suppressed monasteries, convents, and religious institutions at the time of the “secularization.” The university of Innsbruck was founded in 1672 by the emperor Leopold I., from whom it received its name of “Academia Leopoldina.” In the following century, under the patronage of the empress Maria Theresa, Innsbruck. it made considerable progress, and received from her its ancient library and bookshelves in 1745. In 1782 the university underwent a somewhat singular change, being reduced by the emperor Joseph II. from the status of a university to that of a lyceum, although retaining in the theological faculty the right of conferring degrees. In 1791 it was restored to its privileges by the emperor Leopold II., and since that time the faculties of philosophy, law and medicine have been represented in nearly equal proportions. The foundation of the Breslau. university of Breslau was contemplated as early as the year 1505, when Ladislaus, king of Hungary, gave his sanction to the project; but Pope Julius II., in the assumed interests of Cracow, withheld his assent.
Nearly two centuries later, in 1702, under singularly altered conditions, the Jesuits prevailed upon the emperor Leopold I. The Jesuits in the university. to found a university without soliciting the papal sanction. When Frederick the Great conquered Silesia in 1741, he took both the university and the Jesuits in Breslau under his protection, and when in 1774 the order was suppressed by Clement XIV. he established them as priests in the Royal Scholastic Institute, at the same time giving new statutes to the university. In 1811 the university was considerably augmented by the incorporation of that at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and was ultimately reconstituted on lines similar to those of the newly founded university of Berlin. In no country was the influence of the Jesuits on the universities more marked than in France. The civil wars in that country during the thirty years which preceded the close of the 16th century told with disastrous effects upon the condition of the university of Paris, and with Condition of the University of Paris. the commencement of the 17th century its collegiate life seemed at an end, and its forty colleges stood absolutely deserted. To this state of affairs the obstinate conservatism of the academic authorities not a little contributed. The statutes by which the university was still governed were those which had been given by the cardinal D'Estouteville, the papal legate, in 1452, and remained entirely unmodified by the influences of the Renaissance. In 1579 the edict of Blois promulgated a scheme of organization for all the universities of the realm (at that time twenty-one in number)—a measure which, though productive of unity of teaching, did nothing towards the advancement of the studies themselves. The theological instruction became largely absorbed by the episcopal colleges, and acquired, in the schools of the different orders, a narrower and more dogmatic character. The eminent lawyers of France, unable to find chairs in Paris, distributed themselves among the chief towns
- ↑ See Die deutsche Universität Dorpat im Lichte der Geschichte, 1882.
