of the provinces. The Jesuits did not fail to profit by this immobility and excessive conservatism on the part of the university, and during the second half of the 16th century and the whole of the 17th they had contrived to gain almost a complete monopoly of both the higher and the lower education of provincial France. Their schools rose at Toulouse and Bordeaux, at Auch, Agen, Rhodez, Périgueux, Limoges, Le Puy, Aubenas, Colleges of the Jesuits in France. Béziers, Tournon, in the colleges of Flanders and Lorraine, Douai and Pont-a-Mousson—places beyond the jurisdiction of the parlement of Paris or even of the crown of France. Their banishment from Paris itself had been by the decree of the parlement alone, and had never been confirmed by the crown. “Lyons,” says Pattison, “loudly demanded a Jesuit college, and even the Huguenot Lesdiguières, almost king in Dauphiné, was preparing to erect one at Grenoble. Amiens, Rheims, Rouen, Dijon, and Bourges were only waiting a favourable opportunity to introduce the Jesuits within their walls.”[1] The university was rescued from the fate which seemed to threaten it only by the excellent statutes given by Richer in 1598, and by the discerning protection extended to it by Henry IV., while its higher culture was in some measure provided for by the establishment by Richelieu in 1635 of the Académie française.
The “college of Edinburgh” was founded by charter of James VI., dated 14th April 1582. This document contains Edinburgh. no reference to a studium generale, nor is there ground for supposing that the foundation of a university was at that time contemplated. In marked contrast to the three older centres in Scotland, the college rose comparatively untrammelled by the traditions of medievalism, and its creation was not effected without some jealousy and opposition on the part of its predecessors. Its first course of instruction was commenced in the Kirk of Field, under the direction of Robert Rollock, who had been educated at St Andrews under Andrew Melville, the eminent Covenanter. “He began to teach,” says Craufurd, “in the lower hall of the great lodging, there being a great concourse of students allured with the great worth of the man; but diverse of them being not ripe enough in the Latin tongue, were in November next put under the charge of Mr Duncan Narne, . . . who, upon Mr Rollock's recommendation, was chosen second master of the college.”[2] In 1585 both Rollock and Nairne subscribed the National Covenant, and a like subscription was from that time required from all who were admitted to degrees in the college.
Disastrous as were the effects of the Thirty Years' War upon the external condition of the German universities, resulting Results of the Thirty Years' War. in not a few instances in the total dispersion of the students and the burning of the buildings and libraries, they were less detrimental and less permanent than those which were discernible in the tone and temper of these communities. A formal pedantry and unintelligent method of study, combined with a passionate dogmatism in matters of religious belief and a rude contempt for the amenities of social intercourse, became the leading characteristics, and Halle. lasted throughout the 17th century. But in the year 1693 the foundation of the university of Halle opened up a career to two very eminent men, whose influence, widely different as was its character, may be compared for its effects with that of Luther and Melanchthon, and served to modify the whole current of German philosophy and German theology. Halle has indeed been described as “the first real modern university.” It was really indebted for its origin to a spirit of rivalry between the conservatism of Saxony and the progressive tendencies of the house of Brandenburg, but the occasion of its rise was the removal of the ducal court from Halle to Magdeburg. The archbishopric of the latter city having passed into the possession of Brandenburg in 1680 was changed into a dukedom, and the city itself was selected as the ducal residence. This change left unoccupied some commodious buildings in Halle, which it was decided to utilize for purposes of education. A “Ritterschule” for the sons of the nobility was opened, and in the course of a few years it was decided to found a university. Saxony endeavoured to thwart the scheme, urging the proximity of Leipzig; but her opposition was overruled by the emperor Leopold I., who granted (19th October 1693) the requisite charter, and in the following year the Work of the university commenced. Frankfort-on-the-Oder had by this time become a centre of the Reformed party, and the primary object in founding a university in Halle was to create a centre for the Lutheran party; but its character, under the influence of its two most notable teachers, Influence of Thomasius and Francke. Christian Thomasius and A. H. Francke, soon expanded beyond the limits of this conception to assume a highly original form. Thomasius and Francke had both been driven from Leipzig owing to the disfavour with which their liberal and progressive tendencies were there regarded by the academic authorities, and on many points the two teachers were in agreement. They both regarded with contempt alike the scholastic philosophy and the scholastic theology; they both desired to see the rule of the civil power superseding that of the ecclesiastical power in the seats of learning; they were both opposed to the ascendancy of classical studies as expounded by the humanists—Francke regarding the Greek and Roman pagan writers with the old traditional dislike, as immoral, while Thomasius looked upon them with contempt, as antiquated and representing only a standpoint which had been long left behind; both again agreed as to the desirability of including the elements of modern culture in the education of the young. But here their agreement ceased. It was the aim of Thomasius, as far as possible, to secularize education, and to introduce among his countrymen French habits and French modes of thought; his own attire was gay and fashionable, and he was in the habit of taking his seat in the professorial chair adorned with gold chain and rings, and with his dagger by his side. Francke, who became the leader of the Pietists, regarded all this with even greater aversion than he did the lifeless orthodoxy traditional in the universities, and was shocked at the worldly tone and disregard for sacred things which characterized his brother professor. Both, however, commanded a considerable following among the students. Thomasius was professor in the faculty of jurisprudence, Francke in that of theology. And it was a common prediction in those days with respect to a student who proposed to pursue his academic career at Halle, that he would infallibly become either an atheist or a Pietist. But the services rendered by Thomasius to learning were genuine and lasting. He was the first to set the example, soon after followed by all the universities of Germany, of lecturing in the vernacular instead of in the customary Latin; and the discourse in which he first departed from the traditional method was devoted to the consideration of how far the German nation might with advantage imitate the French in matters of social life and intercourse. His more general views, as a disciple of the Cartesian philosophy and founder of the modern Rationalismus, exposed him to incessant attacks; but by the establishment of a monthly journal (at that time an original idea) he obtained a channel for expounding his views and refuting his antagonists which gave him a great advantage. On the influence of Francke, as the founder of that Pietistic school with which the reputation of Halle afterwards became especially identified, it is unnecessary here to dilate.[3] Christian Wolf, who followed Thomasius as an assertor of the new culture, was driven from Halle by the accusations of the Pietists, who declared that his teaching was fraught with atheistical principles. In 1740, however, he was recalled by Frederick II., and reinstated in high office with every mark of consideration and respect. Throughout the whole of the 18th century Halle was the leader of academic thought and advanced theology in Protestant Germany, although sharing that leadership, after the Göttingen. middle of the century, with Göttingen. The university of Göttingen (named after its founder “Georgia Augusta”) was endowed with the amplest privileges as a university by George II. of England, elector of Hanover, 7th December
