In other words, the degree of master was a Iwentiu
docendi, and any student by taking it might himself
become a teaclier. It was indeed a great free-
competitive system, with as little monopoly as
might be: among some hundreds of qualified
masters the student was left to liis own unfettered
choice. And, incredible though it may seem, this
choice on the whole was used wisely,^ — the popular
teachers of those days were the men whom the world
ronembers still. Abelard had three thousand
students, and when he was driven from Paris they
followed liini into the wilds. There is no more
startling picture in history than that of the Para-
clete, with its oratory of reeds and tliatch, and
around it the mud huts of innumerable students
contenting themselves with the simplest rustic fare.
Is it Utopian to look for something like a revival
of the primitive academic type 't But after all the
only feasible Utopia is liberty. Surely the ideal
University is a self-governing community of teachers
and sti idents, wherein there shall be perfect equality
of status, and the utmost possible freedom. There
is no necessary connection between teaching and
despotism, any more than there is between service
and slavery; in each case the one party possesses
something which the other lacks and desires. I
know it is the firm belief of pedagogues that their
pupils have neither a love nor a discerning of know-
ledge; but this is a delusion akin to that which
in politics presupposes the people to be essentially
anarcliic. In truth it is always the governors that
are to blame, — the people have no interest in
disorder, the students are naturally curious and
insatiable of lore. And in the long run the one
has not a surer eye for the riglit statesman than
these others have for the right master, and perhaps
it is just a lurking suspicion of this which makes
our governors in school and state so fearful of every
relaxation of restraint. We here in Scotland
are exhorted to look with pride upon our Univer-
sities because they alone continue the true medifeval
organisation. But it is little good to keep the
organ when once its function has been forgotten —
to preserve a Council that does not govern, and a
Rector who has ceased to rule. At one time the
Rector was in reality what he now is only in name
— the most powerful officer in the University —
and through their election of him the students had
a material though an indirect share in the uovern-
ment. It is difficult to see how a return to some-
thing like this system could be productive of anything
but good. For one thing it would give our under-
graduates, what they sorely need, a sobering sense
of dignity and responsibility, as the free citizens of a
great educational iwlls.
But however that be, it is certain that any
measure of University reform worth the name must
strike first of all things at the monopoly in teach-
ing. There are other and crying abuses to be
remedied, among them the examination system, —
but, first, as the groundwork and the guarantee of
reformation, we must have liberty and breadth. It
is surely superfluous in this country to preach the
evils of monopoly. In no other profession do we
give exclusive privileges as we do in teaching; the
licensed clergyman may preach in any pulpit, the
qualified physician may stand at any bedside. ^Ve
simply ask of each candidate that he shall show
himself ordinarily competent to his work, and there-
after he takes his chance, and the public judges
between him and his fellows. And why should our
higher education be the only exception to the rule 'i
Is it, to quote the current cant of sciolism, because
competition is degrading to the finer activities 'i
But surely that which is the law of life should be
ffood enouffli for the Universities. Or is it, as the
professors confidently tell us, because the vulgar
cannot discern their intellectual needs aright? But
whatever the professors have managed to monopolise,
it certainly is not the Zeitgeist. The truth stands
plain to every one that while the Universities were
free they flourished, and when the liberty of teach-
ing within them was restricted they declined. The
schools of Germany are to-day the most active in
Europe, and in the privat docent system they pre-
serve the principle of free teaching. Our Scottish
Universities are the most jealous of close corporations, and the names of them have become to all men a hissing and a scorn.
There is, of course, only one conclusion to this argument. The original import of the degree as a Ucentia docendi must be revived. Not certainly the degree — or at least the Arts degree — as it now exists, but a qualification adequate in some measure to the intellectual necessities of the age. To this all approximations are good in their way, however imperfect; but this itself is the ideal, for it is the embodiment of liberty, and in liberty is the secret of the higher life. R. A.
