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THE

American Journal of Education.

No. XVI. MARCH, 1859.

CONTENTS.

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I. THE GERMAN UNIVERSITIES.

(Translated from the German of Karl von Raumer for this Journal.)

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THE foundation of the earliest German universities took place at a time when both Italy and France had long possessed them. Tacitus' saying of the youth of Germany, "Sera juvenum pubertas," is equally applicable to the development of her intellect.

Among the oldest universities of the middle ages,* we may here remark upon three-Salerno, Bologna, and Paris.

The school of Salerno was an extremely ancient school of medicine; a sort of isolated medical faculty, which had no special influence upon subsequent universities.

At the University of Bologna, law was the leading study. The origin of the university is obscure. At the diet of Roncaglia, in 1158, it received from Frederic Barbarossa a grant of privileges which has often been referred to on occasion of the issue of charters to later German universities.t

The organization of the University of Bologna was materially different from that of all the later German universities. This appears from the fact, that in it only the foreign students (advenæ forenses) had at Bologna, complete rights of membership. They chose the rector, and their assembly, summoned by the rector, was the proper university. In this assembly the teachers and professors had no voice, but were wholly dependent upon the rector and the university. This single fact shows clearly enough, that Bologna was not the model of the German universities. Paris served in that capacity, especially for the earliest; such as Prague, Vienna, Heidelberg, &c.

The University of Paris differed from that of Bologna chiefly in that theology was its prominent study,§ and also in respect to its organization. At Paris, the authority was exclusively in the hands of the teachers, the scholars having no part whatever in it. As a rule, only actual professional instructors could be members of the governing assembly, and other graduates only on extraordinary occasions.

• The following brief sketch I gather chiefly from the clear and thorough account of Savigny. (History of the Roman Jurisprudence in the Middle Ages, vol. ii. 2d ed. 1834.)

+ Compare, further on, the charters of Archduke Rudolph and of Albert of Austria, to the University of Vienna.

For later extensions and changes in the university, see Savigny, 1. c.

In Paris, however, only the canon law, proceeding from the Church, could be read,―not the civil law; and this prohibition was not removed until 1679.

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