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aspects of the teacher's function. The teacher has charge of the future citizen at the time when he is most impressionable; the only time, it may happen, in his life when he is free enough from the pressing cares of daily employment to have leisure for thought about the functions to which the Constitution calls him, or to conceive a wish to understand the true bearing of those functions. On many, probably on most, pupils the teacher's efforts will make no great impression. But those most susceptible to the influence which stimulating teaching may exert will be those likely in future to stir and guide their fellows, and on their guidance the beliefs and tendencies of their class will mainly depend. The dictum, Property has its duties as well as its rights, once received with surprise and even disgust, has become a commonplace. We now need to realize in the fullness of its application that other maxim, which Mazzini was never tired of enforcing, that Liberty also has its duties as well as its rights, and will begin to be in danger if it forgets them. The tie of duty to the State, though it cannot be as close as that which binds us to family and friends, ought to be just as clearly recognized to be a tie of absolute force.

"It is common to talk of ignorance as the chief peril of democracies. That it is a peril no one denies, and we are all, I hope, agreed that it has become more than ever the duty of the State to insist on a more penetrating and stimulative instruction.

"Democracy has, however, another foe not less pernicious. This is indolence. Indifference to public affairs shows itself not merely in a neglect to study them and fit one's self to give a judicious vote, but in the apathy which does not care to give a vote when the time arrives. It is a serious evil already in some countries, serious in London, very serious in Italy, serious enough in the United States, not indeed at Presidential, but at city and other local elections, for some reformer to have proposed to punish with a fine the citizen who neglects to vote, as in some old Greek city the law proclaimed penalties against the citizen who, in a sedition stood aloof, taking neither one side nor the other. For, unhappily, it is the respectable, well-meaning, easy-going citizen, as well as the merely ignorant citizen, who is apt to be listless. Those who have their private ends to serve, their axes to grind and logs to roll, are not indolent. Private interest spurs them on; and

if the so-called 'good citizen' who has no desire or aim except that good government which benefits him no more than everyone else, does not bestir himself, the public funds may become the plunder, and the public interests the sport of unscrupulous adventurers. Of such evils which have befallen some great communities, there are happily no present signs among ourselves; though it is much to be wished that here in Britain we could secure both at municipal and Parliamentary elections a much heavier vote than is usually cast. More common in all classes is that other kind of indolence which bestows so little time and thought upon current events and political questions that it does not try to master their real significance, to extend its knowledge, and to base its opinion upon solid grounds. We need, all of us, in all classes and ranks of society, the rich and educated perhaps even more than others, because they are looked up to for guidance by their poorer or less educated neighbors, to be reminded that as Democracy-into which we have plunged so suddenly that some hardly yet realize what Democracy means-is, of all forms of government, that which needs the largest measure of intelligence and public spirit, so of all democracies ours is that which has been content to surround itself with the fewest checks and safeguards. The venerable Throne remains, and serves to conceal the greatness of the transformation that these twenty-five years have worked. But which among the institutions of the country could withstand any general demand proceeding from the masses of the people, or even delay the accomplishment of any purpose on which they were ardently set, seeing that they possess in the popular House a weapon whose vote, given however hastily, can effect the most revolutionary change? I do not say this to alarm any timid mind, believing that our British masses are not set upon such changes, and are still disposed to listen to the voices of those whom they respect, to whatever class such persons may belong. The mutual good will of classes is still among the most hopeful features in our political condition. But it is well to remember that it is upon the wisdom, good sense, and self-restraint of the masses of the people that this vast and splendid edifice of British power and prosperity rests, and to feel that everything we can do to bring political knowledge and judgment within their reach is now more than ever called for."

VII

REVIEWS

Abelard and the Origin and Early History of Universities-By GABRIEL COMPAYRÉ. The Great Educators' Series, edited by Nicholas Murray Butler. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1892, pp. 315. Price $1.00.

This work, by the well-known author of the History of Pedagogy, and of the charming Histoire Critique des Doctrines de l'Education en France, is, in my opinion, much the most satisfactory account of the origin, the organization, and the methods of the medieval universities, that has yet appeared in English. In saying this, I have not the least intention to deny the great merit of Professor Laurie's work on the same subject. The later work, however, has had the advantage not only of the previous researches of Laurie, which have been often quoted, but of the very thorough examination of ancient documents by Denifle, the results of which have appeared in his initial volume on the universities of the Middle Ages, and in his recent collection of the documents bearing on the history of the University of Paris. These sources of information, with those other more commonly quoted and sometimes misleading works, like those of Savigny, Crevier, Du Boulay, and Mullinger, have been judiciously used, and with that literary art which the Histoire Critique would entitle one to expect; so that the author, not without reason, intimates in his preface that in his opinion this is the best work that has yet appeared from his pen.

I observe in this book a wider use of the comparative method in the treatment of university organization, customs, and privileges, than has hitherto been common in works on this subject, but which works like those of Denifle, Von Raumer, and Paulsen, and the valuable monographs of various universities, which have appeared during the last few decades, have rendered possible. Thus obscure points in the history. of the evolution of some of the earliest universities have been illuminated by recorded facts in other institutions, which bear to them the relation of offspring to parent. And certainly no historical investigations have greater need of the comparative

method than those which deal with the origins of universities like Bologna and Paris, Oxford and Montpellier. For these institutions sprang from beginnings so shrouded in the mists of antiquity as to have given occasion for abundant myths, which historic research finds difficulty in bringing within the realm of fact. Thus Bologna has lately celebrated its eighth centenary on grounds not more reliable than would be the tales of the Nibelungen Lied. With even better reason Montpellier might have celebrated a seventh instead of a sixth centenary, since there is a strong probability that it had a reputable school of medicine before the end of the twelfth century. Even Compayré shows an inclination to give some credit to the fabled origin of Oxford in a time reaching back nearly to the days of Alfred the Great, although Lyte, the latest historian of Oxford, shows the utter improbability of any such antiquity. Our author shows himself far more skeptical with regard to the myths that would refer the origin of the University of Paris to schools originating from the efforts of Charlemagne and Alcuin.

A good example of the difficulties attending such investigations, and of the differences in opinion that may arise among authors making diligent use of the same original sources, may be seen in comparing Compayré's account of the segregation of the faculties in the University of Paris with that of Denifle. Compayré believes that there is "no sign of anything which resembles a regular and formal distribution of students and professors into separate faculties in the middle of the thirteenth century," and attributes the beginning of a division into distinct faculties to an alienation of feeling between the theologians and the masters of arts (pp. 108-110). Denifle, on the other hand, says that "the question of promotion was the first step to the formation of faculties"; that in 1219 the existence of faculties is recognized by three papal writings; and that a union of the masters of the existing faculties was expressly declared in 1254 to have taken place "for the one purpose that they might be able more freely and quietly to devote themselves studio litterali."

Compayré, with good reason, is much less disposed than some other authors to concede university rank to these great specialized schools before the date when their peculiar privileges were confirmed by the supreme authority. Indeed these privileges were mostly of such character that no mere

assumption of them, after the fashion of the local mediæval guilds, could without such confirmation have given them the generality to which their value was largely due. The nature of these privileges is nowhere more clearly and succinctly presented than by our author, who emphasizes not unduly the fact that their character was due far less to imitation of the guilds than to ecclesiastical assumptions and concessions. The form of the degree system of the universities was doubtless suggested by the degrees of the guilds.

The preceding paragraphs may give to the reader of this book some hint of the disputed questions with which its author has been compelled to grapple, and to which he has given his independent solution. They may justly arouse our admiration for the unerring tact with which he has threaded so complicated a maze, and for the literary skill which has enabled him to present so vast a subject in a form not unduly bulky and yet perspicuous and agreeable. The reader's attention will doubtless be especially attracted to the discussion in Part III. of the studies, text-books, and methods of the several faculties in these ancient seats of learning, than which nothing more admirable on these topics has yet appeared. The lively picture with which it is introduced, of university arts studies in the fourteenth century, of its lecture rooms with students sitting on the straw-covered floors, and of its youthful teachers carefully dictating hair-splitting dialectic expositions of works now long since obsolete, is particularly attractive; and the point last named forcibly reminds us that the mediaval licencia ubique docendi not only conferred a valued right, but also, in at least some universities, like Paris, Oxford, and Cambridge, imposed a duty, to teach for a period after gaining the university degrees. This custom of expecting graduates to finish their education by teaching others what they had themselves learned, thus confirming knowledge by imparting it, is one that M. Compayré might, with much propriety, have incorporated in his discussion of university methods as a feature entirely admirable.

On the whole, his treatment of the medieval forerunners of our modern institutions of learning is animated by a spirit of appreciative fairness that is not always met with elsewhere. He directs attention to the Saracenic influences that stimulated their foundation. He has generous words of praise for the democratic spirit that was nourished by their self-govern

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