And thus the first "university," at any rate on this side of the Alps, came into being. Originally it had but one faculty, that of arts. Its aim was, to be a centre of knowledge and culture, not to be, in any sense, a technical school.
The scholars seemed to have studied grammar, logic, and rhetoric; arithmetic and geometry; astronomy; theology; and music. Thus, their work, however imperfect and faulty, judged by modern lights, it may have been, brought them face to face with all the leading aspects of the many-sided mind of man. For these studies did really contain, at any rate, in embryo—sometimes, it may be, in caricature—what we now call philosophy, mathematical and physical science, and art. And I doubt if the curriculum of any modern university shows so clear and generous a comprehension of what is meant by culture as this old trivium and quadrivium does.
The students who had passed through the university course, and had proved themselves competent to teach, became masters and teachers of their younger brethren. Whence the distinction of masters and regents, on the one hand, and scholars, on the other.
Rapid growth necessitated organization. The masters and scholars, of various tongues and countries, grouped themselves into four nations; and the nations, by their own votes at first, and subsequently by those of their procurators, or representatives, elected their supreme head and governor, the rector—at that time the sole representative of the university, and a very real power, who could defy provosts interfering from without, or could inflict even corporal punishment on disobedient members within the university.
Such was the primitive constitution of the University of Paris. It is in reference to this original state of things, that I have spoken of the rectorate, and all that appertains to it, as the sole relic of that constitution.
But this original organization did not last long. Society was not then, any more than it is now, patient of culture, as such. It says to every thing, "Be useful to me, or away with you." And, to the learned, the unlearned man said then, as he does now: "What is the use of all your learning, unless you can tell me what I want to know? I am here blindly groping about, and constantly damaging myself by collision with three mighty powers: the power of the invisible God, the power of my fellow-man, and the power of brute Nature. Let your learning be turned to the study of these powers, that I may know how I am to comport myself with regard to them." In answer to this demand, some of the masters of the faculty of arts devoted themselves to the study of theology, some to that of law, and some to that of medicine; and they became doctors—men learned in those technical, or, as we now call them, professional branches of knowledge. Like cleaving to like, the doctors formed schools, or faculties, of theology, law, and medicine, which sometimes assumed airs of superiority over
