COLLEGE
109
COLLEGE
The members of a college were one another's xocii,
or "Fellows". In the beginning the terms "Schol-
lars" and "Fellows" were interchangeable, but grad-
ually the term "Fellows" was restricted to the senior
or governing members, the term "Scholars" to the
junior members. The Senior Scholars or Fellows
were largely employed in looking after college busi-
ness, in later times particularly in teaching the Junior
Scholars. In the early foundations it was understood
that the inmates should receive most of their instruc-
tion outside the walls of the college ; but where young-
er members were admitted, it wa.s necessary to exer-
cise supervision over their studies, and give some in-
struction supplementing the public lectures. This
supplementary teaching gradually became more
prominent; although it is not known exactly when
this important educational revolution took place, it
seems to belong chiefly to the fifteenth century; fi-
nally the colleges practically monopolized instruction.
The number of students living in the colleges w;is
small at first; most statutes provided only for be-
tween twelve and thirty or forty, a few for seventy or
more. Most of the students continued to live outside
the colleges in licensed halls or private lodgings. The
lodging-house system was checked in the fifteenth
century, and later the colleges absorbed most of the
student population. But from the first the colleges
reacted favourably on the whole student body and ex-
ercised a most salutary influence on the manners and
morals of the university towns. As Cardinal New-
man has said: "Colleges tended to break the anarchi-
cal spirit, gave the example of laws, and trained up a
set of students who, as being morally and intellectu-
ally superior to other members of the academical body
became the depositaries of academical power and in-
fluence" (Hist. Sketches, III, 221). Thus the uni-
versity itself was largely benefited by the colleges; it
derived from them order, strength, and stability. It
is true, at a much later date, the university was sacri-
ficed to the colleges, and the colleges themselves be-
came inactive; contrary to the intention of the found-
ers, who had established them for the maintenance of
the poor, they were occupied by the wealthy, espe-
cially after the paying boarders, "commoners", or
"pensioners", became numerous. They were at times
sinecures and clubs rather than places of serious
study.
William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, found- ed the first college outside a university, namely Win- chester College, in 1.379, for seventy boys who were to be educated in "grammar", i. e. literature. Gram- mar colleges had indeed existed before, in connexion with universities and cathedrals ; but \\'inchester was the first elaborate foundation for grammatical educa- tion, independent of either a cathedral or a university. From Winchester College the students were to enter New College, Oxford, founded by the same patron of education. The example of Winchester was imitated in the foundations of Eton (1440), and in the post- Reformation schools of Harrow, Westminster (both on older foundations), Rugby, Charterhouse, Shrews- bury, and Merchant Taylors. These institutions de- veloped into the famous "public schools". During this [)eriod, as for a long time after there was no such hard and fast line between the higher and more ele- mentary instruction as exists at the present day. Many grammar schools of England did partly college work. Contrarj' to the common opinion, as voiced by Green, MuUinger, and others, the number of grammar schools before the Reformation was verj- great. Mr. Leach states that "three hundred grammar schools is a moderate estimate of the number in the year 1.5.35, when the floods of tlie great revolution were let loose. Most of them were swept away either under Henrj' or his son ; or if not swept away, they were plundered and damaged" (English Schools at the Reformation, 5-6). Be it remembered that the term "grammar
school" is used in the sense common in England, de-
noting a higher school where the classical languages
form the staple subject of instruction.
A most powerful influence on the further develop- ment of the colleges was exercised by the hmnanistic movement. It cannot be denied that during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the study of the clas- sics had been comparatively neglected, as men's minds were absorbed in scholastic studies. John of Salisbury and Roger Bacon complained bitterly about the neglect of the study of the languages. (Cf. Sandys, Hist, of Class. Scholarship, 568 sqq.) This was completely changed when the enthusiasm for the ancient classics began to spread from Italy throughout Western Christendom. The "new learning" gradu- ally made its victorious entry into the old seats of learn- ing, while new schools were established everywhere, until, about the year 1500, "Catholic Europe pre- sented the aspect of a va.st commonwealth of scholars" (Professor Hartfelder, in Schmid's "Geschichte der Erziehung", II, ii, 140). The schools of Vittorino da Feltre, "the first modern schoolmaster", and of Guarino da Verona, became the models for schools in other countries. English scholars had early come in contact with Italian humanists and schools; Grocyn, Linacre, William Latimer, William Lily, Dean Colet were humanists, and tried to introduce the new learn- ing into the English schools. The influence of the Renaissance is most clearly noticed in St. Paul's School, founded by Dean Colet in 1512, and in the statutes of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 1516, where greater stress is laid on the study of Latin and Greek than in any previous fotmdation. When humanism had gained the day, largely through the encourage- ment and influence of men like Bishop John Fisher, Thomas More, and Cardinal Wolsey, English college education had assumed the form and character which were to remain for centuries. The medieval curricu- lum of the trivium and quadrivium (see Arts, The Seven Liberal) had not been entirely abandoned ; it survived in the new scheme of education, but greatly changed and modified. Henceforth the classical lan- guages were the principal subject of instruction, to which mathematics formed the most important addi- tion. "Letters" were the essential foundation; the rest were considered accessory, subsidiary. This hu- manistic type of schools lasted longer in England than in any other country.
In the medieval universities outside of France and England there existed colleges, but nowhere did they obtain the importance and the influence which they gained in Paris, and most of all in Oxford and Cam- bridge. The colleges in the German universities, e. g. at Prague, Vienna, Cologne, as well as the Scotch col- leges, were primarily intended for the teachers, and only secondarily, if at all, for the students. For the students hostels, called bnrsce, were established which were merely lodging-houses. The colleges of the Netherlands, especially those of Louvain, came near- er the English type. The most famous college was the Collegium Trilingue at Louvain, founded in 1517 by Busleidcn, after the model of the College of the Three Languages at Alcald, the celebrated foundation of Cardinal Ximenes for the study of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. At present, there is, on the European conti- nent, no exact equivalent of the English colleges, but as far as the subjects of instruction are concerned, the French It/ri'e and college, the German gymnasnum, and similar institutions, in their higher classes, resemble the English colleges. Many celebrated gymnasia of Teutonic coimtries developed from pre-Reformation schools. In Schmid's "Geschichte der Erziehung" (V, i, 50 sqq.) there is a long list of such schools which grew out of medieval institutions, e. g. the Elbing gymnasium (Protestant), established in 15.36, which developed from a Senatorial school founded in 1.300; the Marienburg gymnasium, from a Latin school es-
