2
University of Madras.
the terms connected with them can be little more than mere sounds. Such being the case, I think it will not be amiss for me to say a few words upon the origin and progress of European Universities,—keeping in view more especially those of England,—before I proceed to the immediate object of this Address.
On the overthrow of the Western Empire and the settlement of the barbarian conquerors in the different countries of Europe, Rise and progress of Universities in the West. Literature and Science, sadly mutilated, took refuge in the Christian Church, which successfully resisted the convulsion that overthrew almost every other institution of the past. After a certain interval, a new position of equilibrium was found within each nation: retrogression ceased, and progress re-commenced. The first advances were, like the incipient development of a seed, almost imperceptible. We may point to Charlemagne in France, and Alfred in England, as pre-eminent; but too thick a darkness rests over their times to allow of our measuring the efforts of those great men. Schools or Studia, as they were called, were from time to time established in different places, most frequently in connection with cathedrals and monasteries, and mainly, if not entirely, for the education of the clerical order: combinations of these Studia founded in favorable localities, acquiring eminence from the patronage of monarchs, nobles and bishops, and from the successful teaching of individuals, came at length to be formed into Universities. The 12th century is commonly held to be the period when this development took place, although particular Universities lay claim to a much earlier origin. The University of Paris, while not absolutely the first in time, was undoubtedly the most celebrated; Englishmen, among other foreigners, resorting to it, in preference to their own seats of learning, Oxford and Cambridge. There were then two courses of study, the one rudimentary, the other more advanced: the former bore the name of the "Trivium" or triple road to knowledge, and comprised the elements of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric; the latter was called the "Quadrivium," or quadruple road, and included Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, and Music,—or, at least, the portions of Science so denominated in those days, There is a notion prevalent that the English Universities in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries retained the same intimate connection with the Church which belonged to them at their foundation. Undoubtedly there still existed within them many traces of their clerical origin. But when we turn to the records of those ages, we find these institutions frequently involved in contests with the Carmelites and other orders of
