than an abstract term[1] signifying collectively the various centres of professional education in their new relations to the state. All France was divided into seventeen districts, designated “academies,” each administered by its own rector and council, but subject to the supreme authority of the minister of public instruction, and representing certain faculties which varied at different centres in conformity with the new scheme of distribution for the entire country.
While, accordingly, three new “academies”—those of Lille, Lyons and Rennes—date their commencement from 1808, Lille, Lyons and Rennes. many of the pre-existing centres were completely suppressed. In some cases, however, the effacement of an ancient institution was avoided by investing it with new importance, as at Grenoble; in others, the vacated premises were appropriated to new uses connected with the department, as at Avignon, Cahors and Perpignan. Each rector of an “academy” was also constituted president of a local conseil d'enseignement, in conjunction with which he nominated the professors of lycées and the communal schoolmasters,[2] these appointments being subsequently ratified by a promotion committee sitting in Paris. In 1895, however, Institution of “free faculties.” the government was prevailed upon to sanction the institution of certain “free faculties,” as they were termed, to be placed under the direction of the bishop, and depending for support upon voluntary contributions, and each including a faculty of theology. The faculty at Marseilles, on the other hand, which originated in an earlier “faculty of sciences” founded in 1854, was now called upon to share the governmental grant with Aix, and the two centres Aix-Marseille. became known as the Académie d'Aix-Marseille—the faculties in the latter being restricted to mathematics and natural science (including a medical school), while faculties of law and philosophy were fixed at Aix, which possesses also the university library properly so termed. In the capital itself, the university of Paris, and the École Pratique des Hautes Études carried on the work of higher instruction independently of each other—the former with faculties of Protestant theology, law, medicine, science, letters and chemistry distributed over the Quartier Latin; the latter with schools of mathematics, natural science, history, philology, and history of religions centred at the Sorbonne.
The Collège de France, founded in the 16th century by Francis I., was from the first regarded with hostility both Collège de France. by the university and by the Sorbonne. It became, however, so highly esteemed as a school of gratuitous instruction in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, that it not only held its ground, but at the Revolution ultimately survived alike the universities and their hostility. As reconstituted in 1831 it became chiefly known as an institution for the instruction of adults, and its staff of professors, some fifty in number (including their deputies), has comprised from time to time the names of not a few of the most distinguished scholars Strassburg. and men of science in the country. The university of Strassburg, which in the latter part of the 18th century had been distinguished by an intellectual activity which became associated with the names of Goethe, Herder and others, was also swept away by the Revolution. It was revived in 1804 as a Protestant “academy,” but four years later incorporated in the newly created “academy ” of Nancy, with a faculty of Protestant theology which lasted only until 1818.
In Switzerland the universities shared in the conflicts handed down from the days when the Helvetic republic had been Switzerland. first created, and each with somewhat similar experiences. In 1832, Basel having joined the Sarner Bund or League of the Catholic Cantons, the Confederates divided the canton into two, and agreed to raise the flourishing Hochschule which already existed at Zürich to the Zürich. rank of a university—a measure which may be said to mark a turning-point in the history of the higher education of the republic. In 1839, however, the teaching of D. F. Strauss, who had been installed in the chair of theology at Zürich soon after his expulsion from Tübingen, gave rise to a popular demonstration which not only brought about the overthrow of the governing body, but placed the existence of the university itself in jeopardy. But the storm was successfully weathered, and in 1859 the statutes were revised and a considerable addition made to the professoriate. The gymnasium Bern. of Bern, originally established under the teaching of Ulrich Zwingli, developed in 1834 into a university with all the faculties, those of medicine and philosophy rising with the advance of the century into high repute. Lausanne. As early as 1586 Lausanne had been a noted school for the education of Protestant ministers, but it was not until 1806 that chairs of philosophy and law were established, to which those of natural science and literature were added in 1836, and, somewhat later, that of medicine. It was not, however, until 1891 that Lausanne was formally constituted Geneva. a university. At Geneva the famous academy of the 16th and 17th centuries, long distinguished as Geneva a centre of Calvinistic teaching, became merged in 1876 in a university, where the instruction (given mainly in the French language) was carried on by a staff of forty-one professors. With this was also incorporated an earlier school of science, in which De Saussure and De Candolle had once been teachers. Fribourg. Fribourg, founded in 1889 as university of the canton so named, began with only two faculties—those of law and philosophy, to which one of theology was added in the following year. A certain spirit of innovation characterized most of the Swiss universities at this time, especially in connexion with female education. At Zürich, in 1872 (and somewhat later at Geneva and Bern), women were admitted to the lectures, and in 1892 were permitted themselves to lecture, a lady, Frau Dr Emilie Kempin, succeeding to the chair of Roman law. At Fribourg the proposition was first brought forward that all professors should be appointed only for a specified period, a limitation which along with other questions affecting the professorial body gave rise to much divergence of opinion.
In Spain the act of 1857 introduced a radical change similar to that in France, the whole system of education being placed under the responsible control of the minister for that department, while the entire kingdom was at the same time divided into ten university districts—Madrid, Barcelona, Granada, Oviedo, Salamanca, Santiago, Seville, Valencia, Valladolid and Saragossa—the rector of the universities in each district representing the chief authority. The degrees to be conferred at Spain and Portugal. each were those of bachelor, licentiate and doctor. Each university received a rector of its own, selected by the government from among the professors, and a precise plan of instruction was prescribed in which every hour had its appointed lecturer and subject. Philosophy, natural science, law and medicine were to be studied at all these universities, and at the majority a school of chemistry was subsequently instituted, except at Oviedo, which was limited to a faculty of law and a school for notaries. But at Salamanca, Valladolid, Seville and Saragossa no school of chemistry was instituted, and at the first three that of medicine ultimately died out. No provision was made for instruction in theology, this being relegated to the seminaries in the episcopal cities. The university of Manila in the Philippines was opened in 1601 as a school for the nobility, and ten years later the famous college of St Thomas was founded by the Dominican order; but it was not until 1857 that the university, properly speaking, Coimbra. was founded by royal Spanish decree. In Portugal, Coimbra, which narrowly escaped suppression in the 16th century and was removed from 1380 to 1537 to Lisbon, has long been a flourishing school. Its instruction is given gratis; but, as all members of the higher courts of judicature and administration in the realm are required to have graduated
- ↑ It retains a certain professional meaning, in that a student studying for the “university” is understood to be one who is himself aiming at the profession of a teacher in a lycée.
- ↑ The préfet of the department has since taken the place of the rector with regard to nominations.
