of different tendencies in the higher teaching of the age. Paris. The University of Paris became the great school of Dialectic and Theology: it represents especially the desire for a general mental training, with a speculative bent. Bologna. The University of Bologna, famous for the study of the civil and canon law, gave the foremost place to the idea of a professional training, with a definite practical aim.
The English Universities.Paris was the model upon which the English Universities were founded. Before the end of the twelfth century, Giraldus Cambrensis could describe Oxford as the place "where the clergy in England chiefly flourished, and excelled in clerkly lore." The earliest history of our own University is more obscure; but it, too, probably had its origin in the twelfth century, in connection with teaching carried on by the canons of the Church of St Giles; and in 1209 we hear of some students migrating from Oxford to Cambridge. But it is not until we come to the era of the earliest Cambridge Colleges that there is any full or clear light. Throughout the middle age, Oxford was the representative University of England; and not only that, but at one time the rival, and in some respects the superior, of Paris. There are, however, indications enough to show that the development of mediaeval Cambridge was following the same general course.
First period: from about 1216 to 1350 A.D.
The first period which we may take in the history of the English Universities starts from the time when they begin to have a distinct influence on the national life,—viz., from the early part of the
