Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/104

92 HISTORY OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE rise to healthy emulation both between the teachers and the taught. 1 As the period of study in the Middle Ages, after the pattern of antiquity, was prolonged into advanced years, we find not only young men studying at the universities, but men of ripe } T ears and of standing and dignity — abbots, provosts, canons, and princes. The comrade- ship existing through the whole university body was very remarkable, students and professors being on equal terms. This was particularly the case in the philoso- phical faculty — generally called ' the Faculty of Arts.' It was made up of men who had received the degree of A.M., had reached the full years of manhood, and taught while they themselves still studied the higher branches. 1 This invested the office of teacher with a delightful freshness and youthfulness, while it gave higher influence and dignity to the condition of learner, traces of which we notice in the various university constitutions. 1 With reference to poor scholars, Paulsen says (pp. 438-440) : 'Poverty was not in those days such a hindrance to learning as it is in ours. It ever found a helping hand.' In all the ecclesiastical establishments, that is to say, in all the public schools, gymnasiums, and universities (the paupers) die pauperes, as the Vienna statutes express it, enjoyed the ' privilege of goodwill.' They were entitled not only to matriculation, but to attend the lectures and to graduate. All schools and universities had their endowments for the maintenance of poor scholars. In the intermediate schools it was quite allowable to solicit means to pay a pupil's expenses ; and, indeed, this was not unknown in the universities. How could men- dicancy be considered dishonourable while so many orders adopted it as a rule ? Riches were looked upon by the Church (and this view was well supported by the doctrine of the Gospel) as more dangerous than poverty to the avocation of learning. The expenses of tuition were often defrayed in part by services rendered to the teacher. No work for his teacher (manual labour was held in respect in the Middle Ages) was any more humiliating to the scholar than that of the page for his prince. This state of things made it possible for the ranks of the clergy to be recruited from the people, and left no position unrepresented in the priesthood.