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From the fourteenth century on the word college meant in particular “a community or corporation of secular clergy living together on a foundation for religious service”. The church supported on this endowment was called a collegiate church, because the ecclesiastical services and solemnities were performed by a college, i.e. a body or staff of clergymen, consisting of a provost, or dean, canons, etc.; later, the term “collegiate” or “college church” was usually restricted to a church connected with a large educational institution. Some of these institutions, besides carrying out the Divine service in their church, were required to take charge of an almshouse, or a hospital, or some educational establishment. It is here that we find the word college introduced in connection with education, a meaning which was to become the most prominent during succeeding centuries. It seems that in the English universities the term was first applied to the foundations of the so-called second period, typified by New College, Oxford, 1379; from these the name gradually spread to the earlier foundations (Merton, Balliol) which originally were designated by the term aula or domus; then it was taken by the foundations of the third period, the colleges of the Renaissance. As used in educational history, college may be defined, in general, as “a society of scholars formed for the purposes of study or instruction”; and in particular as “a self-governing corporation, either independent of a university, or in connection with a university, as the College of the Sorbonne in the ancient University of Paris, and the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge”. In some instances, where in a university only a single college was founded or survived, the terms “college” and “university” are co-extensive and interchangeable. This is the case in Scotland and, to a great extent, in the United States. Although in the United States many small institutions claim the ambitious title of university, it is more appropriate to apply this term to those institutions which have several distinct faculties for professional study and thus resemble the universities of Europe. They differ, however, from the continental universities in one important point, namely, in the undergraduate department which is connected with the university proper. In some places, as in Harvard, the term “college” is now in a special sense applied to the undergraduate school. This is the most common and most proper acceptation of the term: an institution of higher learning of a general, not professional, character, where after a regular course of study the degree of Bachelor of Arts, or, in recent years, some equivalent degree, e.g. Bachelor of Philosophy, or Bachelor of Science, is given. (See Bachelor of Arts. and Academic Degrees.) It is this meaning of college which will be treated in this article; all professional schools called colleges are excluded, such as teachers’ colleges (training schools for teachers), law and medical colleges, colleges of dentistry, pharmacy, mechanical engineering, agriculture, business, mines, etc. Nor will colleges be included which are divinity schools or theological seminaries, as the numerous colleges in Rome, e.g. the Collegium Germanicum, Collegium Latino-Americanum, Collegium Graecum, or the English, Irish, Scotch, North-American Colleges, and many other similar institutions.



The foundation of the secular colleges was greatly stimulated by the presence of the regular colleges, i.e. the establishments of the religious orders in connection with the universities. The religious orders early profited by the advantages offered in these educational centers, and in their turn had a considerable share in the further development of the universities, particularly the Dominicans and Franciscans. (See .) The Dominicans established a house of study in the University of Paris in 1218, the Franciscans 1219, the Benedictines 1229, the Augustinians in 1259. At Oxford the Dominicans opened a house 1220, the Franciscans 1224. Their example was followed by the Benedictines, who founded Gloucester Hall and Durham College. These religious houses formed each a miniature Studium in the midst of a great university. The young members of the orders lived in well-organized communities which gave freedom from cares and favored quiet study, whereas other students were left to contend with the many hardships and temptations which surrounded them on all sides. It was natural that men who realized the advantages of such a well-regulated life should endeavor to adapt this system to the needs of students who had no intention of entering religious communities. “The secular college would never perhaps have developed into the important institution which it actually became but for the example set by the colleges of the mendicants” (Rashdall, op. cit., I, 478). An erroneous view has been expressed by some writers, viz., that the foundation of the colleges was a symptom of the growing opposition to ecclesiastical control of education, and especially a sign of hostility to the religious orders. The majority of secular colleges were founded by zealous ecclesiastics, in England especially by bishops, most of whom were very friendly to the religious orders. Mr. Bass Mullinger admits that Trinity Hall, Cambridge, seems to have been founded with the intention of furthering “Ultramontane interests” Mist. of Un. of Cambridge, 41). Hugh de Balsham, a Benedictine, was the founder of Peterhouse, the first college at Cambridge (1284); the third Cambridge college, Pembroke Hall, was founded in 1347 by Marie de Valence, a friend of the Franciscans; one of two rectors was to be a Friar Minor, and the foundress adjured the fellows to be kind, devoted, and grateful to all religious, “especially the Friars Minor“. Gonville Hall, Cambridge, was founded in 1350 by Edmund Gonville, an equally warm friend of the Dominicans, for whom he made a foundation at Thetford. The same can be shown with regard to Oxford. To give an instance, according to the statutes of Balliol, one of the outside “procurators” was to be a Franciscan. The indirect influence of religious institutions is discernible also in the semi-monastic features of colleges, some of which have survived to our own times, as the common life and obligatory attendance at chapel. With regard to the latter point it is surprising to learn that the earlier colleges enjoined attendance at Mass only on Sundays, Holy Days, and vigils. At Oxford, the statutes of New College are, as far as is known, the first which require daily attendance at Mass; towards the end of the fifteenth century this daily attendance was enforced also on the students living in the Halls (Rashdall, op. cit., II, 506, 651).

The members of a college were one another’s socii, or “Fellows”. In the beginning the terms “Schollars” and “Fellows” were interchangeable, but gradually 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 business, in later times particularly in teaching the Junior Scholars. In the early foundations it was understood that the inmates should receive most of their instruction outside the walls of the college; but where younger members were admitted, it was necessary to exercise supervision over their studies, and give some instruction 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; finally the colleges practically monopolized instruction. The number of students living in the colleges was small at first; most statutes provided only for between 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 favorably on the whole student body and exercised a most salutary influence on the manners and morals of the university towns. As Cardinal Newman has said: “Colleges tended to break the anarchical spirit, gave the example of laws, and trained up a set of students who, as being morally and intellectually superior to other members of the academical body became the depositaries of academical power and influence” (Hist. Sketches, III, 221). Thus the university 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 sacrificed to the colleges, and the colleges themselves became inactive; contrary to the intention of the founders, who had established them for the maintenance of the poor, they were occupied by the wealthy, especially 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, founded the first college outside a university, namely Winchester College, in 1379, for seventy boys who were to be educated in “grammar”, i.e. literature. Gram-mar colleges had indeed existed before, in connection with universities and cathedrals; but Winchester was the first elaborate foundation for grammatical education, 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, Shrewsbury, and Merchant Taylors. These institutions developed into the famous “public schools”. During this period, as for a long time after there was no such hard and fast line between the higher and more elementary instruction as exists at the present day. Many grammar schools of England did partly college work. Contrary to the common opinion, as voiced by Green, Mullinger, and others, the number of grammar schools before the Reformation was very great. Mr.

Leach states that “three hundred grammar schools I a moderate estimate of the number in the year 1535, when the floods of the great revolution were let loose. Most of them were swept away either under Henry 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, denoting a higher school where the classical languages form the staple subject of instruction.

A most powerful influence on the further development of the colleges was exercised by the humanistic movement. It cannot be denied that during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the study of the classics 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” gradually made its victorious entry into the old seats of learning, while new schools were established everywhere, until, about the year 1500, “Catholic Europe presented the aspect of a vast 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 learning 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 foundation. When humanism had gained the day, largely through the encouragement 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 curriculum of the trivium and quadrivium (see Seven Liberal Arts) had not been entirely abandoned; it survived in the new scheme of education, but greatly changed and modified. Henceforth the classical languages were the principal subject of instruction, to which mathematics formed the most important addition. “Letters” were the essential foundation; the rest were considered accessory, subsidiary. This humanistic 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 Cambridge. The colleges in the German universities, e.g. at Prague, Vienna, Cologne, as well as the Scotch colleges, were primarily intended for the teachers, and only secondarily, if at all, for the students. For the students hostels, called bursce, were established which were merely lodging-houses. The colleges of the Netherlands, especially those of Louvain, came nearer the English type. The most famous college was the Collegium Trilingue at Louvain, founded in 1517 by Busleiden, after the model of the College of the Three Languages at Alcali, the celebrated foundation of Cardinal Ximenes for the study of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. At present, there is, on the European continent, no exact equivalent of the English colleges, but as far as the subjects of instruction are concerned, the French lycee and college, the German gymnasium, and similar institutions, in their higher classes, resemble the English colleges. Many celebrated gymnasia of Teutonic Countries 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 1536, which developed from a Senatorial school founded in 1300; the Marienburg gymnasium, from a Latin school established by the Teutonic Knights in the fourteenth century; the Berlin gymnasium (1540), formerly St. Peter’s School (1276); the Mary Magdalen Gymnasium of Breslau, a Protestant school (1528), which grew out of City School (1267); the Gymnasium Illustre of Brieg (1569), a combination of the ancient Cathedral School and the City School; the Lutheran school of Sagan (1541), originally a Franciscan school (1294). During the Renaissance and Reformation period a few institutions of this kind went by the name of Collegium, but more were styled Gymnasium, Lyceum, Atheneum, Poedagogium, or Academia, although these names in some cases were given to schools which were rather universities. Institutions of collegiate rank were also termed Studia Particularia, to distinguish them from a Studium Generale, or university. In its character the gymnasium was a humanistic school, the classical languages being the main subject of instruction. Not only the Catholic colleges of the post-Reformation period, but also the Protestant school systems, were based on the pre-Reformation schools, particularly those of the Netherlands. The famous school of Zwickau in Saxony was organized between 1535 and 1546 by Plateanus, a native of Liege, on the model of the school of the Brethren of the Common Life in Liege. John Sturm had studied in the same school at Liege, in the Collegium Trilingue at Louvain, and in the University of Paris, and from these schools he derived most of the details of his gymnasium at Strasburg, which was one of the most typical and most celebrated of early Protestant schools. Sturm’s ideas in turn largely influenced another class of German institutions, the famous Furstenschulen of Grimma, Pforta, etc. Again, Melanchthon, honored by the title of “founder of the German gymnasium”, based his system on the educational principles of Erasmus and other humanists.

Many features of college life are legacies of the past; some have already been pointed out, namely attendance at chapel and the common life in the great boarding-schools. Various forms of distinctly academical dress have grown out of college practices; no particular form of garment was prescribed by university authority in medieval institutions, but in colleges they soon began to wear a “livery” of uniform color and material. The modern viva voce examination is the successor of the former oral disputation, the examiners now taking the place of the “opponents” of olden times. As has been shown, the support of poor and deserving scholars was the root idea of the foundation of colleges; the scholarships in English and American schools, the bursarships and stipendia in the schools of Germany and other countries, have sprung from, and perpetuate, the same idea. In the provision for the Senior Scholars, in the fellow-ships of the medieval colleges, and in the practice of endowing professorships with prebends, there was an early systematic attempt at solving the question of processors’ salaries. In these and other features, modern college systems are intimately linked with the Catholic past.






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