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Assistant Professor of the History and Art of Teaching in HarvardUniversity
1909
These readings in the history of mediaeval universities are the firstinstallment of a series, which I have planned with the view ofillustrating, mainly from the sources, the history of modern educationin Europe and America. They are intended for use after the manner of thesource books or collections of documents which have so vastly improvedthe teaching of general history in recent years. No argument is neededas to the importance of such a collection for effective teaching of thehistory of education; but I would urge that the subject requires in apeculiar degree rich and full illustration from the sources. The life ofschool, college, or university is varied, vivid, even dramatic, while welive it; but, once it has passed, it becomes thinner and more spectralthan almost any other historical fact. Its original records are, in allconscience, thin enough; the situation is still worse when they areworked over at third or fourth hand, flattened out; smoothed down, anddesiccated in the pages of a modern history of education. Such historiesare of course necessary to effective teaching of the subject; but therecords alone can clothe the dry bones of fact with flesh and blood.Only by turning back to them do we gain a sense of personal intimacywith the past; only thus can we realize that schools and universities ofother days were not less real than those of to-day, teachers andstudents of other generations not less vividly alive than we, academicquestions not less unsettled or less eagerly debated. To gain this senseof concrete, living reality in the history of education is one of themost important steps toward understanding the subject.
In selecting and arranging the records here presented I have had in mindchiefly the needs of students who are taking the usual introductorycourses in the subject. Students of general history—a subject in whichmore and more account is taken of culture in the broad sense of theterm—may also find them useful.
Within the necessarily limited space I have chosen to illustrate in somedetail a few aspects of the history of mediaeval universities ratherthan to deal briefly with a large number of topics. Many importantmatters, not here touched upon, are reserved for future treatment. Somedocuments pertinent to the topics here discussed are not reproducedbecause they are easily accessible elsewhere; these are mentioned in thebibliographical note at the close of the volume.
In writing the descriptive and explanatory text I have attempted only toindicate the general significance of the translations, and to supplyinformation not easily obtained, or not clearly given in the referencesor text-books which, it is assumed, the student will read in connectionwith this work. It would be possible to write a commentary of genuinelymediaeval proportions on the selections here given; doubtless many ofthe details would be clearer for such a commentary. Some of these areexplained by cross-references in the body of the text; in the main,however, I have preferred to let the documents stand for their facevalue to the average reader.
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