Practical Essays by Alexander Bain (best electronic book reader TXT) 📕

to understand how your predecessors could be cheerful and happy, confined all through to one personality; sometimes juvenile, sometimes senile, often feeble at his best.

[ARISTOTLE THE BASIS OF THE TEACHING.]


THE SUBJECTS TAUGHT.

Next, as regards the Subjects taught. To know these you have simply to know what are the writings of Aristotle. The little work on him by Sir Alexander Grant supplies the needful information. The records of the Glasgow University furnish the curriculum of Arts soon after its foundation. The subjects are laid out in two heads--Logic and Philosophy. The Logic comprised first the three Treatises of the Old Logic; to these were now added the whole of the works making up Aristotle's Organon. This brought in the Syllogism, and allied matters. There was also a selection from the work known as the _Topics_, not now included in Logical teaching, yet one of the most remarkable and distinctive of Aristotle's writings. It is a highly laboured account of the whole art of Disputation, laid out under his scheme of the Predicables. The selection fell chiefly on two books--the second, comprising what Aristotle had to say on Induction, and the sixth, on Definition; together with the "Logical Captions" or Fallacies. Disputation was one of the products of the Greek mind; and Aristotle was its prophet.

Now for Philosophy. This comprised nearly the whole of Aristotle's Physical treatises--his very worst side--together with his Metaphysics, some parts of which are hardly distinguishable from the Physics. Next was the very difficult treatise--_De Anima_, on the mind, or Soul--and some allied Psychological treatises, as that on Memory. Such was the ordinary and sufficing curriculum. It was allowed to be varied with a part of the Ethics; but in this age we do not find the Politics; and the Rhetoric is never mentioned. So also, the really valuable Biological works of Aristotle, including his book on Animals, appear to have been neglected.

Certain portions of Mathematics always found a place in the curriculum. Likewise, some work on Astronomy, which was one of the quadrivium subjects.

All this was given in Latin. Greek was not then known (it was introduced into Scotland, in 1534). No classical Latin author is given; the education in Latin was finished at the Grammar School.

[TEACHING EXCLUSIVELY IN TEXTS.]


MANNER OF TEACHING.

Such was the Arts' Faculty of the 15th century; a dreary, single-manned, Aristotelian quadriennium. The position is not completely before us, till we understand farther the manner of working.

The pupils could not, as a rule, possess the text of Aristotle. The teacher read and expounded the text for them; but a very large portion of the time was always occupied in dictating, or "diting," notes, which the pupils were examined upon, _viva voce_; their best plan usually being to get them by heart, as any one might ask them to repeat passages literally; while perhaps few could examine well upon the meaning. The notes would be selections and abridgments from Aristotle, with the comments of modern writers. The "diting" system was often complained of as waste of time, but was not discontinued till the third, or present, University dynasty, and not entirely then, as many of us know.

The teaching was thus exclusively _Text_ teaching. The teacher had little or nothing to say for himself (at least in the earliest period). He was even restricted in the remarks he might make by way of commentary. He was as nearly as possible a machine.

But lastly, to complete the view of the first period, we must add the practice of Disputation, of which we shall have a better idea from the records of the next period. This practice was co-eval with the Universities; it was the single mode of stimulating the thought of the individual student; the chief antidote to the mechanical teaching by Text-books and dictation.

The pre-Reformation period of Aberdeen University was little more than sixty years. For a portion of those years it attained celebrity. In 1541, the town was honoured by a visit from James V., and the University contributed to his entertainment. The somewhat penny-a-lining account is, that there were exercises and disputations in Greek, Latin, and other languages! The official records, however, show that the College at that very time had sunk into a convent and conventual school.


SECOND PERIOD--THE REFORMATION.

The Reformation introduced the second period, and made important changes. First of all, in the great convulsion of European thought, the ascendancy of Aristotle was shaken. It is enough to mention two incidents in the downfall of the mighty Stagyrite. One was the attack on him by the renowned Peter Rainus, in the University of Paris. Our countryman, Andrew Melville, attended Ramus's Lectures, and became the means of introducing his system into Scotland. The other incident is still more notable. The Reformers had to consider their attitude towards Aristotle. At first their opinion was condemnatory. Luther regarded him as a very devil; he was "a godless bulwark of the Papists". Melancthon was also hostile; but he soon perceived that Theology would crumble into fanatical dissolution without the co-operation of some philosophy. As yet there was nothing to fall back upon except the pagan systems. Of these, Melancthon was obliged to confess that Aristotle was the least objectionable, and was, moreover, in possession. The plan, therefore, was to accept him as a basis, and fence him round with orthodox emendations. This done, Aristotle, no longer despotic, but as a limited constitutional monarch, had his reign prolonged a century and a half.

[NEW SUBJECTS INTRODUCED BY MELVILLE.]


THE MODIFIED CURRICULUM--ANDREW MELVILLE.

The first thing, after the Reformation in Scotland, was to purge the Universities of the inflexible adherents of the old faith. Then came the question of amending the Curriculum, not simply with a view to Protestantism, but for the sake of an enlightened teaching. The right man appeared at the right moment. In 1574, Andrew Melville, then in Geneva, received pressing invitations to come home and take part in the needed reforms. He was immediately made Principal of Glasgow University, at that time in a state of utter collapse and ruin. He had matured his plans, after consultation with George Buchanan, and they were worthy of a great reformer. He sketched a curriculum, substantially the curriculum of the second University period. The modifications upon the almost exclusive Aristotelianism of the first period, were significant. The Greek language was introduced, and Greek classical authors read. The reading in the Roman classics was extended. A text-book on Rhetoric accompanied the classical readings. The dialectics of Ramus made the prelude to Logic, instead of the three treatises of the old Logic. The Mathematics included Euclid. Geography and Cosmography were taken up. Then came a course of Moral Philosophy on an enlarged basis. With the Ethics and Politics of Aristotle, were combined Cicero's Ethical works and certain Dialogues of Plato. Finally, in the Physics, Melville still used Aristotle, but along with a more modern treatise. He also gave a view of Universal History and Chronology.

This curriculum, which Melville took upon himself to teach, in order to train future teachers, was the point of departure of the courses in all the Universities during the second period. With variations of time and place, the Arts' course may be described as made up of the Greek and Latin classics, with Rhetoric, Logic, and Dialectics, Moral Philosophy, or Ethics, Mathematics, Physics, and Astronomy. The little text-book of Rhetoric, by Talon or Talaeus, was made up of notes from the Lectures of Peter Ramus, and used in all our Colleges till superseded by the better compilation of the Dutch scholar, Gerard John Voss.

Melville had to contend with many opponents, among them the sticklers for the infallibility of the Stagyrite. Like the German Reformers, he had accepted Aristotelianism as a basis, with a similar process of reconciliation. So it was that Aristotle and Calvin were brought to kiss each other.

[MELVILLE DEFEATED ON THE REGENTING.]


ATTEMPT TO ABOLISH REGENTING.

Melville's next proposal was all too revolutionary. It consisted in restricting the Regents each to a special group of subjects; in fact, anticipating our modern professoriate. He actually set up this plan in Glasgow: one Regent took Greek and Latin; another, his nephew, James Melville, took Mathematics, Logic, and Moral Philosophy; a third, Physics and Astronomy. The system went on, in appearance at least, for fifty years; it is only in 1642, that we find the Regents given without a specific designation. Why it should have gone on so long, and been then dropt, we are not informed. Melville's influence started it in the other Universities, but it was defeated in every one from the very outset. After six years at Glasgow, he went to St. Andrew's as Principal and Professor of Divinity, and tried there the same reforms, but the resistance was too great. In spite of a public enactment, the division of labour among the Regents was never carried out. Yet such was Melville's authority, that the same enactment was extended to King's College, in a scheme having a remarkable history--the so-called New Foundation of Aberdeen University, promulgated in a Royal Charter of about the year 1581. The Earl Marischal was a chief promoter of the plan of reform comprised in this charter. The division of labour among the Regents was most expressly enjoined. The plan fell through; and there was a legal dispute fifty years afterwards as to whether it had ever any legal validity. Charles I. was made to express indignation at the idea of reducing the University to a school!

We now approach the foundation of Marischal College. The Earl Marischal may have been actuated by the failure of his attempt to reform King's College. At all events, his mind was made up to follow Melville in assigning separate subjects to his Regents. The Charter is explicit on this head. Yet in spite of the Charter and in spite of his own presence, the intention was thwarted; the old Regenting lasted 160 years.


ARISTOTELIAN PHYSICS TOO LONG MAINTAINED.

Still the Curriculum reform was gained. There was, indeed, one great miss. The year before Marischal College was founded, Galileo had published his work on Mechanics, which, taken with what had been accomplished by Archimedes and others, laid the foundations of our modern Physics. Copernicus had already published his work on the Heavens. It was now time that the Aristotelian Physics should be clean swept away. In this whole department, Aristotle had made a reign of confusion; he had thrown the subject back, being himself off the rails from first to last. Had there been in Scotland an adviser in this department, like Melville in general literature, or like Napier of Merchiston in pure mathematics, one fourth of the college teaching might have been reclaimed from utter waste, and a healthy tone of thinking diffused through the remainder.

A curious fascination always attached to the study of Astronomy, even when there was not much to be said, apart from the unsatisfactory disquisitions of Aristotle. A little book, entitled "_Sacrobosco_ on the Sphere," containing little more than what we should now teach to boys and girls, along with the Globes, was a University text-book throughout Europe for centuries. I was informed by a late King's College professor that the Use of the Globes was, within his memory, taught in the Magistrand Class. This would be simply what is termed a "survival".

[GRADUATION BY MEANS OF DISPUTES ON THESIS.]


SYSTEM OF DISPUTATION.

Now as to the mode of instruction. There were _viva voce_ examinations upon the notes, such as we can imagine. But the stress was laid on Disputations and Declamations in various forms. Besides disputing and declaiming on the regular class work before the Regent, we find that, in Edinburgh, and