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1. HIGHER EDUCATION

OXFORD

- in the 15th c. build its first major university building: Divinity School and Library

- around the middle of the c. there were around 600 students

- in 16th and 17th c. tended to religious conservatism (Matthew Arnold called it “the home of lost causes and forsaken beliefs”)

CAMBRIDGE

- was expanding much faster and wasn’t so conservative

- from middle ages had schools, chapel, library and treasury

- from 16th c. had records of matriculations, admissions to degrees

- in 16th c. followed the new ideas.

Under Tudors there was also first endowed university teaching post:

- Lady Margaret Professorship of Divinity (endowed by Henry VII’s mother) at both Oxford and Cambridge.

- Later there were even more endowments and professorships.

- They build new colleges, founded with income from the dissolution of small religious houses before 1520, for the education of men for the priesthood in the new national church (that is before the great dissolution of the monasteries).

- After the establishment of the Church of England even more colleges were founded. 

Early modern university education was also changing along with the buildings.

- For the first time, large numbers of lay students (who didn’t intend to become priests) also began to attend university.

- The students were very young, Cardinal Wolsey went to Oxford at age of 11, graduated at 15, John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, was at University College Oxford from age of 13 to 16.

Undergrads were often beaten just like school boys if they didn’t fulfil the requirements.

Students expected to be deferential to their seniors.

Universities were not seen as necessary for aristocracy.

From the 1550s England broke away contacts with many countries because of the

reformation. However they were influenced by the “new learning” of renaissance humanism, but it was peripheral. There were Greek scholars at Oxford:

- William Grocyn;

- John Colet visited Italy, lectured on the New Testament at Oxford, dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral and founder of St. Paul’s School with London company of mercers as trustees;

- John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, Balliol College, Oxford, visited Italy, attended lectures on Greek at Florence, translated Cicero’s De Amicitia;

- Thomas Linacre, physician and classical scholar, one of first Englishmen to study Greek in Italy, translated Galen from Greek, instrumental in setting up 1518 College of Physicians.

At Cambridge Greek was taught by Richard Fox, founder of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 1500 elected Chancellor of Cambridge University.

The Education of lawyers began to expand, but it continued outside structure of the

universities. From the 14th century barristers trained at: 10 inns of chancery 4 inns of court: Lincoln’s Inn, Gray’s Inn, Inner Temple and Middle Temple.

In the early modern period in the 15/16th century there was a new feature: Scottish Universities: St. Andrews 1410, Glasgow 1491, Aberdeen 1495, Edinburgh 1582.

All of them were very strongly influenced by the new ideas of the revival, and by the social ideas of Protestantism. They were very different from the English ones, because they attempted to teach able members of the community throughout the society - as widely as possible.

In the 17th century, dominated by conflict (Civil war and Revolution), there was so-called

Scientific revolution. The parliamentarians who won the Civil War made a big impact on the universities in Britain.

1645 – scholarships for poor students at Scottish Universities

1655 – subsidy for Scottish Universities 

1655 – Scottish College of Physicians set up

1650 – New university at Durham 

1650 – Parliament endowed Trinity College Dublin, founded 1592 by Elizabeth

English academic began to make an impact in Europe (17th c. scientific advance):

- Robert Boyle, chemist, 1654-1668 at Oxford,

- Christopher Wren, 1653-1657 fellow of All Souls College Oxford, architect

- Thomas Willis, in 1650s isolated “sugar diabetes”, from 1660 Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy, Oxford

- Thomas Sydenham, 1648-1655 fellow of All Souls College Oxford: medicine: “It is necessary that all diseases be reduced to definite and certain species”

- John Wallis– cryptographer to the Long Parliament 1652, Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae; 1655, Arithmetica Infinitorum; 1669-1671, Mechanica, Cromwell’s brother-in-law, 1648 Warden of Wadham College Oxford, Oxford Experimental Philosophy Club, 1648, Mathematical Magic, deaf & dumb language, “flying chariot” space travel:

- Isaac Newton, 1661 (i.e. after the Restoration) went to Trinity College Cambridge: 1688 Principia Mathematica

The were also major philosophers of the english origin:

- Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651

- John Locke, Second Treatise on Government, 1688

Many of these discoveries were appreciated by the King, and the scholars were rewarded with certain positions:

- John Wallis became cryptographer to the “Long Parliament

- Jonathon Goddard became physician to Cromwell’s armies

- Thomas Sydenham became Cromwellian officer

- Sir William Petty became Cromwell’s Surveyor in Ireland

- John Wilkins became the first secretary of the Royal Society

The Royal Society was founded in 1662 as a national academy of sciences, composed of many Cromwellian scholars often associated from the 1640s with Gresham College.