Nevertheless, it is not till the middle of
the reign of Henry the Third (A.D. 1216-1272) that we come upon any
direct mention of a corporation which could be regarded as a
chartered society of scholars at Cambridge, and it is difficult to
resist the conviction that, whatever may have been its previous
history, and however far back its infancy may date, the friars were
to some extent nursing fathers of the University of Cambridge.
And this brings us again to the point from which we started a page or
two back, and gives me the opportunity of quoting a passage from
Professor Willis's introduction, which will serve at once as a
continuation of and comment upon what has been said, while leading us
on to what still lies before us.
The University of the Middle Ages was a corporation of learned men,
associated for the purposes of teaching, and possessing the privilege
that no one should be allowed to teach within their dominion unless
he had received their sanction, which could only be granted after
trial of his ability. The test applied consisted of examinations and
public disputations; the sanction assumed the form of a public
ceremony, and the name of _a degree_; and the teachers or
doctors so elected or created carried out their office of instruction
by lecturing in the public schools to the students who, desirous of
hearing them, took up their residence in the place wherein the
University was located.
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