Luxury was guarded against; poverty was not enjoined. As long as a
scholar was pursuing his studies _bon? fide_, he might remain a
member of the college; if he was tired of books and bookish people,
he might go.
When a man strikes out a new idea, he is not allowed to keep it to
himself very long. The new idea soon gets taken up; sometimes it gets
improved upon; sometimes very much the reverse. For a wise man acts
upon a hint, and it germinates; a fool only half apprehends the
meaning of a hint, and he displays his folly in producing a
caricature. Hugh de Balsham seems to have aimed at improving upon
Merton's original idea. He meant well, doubtless; but his college of
Peterhouse, the first college in Cambridge, was a very poor copy of
the Oxford foundation. Merton was a man of genius, a man of ideas;
Balsham was a man of the cloister. Moreover, he was by no means so
rich as his predecessor, and he did not live to carry out his scheme.
The funds were insufficient. The first college at Cambridge was long
in building. Cambridge, in fact, was very unfortunate. Somehow there
was none of the dash and enthusiasm, none of the passion for
progress, which characterized Oxford. Cambridge had no moral genius
like Grosseteste to impress his strong personality upon the movement
which the friars stirred, no commanding intellect like that of Roger
Bacon to attract and dazzle and lead into quite new regions of
thought the ardent and eager spirits who felt that a new era had
begun; no Occam or Duns Scotus or Bradwardine; no John Wielif to
kindle a new flame--say, rather, to take up the torch which had
dropped from Bradwardine's hand, and continue the race which the
others had run so well.
Pages:
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269