Greek philosophers' schools; public schools owe their origin to the
social need for professional training. Thus during the Middle Ages the
first schools were called into being by the need of professional
training for ecclesiastics, the first learned profession, and a calling
whose importance seemed to demand such training. Essentially the same
necessity called into being the Universities of the Parisian type, with
their artistic and theological faculties. The two other types of
professional schools, the law school and the medical school, which were
first developed in Italy, then united with the former. The Universities
therefore originated as a union of 'technical' schools for
ecclesiastics, jurists, and physicians, to which division the faculty of
Arts was related as a general preparatory school, until during the
nineteenth century it also assumed something of the character of a
professional institution for the training of teachers for the Secondary
School."[41]

Thus the early aim of the University was, as it still continues to be,
to provide the training for the after-supply of those services which the
State requires at the hands of her theologians, her jurists, and her
physicians. In Germany, and to some extent even in our own country, the
Arts faculty of the University is ceasing to perform the function of a
General Preparatory School to the professional schools, and is becoming
an independent school, having for its aim the preparation of teachers
for the Intermediate and Secondary Schools of the country. In Scotland,
indeed, it serves at the present time as a Preparatory School mainly to
the theological faculty. As the Secondary Schools of the country become
more efficient, better differentiated, and better organised, the need of
a Preparatory School within our Universities will gradually become less,
and the University will be able to devote more of her energies to the
training of students preparing for some one or other of the above-named
professions. With this change the philosophical studies of the Arts
faculty will become increasingly important, and the method of teaching
the linguistic and scientific studies receive a larger share of
attention than they do at present.

But the other and perhaps the more important function of the University
is to carry on and to extend the work of scientific and literary
research for its own sake. This is the dominant note of the German and
American Universities of to-day.