ion--and that generation saw the rise of the universities, the
finishing of the cathedrals, the building of magnificent town halls and
castles and beautiful municipal buildings of many kinds, including
hospitals, the development of the Hansa League in commerce, and of
wonderful manufacturers of all the textiles, the arts and crafts, as
well as the most beautiful book-making and art and literature. We could
be quite sure that the men who solved all the other problems so well
could not have been absurd only in their treatment of science. Anyone
who reads their books will be quite sure of that.

While most people might be ready, then, to confess that possibly Huxley
was not mistaken with regard to the undergraduate department of the
universities, most of them would feel sure that at least the graduate
departments were sadly deficient in accomplishment. Once more this is
entirely an assumption. The facts are all against any such idea.

There were three graduate departments in most of the
universities--theology, law, and medicine. While physical scientists are
usually not cognizant of it apparently, theology is a science, a
department of knowledge developed scientifically, and most of these
medieval universities did more for its scientific development than the
schools of any other period. Quite as much may be said for philosophy,
for there are many who hesitate to attribute any scientific quality to
modern developments in the matter. As for law, this is the great period
of the foundation of scientific law development; the English common law
was formulated by Bracton, the deep foundations of basic French and
Spanish law were laid, and canon law acquired a definite scientific
character which it was always to retain. All this was accomplished
almost entirely by the professors in the law departments of the
universities.

It was in medicine, however, where most people would be quite sure
without any more ado that nothing worth while talking about was being
done, that the great triumphs of graduate teaching at the medieval
universities were secured. Here more than anywhere else is there room
for supreme surprise at the quite unheard-of anticipations of our modern
medicine and, stranger still, as it may seem, of our modern surgery.

The law regulating the practice of medicine in the Two Sicilies about
the middle of the thirteenth century shows us the high standard of
medical education. Students were required to have three years