5] for a
time flourished, but finally withered away.

Spanish universities were crowded with new numbers. The maximum
student body was reached by Salamanca in 1584 with 6778 men, while
Alcala passed in zenith in 1547 with the respectable enrollment of
1949. The foundation of no less than nine new universities in Spain
bears witness to the interest of the Iberian Peninsula in education.

Four new universities opened their doors in Italy during the year
1540-1565. The Sapienza at Rome, in addition to these, was revived
temporarily by Leo X in 1513, and, after a relapse to the dormant
state, again awoke to its full power under Paul III, when chairs of
Greek and Hebrew were established.

[Sidenote: Contribution to progress]

The services of all these universities cannot be computed on any
statistical method. Notwithstanding all their faults, their dogmatic
narrowness and their academic arrogance, they contributed more to
progress than any other institutions. Each academy became the center
of scientific research and of intellectual life. Their influence was
enormous. How much did it mean to that age to see its contending hosts
marshalled under two professors, Luther and Adrian VI! And how many
other leaders taught in universities:--Erasmus, Melanchthon, Reuchlin,
Lefevre, to mention only a few. Pontiffs and kings sought for support
in academic pronouncements, nor could they always force the doctors to
give the decision they wished. In fact, each university stood like an
Acropolis in the republic of letters, at once a temple and a fortress
for those who loved truth and ensued it.

[1] Besancon was then an Imperial Free City.

{674}

SECTION 4. ART

[Sidenote: Art the expression of an ideal]

The significant thing about art, for the historian as for the average
man, is the ideal it expresses. The artist and critic may find more to
interest him in the development of technique, how this painter dealt with
perspective and that one with "tactile values," how the Florentines
excelled in drawing and the Venetians in color. But for us, not being
professionals, the content of the art is more important than its form.
For, after all, the glorious cathedrals of the Middle Ages and the
marvellous paintings of the Renaissance were not mere iridescent bubbles
blown by or for children with nothing better to do. They were the
embodiments of ideas; as the people thought in their hearts so they
projected themselves