neral supervision of the local bishops. The great
university of Paris was gradually changing its character. From the
most cosmopolitan and international of bodies it was fast becoming
strongly nationalist, and was the chief center of an Erastian
Gallicanism. Its {12} tremendous weight cast against the Reformation
was doubtless a chief reason for the failure of that movement in France.

Spain instituted seven new universities at this time: Barcelona 1450,
Saragossa 1474, Palma 1483, Sigueenza 1489, Alcala 1499, Valencia 1500,
and Seville 1504. Italy and England remained content with the
academies they already had, but many of the smaller countries now
started native universities. Thus Pressburg was founded in Hungary in
1465, Upsala in Sweden in 1477, Copenhagen in 1478, Glasgow in 1450,
and Aberdeen in 1494. The number of students in each foundation
fluctuated, but the total was steadily on the increase.

Naturally, the expansion of the higher education brought with it an
increase in the number and excellence of the schools. Particularly
notable is the work of the Brethren of the Common Life, who devoted
themselves almost exclusively to teaching boys. Some of their schools,
as Deventer, attained a reputation like that of Eton or Rugby today.

The spread of education was not only notable in itself, but had a more
direct result in furnishing a shelter to new movements until they were
strong enough to do without such support. It is significant that the
Reformations of Wyclif, Huss, and Luther, all started in universities.

[Sidenote: Growth of intelligence]

As the tide rolls in, the waves impress one more than the flood beneath
them. Behind, and far transcending, the particular causes of this and
that development lies the operation of great biological laws, selecting
a type for survival, transforming the mind and body of men slowly but
surely. Whether due to the natural selection of circumstance, or to
the inward urge of vital force, there seems to be no doubt that the
average intellect, not of leading thinkers or of select groups, {13}
but of the European races as a whole, has been steadily growing greater
at every period during which it can be measured. Moreover, the
monastic vow of chastity tended to sterilize and thus to eliminate the
religiously-minded sort. Operating over a long period, and on both
sexes, this cause of the growing secularization of the world, though it
must not be exaggerated, canno