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learning; and from similar causes originated the sub-sequent institutions which gradually took their rise,and at length compacted the whole into organisedbodies. As the students began to increase in numbers,something like a regular system soon sprang up as ne-cessary for the good order of the communities which wereformed. The students lived together in certain houseswhich acquired the distinctive appellation of halls, eachof which had its own internal regulations, while theyattended in common the public lectures which weregiven by any who could command an audience. Somekind of system was soon found necessary ; some dis-tinction between scholars and masters was obvious;some regulations as to the course of instruction becameindispensable; some exercises to show the proficiency ofthe students were naturally exacted. Thus originateddegrees, professors, and disputations.

Colleges were afterwards added : they were foundedon the model of the religious houses, and were endowedusually for the sole purpose of the maintenance of acertain number of persons termed fellows and scholars,under the government of a head, who were to devotethemselves to the cultivation of literature, and conformto the ordinances of their founder, very much in. thesame way as the monks of the different orders wereunder similar obligations to the religious observances oftheir societies. The colleges were, in several instances,established upon the basis of the original halls, and thus,in many cases, the names became synonymous. Someof the colleges afterwards began to admit within theirwalls independent students, besides the members of theirfoundation.

The public lectures, exercises, and disputations ofthe universities were carried on in appropriate publicbuildings called schools. To these public libraries weresubsequently added ; and, in process of time, a certainregular system or course of studies became fixed, andwas distinguished into several faculties, in which thedistinction of a degree was granted. The faculty of