Education, Universities, and the New Science
The medieval university and its curriculum, the slow infiltration of the new science, Gresham College, the Royal Society, the Académie, the rise of experimental demonstration, and the spread of vernacular texts.
Education, Universities, and the New Science
The universities of early modern Europe were among the most conservative institutions of European life. Most were still organized around the medieval curriculum of arts, theology, law, and medicine, and most taught natural philosophy from Aristotle’s Physics, De caelo, and De generatione, often as filtered through the commentaries of Aquinas or the late-scholastic manuals of the Jesuits. The new science entered these institutions slowly, often against the resistance of the established faculty, and usually at the margins before becoming part of the mainstream. By the early eighteenth century, however, the new science had begun to transform the universities, and by the early nineteenth century it had become the central element of the curriculum in most of them. The long transformation is the subject of this section. The change was not uniform. The Italian universities, traditionally strong in medicine and natural philosophy, absorbed some new ideas but remained nominally Aristotelian in their formal teaching for decades. The Spanish universities, under tight royal and ecclesiastical control, were particularly resistant. The German universities, weakened by the Thirty Years’ War and the fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire, varied widely; the Protestant universities in particular proved more open to the new natural philosophy. The Dutch universities, especially Leiden, became important centers of the new science. The English universities, Oxford and Cambridge, were dominated by the established Church and resistant to the new science, with the consequence that much of the most innovative work of the seventeenth century was done outside the universities. The detailed account of how the universities changed is given in How Did Universities Change During the Scientific Revolution?. The role of Latin in scientific publishing is examined in Why Was Latin So Important in Scientific Publishing?. And the broader social impact of the revolution is set out in The Impact of the Scientific Revolution on Society. For the philosophical background to the new science, see The Philosophy of the Scientific Revolution.
The Medieval University Curriculum
The medieval European university, as it took shape in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, was built around a curriculum known as the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music), with the higher faculties of theology, law, and medicine. The natural philosophy of the quadrivium was based on the mathematical disciplines, and it was supplemented by the natural philosophy of Aristotle, which was taught in the arts faculty as part of the broader study of the philosophia naturalis. The Aristotelian curriculum was, in its medieval form, a comprehensive system of natural philosophy. The Physics treated the principles of motion, the De caelo treated the heavens, the De generatione et corruptione treated the formation and transformation of bodies, the De anima treated the soul and the life of animals, and the Historia animalium and the other biological works treated the diversity of living things. The medical works of Galen and Hippocrates, recovered in the Renaissance, supplemented the Aristotelian curriculum in the medical faculty. The natural-philosophical works of Euclid, Archimedes, and Ptolemy, also recovered in the Renaissance, supplemented the mathematical curriculum. The curriculum was rigorous, well-structured, and well-suited to the needs of the medieval university. It was, however, increasingly inadequate to the new questions that the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were asking. The Aristotelian natural philosophy, in particular, was unable to account for the new telescopic and microscopic observations, the new experiments on the vacuum and the atmosphere, the new mathematical analyses of motion, and the new mechanical conceptions of the cosmos. The new science, in short, was a challenge to the entire structure of the medieval curriculum, and the response of the universities to this new approach was therefore a slow, contested, and incomplete process.
The Slow Infiltration of the New Science
The new science entered the universities slowly, often through the back door, and often against the resistance of the established faculty. In the Italian universities, the reformed natural philosophy entered through the medical faculty, where the new anatomy (Vesalius, Harvey) and the new chemistry (the iatrochemists) were challenging the Galenic and Aristotelian orthodoxies. In the Dutch universities, the experimental science entered through the medical and the mathematical faculties, where the new anatomy, the new mechanics, and the new astronomy were being taught. In the German universities, the new philosophy of nature entered through the medical and the natural-philosophical faculties, where the new chemistry and the new physics were being taught. In the English universities, the new learning entered through the mathematics and the natural-philosophical chairs, where the new astronomy and the new physics were being taught — but slowly, and with significant resistance from the established faculty. The infiltration was slow for a number of reasons. The first was the conservative character of the universities, with their established curricula, their established chairs, and their established procedures. The second was the influence of the religious authorities, both Catholic and Protestant, who were often suspicious of the seventeenth-century science. The third was the influence of the Aristotelian tradition, which had been embedded in the universities for centuries and was not easily displaced. The fourth was the lack of a trained generation of teachers in the new natural knowledge, with the consequence that the new subjects were often taught by men who had been trained in the old. The infiltration, slow as it was, was eventually successful. By the early eighteenth century, this new approach was being taught in most European universities, at least at the introductory level. By the mid-eighteenth century, the reformed natural philosophy was being taught as a major component of the curriculum in many European universities, with the consequence that the old Aristotelian natural philosophy was gradually being displaced. By the early nineteenth century, the experimental science had become the central element of the curriculum in most European universities, and the Aristotelian natural philosophy was being taught, if at all, only as a historical curiosity.
The Rise of New Institutions
The slowness of the universities to absorb the new philosophy of nature led to the establishment of a number of new institutions that were more hospitable to the new natural philosophy. The most important of these new institutions were the scientific societies and the academies, which were established across Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Accademia dei Lincei (Academy of the Lynx-Eyed), founded in Rome in 1603 by Federico Cesi, was the first scientific society. The academy was short-lived, but it set the pattern for the more successful scientific societies of the later seventeenth century. The Accademia del Cimento (Academy of Experiment), founded in Florence in 1657 under the patronage of Prince Leopold de’ Medici and Grand Duke Ferdinand II de’ Medici, was the first scientific society to conduct a sustained program of experimental investigation. The Royal Society of London, founded in 1660 by a group of natural philosophers and gentlemen interested in the new learning, was the first scientific society to be established on a permanent basis. The Académie des Sciences, founded in Paris in 1666 under the patronage of Louis XIV, was the first scientific society to be established on a national basis with state funding. The new scientific societies were not, strictly speaking, universities. They did not grant degrees, and they did not have a regular curriculum. They were, rather, communities of natural philosophers who met regularly to witness experiments, to discuss papers, and to publish the results of their work. The Royal Society, in particular, was a model of the new kind of scientific community: the fellows met weekly, the proceedings were published in the Philosophical Transactions, and the society was governed by a council elected by the fellows. The new institutions had a transformative effect on the conduct of the seventeenth-century science. They provided venues for the regular presentation of new work, mechanisms for the critical evaluation of new claims, channels for the publication of new results, and communities of mutual support for the natural philosophers. The model of the scientific society, in turn, would be incorporated into the reformed universities of the nineteenth century, with the seminar, the research group, the doctoral program, and the peer-reviewed journal all descendants of the new scientific societies.
Gresham College and the English Case
The case of the English universities, Oxford and Cambridge, is particularly instructive. The two universities were dominated by the established Church of England, and they were deeply conservative in their curriculum and their appointments. The mathematics and the natural-philosophical chairs at the two universities, with the exception of the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge (held by Newton from 1669 to 1702), were not centers of the new natural knowledge. The natural-philosophical teaching at the two universities remained substantially Aristotelian until the early eighteenth century. The new science in England, accordingly, was conducted largely outside the universities. The principal venue was Gresham College in London, which had been established in 1597 under the will of Sir Thomas Gresham, and which had been used for public lectures on various subjects, including natural philosophy. The Gresham professors of geometry, astronomy, music, divinity, law, rhetoric, and physic were required by the terms of Gresham’s will to deliver public lectures in English, free of charge, on a regular basis. The Gresham lectures, in the early seventeenth century, became a principal venue for the new natural philosophy in London. The Royal Society was founded at Gresham College in 1660, and many of its early fellows were Gresham professors. The Society’s early meetings were held in the Gresham College lecture hall, and the connection between the Society and the College continued for several decades. The Society, in turn, became the principal venue for the new natural philosophy in England, and it served as a model for the many provincial scientific societies that were established across the country in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The English case, in short, illustrates the way in which this new approach could flourish outside the established universities. The new institutions — Gresham College, the Royal Society, the provincial academies, the private laboratories — were able to provide venues for the reformed philosophy, while the established universities were slow to change. The pattern, repeated in many other European countries, resulted in the reform of the universities, with the new institutions either being absorbed into the universities or providing a model for the reformed universities of the nineteenth century.
The Spread of Vernacular Texts
One of the most important cultural changes associated with the Scientific Revolution, in its educational dimension, was the spread of vernacular scientific texts. Latin had been the universal language of the learned Republic of Letters since the Middle Ages, and it remained the principal language of scientific publication well into the eighteenth century. But the reformed natural philosophy gradually outgrew the Latin audience, and the publication of scientific works in the vernacular — Italian, English, French, German, Dutch — made the experimental science accessible to a much wider audience. The shift to vernacular publication was driven by a number of factors. The first was the increasing popularity of the new philosophy of nature among the educated public, who were not necessarily fluent in Latin. The second was the growth of the new printing industry, with its large print runs, its relatively low prices, and its wide distribution networks. The third was the growth of the national literary traditions, which provided a vocabulary and a style in which the new learning could be presented to a wider audience. The fourth was the growth of the new pedagogical institutions — the public lectures, the popular demonstrations, the encyclopedias — that were designed to make the seventeenth-century science accessible to a wide audience. See Why Was Latin So Important in Scientific Publishing?. The brief version is that the new natural knowledge gradually outgrew the Latin audience in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and that the publication of scientific works in the vernacular made this new approach accessible to a much wider audience, with consequences for the growth of the national scientific traditions, the rise of the public sphere, and the eventual formation of modern scientific communities.
The Rise of Experimental Demonstration
The rise of experimental demonstration, in which the apparatus of the reformed natural philosophy was exhibited to a live audience, was one of the most important pedagogical innovations of the Scientific Revolution. The experimental demonstration had its roots in the medieval and early modern practice of natural philosophy, but it acquired a new importance in the seventeenth century, as the experimental science developed instruments — the air pump, the barometer, the microscope, the telescope, the electrical machine — that were suitable for demonstration. The experimental demonstration was a powerful pedagogical tool. The audience could see, hear, smell, and sometimes touch the phenomena of the new philosophy of nature, and the demonstration made the abstract claims of natural philosophy vivid and memorable. The experimental demonstration was also a powerful tool of public persuasion. The famous Magdeburg hemispheres demonstration of 1654, in which two hemispherical copper shells, fitted together and evacuated, could not be pulled apart by two teams of horses, was a striking demonstration of the power of the atmosphere and the existence of the vacuum. The demonstration of the Leyden jar in the 1740s, with the storage and discharge of electrical charge, was similarly striking, and it became one of the most popular demonstrations of the new electricity. The experimental demonstration became a central element of the reformed university curriculum. The laboratory method, in which students conducted their own experiments under the supervision of an instructor, was developed in the German universities in the early nineteenth century, and it became the standard method of instruction in the natural sciences. The laboratory method, in turn, was a direct descendant of the experimental demonstration of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The Long Transformation
The long transformation of European education, of which the Scientific Revolution was a major part, is one of the most important cultural changes of early modern Europe. The transformation was driven by a number of factors, of which the new learning was only one. The Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, the rise of the nation-states, the growth of the printing industry, the expansion of the reading public, the rise of the middle classes, the growth of the new pedagogical institutions, and the spread of vernacular publication were all parts of the transformation. The new science, however, was one of the most important drivers, and the reformed universities of the nineteenth century were, in significant part, the product of the long process by which the seventeenth-century science gradually displaced the old. See How Did Universities Change During the Scientific Revolution?. The role of Latin in scientific publishing is examined in Why Was Latin So Important in Scientific Publishing?. And the broader social impact of the revolution is set out in The Impact of the Scientific Revolution on Society.