Meiners (Geschichte der Enstehung and Entwickelung der Hohen Schulen, &e., Gottingen, 1802, vol. i.) has given an interesting chapter on the origin of col leges in universities. The colleges in the University of Paris were the first institutions of the kind in Europe, though it is a mistake to suppose them older than the university itself, The terms College and University have been often confounded in modern times, and indeed are now sometimes used in discriminately. Some of the incorporated places of learning in the United States, which confer degrees, are called univer sities, and some are called colleges, though there is in fact no distinction between the two. Some of these institutions called colleges contain the schools or depart ments of arts, law, medicine, and theo logy ; and some that are called univer sities contain only those of arts, law, and medicine. Some of these colleges are more limited as to the objects of instruc tion, but still they confer degrees. If we look to the origin of colleges and their connexion with universities, it will be evident that the indiscriminate use of these terms is incorrect, and tends to lend to confusion. When an incorporated college, such as the College of Surgeons iu London, is empowered to confer a degree or title after examination of can didates, some other name would be more appropriate. According to modern usage, the term university is properly applied to corporate bodies which confer degrees ; and this is the title by which the Uni versity of London, which is empowered to confer degrees in arts, law, and medi cine, is incorporated. It is convenient at present to distinguish colleges as places of learning which do not confer degrees, from universities which do. The word Academia, though an old Greek word, is the most modern of all the terms now applied to places of higher instruc tion : it has been most usually applied to endowed corporate bodies which have for their object the improvement of some particular science or some particular branch of knowledge, in some cases with the power to confer degrees in such par ticular science, &c., and sometimes with
out this power. Yet the terms academia and university have often been used, and now are used indiscriminately. (Mei ners, vol. iv., On the Different Names of High Schools.) The history of the Scotch universities shows that the terms college and univer sity were, both at the time of the founda tion of these institutions and subsequently also, used with little discrimination ; and this carelessness in the application of the terms has led to anomalies in their constitution, and no little difficulty in comprehending the history and actual constitution of these bodies. (See the Report of the Royal Commission of In quiry into the State of the Scotch Uni versities, printed 1831 ; and Malden's Origin of Universities, London, 1835.) In France, the term college signifies a school, though the constitution of a French college is very different from that of our grammar-schools. It comes nearest, per haps, to a German gymnasium. Of these colleges there are about 320, every large town having one of them. They are maintained by the towns, and the heads and professors are paid out of the re venues of the communes. They are all under the superintendence of the Uni versity of France. There are also about forty royal colleges, in which the direc tors (administrateurs) and professors are paid by the state. The College Royal of France, founded by Francis I., has above twenty professors, who lecture on the various sciences and the Oriental lan guages. ( See Journal of Education, No. III. On the State of Education in France.')