The universities founded after the beginning of the Reformation adopted the great outlines of the organisation of their predecessors : the political Incorporation, the privileged jurisdiction and power of making bye-laws, the faculties and 'lexica of conferring degrees which custom had established. But the altered circumstances of society modified considerably their external relations. The territorial divisions of Europe had come to be more sharply defined, and the authority of the sovereign to be more energetically enforced by more perfect civil and military organisation. The day of feudal lords, of municipalities and other privileged corporations, each standing upon his or its defence. and acknowledging a limited and precarious subjection to the nominal liege, was past ; the day of great states, of territorial governments, had conic. The same political power could not and would not be conceded to universities that had formerly been given to them. The old were restricted in their privileges ; the new never received them. The pro tracted strife between the Romish and Protestant churches also had its effect: universities, though no longer allowed to lay down the law, were cherished as advocates of a party. Roman Catholic and Protestant universities were erected to do battle for their respective creeds. Lastly, other sciences had had their practical utility recognised, in the same way as the sciences of law and medicine had had theirs at an earlier period. The application of mathematical science to the pur poises of war and navigation had given an impetus to their cultivation these new practical pursuits never produced a new faculty, but they lent greater importance to the miscellaneous faculty known as the faculty of arts.
The number of universities founded in Europe from the time of the Reformation down to the French Revolution was considerable. But
many events occurred during this period to lower universities in the public estimation. The extension of elementary and secondary schools had raised the standard of education among the classes which did not receive a university education. The invention of printing, increasing the facilities of private study, had operated in the same direction. The diminished privileges and restricted jurisdiction of universities had brought them to be regarded merely as schools of a higher order. The increasing number of learned societies raised up a body of non academical literati, hostile in many instances to the academical; and the public, looking only to the transactions of these societies, forgot that their members were indebted for their training to the universities. Amateur dabblers in science undervalued these institutions; and, in the feverish spirit of innovation which occasioned or accompanied the French Revolution, they too were denounced. In France the old universities have entirely disappeared. In the rest of Europe, as soon as the storms of the Revolution were passed over, they revived ; and adapting themselves more to the social necessities of the age, have in many instances started with increased energy ou a fresh career of utility. In England two new universities, London and Durham, have been constituted, great improvements have been made in those of Oxford and Cambridge, and further reforms are about to be introduced, as well as into the universities of Scotland.
In the United States of North America the medical and legal pro femions are educated principally in distinct schools; and this is in the latter country the case also in a great measure with the students of theology. The colleges or universities contain therefore in general only a faculty of arta.