Ancient Universities

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 21, 13 February 1948, Page 5

Ancient Universities

What Modern Culture Owes To Arab Schools According to Mr I. B. Hubbard, who addressed the Rotary Club on Wednesday, on the subject of universities and their origin, that type of education can claim considerable antiquity. More than a thousand years ago, Mr Hubbard said, the most flourishing universities were those founded by the Arabs. He thought it was not fully realised just what present day civilisation owed to those ancient Mohammedan scholars.. In the year 900 they had universities at Cairo, Baghdad and Cardova Spain, and though conducted by Mohammedans, these institutions practiced a worthy tolerance, at one time even admitting a Pope as a student. Early Christian universities were offshoots of the Church, the speaker pursued, and at one time anyone who could read or write was known as a clerk and was tried for any offences by Church Courts, being beyond the grip of civil justice. Later, as greater need for learning developed, the universities catered for the leisured classes, but there was still a prominent degree of Church control and, until comparatively recent times, graduates had to sign declarations accepting the Articles of the Church of England before degrees could be conferred. Today’s university system developed out of the developing needs of the arts and professions and, later, commerce.

In America, University Colleges catered for a much wider range of interests than elsewhere, covering such things even as degrees in sport and hotel management. In New Zealand, though the purely cultural aspect of university education was not ignored, it was given less prominence than preparation for specific callings, Mr Hubbard said. Our universities were largely non-residential and catered to a considerable extent for j T oung people who took lectures in their spare time while actually working at their professions, thereby teaming up practice with theory. University life itself, particularly full-time studies, was a very broadering experience and every ex-stu-dent should be able to bring some of that influence back to his community.