Unlike all other continental universities, those of the United Netherlands were always subjected to boards of Curators, men of rank and note, who often wielded the power of appointing and even discharging professors. They never belonged to the body of the university, but acted as delegates of the sovereign who provided for its wants.* By their prudence, and the resistance they offered to clerical dictation, they were of great service in preserving freedom and peace. Of course the Calvinist clergy, inspired by zealous refugees from France and Belgium, kept struggling for influence upon the teaching at least of their own Faculty, and more than once, when they got for a moment the upper hand in public affairs, they obtained some temporary advantage. Yet the town corporation of Leyden declared from the first, that they were not willing to admit the inquisition of Geneva while making war against that of Spain. And when the famous Synod of Dordrecht demanded an ecclesiastical Curator to look after the theological faculty, its resolution remained a dead letter, and the regular Curators prevented the local synod from meddling with academical government. But the interests of their position forbade their giving countenance to very small minorities; and Spinoza, perhaps, was not far wrong when in the Tractatus Politicus he wrote: "Academiae, quae sumptibus reip. fundantur, non tam ad ingenia colenda quam ad eadem coercenda instituuntur".

Of college life as in England and at Cologne or Louvain, there was no question except in the case of certain exhibitioners, nearly all destined for the Church. Each university had its bursa or œconomia; at Leyden the States' College subsisted from 1592 to 1810, the Collegium Gallo-Belgicum (for preachers in the French language) from 1606 to 1703. Even within these the "regenting or tutorial system" found no favour. The Principal (called Regens) and his vicegerent merely repeated with the alumni what they learnt from the Professors common to all; and other undergraduates found plenty of private

At Leyden, Franeker, Harderwijk, they were separate boards commissioned by the Provincial States and the Stadholder. At Groningen, where the sovereignty was divided between the town and the country district, each appointed its own half of the board. At Utrecht the civic authorities were themselves the Curators, who took care not to allow any academical jurisdiction, whereas at Leyden the burgomasters sat with the Curatorial board, and also in the Rector's tribunal. From 1815 the burgomaster (or mayor) of each university-town was ex officio one of the Curators, but the new Law contains no such stipulation. Of course under the present Constitution the board is in its turn subordinate to the Minister of the Interior, there being no separate department of Education. The idea of the office was evidently suggested by the Conservatores privilegiorum of older universities,

teachers ready to help them on in the same way. On Wednesdays and Saturdays there were no public lectures, but men went to hear Extraordinary Professors and licensed Readers, and, under the superintendence of any official teacher, tried their own powers in disputation.

The oldest Leyden Faculty of Arts (or Philosophy as it was surnamed) consisted of six Ordinary Professors, for Logic, Physics, Mathematics, and the three learned languages. Ethics was commonly regarded with some suspicion on account of its heathenish tendency; and Metaphysics also because of the Humanists' and Protestants' natural aversion from mediaeval subtleties. Still both were admitted as extraordinary subjects from the first, and before the middle of the seventeenth century they had obtained their place in the regular curriculum. Everyone, especially the candidate for orders, was expected to begin his studies with Humanities and Philosophy, although a degree in Arts was by no means looked on as indispensable. Nor do we find the degree of Bachelor taken except in a very few instances. To the title of Artium Liberalium Magister that of Philosophiae Doctor was superadded at a very early period, so as to put the graduates markedly on a level with the "Doctors" of the other Faculties; the celebrated Gerardus Vossius became the first A.L.M., Ph. D. of Leyden in 1598.

As might be presumed, the official philosophy was the mitigated Scholasticism adopted in the Protestant schools of the time. Of Ramism there is hardly a trace.† Jac. Arminius the divine and Rud. Snellius the mathematician, both Hollanders from Oudewater, who had taught the dialectic of Ramus in Switzerland and Germany, were called to other duties at Leyden. Two occupants of philosophical chairs, Corn. de Groot (Leyden 1575) and Henr. de Veno (Franeker 1602-13) are mentioned as inclined to Platonic doctrines, meaning apparently some form of modernising eclecticism. As far as I know, de Groot's successor Nic. van Dam (1575-79) was an Aristotelian, and so were three Belgian professors at the same place, Alex. de Ratlo (1578-87), Ant. Trutius (1582-93), and Adr. Damman (1586-88). After these and the insignificant Westerhovius (1583-84) came a Frenchman the elder Pierre du Moulin (Molinaeus, 1593-98), afterwards a minister at Paris, and

* At Bologna the Bachelor's degree was altogether unknown.

† Prof. Jo. Hachting of Franeker (1622-30), published a Dialectica Petri Rami in 1626. In mere grammar-schools the doctrine appears to have found more favour.

Ratlo had been in England, and Damman is probably the same who was called to Scotland by Geo. Buchanan, and wrote to Lipsius from Leith, in 1590.

several Scotch Peripatetics: Jas. Ramsay (1588-93), John Makolo (MacCulloch? Reader in Logic 1597), John Murdison (1600-5), and Gilbert Jack of Aberdeen (Jacchaeus, 1603-28)* Some writers have supposed a connection between the Aristotelian and the Calvinist predominance of the period; but there is no indication of nonconformity in the philosophy of the Remonstrant (or Arminian) party. Petr. Bertius, Ger. Vossius, and Caspar Barlaeus clearly belong to the same school with those by whom they were superseded in their offices in 1619 (to please the friends of the Synod of Dordt), Frank Burgersdijk (d. 1635) and Dan. Mostert (Sinapius). At Franeker, Lollius Adama (1585-1609), Andr. Roorda (1611-21), probably Joach. Andreae (1613-20), and certainly Arn. Verhel (1618-64) taught in the same spirit. At Groningen the first philosophical appointment was that of another Scotchman, Geo. M'Dowell, a native of Maxton on the Tweed, who was called from St. Andrews at the age of twenty-four. From the professor's chair, which he occupied from 1614 to '27, he stepped into that of a presiding military judge, and in time rose to be Charles II.'s ambassador at the Hague (1650). Nor did his academical successors, Franc. Meyvart from Ghent (1620-40), Mart. Schoock from Utrecht (1640-65), and Jo. Bertling (1667-90), swerve from the received doctrine. Schoock was a partisan, soon to become a private adversary, of Gisbert Voet, the Utrecht pillar of orthodoxy, and enlarged in print upon an endless variety of subjects, from Papacy and Cartesianism down to butter, herrings, and beer. In the Deventer College the Peripatetic banner was firmly upheld by a learned and far-travelled Doctor of Paris, Gisbert van Isendoorn (1634-47), who taught for nine years more at Harderwijk in his native province (1648-1657), and then died in peace, after obtaining a Curatorial resolution against the Cartesian heresies. During this first period, before the irruption of really original thought, Aristotle was cherished mainly as a guarantee for bona fide logical studies, as opposed to the slipshod facility that the Ramist and similar schools were contented to impart. Even so accomplished a classical scholar as Hugo Grotius was not to be deceived as to the mediocrity of the boasted disciples of Cicero, but recommended Murdison for the long vacant chair of Logic, and urged Jack to write his Instt. Primae Philosophiae (1616); while all the Peripatetic text-books of the time are adorned with laudatory verse by such men as Dan. Heinsius,

On the Scotch Philosophers in the Dutch Universities I shall be happy to exchange notes with their learned countrymen. Of Eglesham or Egliseumus, mentioned by Prof. Veitch in No. V. of MIND as a Professor at Leyden, I have not been able to find a trace in any part of the country.

Ger. Vossius, Pet. Cunaeus, and Casp. Barlaeus, whom no one will suspect of a tender regard for the Middle Ages. Of those books one at least will be known by name to most readers of philosophical history. The Grammar Schools of that time retained not only the name of scholae triviales, but actually taught the old trivium: Grammar, Dialectic, and Rhetoric. Their work was found insufficient at the University; so the Provincial States directed the schools of Holland to be provided with standard treatises, and by their order Vossius wrote his Grammatica and Rhetorica, and Burgersdijk his Institutiones Logicae (Lugd. Bat. 1626), good scholarly works, that made their way all over Europe.

The old school having thus prepared everything for undisturbed dominion, was very soon after to be involved in a struggle for life with an enemy from quite a unexpected quarter. On April 16, 1629, the Rector of Franeker registered the name of Renatus des Cartes, Gallus, Philosophus. Not finding, as it seems, the scientific intercourse that he wished for, that habitual traveller soon returned to Amsterdam, whence he made only a short trip to England. At Amsterdam he made the acquaintance of the private tutor of some young men, Henri Reniers (or Renery as he writes the name), a Belgian convert from Romanism and then recently disappointed of a Leyden professorship. This new friend was called to a chair at Deventer in 1631, and in 1634 to one at Utrecht, where he died after a short time from sheer hard work. In both places he explained the tenets of his French master, cautiously but devotedly; as he wrote to Mersenne: " is est mea lux, meus sol, erit ille mihi semper Deus". At his death in 1639, not only his philological colleague and countryman Aemilius, but several of the magistrates and of the students held with him, and one of his pupils, Henr. de Roy (or le Roy, Regius), was teaching physiology on his principles with great applause. However, Regius in his medical chair thought fit to attack the Aristotelian school in such a style as to move the wrath, not only of his philosophical colleagues, Arn. Senguerd (1639-48) and Dan. Berckringer (1640-67), but of their mighty theological protector Gisbert Voet, himself an old pupil of Jack and private teacher of Burgersdijk. This indefatigable champion of things constituted immediately began his operations, first making his pupils protest in their customary theses, and then procuring two decrees against the enemy, one of the Town Council, limiting Regius to his medical profession, and the other of the Academical Senate. In the latter the body of professors disapproved the new Philosophy for three notable reasons: first, because it contradicted the old system, secondly, because it kept the students in ignorance of the meaning of old terms, and lastly, because it

led, or might appear to lead, to consequences in opposition with other sciences, especially with orthodox Theology. Another pupil of Voet, Schoock at Groningen, was inspired by his master to publish a damnatory tract against Cartesianism. The irritable French philosopher, who had at first prompted the faithful Regius with arguments at his request, but wished to keep the peace as long as possible, now found himself openly accused of nothing less than Atheism, a rather dangerous charge even in the free republic, and resorted in his turn to vigorous measures. Besides publishing his well-known Letter to Voetius, he applied to the ambassador of his country, and with his aid to the Senate of Groningen and the Utrecht magistrates. After much throwingup of polemical dust, Utrecht forbade its printers to publish any more controversial writings on either side (1645), and Schoock, who had betrayed the suggestions of his chief, narrowly escaped an action for libel on the latter. Henceforth peace reigned at Utrecht, under the auspices of Voet and his two sons Paul and Daniel, each in turn called to a philosophical chair by his influence (1641-53 and 1653-60). Straight from the deathbed of the younger the brave old father went forth to make interest with the authorities for the Aristotelian cause, but this time the office was given to a young kinsman of some of the town magnates themselves, Regnerus van Mansvelt, a Cartesian (1660-71). Only a few years before his death, the veteran divine had the satisfaction of seeing another of his true pupils, Gerard de Vries, first a reader (1671-72), and then a professor (1674-1705) in the place of his offspring. Yet towards the end of the century this same de Vries was reported to have but little influence, and to have yielded on certain points to the current of neology.

Meanwhile at Leyden the study of Philosophy had not thriven under the successors of Burgersdijk: Jo. Bodecherus the Latin poet (1629-38), Dan. Sinapius, promoted from his place in the States' College to an ethical professorship (1635-38), and Franc. du Ban, a Frenchman (1635-43). In 1641 the glib-tongued Adr. Heereboord* attempted to revive it, protesting against the slavish respect for Aristotle, which that great thinker would have been the first to disclaim, and teaching Logic on a plan of his own. Of course he was called to account before the Rector, Otto Heurnius, an aged professor of medicine who had lectured on Logic in his early days; but the Curators allowed him to proceed as he had begun. Soon after this we find him in raptures with the first works of Descartes, and what with his lessons, the reports from Utrecht, and the residence of the French thinker in Leyden and its neighbourhood, the seeds of neology began to

One of his works, the Philosophia Naturalis, is said to have been reprinted at Oxford in 1665.