Now, just as the tide flows and ebbs, so in England did interest in learning rise and fall during the Middle Ages. Schools of all kinds had their good times and their bad times. Sometimes we find the thirst for learning being shown in one direction; then it almost died away for a time, revived again, and took another direction.

At first we see it going in the direction of making monks and priests and missionaries; then in that of making able men who could take part in the civil business of the manor, the town, and the country; and then, in the thirteenth century, it began again to take a turn towards learning for learning's sake.

As we get near to the thirteenth century, we find the beginnings of our English universities. A university was a corporation or body of learned men who bound themselves together to teach, and who got the sole right of appointing teachers in their districts. A man could only have leave to teach after his knowledge and ability had been well tried by them; and when that leave was given he was said to take his degree.

The opportunity of getting wider knowledge and higher teaching attracted scholars, lads and young men who had had their early teaching in the small colleges and grammar-schools. They were encouraged and in many ways helped to go to the university. Gifts were left to their old schools to help the likely boys to go to the university; many of the monasteries and colleges sent their pupils there, and it was looked upon as a pious work and a work of mercy to help poor scholars in this way. Scholars flocked in hundreds to various universities, and we find Oxford and Cambridge rising as university towns. We cannot say exactly when this began, but we read that in King John's reign, in the year 1209, there was a great "town and gown" riot at Oxford. Three of the gownsmen were hanged as a punishment; so about three thousand of the rest left Oxford and went to other universities, and Oxford was deserted for a time. These facts show that by the beginning of the thirteenth century, just when the Early English style of architecture was coming into fashion, universities, with their "higher education", were very important institutions.

At first it seems that the scholars at the university lived in the town, where they chose or where they could, attending the various lecture-halls. Then various people seem to have hit upon the plan of setting up houses in the town, and letting the rooms to the scholars, so that a number of them might live together. Thus they were divided up into different sets. These houses were called hostels, and we find them at Cambridge in the beginning of the thirteenth century.

Early, too, in this same century a new religious order found its way to England—the Friars. The Dominican Friars were a very learned teaching order, and when they settled at Oxford they greatly strengthened the work of the university and kept it alive and active.

A Surrey man, Walter de Merton, Chancellor and Bishop of Rochester, was the inventor or founder of colleges at the universities such as we know them to-day. In the hostels the scholars did pretty much as they pleased, chose their own officers, and made their own rules. There was much disorder after a while; many quarrels and fights took place between one hostel and another, as well as with the townsfolk. Merton spent twelve years in thinking out his plan, and at last, in the year 1264, he founded or established the first of the Oxford Colleges.

The old monasteries and colleges in the early times had been founded to keep up a continual round of worship, work, and learning; the special work of these new colleges was to promote learning and fellowship. In many ways they were like the older convents; but the work of education was the chief object of these new foundations, and we find teachers and taught, governors and pupils, living under the same roof, under rule and order.

Merton's idea was soon afterwards followed at Cambridge, where Peterhouse was opened in the year 1284. During this century, too, we find a rival university springing up at Stamford; in fact in the year 1333 a number of masters and scholars left Oxford for Stamford; but, owing to the opposition of Oxford and Cambridge, it was gradually snuffed out, though there are still standing some interesting buildings which were connected with it. College after college, at both Oxford and Cambridge, has been founded since then; each one has its own special laws and government, which have been altered from time to time. For many centuries now Oxford and Cambridge have been cities of colleges, and these "ancient seats of learning" are quite unlike any other places in the country.

Many old customs are kept up still at Oxford and Cambridge; the scholars and officials of the colleges and universities go about in their gowns, as they have done for centuries, and each university has still rights and privileges in the government of the town which have naturally come to it in the course of time. The town and the townsfolk have their special interests and government; so that there are two authorities, side by side, responsible for law and order. The gown and the town depend upon each other; and in days gone by they have, times without number, misunderstood each other, and quarrelled, and fought.

In the reign of King Edward III Oxford was the most famous seat of learning in Europe. Many of its students were foreigners, but, as everyone could talk Latin as well as he could his native language, they had no real difficulty in making themselves understood.

Within the last hundred years, in order to meet modern requirements, universities have been founded at Durham, London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, and Bristol.