the fact that, in comparison to the number of
students, certain of the smaller universities confer this distinction
much more frequently than the larger universities. This was found to
be true even among the German universities, where I believe that
according to statistics the little University of Rostock, in
Mecklenberg, confers the degree proportionately oftener than any other
German university. Pope John XXII. was evidently endeavoring to
prevent any such development as this, or perhaps he was trying to
remedy an abuse which he knew had already crept in, for all of his
bulls on educational matters insist with no little emphasis on the
necessity for the maintenance of a high standard of educational
requirements as regards the length of time in years and the books to
be read and lectures attended, as well as on the rigor, yet absolute
fairness of examinations.

I am sure that the bulls of John XXII. must never have come under
President White's eyes, or he, as an experienced educator who has had
to meet most of these problems in our time, would have been more
sympathetic with this medieval ecclesiastic, who did all in his power
to maintain university standards. Pope John's career deserves study by
all modern educators for this reason, and the surprise of it will be
that in education, as practically in everything else, in spite of our
present-day self-complacency in the matter of educational progress,
there is nothing new under the sun, certainly nothing new in the
problems university authorities have to meet in order to maintain
their standards.

The best possible proof that Pope John XXII. was not opposed in any
way to the development of science nor {156} to the study of sciences
at the universities is to be found in his establishment of this
medical school at Perugia. We may say at once that this is not the
only medical school with whose encouragement he was concerned since
the erection of the University of Cahors, his birthplace, and the
establishment of a medical school there, as well as the provision of
funds for certain medical chairs in the University at Rome, shows the
reality and the breadth of his interest in medicine. It must be
remembered that under the term medicine at this time most of the
physical sciences as we know them now were included. It is the custom
sometimes to think that the students of medicine in the Middle Ages
knew very little about medicine itself or the sciences related to
medicine. Th