2. THE NEW METHOD

The new method of study and investigation, developed by Abelard, was a
second influence of importance in the growth of universities. The method
itself--later known as the scholastic method--is illustrated on pages
20, 58, 121 ff. The present section therefore merely indicates the ways
in which it influenced the course of higher education.

(_a_) The new method was one cause of the awakened interest in study
and investigation. Its effect is thus described by the most learned
historian of mediaeval universities:

Paris and Bologna experienced before all other schools, and
nearly simultaneously, at the beginning of the twelfth century,
an unexpected, almost sudden development. For in these schools
alone a definite branch of learning was treated ... by a new
method, adapted to contemporary needs, but hitherto unknown, or
insufficiently known, to other teachers of the period; and
thereby a new era of scientific investigation was inaugurated.
This new method had an attractive power for teachers and scholars
of various countries ... In this way the cornerstones of
permanent abodes of learning were laid. The continually growing
number of scholars brought with it the increase of teachers; the
desire of both classes for learning was awakened; and this
desire, and the combative exchange of ideas in the
disputations,--which now first became really established in the
schools as a result of the new method,--were effective forces to
keep investigation active, and the schools themselves from
decline.