The University on the other hand was a protest against this isolation of man from man.

The smallest school was European and not local.

Not merely every province of France, but every people of Christendom had its place among the "nations" of Paris or Padua.

A common language, the Latin tongue, superseded within academical bounds the warring tongues of Europe.

A common intellectual kinship and rivalry took the place of the petty strifes which parted province from province or realm from realm.