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In the eighteenth century Leiden University remained the most important university in the Dutch Republic. It had become great as a result of its courage and creativity, the same sources that made the Republic great, but also because the surrounding coun- tries were in trouble. In the eighteenth century those much larger countries had solved their problems, and the Republic had to deal with an entirely different world – as did the university.
One striking phenomenon that raised the concerns of the gov- ernors to an increasing extent was the decline in the number of students as well as increasing competition from other educatio- nal institutions. In 1648, peace in Germany had brought the restora- tion of academic life there, and the influx of German students to Leiden University slowly diminished. Other countries, too, tried to keep their students at home and at their own universities.
Within the Dutch Republic there were also developments that caused the number of students to decrease. Specifically, all man- ner of different kinds of secondary and higher education were being instituted. The ‘French school’, for example, offered a mod- ern programme with modern languages as well as mathematics and physics and thus snatched many students from the university. Those students who did come, came above all for a degree, stud- ied with a purpose in mind and were, moreover, from a narrower, higher stratum of the population.
The most significant complaint was that secondary education was no good. The students were starting their university study
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without being well-prepared because they were insufficiently equipped for beginning with the liberal arts or artes, as they were called. The governors pointed to three causes: absence or prema- ture departure from secondary school; the possibility of obtain- ing a degree elsewhere, even though the students were ‘still ig- norant and worthless’; and illegitimate operators who themselves did not have the faintest idea of scholarship but nevertheless of- fered instruction at private institutions – age-old complaints, that is.
Yet there was another problem: ‘the all too permissive and sumptuous upbringing by parents with regard to their children’. The parents were too rich, their children too spoiled. These chil- dren were not at all interested in studying and only did it for their amusement and not because they depended on it for their daily bread. They left the secondary ‘Latin school’ without knowing Latin, wanted to go to a higher faculty of university immediately and got themselves groomed for such study by ‘those sorts of pre- ceptors who promise to make them competent for advancing to their doctoral degree in the very most facile and least difficult way’.
In addition, the university had much more competition from other institutions. By this time the Dutch Republic was provided with a dense network of universities and various sorts of ‘illustri- ous schools’ or athenaeums, ranking institutionally between the ‘Latin school’ and the academy. Though these ‘illustrious schools’ were not allowed to grant any degrees, they did attract students who otherwise would be studying the artes in Leiden. Those in Dordrecht and Rotterdam proved to be successful institutions, not to mention the ‘Atheneum Illustre’ of Amsterdam, which estab- lished its own academic chairs in jurisprudence (1640), medicine (1660) and theology (1686) and, in so doing, started looking very much like a university.
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(1632) had been granted full-fledged universities, and even Frane- ker (1585) and Harderwijk (1647) drew many students away from Leiden as a result of the ease with which a degree could be ob- tained (or, rather, bought) there. Abroad, too, the number of uni- versities grew and authorities took all manner of protectionist measures.
They could do that in Leiden as well, the governors of the uni- versity must have thought. In that case, though, the States of Hol- land would have to collaborate, of course. The governors pro- posed that the province of Holland recognise only diplomas from Leiden and that only those who had studied in Leiden be allowed to practise an academic profession. This proposal struck close to the heart of the university in Utrecht, around one third of which consisted at this time of students from Holland, often from Am- sterdam. In addition, the university tried to prevent the establish- ment of new ‘illustrious schools’, as in The Hague in 1710, for example, and in Zierikzee in 1756.
The biggest problem for Leiden University in the eighteenth century, though, was perhaps the notion that one just simply need ed to continue its formula for success. In that respect the university was genuinely part of the government structure sur- rounding it. Just like Holland itself, the university would have to come to the conclusion that it could not rely solely on its own in- ventiveness and versatility. Factors that were beyond its control, such as the the political goings on of the Dutch Republic in Europe, also determined its success. By this time those outside the Nether- lands were looking with much less admiration at the Republic than they had in the seventeenth century.