COLLEGE is also used for a public place endowed with certain revenues, where the several branches of learning are taught. An assemblage of several of these colleges constitutes an university. The erection of colleges is part of the royal prerogative, and it is not to be done without the king's license.
The establishment of colleges or universities is a remarkable period in literary history. The schools in cathedrals and monasteries confined themselves chiefly to the
teaching of grammar, and there were only one or two masters employed in that office. But, in colleges, professors were appointed to teach the different parts of science. The first obscure mention of academical degrees in the university at Paris, from which the other universities in Europe have borrowed most of their customs and institutions, occurs A. D. 1215.