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In medieval times, the learned man, the teacher was a servant of God wholly, and of God only. His freedom was sanctioned by an authority more than human…The academy was regarded almost as a part of the natural and unalterable order of things. … They were Guardians of the Word, fulfilling a sacred function and so secure in their right. Far from repressing free discussion, this "framework of certain key assumptions of Christian doctrine" encouraged disputation of a heat and intensity almost unknown in universities nowadays. …They were free from external interference and free from a stifling internal conformity because the whole purpose of the universities was the search after an enduring truth, besides which worldly aggrandizement was as nothing. They were free because they agreed on this one thing if, on nothing else, fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.
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