XL. Read the text. Note all unfamiliar words and look them up in the dictionary.

Oxford and Cambridge universities came into existence in the Middle Ages. By the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the towns were growing and there was a need for educated people to cope with affairs that were becoming more complex. There was a greater interest in learning. Soon, the University of Oxford was known throughout Europe.

Cambridge originated later when some of the scholars left Oxford and started to teach in a little market town called Cambridge. In both these Universities students attended long courses of lectures. The lectures took place in cold, unheated rooms and started early in the morning. The University offered the students nothing but lectures, which they attended only if they wanted to.

There was a sort of examination but not a very rigorous one. Students saved money to come to Cambridge. Some of them lived in poverty and were half starved. But there was one main motive; if they could get their university degree, jobs lay ahead. Many of them, however, lived a wild life gambling, drinking and fighting a great deal.

Surprisingly quickly they became rich, autonomous and far more important individually than the university as a whole. And the university was poor. No one left it money. Before the end of the sixteenth century the colleges did all the serious teaching. The reputation of a college depended on the popularity of its teachers. By the nineteenth century, drastic changes were visible everywhere. The country needed scientists. It needed every kind of expert knowledge. The university courses were revolutionised. It became possible to study natural science, and the Cavendish, the most famous of scientific laboratories, was built in 1874.

The first women’s college was founded later in the nineteenth century. Up till then education was left only to men. But a few women started college on the outskirts of Cambridge. However, it was not until after World War II that women were finally allowed into the university and allowed to take degrees. Now there’re several women’s colleges and several mixed colleges and the number of mixed colleges is increasing.

At present the university is, in fact, a sort of federation of colleges. The lectures andexaminations take place at the university, the degrees are conferred by the university too, but there is no single building which can be called “the University”. As to colleges they can choose their own students who belong not only to the college but also to the university. Thus one is a member of a college and at the same time a member of the University.

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