The fact that the masters and students were not bound to any particular spot by buildings and apparatus left them free to wander about. If they believed themselves ill-treated in one town they moved to another, greatly to the disgust of the tradespeople of the place which they deserted, who of course profited by the presence of the university. The universities of Oxford and of Leipsic, among others, were founded by professors and students who had deserted their former home. [Sidenote: Course of study.] The course in arts, which corresponded to our college course and led to the degree of Master of Arts, occupied six years at Paris. The studies were logic, various sciences,--physics, astronomy, etc.,--studied in Aristotle's treatises, and some philosophy and ethics. There was no history, no Greek. Latin had to be learned in order to carry on the work at all, but little attention was given to the Roman classics. The new modern languages were considered entirely unworthy of the learned. It must of course be remembered that none of the books which we consider the great classics in English, French, Italian, or Spanish had as yet been written. [Sidenote: Aristotle's works become known in the West.] 104. The most striking peculiarity of the instruction in the mediæval university was the supreme deference paid to Aristotle. Most of the courses of lectures were devoted to the explanation of some one of his numerous treatises,--his _Physics_, his _Metaphysics_, his various treatises on logic, his _Ethics_, his minor works upon the soul, heaven and earth, etc. Only his _Logic_ had been known to Abelard, as all his other works had been forgotten. But early in the thirteenth century all his comprehensive contributions to science reached the West, either from Constantinople or through the Arabs who had brought them to Spain. The Latin translations were bad and obscure, and the lecturer had enough to do to give some meaning to them, to explain what the Arab philosophers had said of them, and, finally, to reconcile them to the teachings of Christianity. [Sidenote: Veneration for Aristotle.]