For the older institutions, it is not practicable to fix with any precision the date of their beginning, and no year can be named in which they first exercised the functions of a university. The first university that was formally founded was that of Prague, which dates from April, 1348. Bologna, Paris, Padua, Oxford, and Cambridge were not founded but grew, that is, were developed under special influences out of pre-existing schools. The first European school which, while never developing into a university, did do specialised university work, was that of Salerno, which may be said to have initiated for Europe systematised and scientific instruction in medicine. _Fons Medicinæ_ was the name given to it by Petrarch. The school of Salerno has one special claim to commemoration in any general sketch of the intellectual life of Europe. Its foundation and early development were due to the famous Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, the monastery which had been established by S. Benedict (in 529), and the _scriptorium_ in which was the creation of Cassiodorus. Salerno, which was later affiliated with the University of Naples, fills, therefore, the place of a connecting link between the educational work of the old-time Benedictine _scriptorium_ and the scientific activities and intellectual life of the new university system of Europe. Indeed, through that wonderful old man, Cassiodorus, at once Greek, Roman, and Goth, statesman, author, and monk, the chain of continuity is borne directly back to the classic world of imperial Rome.