But the reign of Theodosius II. is not distinguished only for the material growth of Constantinople. It is not less memorable for the advance of the city in its intellectual character, as the nursery of learning and the seat of justice. In this reign the University of Constantinople was opened. It found a home in the building known as the Capitol, on the hill now occupied by the Turkish War Office. Judging from the descriptions we have of the building, it resembled in its arrangements a Turkish theological school, _medresseh_,--an open court, surrounded by class-rooms on the level of the court. Some of the rooms were spacious halls, richly decorated, and accommodating large audiences. The studies pursued were chiefly grammar, rhetoric, and literature, both in Latin and in Greek, there being thirteen professors for these studies in the former language and fifteen in the latter. To philosophy only one professor was assigned, while the department of law was in charge of two professors. In the charter, so to speak, of the University, particular stress is laid upon the need of a separate class-room for each teacher, lest the different classes should disturb one another by simultaneous talking and variety of languages, with the result that the ears and minds of the students would be diverted from their proper occupation. A candidate for a professor’s chair was required to undergo an examination before the Senate both as to his learning and his character. After twenty years’ service a professor was rewarded with the title of a Count of the Empire. Only the professors attached to the University were allowed to lecture in public, and they were not permitted to give private instruction. The foundation of the University had two objects mainly in view--to prepare young men for the civil service, and to supersede the pagan schools of learning. It had certainly a lofty ideal, for, in the language of an inscription that refers to the institution, it was to be “a glory to scholars, an ornament to the city, the hope of youth, weapons to virtue, and wealth to the good.” Thus, while the shadows of ignorance were gathering to settle down upon western Europe, the light of knowledge was kept burning in the capital of the East until the darkness passed away. The study of Latin indeed was erelong abandoned in Constantinople, but Greek learning had always its friends there, who handed that treasure down from century to century, and bequeathed it at last to safer keeping and wider use.