The various schools and universities of England contribute largely to its list of historic and beautiful buildings. The first great educational centre was York. In Roman times York was a fine city. With the coming of the Saxons it reasserted its importance, and became the chief collegiate town of the kingdom. In the seventh and eighth centuries the chief of England's learned men hailed from Northumbria. It was in 657 A.D. that the School of York was founded by Cædmon, first of English poets, and with the York of the early days are linked the names of the venerable Bede, "father of English learning," John of Beverley, and Wilfrid of York; also of Alcuin, a great doctor of theology, who was one of the first to hold that "chair" at Cambridge. But York suffered many vicissitudes. Wars interfered with the pursuits of the scholars. At the dawn of the twelfth century Henry I. endeavoured to restore the prosperity of the city and its colleges, with some success. Meanwhile to the south-east, among the marshes and fens of East Anglia, scholarship had found a fitting place to dream and study. Great monastic houses at Ely and Peterborough--some of the most important in England--were the forerunners of Cambridge University. The earliest community at Cambridge was founded by Dame Hugolina in 1092, in gratitude for her recovery from a serious sickness. Cambridge has never forgotten that feminine foundation, and whilst Oxford was cold to the higher education of women movement, the other university gave the girl graduate a welcome, and pupils of two great Cambridge colleges, the "Girton Girl" and the "Newnham Girl," carried Cambridge culture wherever the English tongue was spoken. Dame Hugolina's little foundation of six canons soon extended, until the house held thirty. In 1135 another canons' house was established, which served not only as a retreat for scholars, but as a hospital and travellers' hospice. The third foundation came in the next century, and now Cambridge University began to take definite shape. A church of the Franciscan Friars was used first for university purposes. The older and more learned friars were the professors, the novices and younger friars the undergraduates. Later, the Franciscans were succeeded by the Dominicans, and still later by the Austin Friars in the control of the nascent University. Then there began a movement to make the University independent of any monastic order, and during the fourteenth century the contest was as bitter as one could wish for. Early in the fifteenth century the University had won ground to the extent that it could act in defiance of the Bishop of Ely, and could, moreover, secure a Papal Bull in its favour. [Illustration: THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS, ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE]