HOW MODERN LANGUAGES WERE FORMED. In English we have two sets of words and phrases: one is used in writing books or speeches, the other in conversation. When the Gauls learned Latin, the language of Rome, most of them learned the words used in conversation and did not learn the words of Roman books. Before long spoken words differed so much from the older written words that only scholars understood that the two had belonged to the same language. This new language was French. In the same way Italian and Spanish grew out of the ordinary Latin spoken in Italy and Spain. When men began to write books in the new languages, the changes went on more slowly because the use of words in books kept the spelling the same. Men wrote less in Latin, but it was still used in the religious services of the Church and in the schools and universities. [Illustration: VENICE AND THE GRAND CANAL] SCHOOLS IN THE MIDDLE AGES. In the Middle Ages most boys and girls did not go to school. Education was principally for those who expected to become priests or monks. The schools were in the monasteries or in the houses or palaces of the bishops. The students were taught a little Latin grammar, to write or speak Latin, and to debate. They also learned arithmetic; enough astronomy to reckon the days on which the festivals of the Church should come; and music, so much as was then known of it. Printing had not been invented, so there were no text-books for them to study, and written books or manuscripts were too costly. Students listened to the teacher as he read from his manuscripts and copied the words or tried to remember them. THE BEGINNING OF UNIVERSITIES. If students remained in the schools after these things had been learned, they studied the laws of the Romans, or the practise of medicine, or the religious questions which are called theology. Some teachers talked in such an interesting way about such questions that hundreds of students came to listen. Like other kinds of workers, who were organized in societies or guilds, the teachers and students formed a guild called a university. The teachers were the master-workmen, and the students were the apprentices. WHERE THE STUDENTS LIVED. In the beginning the universities had no buildings of their own, and the teachers taught in hired halls, the students boarding wherever they could find lodgings. Partly to help students who were too poor to pay for good lodgings, and partly to bring the students under the direct rule of teachers, colleges were built. These were not separate institutions like the American colleges, but simply houses for residence, although later some teaching was done in them.