To the Arabs we owe the foundation of a series of institutions for the higher learning, like those which had existed around them in Asia Minor and in Egypt at the time they made their conquests. Alexandria, Pergamos, Cos, Cnidos, Tarsus, and many other Eastern cities had had what we would call at least academies, and many of them deserved the name of universities. The Arabs continued the tradition in education that they found, and established educational institutions which attracted wide attention. As we have said, the two most famous of these were at Bagdad and at Cordova. Mostanser, the predecessor of the last Caliph of the family of the Abbassides, built a handsome palace, in which the academy of Bagdad was housed. It is still in existence, and gives an excellent idea of the beneficent interest of this monarch and of other of the Abbasside rulers in education. Its fate at the present time is typical of the attitude of the Mohammedans towards education. Though the building is still standing, the institution of learning is no longer there. As Hyrtl remarks, it is not ideas that are exchanged in it now, but articles of commerce. It has become the chief office of the Turkish customs department in Bagdad. These institutions of the higher learning, founded by the Arabs, at first as rather strict imitations of the museums or academies of Egypt and Asia Minor, gradually changed their character under the Arabs. Their courses became much more formal, examinations became much more important. Scholarship was sought not so much for its own sake, as because it led to positions in the civil service, to the favor of princes, and, in general, to reputation and pecuniary reward. Formal testimonials proclaiming education, signed by the academic authorities, were introduced and came to mean much. Lawyers could not practise without a license, physicians also required a license. These formalities were adopted by the Western medieval universities to a considerable degree and have been perpetuated in the modern time. Undoubtedly they did much to hamper real education among the Arabs by setting in place of the satisfaction of learning for its own sake and the commendation of teachers the formal recognition of a certain amount of work done as recognized by the educational authorities. There was always a tendency among the Arabs to formulate and formalize, to over-systematize what they were at; to think that new knowledge could be obtained simply by speculating over what was already acquired, and developing it. There are a number of comparisons between this and later periods of education that might be suggested if comparisons were not odious.