The fame of the Spanish universities has greatly fallen from what it was in the early Middle Ages, when Salamanca ranked with Bologna, Paris, and Oxford, as one of the four great universities in Europe; when its halls were thronged with thousands of eager though needy scholars, and it was the centre whence Semitic learning and civilization spread to the rest of Europe. Even in a later day, in the sixteenth century, under the patronage of Cardinal Ximenes, the university of Alcala de Henares (Complutum) flashed into sudden fame as one of the great offshoots of the Renaissance, with its 7800 students, and its noble production of the first great Polyglot Bible since primitive times. In the eighteenth century, however, this learning had all but disappeared from Spain, and the education given in its universities was all but worthless. Little was effected towards any true revival or improvement until 1845, though something had been attempted before this in secondary education by the successive reforms of 1771, 1807, and especially of 1824 and 1836. The universities of Spain are now ten: Madrid, with 6672 students; Barcelona with 2459; Valencia, 2118; Seville, 1382; Granada, 1225; Valladolid, 880; Santiago de Compostella, 779; Saragossa, 771; Salamanca, 372; and Oviedo with 216: making a total of 16,874 university students. The number of regular professors is 415, with 240 supernumeraries and assistants, making a total of 655; that is, one professor to every 26 students. The salary of the professors varies from 120_l._ to 260_l._ per annum, except in Madrid, where it is from 160_l._ to 300_l._ The budget of the whole universities is a little over 1,000,000_l._, and the expenditure slightly in excess, leaving a deficit in 1879 of 4600_l._. The average cost of each student to the university is a little over 6_l._. Though the above institutions are all classed as universities by the State, yet the course of instruction is by no means the same in all. At Madrid alone the whole programme of university education is followed out. This comprises the faculties of civil, canon, and administrative law, of philosophy and literature, of science, of medicine, and of pharmacy. Since 1868 theology is no longer studied in the universities, but in the seminaries, of which there is one in each diocese, under the direction of the bishop. The total number of pupils studying in these institutions is 8562. At Valladolid are two theological colleges for English, Scotch, and Irish students, established, one at the close of the sixteenth, the other by the Jesuits at the close of the eighteenth century.