ABSTRACT
Growth in higher education was achieved both by increasing the number of universities and by adding new colleges or by expanding the number of students at existing colleges. This development was far from inevitable. Had the universities been able to move with the times, they might have been able to accommodate social, economic and political change, as happened in Germany and Scotland. As it was, their archaic organisational structures and ossified curricula more commonly condemned them to stagnation and decay. All suffered from similar problems of intellectual inertia, for an increase in student numbers did not necessarily mean developments in teaching methods or curricula. The substantial expansion at all levels of the complex educational hierarchy fully merits the title 'an educational revolution'. More people than ever attended schools and universities, while educational institutions were reorganised to reflect changing religious alignments or social needs and the new power and demands of the state.
