Bilingual university, now split into two universities
This article is about the Free University of Brussels before its split in 1969. For the current Dutch-speaking university, see Vrije Universiteit Brussel. For the French-speaking university, see Université libre de Bruxelles.
The Free University of Brussels (French: Université libre de Bruxelles or ULB; Dutch: Vrije Hogeschool te Brussel, later Vrije Universiteit Brussel) was a university in Brussels, Belgium. It existed between 1834 and 1969 when it split along linguistic lines.
The "Linguistic Wars" affected the Free University, which split along language lines in 1969 in the aftermath of student unrest at Leuven the previous year. Today, two institutions carry the "Free University of Brussels" name: the French-speaking Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and the Dutch-speaking Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). Although separate, both institutions continue to collaborate under the auspices of an umbrella organisation known as Brussels University Alliance since 2013.[1]
The Free University of Brussels was founded as the Free University of Belgium (Université libre de Belgique) on 20 November 1834 in the aftermath of Belgium's independence in 1830. Belgium had possessed three State universities at Leuven, Ghent, and Liège under Dutch rule. Still, teaching had been extensively disrupted by the revolution and continued hostilities with the Dutch. As early as 1831, Belgian freemasons of the Les Amis philanthropeslodge had considered founding a new private university. News of the imminent creation of the Catholic University of Mechelen revived the initiative among those with anti-clerical ideas, especially freemasons, liberals, and other freethinkers. Pierre-Théodore Verhaegen and Auguste Baron led the fundraising for the new institution from April 1834. It was officially founded on 20 November 1834 in the former Palace of Charles of Lorraine in Brussels with the help of the liberal mayor Nicolas-Jean Rouppe. The date of its establishment is still commemorated annually, by students of its successor institutions, as a holiday called Saint Verhaegen (often shortened to St V) for Pierre-Théodore Verhaegen.[2]
The motivating principle behind the new institution was "free inquiry" (French: libre examen) which denoted freethinking ideas inherited from the European Enlightenment. This hostility to political and religious authority led to hostility from the Catholic Church and Catholic Party politicians, increasingly associated with the Mechelen university's successor, the Catholic University of Leuven founded in 1835. Under the system of pillarisation, the Free University became one of the principle institutions in the Liberal "pillar". It was renamed the Université libre de Bruxelles ("Free University of Brussels") in 1842.[3]
After its establishment, the Free University faced difficult times, since it received no subsidies or grants from the government; yearly fundraising events and tuition fees provided the only financial means. Verhaegen, who became a professor and later head of the new university, gave it a mission statement which he summarised in a speech to King Leopold I: "the principle of free inquiry and academic freedom uninfluenced by any political or religious authority."[4] In 1858, the Catholic Church established the Saint-Louis Institute in the city, which subsequently expanded into a university in its own right.
Growth, internal tensions and move
The Free University, then housed in the Granvelle Palace, c. 1900
The Free University grew significantly over the following decades. In 1842, it moved to the Granvelle Palace, which it occupied until 1928. It expanded the number of subjects taught and, in 1880, became one of the first institutions in Belgium to allow female students to study in some faculties. In 1893, it received large grants from Ernest, Alfred Solvay, and Raoul Warocqué to open new faculties in the city. A disagreement over an invite from the rector Hector Denis to the anarchist geographer Élisée Reclus to speak at the university in 1893 led to some of the liberal and socialist faculty splitting away from the Free University to form the New University of Brussels (Université nouvelle de Bruxelles) in 1894. However, the institution failed to displace the Free University and closed definitively in 1919.[5]
In 1900, the Free University's football team won the bronze medal at the Summer Olympics. After Racing Club de Bruxelles declined to participate, a student selection with players from the university was sent by the Federation.[6][7] The team was enforced with a few non-students.[8] The Institute of Sociology was founded in 1902, then in 1904 the Solvay School of Commerce, which would later become the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management. In 1911, the university obtained its legal personality under the name Université libre de Bruxelles - Vrije Hogeschool te Brussel.[9]
The university's football team that won the bronze medal at the 1900 Olympic Games
The German occupation during World War I led to the suspension of classes for four years in 1914–1918. In the aftermath of the war, the Free University moved its principal activities to the Solbosch in the southern suburb of Ixelles, and a purpose-built university campus was created, funded by the Belgian American Educational Foundation.
The university was again closed by the German occupiers during World War II on 25 November 1941. Students from the university were involved in the Belgian Resistance, notably establishing the sabotage-orientated network Groupe G.
Courses at the Free University were taught exclusively in French until the early 20th century. After Belgian independence, French was widely accepted as the language of the bourgeoisie and upper classes and was the only medium in law and academia. As the Flemish Movement gained prominence among the Dutch-speaking majority in Flanders over the late 19th century, the lack of provision for Dutch speakers in higher education became a major source of political contention. Ghent University became the first institution in 1930 to teach exclusively in Dutch.
Some Free University's Faculty of Law courses began being taught in French and Dutch as early as 1935. Nevertheless, it was not until 1963 that all faculties offered their courses in both languages.[10] Tensions between French- and Dutch-speaking students in the country came to a head in 1968 when the Catholic University of Leuvensplit along linguistic lines, becoming the first of several national institutions to do so.[11]
On 1 October 1969, the French and Dutch entities of the Free University separated into two distinct sister universities. This splitting became official with the act of 28 May 1970, of the Belgian Parliament, by which the French-speaking Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and the Dutch-speaking Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) officially became two separate legal, administrative and scientific entities.[12][13]
^Witte, Els (1996). Pierre-Théodore Verhaegen (1796–1862) (in Dutch). Brussels: VUB Press. ISBN90-5487-140-7.
^Laqua, Daniel (2013). The Age of Internationalism and Belgium, 1880–1930: Peace, Progress and Prestige. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN978-0-7190-8883-4.
^Jonckheere, Willy; Todts, Herman (1979). Leuven Vlaams: Splitsingsgeschiedenis van de Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (in Dutch). Leuven: Davidsfonds. ISBN9061523052.
