66 Another wave of educational reform was initiated by Gustavus Vasa’s grandson, Gustavus II Adolph, who further expanded and deepened the centralized administrative state. It was his goal to detach the educational systems from the control of the church; as a result, the University of Uppsala was reorganized and the Universities of Tartu and Turku founded. The seventeenthcentury Swedish state, a European super power in the making, was in desperate need of capable administrators and civil servants: the Crown and the State needed financial resources, the level of life was to be raised, and the arts of war and diplomacy were to be rendered more effective.5° At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Swedish nobility was converted into an estate of civil servants, and the highest offices were reserved for themuntil the Reduction of 1680. The clergy, however, was increasingly withdrawing frompublic service. As a consequence, theology was not sufficient to produce enough civil servants for the state. Hence, the most important goal for the expanding academic education was to produce learned noblemen suitable for public offices - men with wide learning ranging fromancient literature to political writings. During the reign of Gustavus Vasa, the need for civil servants led to an emphasis on theological education; in the seventeenth century, however, a general trend to convert the nobility into an estate responsible for and priviliged to the highest public offices emerged. The state was in need of well-educated, civilized men, and this need was reflected in the curricula of the new universities: besides actual academic sciences, students were trained in the arts, poetrv, eloquency, and elegant manners. They were taught how to debate, and they learned about virtues and morals.^2 Thus, although it was through the founding of professorships of jurisprudence that the scope of learning in the highest educational institutions was enlarged, it was not the legal science per se that was important. Law, like other sciences, was only one of the ways of training a young nobleman and to render himsuitable for public service. The character of legal science as general educationwas reflected in the weight placed on Roman and natural lawin the curricula, and it is further demonstrated by the fact that the actual practical legal training was not given in the universities, but through the practice system in high courts. Universities were not meant to trainpractical lawyers; it was up to the courts themselves to do that.53 Until the nineteenth century, legal educa5° Ibid. p. 41. On the creation and expansion of the centralized state administrational state in Sweden, see Ylikangas 1986 pp. 15-32, 45-62. Klinge - Knapas — Leikola - Strömberg 1987 pp. 41-44. Ibid. pp. 44, 442—443. Professor Messenius’ activities reflect well the seventeenth centurv viewof the university as an integral part of the education of noble youths. Messenius called himself “pracceptor nobilium," the teacher of the noble; he organized debates, dance, and fencing. Messenius also wrote and directed plays to train the students in the art of speaking, necessary for their future public activities. Ibid. pp. 44-45. Ibid. p. 531; Modéer 1983 p. 128.
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