 The arts faculty was supposed to prepare young students for further studies in theology, medicine or jurisprudence. Most students, however, never advanced to these higher faculties but left the university for employment in the Church. The arts curriculum had been geared toward this situation since the Middle Ages. The political developments which led to the rise of a new kind of state in the Renaissance also affected the educational program of universities. In the short term, rulers tried to find quick and practical solutions such as special colleges or special professorships; but in the long run, more thorough measures, which included establishing new institutions and devising new curricula, were needed. The arts faculty had gradually changed, and what we now call the humanities (history, literature, rhetoric and ethics) had started to play a more important role. The stress on some aspects of logic and metaphysics, characteristic of the medieval arts faculty, was becoming obsolete. A new curriculum adjusted to the humanities was therefore necessary.