priceless power is the work, not only of the ideal but of the real university. "The university," says Pattison, "is hereby distinguished from the school, that the pupil here takes leave of disciplinal studies, and enters upon real knowledge." Again, the university is not an academy, which has for its object the extension of knowledge only, and the stimulation of philosophical inquiry. These pursuits may be in connection with the universities or not; whether they are or not, the ideal university will have its own portion of them. To cite Pattison once more :— "The university is to be an association of men of science. But it is not for the sake of science that they are associated. Whether or no the State should patronise science, or promote discovery, is another question. Even if it should, a university is not the organ for this purpose. A professoriate has for its duty to maintain, cultivate, and diffuse extant knowledge. This is an everyday function which should not be confounded with the very exceptional pursuit of prosecuting researches or conducting experiments with a view to new discoveries. The professoriate is 'to know what is known and definitely acquired for humanity on the most important human concerns' (Grant Duff)." In accordance with this wise view of university functions, law should be taught as a science, and in its principles. And as they retire from the actual business of teaching, the professors in the ideal university would endeavour to contribute towards the reduction, through principles, to order, of the gigantic, overgrown waste of law that appears daily to grow more ugly and hopeless, and is a disgrace to a community possessed of brains capable of being made the vehicle of ideas. In medicine, similarly, there ought to be no fear of resolving practice into its ideas: "pneumatology" Adam Smith sneers at as constituting a preferential department to physics in the common course of the greater part of the universities of Europe; but of psychology, bugbear though it be from its difficulty and novelty as a definite study, the ideal university, which is the very representative of "the men who know," is bound to learn something. The term knowledge can be employed but in a very imperfect sense if any part be shirked, as far as its principles at least are concerned, of the omne scibile. Has the ideal university any business to interfere in politics? By no means to interfere; but being the representative of principles, certainly to inform. The National Church, having been long a party, or rather several parties, instead of a comprehensive rallying ground of earnest men, we have said that the ideal university must hold aloof, as in duty bound, from. sectarianism. So with politics. There is a philosophic region, lit by the intelligence of the highest, and above party; in this the university-soul should dwell. There would be plenty to do without meddling in the miserable squabble that among all below statesmanlike men, and in all things below Imperial measures, misuses as cruelly the name of politics as fanatics take in vain the word republic. England is notoriously content with taking life from day to day, and ignoring the light of principles upon the future. Wise men know this, and shrug their shoulders; a philosopher is an anomaly in the very House of Commons, he is so terribly lonely. Nevertheless, there is a workable field of somewhat neglected know ledge in scientia civilis. How different might events have been in France, if the University of Paris had sustained in luminous reality the noble title of " "the perpetual Council of the Gauls"! The ideal university, or rather those in it who form its element of continuity, and are free of task work, have a duty to perform. They need interfere in no actual operation; they need excite the ire of no individual monopolist or vested interest; theirs is not to war against persons or details; they have to do with principles; and these they proclaim fearlessly, and in time to be of service to those who might wish to adopt them in any actual conduct of affairs. Without being doctrinaires, they might treat the subject of shoddy-work as a matter of philosophic and national interest and importance; they might work out the complete theory of labour-disputes by the light of historic progress from feudalism, and shew each side its strength and its weakness. They would teach to look ahead. They might open the eyes of short-sighted business men, who are very quick, however, to follow a lead if they are left free to turn away from it. Their truths should not be pressed upon people; publication, with the natural authority of those known to be familiar with that of which they treat, would be enough; truth wins her own place in the end. The Government itself is not unwilling to entertain ideas provided they they are not brought as a pill with a deputation present to see it swallowed. But as Matthew Arnold says: "While, on the Continent, through Boards and Councils, the best educational opinion of the country,-by which I mean the opinion of. men who have established their right to be at least heard on these topics-necessarily reaches the Government and influences its action, in this country there are no organised means for its ever reaching our Government at all." We may treat the phrase educational opinion" here in a wider sense than was intended. There is a miserable contempt prevalent among unreasoning minds for what is only a theory; they are unaware that a theory is only a view, or would be compelled to allow that a thing must be seen in one way or other before anything can be done with it. We may interest ourselves in the old picture of the astute counsellor standing breathing into the ear of the king. That potentate, be he prince or people, may not always follow definite advice, but he is influenced by it to a greater extent than he is himself aware of. In these days of growing luxury, the stainless ideal university would enter its protest and establish a kingdom wherein it was recognised that intelligence is superior to the costliest upholstery, and where poverty would be refined and allowed to be no bar to a share of intellectual life. In former days universities were devised to benefit poor students; now they mainly help only the comparatively rich; while the class that now in a peculiar way needs most help, is neglected. The methods of apprenticeship, the necessity that a lad shall earn money, the fear of pauperising parents; these prevent us from redeeming our squalid masses by passing them when young through a course that would make them able to earn their bread honestly, and set our country far above its rivals in the enhanced power of our handicraftsmen, and the consequent economy of their workmanship. We patch up at large expense the gaping social defects; we hem in with police; provide ample prisons; but to attack the root, what is it fails us? It is not money, but ideas. These the universities might supply. Not transcendental ideas, but ideas capable of being developed into practical statesmanship. We would not go so far as to say that Oxford or Cambridge should build workshops to train mechanics, or should establish schools of design for calico printers, or should train the scamping workman of the day into a responsible wealth-producer; but the ideal university would give patronage and support, as well as suggestion and impetus, to institutions fitted for such purposes. But as universities are of all kinds, literary, theologic, medical, Jesuitical, free; so the ideal university might contain a department or found a special branch for the training of handicraftsmen, or the teaching of useful arts, in a more economic manner than the present blundering system of apprenticeship; it might overcome jealous secrecy and opposition to the obtaining of special knowledge. There was an attempt made some few years ago to establish in London a National University for Industrial and Technical Training, but the scheme fell through, doubtless for lack of ideas having previously done their sufficient work. The Kensington School of Science and Art, with its branches, is, however, an extensive university; while the School of Cookery is really a technical university of an important kind, in view of the health, comfort, and economy of the community. It is at least more important to work at such a purpose than to edit a classic that has been several times well done already. The Catholics claim to have once had the ideal university. "Every thing," say they, "had with them a singular unity, and a wonderfully practical turn. Theology, metaphysics, poetry, history, painting, architecture, all formed for them one grand fabric." When Catholics learn that private judgment would be the strength and glory of a real Church which would embrace every good aspiration, whether it took an ancient, a mediæval, or a modern doctrinal form; and when Protestants, still protesting against slavery of the reason through voluptuous ceremonial and narrow rules of faith, still further expand the growing tolerance, and exchange doctrinal and trifling disputes for a more truly catholic spirit and love, then may we hope for the ideal university on a grander level than ever. What would unite both would be the realisation of a present inspiration, in the light of which the authority of any Peter is put on a level with the authority of Shakespeare, that is, on his own merits, and not on prescription or inculcation. This disintegration of what is unreal is actually taking place. We see the signs of it day by day. Furthermore, the ideal of to-day is the hope of to-morrow, and the working clue of the years. On difficult questions the best informed men have taken up a feeble fashion of observing silence, putting their conclusions aside as referring to tender and untouchable topics. Their conclusions may be wise and valuable, and known to a limited circle of their friends, but they shrink from giving them forth. Isolated effort is paralysed before such questions. On the permanent element in the ideal university, and on all gatherings of trained and well-stored minds, it depends to be schoolteachers of men. Where ideas are honestly launched forth, even though they may fail of reaching directly such as they were designed to benefit, they are seized upon by intermediates, and passed on in a more or less adequate, a more or less altered, a more or less masticated and digestible form, to those whom they would otherwise fail to reach. If the ideas are withheld, there can be no such communication. How great an influence is wielded by an university of conspicuous men may be determined by the effect of the "Essays and Reviews." We want the essays and reviews of the ideal university to touch on all the burning topics with sanity and power. accuracy. Oxford sets herself to culture as a quality, to poetry combined with Cambridge aims at mental discipline and the furnishing of the mind with rules that can be made applicable to their own uses. These are alike noble objects; they but require to be prosecuted in a wider field. As regards University Reform; what is the quality of education given at each university, the governing bodies are the natural sovereigns. Informed by the general opinion of the members, who in turn take into account current opinion as formed without, with its conclusions that may be of permanent value, or of only temporary vogue, weighing them by the more intimate knowledge of their own; quick to take in ideas, deliberate in acting upon them; these should themselves be the University Reformers. Their duty is to teach what they deem best and most in accordance with their wisest traditions. And if they are quick to take in ideas-which faculty is gained best by giving them out-they will never let popular opinion take them by surprise. The only motto for the ideal university is vigilance; by watchfulness any valuable reform from the outside will be ever forestalled, and ideas will have time to work out their own mature forms, within as well as without. KENINGALE COOK. |