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university has to comfort the men of mind by bringing order and fulness into philosophy; it is a thought centre from which should emanate rays tending to cancel cloudy chaos by shewing how large is the world's day.

The circumstances that have produced the relations between Church and universities with us have been peculiar. Says Gibbon :-" the schools of Oxford and Cambridge were founded in a dark age of false and barbarous science, and they are still tainted with the vices of their origin." Says Smith ("Wealth of Nations"):

"The present universities of Europe were originally, the greater part of them, ecclesiastical corporations, instituted for the education of Churchmen. They were founded by the authority of the Pope; and were so entirely under his immediate protection, that their members, whether masters or students, had all of them what was then called the benefit of clergy, that is, were exempted from the civil jurisdiction of the countries. in which their respective nniversities were situated, and were amenable only to the ecclesiastical tribunals. What was taught in the greater part of those universities was suitable to the end of their institutions, either theology, or something that was merely preparatory to theology."

The Reformation, while it smote abuses that were grown rampant, and a religion that had lost its way in luxurious ceremony, introduced an element peculiarly affecting the relation of Church and University, that of Doctrine. Doctrine, that is to say, not as being the form of truths that were naturally or spiritually evident, and so to be appreciated according to the growth of the mind and quality of the soul, but as a system to be inculcated intact, and constituting the whole and

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being the case, it is evident that either the University or the Church must be dictator; and the Church being vastly the larger power, overwhelmed the University. Intellect thus comes under bonds, with the usual result of degradation following upon the removal of free play and healthy interest; and we cannot wonder if Adam Smith should have had some justification for his words, surly as they seem to us to-day :

"The discipline of colleges and universities is in general contrived, not for the benefit of the students, but for the interest, or more properly speaking, for the ease of the masters."

How narrowed may become university feeling, that should be broad to receive the impress of the universe; into what jealousy and timidity it may fall, may be judged from such a fact as that of the University Orator in 1669 inveighing against the Royal Society, established in Oxford at the middle of the century, as undermining the University. The generous University, awake to ideas, would have absorbed the Royal Society into its own bosom, with its workers as a free committee of investigation, enjoying University privileges and support. But Robert Boyle was much too broad and sturdy to be taken in by such as could not open their arms very wide.

Taking a leap of something over a century and a half, we find Oxford, not much improved, endeavouring to crush a new University that proposed to omit conventional theology from its curriculum, with its petition "that serious injury would accrue to numerous ancient institutions, and much consequent evil to the public, if a right to confer any academical distinctions designated by the same titles or

accompanied with the same privileges as the degrees of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge should be given by royal charter, either expressly or by implication, to a society who had no immediate connection with the Established Church, and taught no sy stem of religion."

This was nearly fifty years ago; and great changes have taken place in the relation between the University and the Established Church; changes as great in their way as the difference between the present system of examinations and that early state in which the student could undergo his exercises at the hands of an old toping companion of his choice, or as the difference between the present state of the Bodleian Library and its condition when the father of

Beddoes the poet, an experimentalist, and friend of Sir Humphry Davy, was complaining of the neglect and incivility of the librarian. Then college libraries were "attics haunted by pigeons and drowsy with dust." What a brief space of time, if we will but realise it, is between us and barbarism. It is incredible to think during how short a period has been enjoyed such a pursuit as the study of Greek. We may be very hopeful that the Reformation is a great event not yet concluded. We hear of the decadence of England: truly we are moving rapidly in certain evil directions, but taking a view that will allow for ups and downs, and pauses and renewals, do we realise how very recent is our rise?

No doubt a narrow view of theology has stood in the way of university expansion, and the overshadow of the Church cannot but have specialised or limited the university idea. Now there is a hope that both may grow in grace and breadth together. There is

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"The Scotch and the German universities are as open as that of London; Dublin University admits Roman Catholics as well as Protestants. The Moors of Spain

generously allowed Christian youths of France and England to study in their University of Cordova."

That which the universities have lost in prestige, that subtle power so difficult to regain, they owe to their subjugation to ecclesiastical modes. We raise no question as to whether these modes were in themselves evil or good; there isfault none the less either way in the subjugation to them of the soul of a university. Here is the feeling, for instance, of some plain man writing in Rees' Cyclopædia in 1819:-"Within the last twenty years London has presented nearly all the advantages, without any of the fetters, of established universities; for in this vast city many literary and scientific institutions. have been formed, and many courses of lectures delivered, all calculated to improve the rising generation."

The power of unfettered ideas is to allow us to take comprehensive views and breathe in expansive air; the palaces where love and wisdom may dwell are no theologic fantasy, but as real as the hovels of ignorance and brutality. "If we ask," says F. W. Newman, with much force, "wherein the civilised differs from the savage intellect, we find it is mainly in the disposition and power to look backwards and forwards; while in the most degraded barbarism, the mind is fixed solely on the present

moment."

To enable persons to acquire this.

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.

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Has the ideal university any business to interfere in politics? By no means to interfere; but being the representative of principles, certainly to inform. 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 are not brought as a pill with a deputation present to see it swallowed. But as Matthew Arnold says :

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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 the gaping social defects;

expense

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 medieval, 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

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