to show cause why they do not put themselves in the best position for becoming what Coleridge calls the clerisy of the land."

Devotion to literature will always distinguish a complete university. Within the academic walls you may always find the lover of humanities; here, in perpetual residence, those who know the Athenian dramatists, the Augustan poets, the medieval epic writers, Chaucer and Shakespeare, and the leaders in literature of every name and tongue. In the class-rooms of the university, successive generations of youth should be presented to these illustrious men. The secrets of their excellence should be pointed out, the delights of literary enjoyment should be set forth, the possibilities of production in our day should be indicated, and withal the principles of criticism should be inculcated, as remote from sarcasm and faultfinding, on the one hand, as from prostrate adoration and overwrought sympathy, on the other.

It is common in these days to lament that the taste of the public, as indicated by the remorseless self-recording apparatus of the public libraries and the glaring advertisements of the book-stalls, is depraved; but it is well to remember that many counteracting influences are vigorous. Never was Shakespeare read and studied as he is to-day; never was Chaucer so familiar to the youth at school; never was the Bible so widely read; never were such translations accessible as are now within reach of all. In all this the power of the universities is felt; give them the credit. But in the future let more attention than ever before be given to the study of literature and art. Fortunate would it be if in every seat of learning such a living. teacher could be found as a Wordsworth, a Tennyson, a Browning, an Arnold, or a Lowell.

Among the characteristics of a university I name the defense of ideality, the maintenance of spirituality. There are those in every generation who fear that inquiry is hostile to religion. Although universities are the children of the Christian church, although for a long period the papal sanction was desirable, if not essential, to their establishment, although the earliest colleges in this country were strictly religious, and although almost every denomination in the land desires its own university, there is an under

current of talk which shows that the influence of the higher education is now regarded in certain circles as adverse to spiritual and religious life. If this were so, many would prefer to see the academic walls fall down in a night, and the treasures of the ages reduced to smoke and ashes. But, fortunately indeed, there is no such danger. Alarmists are cowards. That piety is infantile which apprehends that knowledge is fatal to reverence, devotion, righteousness, and faith.

As the most recent utterances of science point more and more steadily to the plan of a great designer, as the studies of psychology and of history confirm the doctrine. at least as old as Solomon, that righteousness exalteth a nation, so we may affirm that the two essentials of Christianity, on which hang all the law and the prophets,— the love of God and the love of our neighbor,—are enforced and not weakened by the influence of universities. We may also rest assured that institutions devoted to the ascertainment of truth as the ultimate object of intellectual exertion, and to the promulgation of truth as an imperative moral obligation, are not the harbingers of harm. Individuals will err; generations will labor under false ideas; domineering intellects will dazzle for a time the ordinary mind; error, like disease, must be clearly understood before the mode of correction can be formulated; but there is no better way known to man for securing intellectual and moral integrity than to encourage those habits, those methods, and those pursuits which tend to establish truth.

Near the close of his address before the University of Munich, at the celebration of its jubilee in 1872, a great theologian, Dr. Döllinger, referred to the perils of the times in words which were received with prolonged applause. "Who knows," said he, "but that for a time. Germany may remain confined in that strait prison, without air and light, which we call materialism? This would be a forerunner of approaching national ruin. But this can only happen in case the universities of Germany, forgetting their traditions and yielding to a shameful lethargy, should waste their best treasures. But no; our universities will form the impregnable wall ready to stop the devastating flood."

The maintenance of a high standard of professional learning may also be named among the requisites of a university. So it is on the continent of Europe, so partially in Great Britain, so it should be everywhere. The slender means of our fathers compelled them to restrict their outlays to that which was regarded as fundamental or general education, and so it came to pass (as we have already been reminded) that professional schools were established in this country as independent foundations. Even where they are placed under the university ægis, they have been regarded as only children by adoption, ready enough for the funds which have been provided for academic training, but without any claims to inherit the birthright. The injury to the country from this state of things is obvious. The professional schools are everywhere in danger of being-nay, in many places they actually are-places of technical instead of liberal education. Their scholars are not encouraged to show a proficiency in those fundamental studies which the experience of the world has demanded for the first degree in arts. It is well known that many a medical school graduates young men who could not get admission to a college of repute; ought we then to wonder that quackery is popular, and that it is better to own a patent medicine than a gold mine? It was a wise and good man who said that there is no greater curse to a country than an uneducated ministry; and yet how common it is for the schools of theology in this country to be isolated from the best affiliations! Lawyers are too often trained with reference to getting on at the bar, and find themselves unprepared for the higher walks of jurisprudence and statesmanship; and members of Congress and of the State legislatures frequently exhibit to the world poverty of preparation for the critical duties which devolve upon them.

I am far from believing that university schools of law, medicine, and theology will settle the perplexing questions of the day, either in science, religion, or politics; but if the experience of the world is worth anything, it can nowhere be so effectively and easily acquired as in the faculties of a well-organized university, where each particular study is defined and illuminated by the steady light which comes from collateral pursuits and from the bright suggestions

of learned and gifted teachers. Moreover, science has developed in modern society scores of professions each of which requires preparation as liberal as law, medicine, or theology. The schools in which modern sciences are studied may indeed grow up far apart from the fostering care of universities, and there is some advantage doubtless, while they are in their early years, in being free from academic traditions; but schools of science are legitimate branches of a modern university, and are gradually assuming their proper relations. In a significant paragraph which has lately appeared in the newspapers, it is said that with the new arrangements for instruction in the University of Cambridge, England, its degree of Engineer will be one of the most valuable which can anywhere be attained.

Finally, among the merits of a university is the cultivation of a spirit of repose. As the distractions of modern civilization multiply, as newspaper enterprise brings to our daily vision the conflicts and transactions of mankind, as books become superabundant, and periodicals more and more indispensable, and more and more technical, some corrective must exist, or there will be no more enjoyment in an intellectual life than there is in making money in the turmoil of the bourse. The whirl of the Nineteenth century has already affected the colleges, with detriment to that seclusion which best promotes the acquisition of knowledge. A man of varied experience in public affairs has said that a great university should be at once "the best place of education, the greatest machine for research, and the most delicious retreat for learned leisure." This is doubtless the truth, but it is only a halftruth. Universities with ample resources for the support of investigators, scholars, thinkers, and philosophers, numerous enough, learned enough, and wise enough to be felt among the powers of the age, will prove the safeguards of repose, not only for those who live within their learned cloisters, but for all who come under their influence. A society of the choicest minds produced in any country, engaged in receiving and imparting knowledge, devoted to the study of nature, the noblest monuments of literature, the marvelous abstractions of mathematical reasoning, the results of historical evidence, the progress of

human civilization, and the foundations of religious faith, will be at once an example of productive quietude and an incitement to the philosophic view of life, so important to our countrymen in this day, when the miserable cry of pessimism, on the one hand, and the delightful but deceitful illusions of optimism, on the other hand, are in danger of leading them from the middle path, and from that reasonableness of mind which first recognizes that which is, and then has the hope and courage to strive for the better.

In what has now been said, it has been made apparent that our fathers brought with them to the western world the idea of a university as an institution superior to, though not exclusive of, a college, and that this idea, sometimes obscured by mist, has never lost its radiance. I have also called your attention to some of the functions which are embodied in the conception of a university: the advancement of learning, the conservation of knowledge, the development of talent, the promotion of spirituality, the cultivation of literature, the elevation of professional standards, and the maintenance of repose.

I add a few suggestions of a practical character which I hope will be approved in this seat of learning. We should look for the liberal endowment of universities to the generosity of wealthy individuals. It is doubtful whether the national government, or the government of any State, will ever provide funds which will be adequate for the highest education. There is a growing disposition, in the Eastern States, to restrict all provision for public instruction to schools of primary and secondary rank. Were any legislative body to appropriate a sufficient financial support, there is nothing in the tendencies of modern politics to show that the representatives of the people, as they are in these days elected, would have the wisdom to mark out the pathway of a great university. Ecclesiastical zeal is more likely to be successfully invoked. The conception of a university pervaded by a spirit of enlightened Christianity is inspiring to the mind of every believer. It seems to associate religion and science as co-workers for the good of man. It is more than probable, under this consideration, that a Catholic university will ere long be initiated; and if it succeeds, the example may lead to a union of Protestants for a kindred object,