Class _12jJL£_E. Rnnk N 5 ?> Gcpight]^? COpyRIGHT DEFOSm KIVERSIDE ESSAYS EDITED BY ADA L. F. SNELL ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE THE AMERICAN MIND AND AMERICAN IDEALISM. By Bliss Perry. 35 cents. UNIVERSITY SUBJECTS.' By John Henry Newman. 35 cents. STUDIES IN NATURE AND LITERATURE. By John Bur- roughs. 35 cents. PROMOTING GOOD CITIZENSHIP. By James Bryce. 35 cents Prices are net, postpaid Other titles in preparation HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY Boston Nbw York Chicago UNIYEESITY SUBJECTS BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY ,H55 COPYRIGHT, 191 3, BY ADA L. F. SNELL ALL RIGHTS RESERVED R. L. S. 225 CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . A .f^ n A oa -I V.' CONTENTS What is a University? 1 The Site of a University 13 Definition of a Liberal Education . . . .20 Knowledge viewed in Relation to Learning , 24 The Aim of University Training . . . .53 Definition of a Gentleman 56 Literature 59 INTRODUCTION The life story of Cardinal Newman is a story char- acterized by no stirring clash of events and by very little picturesque action. The narrative is almost wholly subjective, for it has to do preeminently with the unfolding and growth of a religious spirit. The theme of this soul-drama is the search for a religion so authoritative that man's feverish struggle to com- prehend God will be forever quieted. Although this is undoubtedly the dominating motive of Newm^'s life, it is nevertheless not his formulation of a system of re- ligion which to-day wins him attention, but rather his literary work which, combining in its structure a con- sciously strict method and a singular charm of manner, is generally thought to be quite as beautiful as any produced in the nineteenth century. Since, however, Newman's view of life, his personality, is inextricably interwoven in his writing, some knowledge of the man himself and the objects to which he gave his energies is necessary for an appreciation of the peculiar power of his prose. John Henry Newman was born in London in 1801, the eldest son of a prosperous business man. From his letters we learn that he was brought up to take delight in reading the Bible ; as a boy he also enjoyed such books as Scott's novels, Pope's " Essay on Man," and various writings on religious subjects. At the age of sixteen we find him bropding over liheological problems. viii INTRODUCTION He had in him always a strong strain of mysticism. " I used to wish," he says, " that the 'Arabian Nights ' were true. My imagination ran on unknown influ- ences, on magical powers, and talismans. I thought life might be a dream, or I an angel, and all the world a deception, my fellow angels, by a playful device, con- cealing themselves from me, and deceiving me with a semblance of a material world." Like all imaginative youths he early showed an ardent desire for self-ex- pression ; in his school days he started a little paper ; he was always composing verse ; and a favorite prose form, even in his boyhood, was the sermon. When Newman was sixteen years old he entered Trinity College, Oxford. His first letters home are much like those of the ordinary college lad. He tells of his visit to the tailor and of his first dinner. " Fish, flesh and fowl, beautiful salmon, haunches of mutton, lamb, etc., fine strong beer ; served up in old pewter plates and misshapen earthenware jugs. Tell Mamma there were gooseberry, raspberry, and apricot pies." He writes home also of his work and of his deter- mination to compete for a scholarship, and of his excitement when he was told he had won it. But the remarkable thing about the letters of this sixteen-year- old freshman is the deeply religious note in them. Something of the character of the young man as he was at this time is further seen from a portrait : the craggy profile, with its Roman nose and massive chin, shows a rugged determination ; there is already some- thing in the expression which is clerical; most dis- tinctly, however, the boyish face suggests the poet. We do not wonder that the most brilliant college men of the day came to the rooms of this lad, shy and awk- INTRODUCTION ix ward though he was ; and that they all talked together of the eternal mysteries of life, as is still the way of college youths. All his days Newman tenderly loved his college, even when in exile from it and suspected by its highest authorities. He graduated from Trinity without honors ; it seems that he overtrained for the examinations, and lost his head when he was called up, a day in advance, for the final test ; but he more than retrieved his honor as a student when, a year later, he won a fellowship at Oriel College. But the one dis- tinctive quality which marked him throughout his col- lege life, in victory and in defeat, was a deeply reli- gious feeling evident in such sentences as that which he wrote when anxious about the Oriel fellowship ; " O Lord ! dispose of me as will best promote thy glory, but give me resignation and contentment." The next few years were years of steady growth in power and influence. Newman took orders for the church, was appointed tutor in Oriel, and became Vicar of St. Mary's, preaching there his " Parochial Sermons" and others which the undergraduates flocked to hear. The year 1832 marked^ a turning point in Newman's career. He went on a journey to Italy and various other southern countries. After wandering in many places for many months, he finally returned to Sicily alone and fell ill there with a fever. Recovering at length from this sickness which had been so severe that his life was despaired of, he was pos- sessed with the one idea that he must go back to Eng- land immediately ; for it had come to him in his fever, like a vision from heaven, that he had a great work to do there. While waiting for a ship to carry him home and while still very weak, he would say over and over, X INTRODUCTION " I have a work to do." To this strong prepossession may be traced the beginning of a great movement, which, according to Professor Saintsbury, changed the intellectual as well as the ecclesiastical face of Eng- land. After many delays Newman secured passage on a ship bound for France, but, as if to try his patience stin further, he was becalmed for some days in the Mediterranean. In profound homesickness for Eng- land, for the faces of his friends, and in an emotional ferment to undertake his work, the nature of which was yet hidden from him, he wrote " Lead, Kindly Light," a hymn which has become a Pilgrim hymn for men of every faith. Arrived in England he was soon associated with a group of young men that had for its object no less a task than the reformation of the Church of England. To understand the purpose of these men some know- ledge of the conditions of that time is essential ; but it must be remembered that the situation is capable of many interpretations, and that necessarily only a few aspects of the movement can be given here. In the eighteenth century, as everyone knows, society, politics, literature had frozen into hard conventions , and with these religion also had congealed into set and meaningless forms. The clergy were machines, but were alive enough for fox-hunting, tea, and cards ; good fuU-length portraits of them as they were may be found in the works of Jane Austen. The church preserved the symbols, but these had lost signifi- cance ; and its stately ceremonies were without mean- ing. But already at the beginning of the nmeteenth century governments were being liberalized ; liter- ature was throbbing with a life renewed and quick- INTRODUCTION xi ened by the study of a fresher and earlier time ; and it was natural that the church also should feel this animating spirit abroad everywhere. Theological stu- dents began to study the history of primitive Christian times ; and they found that the church in those early days abounded in energy, buoyancy, and faith. There was in it a gladness, a light which had lightened every man. To bring this back again to the church was the purpose of that group of Oxford men who dreamed of a new order in the days of 1833. Obviously men of different minds would adopt different means to restore vitality to religion ; and already there were various groups of persons holding opposing theories. A closer study of the Bible as an authority — a study of the lives of Christ and the apostles with the purpose of understanding the secret of their power — this was the way of the Evangelicals. To give up all dogma, the holding of which, it was argued, threw the emphasis on systems rather than on spiritual living; to abandon the idea that the church is endowed with supernatural powers ; to let each man read the Bible for himself and exercise his private judgment in its interpretation — this was the way of the Liberals. But this was not Newman's way. He had no sympathy with or understanding of that serene faith which is able to rise above scepticism, which faces freely any new truth however startling, which needs and cares for no creeds, knowing that they but change and fail, — a faith which connects itself purely with the Divine and is not afraid. Newman and his Oxford adherents needed a system. They felt that all reading and meditation should be done with the sole purpose of determining what is authoritative; per- xii INTRODUCTION sonal interpretation of religious dogma is simply in- subordination. The church, in their belief, is the re- presentative of Christ on earth, endowed by him with supernatural powers, possessed of the whole truth, authoritative, infallible, one and indivisible. To believe this is all that is needful to restore to mankind the divine power which was theirs in the early church. " The early times of purity and truth have not passed away ! they are present still ! We are not solitary, though we seem so," exclaims Newman. Such a po- sition as this having been accepted, it became impera- tive to show that the Church of England is literally a descendant of the Primitive Church, and is there- fore possessed of the pure Catholic faith. To establish this premise the young Oxford men went searchingly to early church history ; and by argument and per- suasion attempted to prove a vital connection between the Roman and Anglican churches. Along these lines the Church of England was to be reformed and the hearts of men reclaimed. The means adopted was the instruction of the clergy through Tracts, called " Tracts for the Times." They were written with wonderful directness and earnest- ness, and very soon succeeded in thoroughly arousing the clergy who, quietly dozing by their firesides or riding cross country to hounds, had become quite in- different to their task of saving souls. The move- ment, called sometimes the Tractarian Movement and sometimes the Oxford Movement, spread rapidly; it had a strongly idealistic aspect and appealed to the awakened romantic sense of the time. Loyal souls who had gone to church, only dimly perceiving why, were suddenly thrilled to find that the signs and ceremonies INTRODUCTION xiii Iiad a meaning ; tliat God was literally among his peo- ple ; that they might, if they would, see visions, as did the holy men of old. Angels might be met with by the way, and, even if not visible, attended them daily in their tasks ; an innumerable company of saints hov- ered near them to hearten them in their discourage- ments. " Life is but a parable, angels the real cause of motion, light, and heat," Newman teaches ; " Every breath of air and ray of heat, every beautiful prospect, is, as it were, the skirts of their garments, the waving of the robes of those whose faces see God in Heaven." The earnestness of the leaders of the movement, their sincere faith, their recognized intellectual power won confidence for their doctrine, captured the minds and hearts of men and women ever so pathetically eager to believe heaven a reality. Together with the publication of the Tracts, there were Newman's four o'clock sermons at St. Mary's. These were pure, lucid, free for the most part from dogma, and permeated with a spirit of divine things. To understand the power of these discourses it is necessary to study carefully such sermons as " The In- visible World," "The Power of the WiU," and "The E,eligious Use of Excited Feelings," the last of which is in some points so like Mr. William James's lecture on " Habit." One who frequently heard Newman in these days thus describes the effect of the sermons : " As he spoke, how the old truth became new ! how it came home with a meaning never felt before ! . . . After the hearing of these sermons you might come away still not believing the tenets peculiar to the High Church system ; but you would be harder than most men, if j^ou did not feel more than ever ashamed of xiv INTRODUCTION coarseness, selfishness, worldliness, if you did not feel the things of faith brought closer to the soul." Thus the Tracts and the preaching went on ; and the leaders of the Movement, becoming clearer in their own minds, and emboldened by success, urged more and more the essential oneness of the English and Romish churches. But against the movement there was also a growing opposition on the part of the Ortho- dox party, and, to some extent, on the part of the Evangelicals and Liberals; little by little the English ingrained suspicion of Romanism was aroused, grew in volume, and finally broke in a storm of wrath with the appearance of Tract No. 90. In this Tract New- man tried to show that even in the Thirty-nine Arti- cles drawn up against Romanism, there is much of the pure Catholic doctrine. Over this statement the Bish- ops began to buzz angrily ; the clergy, sometimes with- out reading Newman's carefully chosen words, con- demned his position. Finally, after much agitation, Newman was persuaded to stop the Tracts altogether. His next step, one which stirred both friends and en- emies, was to retract all he had ever said against the Roman Catholic Church. In 1843 he resigned the Vicarage of St. Mary's and retired to Littlemore. After many doubts and misgivings, he took, in 1845, the climactic step of his life ; in that year he was re- ceived into the Roman Catholic Church. It was, he tells us in his " Apologia Pro Vita Sua," like coming into port after stormy seas. The remainder of Newman's life was spent quietly in work and in writing for his church. There were still many disappointments in store for him ; and for years the officials of the Catholic Church were inclined INTRODUCTION xv to distrust him. Many of his most cherished projects were thwarted. In later life, however, his honesty of purpose and remarkable gifts were recognized. He was appointed Cardinal ; and furthermore, by his account of himself in the "Apologia," he created among his countrymen a more tender feeling toward himself. Englishmen, little by little, acquitted him of dark and underhand designs. They read sympathetically his beautiful prose ; and however sincerely they might question the soundness of his conclusions in religious matters, they came to feel that Newman belonged to the great mid-century group of men whose quest was Truth. After a life which extended over nearly a cen- tury, Newman died among his brethren in the Ora- tory at Birmingham in 1891. " Ex umbris et ^lagi- nibus in veritam" are the words which he chose to mark his grave. Many of the tenets which Newman held as neces- sary to the production of effective prose may be found in his lecture on " University Preaching." One of his teachings is to keep the object definite ; all frills and trimmings are to be avoided as tending to blur the thought. Hence, in Newman's prose there is in gene?*al no color, no word-flower to set in motion an "alien brave wave." Scarcely ever is there even an allusion to nature — indeed, when Newman was a young man he vowed to renounce the seductive graces of nature. In the second volume of letters one comes upon the mention of the snapdragons which grew on the walls of Trinity College with the same surprise and joy as one would, when walking over the brown fields of autumn, stumble upon a half -hidden blue gentian. There are no garden fancies, no whiff of sweet odors, xvi INTRODUCTION no singing birds in this " religious retreat," which is as unadorned as a Quaker meeting-house. The reason for the use of simple language Newman very definitely gives : " What he feels himself, and feels deeply, he has to make others feel deeply ; and in proportion as he comprehends this, he will rise above the temptation of introducing collateral matters, and will have no taste, no heart, for going aside after flowers of oratory, fine figures, tuneful periods, which are worth nothing, unless they come to him spontaneously, and are spoken ' out of the abundance of the heart.' " The mind of the reader which is to be led away from the things which are seen to those which are unseen must not be distracted ; the language must be purely transparent and refined sevenfold to carry in its heart the divine message. Figurative language, then, Newman uses sparingly ; in other respects, also, he is careful to keep the expres- sion clear and calm. He never uses striking words, words which violently explode, as do Carlyle's ; nor does he use words which move exclusively in learned circles. On the contrary his diction so often savors of the workaday world that his style has been called colloquial; yet the language is breathed upon by a spirit so lofty in character that all earthy association disappears, and it creates for the reader only a sense of the reality of the thing described, whether it be the description of a familiar scene or the explanation of the presence of angels among us. Take, for example, this paragraph from " The Individuality of the Soul." " Or again, survey some populous town : crowds are pouring through the streets; some on foot, some in carriages ; while the shops are full, and the houses INTRODUCTION xvii too, could we see into them. Every part of it is full of life. Hence we gain a general idea of splendor, magnificence, opulence, and energy. But what is the truth ? why, that every being in that great concourse is his own centre, and all things about him are but shades, but a ' vain shadow,' in which he ' walketh and disquieteth himself in vain.' He has his own hopes and fears, desires, judgments, and aims ; he is everything to himself, and no one else is really any- thing. No one outside of him can really touch him, can touch his soul, his immortality ; he must live with himself for ever. He has a depth within him un- fathomable, an infinite abyss of existence; and the scene in which he bears his part for the moment is but like a gleam of sunshine upon the surface." v In the use of words there is furthermore a scrupu- lous economy. This plain rhetorical requirement New- man has versified in a little poem called " Deeds, not Words " in which he advocates the pruning of words, meaning simply the controlling of thoughts. There is never in his prose a " soft, luxurious flow " of lan- guage ; but, on the contrary, it is limited according to classical restrictions and is disciplined by the high truth which it is consecrated to convey. Newman's prose shows also a scholarly restraint in the use of obvious alliteration, assonance, and " tune- ful periods " ; but it has nevertheless, when the author is lifted beyond himself, a sweeping grandeur of tone, and a highly poetic rhythm and cadence. Words, phrases, clauses are piled up into a climactic wave, which breaks with the feeling of the writer, and ebbs away in lyric music. The exalted tone is often secured by a wording tuned to the lofty phraseology of Bibli- xviii INTRODUCTION cal literature ; there are long, sonorous periods, rhyth- mic balance, and simplicity^ of sound due to homely idiom. The tone, as a result, is singularly cool, quiet, and appealing. Examples are difficult to give, since passages as a whole must be read to perceive this quality ; but it is found concentrated in some of the poems, such as " Rest of Saints Departed." They are at rest : We may not stir the heaven of their repose By rude invoking voice, or prayer addrest In waywardness, to those Who in the mountain grots of Eden lie, And hear the fourfold river as it murmurs by. This prose, simple and inevitable as it seems, is, it must be remembered, the product of a conscious artist trained from his youth up in the technique of expres- sion. Speaking of himself as a young writer he says, " I seldom wrote without an eye to style, and since my taste was bad my style was bad." Toward the end of his life he wrote, " It is simply the fact that I have been obliged to take great pains with everything I have written, and I often write chapters over and over again, besides innumerable corrections and inter- linear additions. I am not stating this as a merit, only that some persons write their best first, and I very seldom do. ... I think I never have written for writing's sake : but my one and single desire and aim has been to do what is so difficult — viz. to express clearly and exactly my meaning; this has been the motive principle of all my corrections and re-writ- ings." How careful he was and intelligent in compo- sition is further seen by a study of the logical structure of all his sermons and discourses, — a logic which is, INTRODUCTION xix however, never austere or crudely evident. The expo- sition is seemingly unconcerned and easy-going ; yet the plan is never lost sight of, however far Newman may appear to wander from the point. He himself advises the preacher who hopes to make a definite impression " to place a distinct categorical proposition before him, such as he can write down in the form of words, and to guide and limit his preparation by it, and to aim in all he says to bring it out, and nothing else." The conscious artist is further seen in that Newman never loses sight of his hearers, of how their minds may be working ; he voices for them their objections, enters sympathetically into their view of a question, overcomes their difficulties, and builds up forHhem the position he wishes them to hold. " The precise recognition of a hearer," he says, "is an important part of the art of speaking." It was this power which gave Newman a strong hold on those to whom he wrote or spoke, and which made him a skillful controversialist. In presenting any question he remembered, too, that men are more often moved through their feelings than through their minds ; he therefore appeals to their imaginations, and, divining their needs, he draws for them, in definite and warm tones, the objects toward which they aspire. The qualities which distinguish Newman as a writer are essentially those which distinguish him as a man. His graciousness gives to his work a sweetness of tone and an old-time courtesy of manner suggestive of the ways of gentlefolk. His scholarly mind is seen in the logical ordering and mental vigor of such discourses as the " Idea of a University " — a book characterized XX INTRODUCTION by Pater as " the perfect handling of a theory." And the religious fervor of his nature, his exalted view of life, enkindling his words, imparts to his writings a power to move the reader, as the men were moved who hearing him preach saw the old truths in a new light. UNIVERSITY SUBJECTS WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY ?i If I were asked to describe as briefly and popu- larly as I could, what a University was, I should draw my answer from its ancient designation of a Studium Generals, or "School of University Learning." This description implies the assemblage of strangers from all parts in one spot ; — from all parts ; else, how wiU you find professors and students for every department of knowledge ? and in one spot ; else, how can there be any school at all ? Accordingly, in its simple and rudimental form, it is a school of knowledge of every kind, consisting of teachers and learners from every quarter. Many things are requisite to complete and satisfy the idea embodied in this description ; but such as this a University seems to be in its essence, a place for the communication and circulation of thought, by means of personal intercourse, through a wide extent of country. There is nothing far-fetched or unreasonable in the idea thus presented to us ; and if this be a University, then a University does but contemplate a necessity of our nature, and is but one specimen in a particular me- dium, out of many which might be adduced in others, of a provision for that necessity. Mutual education, in 1 From Ttise and Progress of Universities ^ chapter ii. Re- printed from volume I, Historical Sketches. ^ WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? a large sense of the word, is one of the great and in- cessant occupations of human society, carried on partly with set purpose, and partly not. One generation forms another; and the existing generation is ever acting and reacting upon itself in the persons of its individual members. Now, in this process, books, I need scarcely say, that is, the litera scripta^ are one special instrument. It is true ; and emphatically so in this age. Considering the prodigious powers of the press, and how they are developed at this time in the never-intermitting issue of periodicals, tracts, pam- phlets, works in series, and light literature, we must allow there never was a time which promised fairer for dispensing with every other means of information and instruction. What can we want more, you will say, for the intellectual education of the whole man, and for every man, than so exuberant and diversified and persistent a promulgation of all kinds of know- ledge? W^hy, you will ask, need we go up to know- ledge, when laiowledge comes down to us ? The Sibyl wrote her prophecies upon the leaves of the forest, and wasted them ; but here such careless profusion might be prudently indulged, for it can be afforded without loss, in consequence of the almost fabulous fecundity of the instrument which these latter ages have in- vented. We have sermons in stones, and books in the running brooks ; works larger and more comprehen- sive than those which have gained for ancients an im- mortality, issue forth every morning, and are projected onwards to the ends of the earth at the rate of hun- dreds of miles a day. Our seats are strewed, our pave- mentjL are powdered, with swarms of little tracts ; and the very bricks of our city walls preach wisdom, by WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? 3 informing us by their placards where we can at once cheaply purchase it. I allow all this, and much more ; such certainly is our popular education, and its effects are remarkable. Nevertheless, after all, even in this age, whenever men are really serious about getting what, in the language of trade, is called " a good article," when they aim at something precise, something refined, something really luminous, something really large, something choice, they go to another market ; they avail themselves, in some shape or other, of the rival method, the ancient method, of oral instruction, of present communication between man and man, of teachers instead of learning, of the personal influence of a master, and the humble initiation of a disciple, and, in consequence, o^ great centres of pilgrimage and throng, which such a method of education necessarily involves. This, I think, will be found to hold good in all those departments or as- pects of society, which possess an interest sufficient to bind men together, or to constitute what is called " a world." It holds in the political world, and in the high world, and in the religious world ; and it holds also in the literary and scientific world. If the actions of men may be taken as any test of their convictions, then we have reason for saying this, viz. : that the province and the inestimable benefit of the liter a scripta is that of being a record of truth, and an authority of appeal, and an instrument of teaching in the hands of a teacher ; but that, if we wish to become exact and fully furnished in any branch of knowledge which is diversified and complicated, we must consult the living man and listen to his living voice. I am not bound to investigate the cause of this, 4 WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? and anything I may say will, I am conscious, be short of its full analysis ; — perhaps we may suggest, that no books can get through the number of minute questions which it is possible to ask on any extended subject, or can hit upon the very difficulties which are severally felt by each reader in succession. Or again, that no book can convey the special spirit and delicate pecu- liarities of its subject with that rapidity and certainty which attend on the sympathy of mind with mind, through the eyes, the look, the accent, and the man- ner, in casual expressions thrown off at the moment, and the unstudied turns of familiar conversation. But I am already dwelling too long on what is but an in- cidental portion of my main subject. Whatever be the cause, the fact is undeniable. The general principles of any study you may learn by books at home ; but the detail, the colour, the tone, the air, the life which makes it live in us, you must catch all these from those in whom it lives already. You must imitate the student in French or German, who is not content with his grammar, but goes to Paris or Dresden : you must take example from the young artist, who aspires to visit the great Masters in Florence and in Rome. Till we have discovered some intellectual daguerreotype, which takes off the course of thought, and the form, lineaments, and features of truth, as completely and minutely, as the optical instrument reproduces the sensible object, we must come to the teachers of wis- dom to learn wisdom, we must repair to the fountain, and drink there. Portions of it may go from thence to the ends of the earth by means of books; but the fulness is in one place alone. It is in such assemblages and congregations of intellect that books themselves, WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? 5 the masterpieces of human genius, are written, or at least originated. The principle on which I have been insisting is so obvious, and instances in point are so ready, that I should think it tiresome to proceed with the subject, except that one or two illustrations may serve to ex- plain my own language about it, which may not have done justice to the doctrine which it has been intended to enforce. For instance, the polished manners and high-bred bearing which are so difficult of attainment, and so strictly personal when attained, — which are so much admired in society, from society are acquired. AU that goes to constitute a gentleman, — the carriage, gait, address, gestures, voice ; the ease, the self-Jlosses- sion, the courtesy, the power of conversing, the talent of not offending; the lofty principle, the delicacy of thought, the happiness of expression, the taste and propriety, the generosity and forbearance, the candour and consideration, the openness of hand ; — these quali- ties, some of them come by nature, some of them may be found in any rank, some of them are a direct precept of Christianity ; but the full assemblage of them, bound up in the unity of an individual character, do we expect they can be learned from books ? are they not necessarily acquired, where they are to be found, in high society ? The very nature of the case leads us to say so ; you cannot fence without an antagonist, nor challenge all comers in disputation before you have supported a thesis ; and in like manner, it stands to reason, you cannot learn to converse till you have the world to converse with ; you cannot unlearn your natural bashfulness, or awkwardness, or stiffness, or 6 WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? other besetting deformity, till you serve your time in some school of manners. Well, and is it not so in matter of fact ? The metropolis, the court, the great houses of the land, are the centres to which at stated times the country comes up, as to shrines of refine- ment and good taste ; and then in due time the coun- try goes back again home, enriched with a portion of the social accomplishments, which those very visits serve to call out and heighten in the gracious dis- pensers of them. We are unable to conceive how the " gentlemanlike " can otherwise be maintained ; and maintained in this way it is. And now a second instance : and here, too, I am going to speak without personal experience of the subject I am introducing. I admit I have not been in Parliament, any more than I have figured in the heau monde; yet I cannot but think that statesman- ship, as well as high breeding, is learned, not by books, but in certain centres of education. If it be not presumption to say so. Parliament puts a clever man au coiirant with politics and affairs of state in a way surprising to himself. A member of the Legis- lature, if tolerably observant, begins to see things with new eyes, even though his views undergo no change. Words have a meaning now, and ideas a reality, such as they had not before. He hears a vast deal in public speeches and private conversation, which is never put into print. The bearings of meas- ures and events, the action of parties, and the persons of friends and enemies, are brought out to the man who is in the midst of them with a distinctness, which the most diligent perusal of newspapers will fail to impart to them. It is access to the fountain-heads of WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? 7 political wisdom and experience, it is daily inter- course, of one kind or another, with the multitude who go up to them, it is familiarity with business, it is access to the contributions of fact and opinion thrown together by many witnesses from many quar- ters, which does this for him. However, I need not account for a fact, to which it is sufficient to appeal ; that the Houses of Parliament and the atmosphere around them are a sort of University of politics. As regards the world of science, we find a remark- able instance of the principle which I am illustrating, in the periodical meetings for its advance, which have arisen in the course of the last twenty years, such as the British Association. Such gatherings would to many persons appear at first sight simply pre|)oster- ous. Above all subjects of study. Science is conveyed, is propagated, by books, or by private teaching ; ex- periments and investigations are conducted in silence ; discoveries are made in solitude. What have philos- ophers to do with festive celebrities, and panegyrical solemnities with mathematical and physical truth? Yet on a closer attention to the subject, it is found that not even scientific thought can dispense with the suggestions, the instruction, the stimulus, the sym- pathy, the intercourse with mankind on a large scale, which such meetings secure. A fine time of year is chosen, when days are long, skies are bright, the earth smiles, and all nature rejoices ; a city or town is taken by turns, of ancient name or modern opulence, where buildings are spacious and hospitality hearty. The novelty of place and circumstance, the excitement of strange, or the refreshment of well-known faces, the majesty of rank or of genius, the amiable charities of 8 WHAT IS A UNIVEKSITY? men pleased both with themselves and with each other ; the elevated spirits, the circulation of thought, the curiosity; the morning sections, the outdoor exer- cise, the well-furnished, well-earned board, the not ungraceful hilarity, the evening circle ; the brilliant lecture, the discussions or collisions or guesses of great men one with another, the narratives of scientific pro- cesses, of hopes, disappointments, conflicts, and suc- cesses, the splendid eulogistic orations ; these and the like constituents of the annual celebration are con- sidered to do something real and substantial for the advance of knowledge which can be done in no other way. Of course they can but be occasional ; they an- swer to the Annual Act, or Commencement, or Com- memoration, of a University, not to its ordinary con- dition ; but they are of a University nature ; and I can well believe in their utility. They issue in the promotion of a certain living and, as it were, bodily communication of knowledge from one to another, of a general interchange of ideas, and a comparison and adjustment of science with science, of an enlargement of mind, intellectual and social, of an ardent love o£ the particular study which may be chosen by each individual, and a noble devotion to its interests. Such meetings, I repeat, are but periodical, and only partially represent the idea of a University. The bustle and whirl which are their usual concomitants, are in ill keeping with the order and gravity of ear- nest intellectual education. We desiderate means of instruction which involve no interruption of our ordi- nary habits ; nor need we seek it long, for the natural course of things brings it about, while we debate over it. In every great country, the metropolis itself be- WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? 9 comes a sort of necessary University, whether we will or no. As the chief city is the seat of the court, of high society, of politics, and of law, so as a matter of course is it the seat of letters also ; and at this time, for a long term of years, London and Paris are in fact and in operation Universities, though in Paris its famous University is no more, and in London a University scarcely exists except as a board of adminis- tration. The newspapers, magazines, reviews, journals, and periodicals of all kinds, the publishing trade, the libraries, museums, and academies there found, the learned and scientific societies, necessarily invest it with the functions of a University ; and that atmos- phere of intellect, which in a former age hung over Oxford or Bologna or Salamanca, has, with the (Siange of times, moved away to the centre of civil govern- ment. Thither come up youths from all parts of the country, the students of law, medicine, and the fine arts, and the employes and attaches of literature. There they live, as chance determines ; and they are satisfied with their temporary home, for they find in it all that was promised to them there. They have not come in vain, as far as their own object in coming is concerned. They have not learned any particular re- ligion, but they have learned their own particular pro- fession well. They have, moreover, become acquainted with the habits, manners, and opinions of their place of sojourn, and done their part in maintaining the tradition of them. We cannot then be without virtual Universities ; a metropolis is such : the simple ques- tion is, whether the education sought and given should be based on principle, formed upon rule, directed to the highest ends, or left to the random succession of 10 WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? masters and schools, one after another, with a melan- choly waste of thought and an extreme hazard of truth. Religious teaching itself affords us an illustration of our subject to a certain point. It does not, indeed, seat itself merely in centres of the world; this is im- possible from the nature of the case. It is intended for the many, not the few ; its subject-matter is truth neces- sary for us, not truth recondite and rare ; but it con- curs in the principle of a University so far as this, that its great instrument, or rather organ, has ever been that which nature prescribes in all education, the per- sonal presence of a teacher, or, in theological language, Oral Tradition. It is the living voice, the breathing form, the expressive countenance, which preaches, which catechises. Truth, a subtle, invisible, manifold spirit, is poured into the mind of the scholar by his eyes and ears, through his affections, imagination, and reason ; it is poured into his mind and is sealed up there in perpetuity, by propounding and repeating it, by questioning and requestioning, by correcting and explaining, by progressing and then recurring to first principles, by all those ways which are implied in the word " catechising." In the first ages, it was a work of long time ; months, sometimes years, were devoted to the arduous task of disabusing the mind of the in- cipient Christian of its pagan errors, and of moulding it upon the Christian faith. The Scriptures, indeed, were at hand for the study of those who could avail themselves of them ; but St. Irenaeus does hesitate to speak of whole races, who had been converted to Chris- tianity, without being able to read them. To be unable to read or write was in those times no evidence of WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? 11 want of learning : the hermits of the deserts were, in this sense of the word, illiterate ; yet the great St. Anthony, though he knew not letters, was a match in disputation for the learned philosophers who came to try him. Didymus again, the great Alexandrian theo- logian, was blind. The ancient discipline, called the Disciplina Arcani, involved the same principle. The more sacred doctrines of Revelation were not com- mitted to books but passed on by successive tradition. The teaching on the Blessed Trinity and the Eucha- rist appears to have been so handed down for some hundred years ; and when at length reduced to writing, it has filled many folios, yet has not been exhausted. But I have said more than enough in illustration ; I end as I began; — a University is a place ofw con- course, whither students come from every quarter for every kind of knowledge. You cannot have the best of every kind everywhere ; you must go to some great city *^ or emporium for it. There you have all the choicest productions of nature and art all together, which you find each in its own separate place elsewhere. All the riches of the land, and of the earth, are carried up thither ; there are the best markets, and there the best workmen. It is the centre of trade, the supreme court of fashion, the umpire of rival talents, and the stand- ard of things rare and precious. It is the place for seeing galleries of first-rate pictures, and for hearing wonderful voices and performers of transcendent skill. It is the place for great preachers, great orators, great nobles, great statesmen.^n the nature of things, greatness and unity go together ; excellence implies a centre. And such, for the third or fourth time, is a University ; I hope I do not weary out the reader by 12 WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? repeating it. It is the place to which a thousand schools make contributions ; in which the intellect may safely range and speculate, sure to find its equal in some antagonist activity, and its judge in the tribu- nal of truth. It is a place where inquiry is pushed forward, and discoveries verified and perfected, and rashness rendered innocuous, and error exposed, by the collision of mind with mind, and knowledge with knowledge. It is the place where the professor becomes eloquent, and is a missionary and a preacher, display- ing his science in its most complete and most winning form, pouring it forth with the zeal of enthusiasm, and lighting up his own love of it in the breasts of his hearers. It is the place where the catechist makes good his ground as he goes, treading in the truth day by day into the ready memory, and wedging and tightening it into the expanding reason. It is a place which wins the admiration of the young by its celeb- rity, kindles the affections of the middle-aged by its beauty, and rivets the fidelity of the old by its asso- ciations. It is a seat of wisdom, a light of the world, a minister of the faith, an Alma Mater of the rising generation. It is this and a great deal more, and de- mands a somewhat better head and hand than mine to describe it weU. THE SITE OF A UNIVERSITY ^ If we would know what a University is, consid- ered in its elementary idea, we must betake ourselves to the first and most celebrated home of European literature and source of European civilization, to the bright and beautiful Athens, — Athens, whose schools drew to her bosom, and then sent back again to the business of life, the youth of the Western World for a long thousand years. Seated on the verge of the continent, the city seemed hardly suited for the duties of a central metropolis of knowledge ; yet, what it lost in convenience of approach, it gained in its neighbourhood to the traditions of the mysterious East, and in the loveliness of the region in which it lay. Hither, then, as to a sort of ideal land, where aU archetypes of the great and the fair were found in substantial being, and all departments of truth ex- plored, and all diversities of intellectual power ex- hibited, where taste and philosophy were majestically enthroned as in a royal court, where there was no sovereignty but that of mind, and no nobility but that of genius, where professors were rulers, and princes did homage, hither flocked continually from the very corners of the orbis terrarum, the many-tongued gen- eration, just rising, or just risen into manhood, in order to gain wisdom. ^ From Rise and Progress of Universities, chapter ni. Re- printed from volume i, Historical Sketches. 14 THE SITE OF A UNIVERSITY Pisistratus had in an early age discovered and nursed the infant genius of his people, and Cimon, after the Persian war, had given it a home. That war had established the naval supremacy of Athens ; she had become an imperial state ; and the lonians, bound to her by the double chain of kindred and of subjec- tion, were importing into her both their merchandise and their civilization. The arts and philosophy of the Asiatic coast were easily carried across the sea, and there was Cimon, as I have said, with his ample for- tune, ready to receive them with due honours. Not content with patronizing their professors, he built the first of those noble porticos, of which we hear so much in Athens, and he formed the groves, which in process of time became the celebrated Academy. Planting is one of the most graceful, as in Athens it was one of the most beneficent, of employments. Cimon took in hand the wild wood, pruned and dressed it, and laid it out with handsome walks and welcome fountains. Nor, while hospitable to the authors of the city's civ- ilization, was he ungrateful to the instruments of her prosperity. His trees extended their cool, umbrageous branches over the merchants, who assembled in the Agora, for many generations. Those merchants certainly had deserved that act of bounty ; for all the while their ships had been carry- ing forth the intellectual fame of Athens to the West- ern World. Then commenced what may be called her University existence. Pericles, who succeeded Cimon both in the government and in the patronage of art, is said by Plutarch to have entertained the idea of making Athens the capital of federated Greece : in this he f ailed^ but his encouragement of such men as THE SITE OF A UNIVERSITY 15 Phidias and Anaxagoras led the way to her acquir- ing a far more lasting sovereignty over a far wider empire. Little understanding the sources of her own greatness, Athens would go to war : peace is the in- terest of a seat of commerce and the arts ; but to war she went ; yet to her, whether peace or war, it mat- tered not. The political power of Athens waned and disappeared ; kingdoms rose and fell ; centuries rolled away, — they did but bring fresh triumphs to the city of the poet and the sage. There at length the swarthy Moor and Spaniard were seen to meet the blue-eyed Gaul ; and the Cappadocian, late subject of Mithri- dates, gazed without alarm at the haughty conquering Roman. Revolution after revolution passed over the face of Europe, as well as of Greece, but still she was there, — Athens, the city of mind, — as radiant, as splendid, as delicate, as young, as ever she had been. Many a more fruitful coast or isle is washed by the blue JEgean, many a spot is there more beautiful or sublime to see, many a territory more ample ; but there was one charm in Attica, which in the same per- fection was nowhere else. The deep pastures of Ar- cadia, the plain of Argos, the Thessalian vale, these had not the gift ; Boeotia, which lay to its immediate north, was notorious for its very want of it. The heavy atmosphere of that Boeotia might be good for vegeta- tion, but it was associated in popular belief with the dulness of the Boeotian intellect : on the contrary, the special purity, elasticity, clearness, and salubrity of the air of Attica, fit concomitant and emblem of its genius, did that for it which earth did not ; — it brought out every bright hue and tender shade of the landscape over which it was spread, and would have 16 THE SITE OF A UNIVERSITY illuminated the face even of a more bare and rugged country. A confined triangle, perhaps fifty miles its greatest length, and thirty its greatest breadth ; two elevated rocky barriers, meeting at an angle ; three promi- nent mountains, commanding the plain, — Parnes, Pen- telicus, and Hymettus ; an unsatisfactory soil ; some streams, not always full ; — such is about the report which the agent of a London company would have made of Attica. He would report that the climate was mild ; the hills were limestone ; there was plenty of good marble ; more pasture land than at first survey might have been expected, sufficient certainly for sheep and goats ; fisheries productive ; silver mines once, but long since worked out ; figs fair ; oil first-rate ; olives in profusion. But what he would not think of noting down, was, that that olive tree was so choice in nature and so noble in shape, that it excited a religious ven- eration ; and that it took so kindly to the light soil, as to expand into woods upon the open plain, and to climb up and fringe the hills. He would not think of writing word to his employers, how that clear air, of which I have spoken, brought out, yet blended and subdued, the colours on the marble, till they had a softness and harmony, for all their richness, which in a picture looks exaggerated, yet is after all within the truth. He would not tell, how that same delicate and brilliant atmosphere freshened up the pale olive, till the olive forgot its monotony, and its cheek glowed like the arbutus or beech of the Umbrian hills. He would say nothing of the thyme and thousand fra- grant herbs which carpeted Hymettus ; he would hear nothing of the hum of its bees ; nor take much account THE SITE OF A UNIVERSITY 17 of the rare flavour of its honey, since Gozo and Minorca were sufficient for the English demand. He would look over the iEgean from the height he had ascended ; he would follow with his eye the chain of islands, which, starting from the Sunian headland, seemed to offer the fabled divinities of Attica, when they would visit their Ionian cousins, a sort of via- duct thereto across the sea : but that fancy would not occur to him, nor any admiration of the dark violet billows with their white edges down below ; nor of those graceful, fan-like jets of silver upon the rocks, which slowly rise aloft like water spirits from the deep, then shiver, and break, and spread, and shroud themselves, and disappear, in a soft mist of foam ; nor of the gentle, incessant heaving and panting oi the whole liquid plain; nor of the long waves, keeping steady time, like a line of soldiery, as they resound upon the hollow shore, — he would not deign to notice that restless living element at all, except to bless his stars that he was not upon it. Nor the distinct de- tail, nor the refined colouring, nor the graceful out- line and roseate golden hue of the jutting crags, nor the bold shadows cast from Otus or Laurium by the declining sun ; — our agent of a mercantile firm would not value these matters even at a low figure. Rather we must turn for the sympathy we seek to yon pil- grim student come from a semi-barbarous land to that small corner of the earth, as to a shrine, where he might take his fill of gazing on those emblems and coruscations of invisible unoriginate perfection. It was the stranger from a remote province, from Britain or from Mauritania, who in a scene so different from that of his chilly, woody swamps, or of his fiery choking 18 THE SITE OF A UNIVERSITY sands, learned at once what a real University must be, by coming to understand the sort of country, which was its suitable home. Nor was this all that a University required, and found in Athens. No one, even there, could live on poetry. If the students at that famous place had nothing bet- ter than bright hues and soothing sounds, they would not have been able or disposed to turn their residence there to much account. Of course they must have the means of living, nay, in a certain sense, of enjoyment, if Athens was to be an Alma Mater at the time, or to remain afterwards a pleasant thought in their memory. And so they had ; be it recollected Athens was a port, and a mart of trade, perhaps the first in Greece ; and this was very much to the point, when a number of strangers were ever flocking to it, whose combat was to be with intellectual, not physical difficulties, and who claimed to have their bodily wants supplied, that they might be at leisure to set about furnishing their minds. Now, barren as was the soil of Attica, and bare the face of the country, yet it had only too many resources for an elegant, nay luxurious abode there. So abundant were the imports of the place, that it was a common saying, that the productions, which were found singly elsewhere, were brought all together in Athens. Corn and wine, the staple of subsistence in such a climate, came from the isles of the ^gean ; fine wool and car- peting from Asia Minor; slaves, as now, from the Euxine, and timber too ; and iron and brass from the coasts of the Mediterranean. The Athenian did not condescend to manufactures himself, but encouraged them in others ; and a population of foreigners caught at the lucrative occupation both for home consumption THE SITE OF A UNIVERSITY 19 and for exportation. Their cloth, and other textures for dress and furniture, and their hardware — for instance, armour — were in great request. Labour was cheap ; stone and marble in plenty ; and the taste and skill, which at first were devoted to public buildings, as temples and porticos, were in course of time applied to the mansions of public men. If nature did much for Athens, it is undeniable that art did much more. DEFINITION OF A LIBERAL EDUCATION* Tehngs, which can bear to be cut off from every thing else and yet persist in living, must have life in themselves ; pursuits, which issue in nothing, and still maintain their ground for ages, which are regarded as admirable, though they have not as yet proved them- selves to be useful, must have their sufficient end in themselves, whatever it turn out to be. And we are brought to the same conclusion by considering the force of the epithet, by which the knowledge under consideration is popularly designated. It is common to speak of " liberal knowledge," of the " liberal arts and studies," and of a " liberal education," as the es- pecial characteristic or property of a University and of a gentleman ; what is really meant by the word ? Now, first, in its grammatical sense it is opposed to servile; and by " servile work " is understood, as our catechisms inform us, bodily labour, mechanical em- ployment, and the like, in which the mind has little or no part. Parallel to such servile works are those arts, if they deserve the name, of which the poet speaks,^ which owe their origin and their method to hazard, not to skill ; as, for instance, the practice and operations of an empiric. As far as this contrast may be considered 1 From " Idea of a University," Discourse v. University Teaching. 2 TexvTj rlxw