468 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



sities, fluctuating as regards political liberty, but standing up for in- 

 tellectual liberty. In tbe seventeenth century the Church ruled the 

 universities ; in the eighteenth, it may be said that the universities 

 returned the comjfliment. 



Enough for the past. A word or two on the present. What is 

 now the need for a university system, and what must the system 

 be to answer that need ? Many things are altered since the twelfth 

 century. 



First, then, universities, as I understand them, are not absolutely 

 essential to the teaching of professions. Let me make an extreme 

 supposition. A great naval commander, like Nelson, is sent on board 

 ship, at eleven or twelve ; his previous knowledge, or general training, 

 is what you may suppose for that age. It is in the course of actual 

 service, and in no other way, that he acquires his professional fitness for 

 commanding fleets. Is this right or is it wrong ? Perhaps it is wrong, 

 but it has gone on so for a long time. Well, why may not a preacher 

 be formed on the same plan ? John Wesley was not a greater man in 

 preaching than Nelson in seamanship. Take, then, a youth of thir- 

 teen from the school. Apprentice hiru to the minister of the parish. 

 Let him make at once preparations for clerical work. Let him store 

 his memory with sermons, let him make abstracts of divinity systems ; 

 master the best exegetical commentators. Then, in a year or two, he 

 would begin to catechise the young, to give addresses in the way of 

 exposition, exhortation, encouragement, and rebuke. Practice would 

 bring facility. Might not, I say, seven years of the actual work, in 

 the susceptible period of life, make a preacher of no mean power, with- 

 out the grammar-school, without the Arts classes, without the Divinity 

 Hall? 



What, then, do we gain by taking such a roundabout approach to 

 our professional work? The answer is twofold : 



First, as regards tbe profession itself. Naarly every skilled occu- 

 pation, in our time, involves principles and facts that have been inves- 

 tigated, and are taught, outside the profession ; to the medical man 

 are given courses of chemistry, physiology, and so on. Hence, to be 

 completely equipped for your professional work, you must repair to 

 the teachers of those tributary departments of knowledge. The re- 

 quirement, however, is not absolute ; it admits of being evaded. Your 

 professional teachers ought to master these outside subjects, and give 

 you just so much of them as you need, and no more ; which would be 

 an obvious economy of your valuable time. 



Thus, I apprehend, the strictly professional uses of general knowl- 

 edge fail to justify the grammar-school and the Arts' curriculum. 

 Something, indeed, may still be said for the higher grades of profes- 

 sional excellence, and for introducing improved methods into the prac- 

 tice of the several crafts, for which wider outside studies lend their 

 aid. This, however, is not enough ; inventors are the exception. In 



