THE UNIVERSITY IDEAL. 4 6 9 



fact, the ground must be widened, and include, secondly, the life be- 

 yond the profession. We are citizens of a self -governed country ; 

 members of various smaller societies ; heads or members of families. 

 We have, moreover, to carve out recreation and enjoyment as the 

 alternative and the reward of our professional toil. Now, the entire 

 tone and character of this life outside the profession are profoundly 

 dependent on the compass of our early studies. He that leaves the 

 school for the shop at thirteen is on one platform. He that spends 

 the years from thirteen to twenty in acquiring general knowledge is 

 on a totally different platform ; he is, in the best sense, an aristocrat. 

 Those that begin work at thirteen, and those that are born not to work 

 at all, are alike his inferiors. He should be able to spread light all 

 around. He it is that may stand forth before the world as the model 

 man. 



All this supposes that you realize the position ; that you fill up the 

 measure of the opportunities ; that you keep in view at once the pro- 

 fessional life, the citizen life, and the life of intellectual tastes. The 

 mere professional man, however prosperous, can not be a power in 

 society, as the Arts' graduate may become. His leisure occupations 

 are all of a lower stamp. He does not participate in the march of 

 knowledge. He must be aware of his incompetence to judge for him- 

 self in the greater questions of our destiny ; his part is to be a follower, 

 and not a leader. 



It is not, then, the name of graduate that will do all this. It is 

 not a scrape pass ; it is not decent mediocrity with a languid interest. 

 It is a fair and even attention throughout, supplemented by auxiliaries 

 to the class-work. It is such a hold of the leading subjects, such a 

 mastery of the various alphabets, as will make future references intel- 

 ligible, and a continuation of the study possible. 



Our curriculum is one of the completest in the country, or perhaps 

 anywhere. By the happy thought of the Senatus of Marischal Col- 

 lege, in 1753, you have a fundamental class not existing in the other 

 colleges. You have a fair representation of the three great lines of 

 science the abstract, the experimental, and the classifying. When 

 it is a general education that you are thinking of, every scheme of 

 option is imperfect that doe3 not provide for such three-sided cultiva- 

 tion of our reasoning powers. A larger quantity of one will no more 

 serve for the absence of the rest than a double covering of one part of 

 the body will enable another part to be left bare. 



Your time in the Arts' curriculum is not entirely used up by the 

 classes. You can make up for deficiencies in the course when once 

 you have formed your ideal of completeness. For a year or two after 

 graduating, while still rejoicing in youthful freshness, you can be 

 widening your foundations. The thing, then, is to possess a good 

 scheme and to abide by it. Now, making every allowance for the 

 variation of tastes and of circumstances, and looking solely to what is 



