106 A LIBERAL EDUCATION; iv 



song, or the roll of Ciceronian prose! Imagine 

 liow much success would be likely to attend the 

 attempt to persuade such men that the education 

 which leads to perfection in such elegances is alone 

 to be called culture; while the facts of history, 

 the process of thought, the conditions of moral and 

 social existence, and the laws of physical nature 

 are left to be dealt with as they may by outside 

 barbarians! 



It is not thus that the German universities, 

 from being beneath notice a century ago, have 

 become what they are now — the most intensely 

 cultivated and the most productive intellectual 

 cori)orations the world has ever seen. 



The student who repairs to them sees in the 

 list of classes and of professors a fair picture of 

 the world of knowledge. "Whatever he needs to 

 know there is some one ready to teach him, some 

 one comi)etent to discipline him in the way of 

 learning; wliatever his special bent, let him but 

 be able and diligent, and in due time he shall 

 find distinction and a career. Among his pro- 

 fessors, he sees men whose names are known and 

 revered throughout the civilised world; and their 

 living example infects him with a noble ambition, 

 and a love for the spirit of work. 



The Germans dominate the intellectual world 

 by virtue of the same simple secret as that which 

 made Xa])oleon the master of old Europe. They 

 have declared la carriere ouvcrtc aux lalcnis, and 



