NEGLECTED AT OUR UNIVERSITIES. 371 
the great mass of the people; and that this was 
the spirit in which they were first instituted cannot 
for a moment be doubted, a fact which should be 
ever borne in mind by their governors, and which 
authorises such deviations from the strict letter 
of their laws as the altered circumstances of the 
times may require. Let us not, however, upon so 
important a question be misunderstood. All the 
branches of university education arrange themselves 
under two distinct heads. The infusion of the 
national religious creed, and the study of ancient 
literature,— the expounding of the book of God, 
and the study of the works of man. On the first 
and greatest of these objects time can have no 
effect. The Holy Scriptures are the same to-day 
as they were eighteen centuries ago; nothing has 
been added to them, nothing has been taken away. 
These holy bulwarks of our faith are unchanging 
and unchanged; and they require studying with 
the same earnestness and the same devotedness 
now, as when these venerable sanctuaries of the 
church were first founded. But, in regard to 
human wisdom, the case is different; the last 
century has witnessed surprising changes not only 
in the progress, but in the kind of knowledge 
necessary or desirable to be taught. Sciences, 
which were scarcely known by name to the found- 
ers of our colleges, have assumed form, extension, 
and demonstration; while others, utterly unknown 
to our ancestors, have started into life, and, like 
‘the overflowings of the Nile, have spread over 
the land, fertilised its provinces, and are now 
producing, in an infinity of ways, a fruitful harvest 
BB 2 
