NEGLECTED AT OUR UNIVERSITIES. 3?1 



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 w r ere 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 

 b b 2 



