44 LAY SERMONS, ESSAYS, AND REVIEWS. [in 



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 intellec 

 tual corporations 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 competent to discipline him in the way of learning ;. 

 whatever his special bent, let him but be able and diligent, and 

 in due time he shall find distinction and a career. Among his 

 professors, he sees men whose names are known and revered 

 throughout the civilized 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 Napoleon the master of 

 old Europe. They have declared la cam&re ouverte aux talents, 

 and every Bursch marches with a professor s gown in his knap 

 sack. Let him become a great scholar, or man of science, and 

 ministers will compete for his services. In Germany, they do- 

 not leave the chance of his holding the office he would render 

 illustrious to the tender mercies of a hot canvass, and the final 

 wisdom of a mob of country parsons. 



In short, in Germany, the universities are exactly what the 

 Rector of Lincoln and the Commissioners tell us the English 

 universities are not ; that is to say, corporations &quot; of learned men 

 devoting their lives to the cultivation of science, and the direc 

 tion of academical education.&quot; They are not &quot; boarding schools 

 for youths,&quot; nor clerical seminaries; but institutions for the 

 higher culture of men, in which the theological faculty is of no 

 more importance, or prominence, than the rest ; and which are 

 truly &quot; universities,&quot; since they strive to represent and embody 

 the totality of human knowledge, and to find room for all forms 

 of intellectual activity. 



May zealous and clear-headed reformers like Mr. Pattison 

 succeed in their noble endeavours to shape our universities 

 towards some such ideal as this, without losing what is valuable 



