A Liberal Education 69 



and, above all, in that classical lore for which the uni- 

 versities profess to sacrifice almost everything else, why, 

 a -third-rate, poverty-stricken German university turns 

 out more produce of that kind in one year, than our vast 

 and wealthy foundations elaborate in ten. 5 



Ask the man who is investigating any question, pro- 

 foundly and thoroughly be it historical, philosophical, 

 philological, physical, literary, or theological; who is try- 

 ing to make himself master of any abstract subject (except, 

 perhaps, political economy and geology, both of which 10 

 are intensely Anglican sciences), whether he is not com- 

 pelled to read half a dozen times as many German, as 

 English, books? And whether, of these English books, 

 more than one in ten is the work of a fellow of a college, 

 or a professor of an English university? 15 



Is this from any lack of power in the English as com- 

 pared with the German mind ? The countrymen of Grote 

 and of Mill, of Faraday, of Robert Brown, of Lyell, and 

 of Darwin, to go no further back than the contemporaries 

 of men of middle age, can afford to smile at such a sug- 20 

 gestion. England can show now, as she has been able to 

 show in every generation since civilization spread over 

 the West, individual men who hold their own against the 

 world, and keep alive the old tradition of her intellectual 

 eminence. 25 



But, in the majority of cases, these men are what they 

 are in virtue of their native intellectual force, and of a 

 strength of character which will not recognize impedi- 

 ments. They are not trained in the courts of the Temple 

 of Science, but storm the walls of that edifice in all sorts of 30 

 irregular ways, and with much loss of time and power, in 

 order to obtain their legitimate positions. 



Our universities not only do not encourage such men; 

 do not offer them positions, in which it should be their 



