7O Selections from Huxley 



highest duty to do, thoroughly, that which they are most 

 capable of doing; but, as far as possible, university train- 

 ing shuts out of the minds of those among them, who 'are 

 subjected to it, the prospect that there is anything in 

 5 the world for which they are specially fitted. Imagine 

 the success of the attempt to still the intellectual hunger 

 of any of the men I have mentioned, by putting before 

 him, as the object of existence, the successful mimicry 

 of the measure of a Greek song, or the roll of Ciceronian 



10 prose ! Imagine how much success would be likely to 

 attend the attempt to persuade such men, that the educa- 

 tion which leads to perfection in such elegancies is alone 

 to be called culture ; while the facts of history, the process 

 of thought, the conditions of moral and social existence, 



15 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 pro- 



20 ductive intellectual 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 



25 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 



30 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 carriere 



