ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 43 



to a thorough reformation of such parts as are ill suited to the 

 age, or of unwise institution. For it is one of your Majesty's 

 sage maxims, that as respects customs and precedents, we must 

 consider the times in which they took their rise, since much is 

 detracted from their authority, if such are found feeble and ig- 

 norant. It is, therefore, all the more requisite, since the uni- 

 versity statutes were framed in very obscure times, to institute 

 an inquiry into their origin. Of errors of this nature I will give 

 an example or two from such objects as are most obvious and 

 familiar. The one is, that scholars are inducted too early into 

 logic and rhetoric arts which, being the cream of all others, 

 are fitter for graduates than children and novices. Now, being 

 the gravest of the sciences, these arts are composed of rules and 

 directions, for setting forth and methodizing the matter of the 

 rest, and, therefore, for rude and blank minds, who have not yet 

 gathered that which Cicero styles sylva and supellex d matter, 

 and fecundity, to begin with those arts is as if one were to paint 

 or measure the wind, and has no other effect than to degrade 

 the universal wisdom of these arts into childish sophistry and 

 contemptible affectation. This error has had the inevitable 

 result of rendering the treatises on those sciences superficial, 

 and dwarfing them to the capacities of children. Another error 

 to be noticed in the present academical system is the separation 

 between invention and memory, their exercises either being 

 nothing but a set form of words, where no play is given to the 

 understanding, or extemporaneous, in the delivery of which no 

 room is left to the memory. In practical life, however, a blend- 

 ing of the powers of judgment and memory is alone put into 

 requisition, so that these practices, not being adapted to the 

 life of action, rather pervert than discipline the mind. This 

 defect is sooner discovered by scholars than by others, when 

 they come to the practice of the civil professions. We may con- 

 clude our observations on university reform, with the expres- 

 sion of Caesar in his letter to Oppius and Balbus : " Hoc que- 

 madmodum fieri possit, nonnulla mihi in mentem veniunt, et 

 multa reperiri possunt : de iis rebus rogo vos, ut cogitationem 

 suscipiatis."' 



The next want I discover is the little sympathy and corre- 

 spondence which exist between colleges and universities, as 

 well throughout Europe as in the same state and kingdom. In 

 this we have an example in many orders and sodalities, which, 



