106 A LIBERAL EDUCATION; 17 



song, or the roll of Ciceronian prose ! Imagine 

 how much success would be likely to attend the 

 attempt to persuade such men that the education 

 which leads to perfection in such elegances is 

 alone to be called culture ; while the facts of 

 history, the process of thought, the conditions of 

 moral and social existence, 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 productive 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 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 pro- 

 fessors, he sees men whose names are known and 

 revered throughout the civilised 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 carrier e ouverte aux talents, and 



