So SELECTIONS FROM HUXLEY 



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 

 5 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. 



10 Among his professors, he sees men whose names are known and 

 revered throughout the civilized world ; and their living ex- 

 ample infects him with a noble ambition, and a love for the 

 spirit of work. x 



The Germans dominate the intellectual world by virtue of 



1 5 the same simple secret as that which made Napoleon the 

 master of old Europe. They have declared la carrier e ouverte 

 aux talents, and every Bursch marches with a professor's gown 

 in his knapsack. Let him become a great scholar, or man of 

 science, and ministers will compete for his services. In Ger- 



20 many, they do not leave the chance of his holding the office 

 he would render illustrious to the tender mercies of a hot can- 

 vass, 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 Eng- 



25lish universities are not; that is to say, corporations "of 

 learned men devoting their lives to the cultivation of science, 

 and the direction of academical education." They are not 

 "boarding schools for youths/' nor clerical seminaries ; but 

 institutions for the higher culture of men, in which the theo- 



30 logical faculty is of no more importance, or prominence, than 

 the rest ; and which are truly "universities," 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 



