A LIBERAL EDUCATION 59 



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 

 dilisent, 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 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 carriere 

 oiiverte aiix talents, and every Bursch marches with a pro- 

 fessor's gov/n in his knapsack. Let him become a great 

 scholar, or man of science, and ministers wall compete for 

 his services. In Germany, they do not leave the chance of 

 his holding the office he would render illustrious to the tender 

 mercies of a hot canvass, 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 

 English 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 semi- 

 naries; but institutions for the higher culture of men, in 

 which the theological faculty is of no more importance or 

 prominence, than the rest; and which are truly "univer- 

 sities," since they strive to represent and embody the totality 

 of human knowledge, and to find room for all forms of in- 

 tellectual activity. 



May zealous and clear-headed reformers like Mr. Pattison 



