354 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



pieces in the interest of some theory or speculation must inevitably 

 end in disaster, for they must agree with Bacon that " it were good, 

 therefore, that men in their innovations would follow the example 

 of time itself, which indeed innovateth greatly, but quietly, and 

 by degrees scarce to be perceived." 



The complaint that learning is no longer treated with due defer- 

 ence is not exclusively modern, for it was enumerated long ago 

 among the things that are not new under the sun; and he who for 

 his own pleasure or distinction devotes himself to work in fields 

 that yield nothing but the interest of the exploration should look to 

 his own pleasure for his reward, since learning is no more exalted 

 by turning it into an aristocratic and exclusive pleasure ground 

 than by making it a shop for profit. While no weak and foolish 

 brother of the laboratory should be permitted to think that he be- 

 longs to a favored class or has any claims to support or respect ex- 

 cept for service rendered, it is the duty of our graduates to teach 

 the world, by the example of their lives, what the work of the uni- 

 versity is. 



Lyceum lectures and summer schools and systematic courses of 

 reading are good things, and the common school and the home are 

 the foundation of all education. Travel is a most valuable adjunct, 

 but those who are to profit by it must first know what they go out 

 to see, " for else shall young men go hooded and look abroad little." 



No school or college can improve its work by calling itself a 

 university, although the prevalence of belief that its work is the 

 work of a university may bring harm incalculable; for that uni- 

 versity is universal, in the best sense of the word, where students 

 are inspired with enthusiasm for truth by the example of those 

 whose minds are " as a mirror or glass capable of the image of the 

 universal world, and joyful to receive the impression thereof as 

 the eye joyeth to receive light." 



What nobler task can our graduate undertake than to teach 

 the world that while the benefits which learning confers are its only 

 claim to consideration, these benefits will cease so soon as they are 

 made an end or aim? All men prize the fruit; but who else is there 

 to tell them that the tree will soon be barren if they visit it only 

 at the harvest, that they must dig about it and nourish it and cher- 

 ish the flowers and green leaves? What better service can he render 

 than to point out that the gifts of learning are like health, which 

 comes to him who does not seek it, but flies farther and farther from 

 him who would lure it back by physic or indulgence ? 



The two authors I referred to at the beginning can not both be 

 right, and both may be partly wrong, for it is possible that neither 

 plutocracy nor a democratic majority makes a state. No univer- 



