292 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



ameliorative pi*ojects with conscious reference to 

 such an end, the efficiency of our university will 

 be most successfully maintained, and its prosper- 

 ity most thoroughly insured. 



Next, in order to impart to our notions of re- 

 form the requisite symmetry and coherence, the 

 legitimate objects of university education must be 

 clearly conceived and steadfastly borne in mind. 

 The whole duty of a university toward those who 

 are sheltered within its walls may be concisely 

 summed up in two propositions. It consists, first, 

 in stimulating the mental faculties of each stu- 

 dent to varied and harmonious activity, in sup- 

 plying every available instrument for sharpening 

 the perceptive powers, strengthening the judg- 

 ment, and adding precision and accuracy to the 

 imagination ; secondly, in providing for all those 

 students who desire it the means of acquiring a 

 thorough elementary knowledge of any given 

 branch of science, art, or literature. In a word, 

 to teach the student how to think for himself, 

 and then to give him the material to exercise his 

 thought upon, this is the whole duty of a uni- 

 versity. Into that duty the inculcation of doc- 

 trines as such does not enter. The professor is 

 not fulfilling his proper function when he incon- 

 tinently engages in a polemic in behalf of this or 



