13 



In his volume upon Systematic Technical Education in Eu- 

 rope by Scott Russell, which he dictates to the Queen, he said, 

 twenty years ago: " There are now better educated nations in 

 Europe than the English " and he " entreats her Majesty gracious- 

 ly to consider the case of the uneducated English folk, who are 

 now suffering great misfortune in their Trades, Commerce and 

 Manufactures, as well as in their social, moral and intellectual con- 

 dition, through having been neglected and allowed to fall behind 

 other nations, better cared for, by the men whose duty it was to 

 lead as well as govern the people." 



Permit me again to illustrate by recalling to your minds a 

 chapter from secular history, and this also relating to a city brought 

 to the very verge of despair by a besieging army. 



During those cruel wars of Phillip II, when the Spanish army 

 invaded Holland and laid siege to the city of Leyden in 1574: 

 who has not heard the terrible story ? How that beleagured city, 

 wasted by famine, saw 6,000 corpses lying in its streets out of a 

 population of only 20,000 ; and how in its last extremity, the 

 dykes being cut, the inrushing sea swept the invading hosts from 

 the country, and brought relief in the flotilla of William, Prince 

 of Orange. You will recall how, in reward for their consummate 

 bravery and devotion, the Prince offered them the alternative of 

 entire release from all taxes for a long period of years, or the 

 establishment of a University in their city ; and how this people, 

 impoverished by v r ar, exhausted by famine, added a crowning 

 glory to their achievements by accepting the latter, and, during the 

 300 years which has marked the life and growth of this grand old 

 University of Leyden. no one has been found to say that they 

 chose not wisely. Recall a few of those students and teachers of 

 Leyden whose influence has largely shaped the affairs of the world 

 for centuries : Boerhaave, the most celebrated physician of his 

 century; the younger Scaliger, the " Father of Chronological Sci- 

 ence;" Arminius, the famous theologian, whose thoughts are to- 

 day a mighty power in Christendom ; Descartes, the distinguished 

 philosopher and mathematician; Grotius, that "monster of 

 erudition" as he was called, the " Father of International Law." 



Never was there a time when those words of Job and Solomon 

 " The price of wisdom is above rubies," and "how much better is 



