64 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL. [LECT. 



not less serious, kind. Institutions do not make men, 

 any more than organisation makes life ; and even the 

 ideal University we have been dreaming about will 

 be but a superior piece of mechanism, unless each 

 student strive after the ideal of the Scholar. And 

 that ideal, it seems to me, has never been better em- 

 bodied than by the great Poet, who, though lapped in 

 luxury, the favourite of a Court, and the idol of his 

 countrymen, remained through all the length of his 

 honoured years a Scholar in Art, in Science, and in 



Life. 



" Would'st shape a noble life 1 Then cast 

 No backward glances towards the past : 

 And though somewhat be lost and gone, 

 Yet do thou act as one new-born. 

 What each day needs, that shalt thou ask ; 

 Each day will set its proper task. 

 Give other's work just share of praise ; 

 Not of thine own the merits raise. 

 Beware no fellow man thou hate : 

 And so in God's hands leave thy fate." l 



1 Goethe, Zahme Xenien, Vierte Abtluiluny. I should be glad to 

 take credit for the close and vigorous English version ; but it is my 

 wife's, and not mine. 



