24 THE MODERN UNIVERSITY MOVEMENT 



winning form, pouring it forth with the zeal of enthusiasm, 

 and lighting up his own love of- it in the breasts of his hearers. 

 It is the place where the catechist makes good his ground as 

 he goes, treading in the truth day by day into the ready 

 memory, and wedging and tightening it into the expanding 

 reason. It is a place which wins the admiration of the young 

 by its celebrity, kindles the affections of the middle-aged by 

 its beauty, and rivets the fidelity of the old by its associations. 

 It is a seat of wisdom, a light of the world, a minister of the 

 faith, an Alma Mater of the rising generation. It is this and 

 a great deal more, and demands a somewhat better head and 

 hand than mine to describe it well.' 



Such in the splendid prose, which mirrors the purity and 

 nobility of his great soul, is Newman's best attempt to say 

 what a university should be. 



Can our new universities ever be such ? I see them launched 

 in a distracted world amid much that is good and much that 

 is evil ; I feel now the fair wind and now the foul ; I have seen 

 at one time men stint themselves of money, time, and health, 

 to help us on our course, because they have thought we had 

 a great destiny; I have seen at another time a man with 

 money bags and transitory power asking an ardent professor 

 of history what he was doing for the trade of the district. 

 I have no claim to be a prophet, and I will only say that I for 

 one am content to work in hope. Every thinking man must 

 ask himself once at least if he is devoting his talent, however 

 small it may be, to the worthiest task that he can reach, and 

 he must decide as best he can. My only defensible claim for 

 speaking to you to-day on the subject I have chosen, is that 

 it is one to which from choice I devote the labour of my life, 

 and one which engages the whole of my enthusiasm. 



