46 THE RELATION OF UNIVERSITIES TO 



temporaries and their successors. As years roll on it acquires 

 the added graces of antiquity and becomes something almost 

 sacred, something that would be profaned by change ; until at 

 last it is found to be standing hopelessly apart from the 

 human needs it was intended to subserve. For happily 

 humanity itself is progressive ; change, unceasing change, is 

 the law of progress, and what fitted the conditions of life 

 a century ago cannot be expected to fit them equally to-day. 

 These remarks apply, I believe, with full force to education, 

 and it is surely incumbent on us to be continually asking 

 whether our educational system is in conformity with the con- 

 ditions and legitimate needs of the day. 



The universities stand at the head of our educational 

 system, and from them flows the intellectual streams to 

 irrigate the plains where men do their varied tasks. It is at 

 the universities that all types of education should receive their 

 sanction and their inspiration. It is not for universities to 

 fold their arms and say, l fy suis,fy reste\ and to look with- 

 disdain upon the efforts of the multitude to get for themselves 

 through the zealous aid of Government officials, municipal 

 authorities, and men of business, something adapted to their 

 new intellectual needs and appetites something they cannot 

 find in the rigid articles of their educational hierarchy. If 

 the universities do this, they may, indeed, preserve a splendid 

 isolation and do great things in many ways, which it is my 

 last wish to belittle ; but they will leave undone what is 

 essential if they are to exert their proper influence, and if the 

 balance of life is to be preserved between thought and action ; 

 and they will continue to divert from industry intellectual 

 talent that is born in it, and that would go back to strengthen, 

 enlighten, and ennoble it if the talent were well directed, and 

 if it found that in the high courts of learning even techno- 

 logies had an honourable place. 



The isolation of professional or technological studies, and 



