NOVEMBER 12, 1903] 
NAT ORE 
41 
When we contemplate the quality of man as standing in 
relations with other men, either as an individual with other 
individuals, or as a member of a community with other 
communities, or as a citizen of a State with other States, 
the branches of knowledge arising through these relations 
are languages, law, economics, and history. 
Thus far} every branch of knowledge indicated has arisen 
through the consideration of qualities directly appertaining 
to the individual man, either to himself alone or in associ- 
ation with others. But his circumstances have to be con- 
sidered. He is placed in a universe, and before there can 
be any real approximation to a fit understanding of man 
and his surroundings, the phenomena of the universe must 
be studied in their facts, their laws, their orders, their 
significance, their influence. These studies are vast and 
varied; they are concerned with all the knowable relations 
of nature, alike animate and inanimate, and they give rise 
to that immense and ever-increasing ordered body of know- 
Rees, usually called science in general. It includes all 
the particular sciences, and these may be ranged broadly 
in the three classes of mathematical sciences, physical 
sciences, and biological sciences, the first two of which have 
closer relations with one another than (as yet) either with 
the third. 
RAMIFICATION OF STUDIES. 
Provision has to be made for the adequate teaching of 
all these branches of knowledge, and it will be seen that 
my ideal university is growing at an alarmingly rapid rate. 
Yet the growth will have to be much greater, in respect 
even to these branches of knowledge, than the statement 
can outline, exacting as it seems. Branches of study have 
been indicated as originating mainly in some one source or 
other, but any study, once definitely introduced into an 
ordered scheme of knowledge, may develop into issues 
vastly wider than its initial purpose. Examples occur at 
every turn. Languages arose in my enumeration through 
the relations between man and man; presumably, there- 
fore, they arose for their use in oral communication. But 
they can be studied for other than utilitarian purposes. 
They may be studied organically, that is, for their accidence, 
their syntax, the sources of their words, the analogies and 
the differences in their methods, their growth and their 
mutations, their influence upon one another; these, and 
similar aspects of languages, constitute the science of 
philology, and provision will have to be made for its teach- 
ing. Further, I would make the mild remark that langu- 
ages, ancient and modern, are the vehicle of literature in 
the widest meaning that can be given to the word, and 
a mode of teaching them, which is neither utilitarian (in 
my sense) nor philological, will be required for appreciation 
of the best treasures of thought, for comprehension of the 
records of development of nations, for intelligent under- 
standing of the civilisations of the world. 
As for languages, so for history, another of the subjects 
that in my enumeration arose through the relations between 
man and man. It may begin in our scheme as the record 
of the doings of particular peoples; it must develop into 
the history of mankind to which that of particular peoples 
is ancillary. The history made up of acts is not more 
important, rather it is less important, than the history of 
movements and the development of political thought. 
Account must also be taken of the fine arts, moral 
philosophy, religious thought, scientific thought, in that 
continuous succession which also is their history. For all 
these, and for the corresponding amplifications of other 
branches of knowledge introduced initially in the simplest 
of elementary demands, provision must be made in the 
university. 
Ortner BrancHes or KNOWLEDGE. 
When all this is recognised, and when all the demands 
thus made are acknowledged and met, then it might be 
imagined that the necessary provision of the university is 
complete and that she is fully equipped to discharge all 
her duties. Far from this being her happy reality, she must 
afford opportunities for another group of classes of know- 
ledge of an entirely different kind. In the gradual elabor- 
ation of the scheme, many useful branches of knowledge 
have been established ; yet in their inception they have been 
established rather as pure knowledge, and they do not attain 
their full significance until they have been so organised 
NO. 1776, VOL. 69] 
that the amplest utilitarian tax has been levied on their 
riches. There thus must be (to use the ancient word) a 
faculty of theology, a faculty of law, a faculty of medicine 
and surgery; though just as not all theology can be taught 
in the one faculty, for dogmatics have been excluded, so 
neither all the practice of law nor all the clinical elements 
of medicine and surgery can be taught in their respective 
faculties in the university. 
Nor is this all. These practical organisations have been 
selected as being subjective to man, but they are not com- 
plete even within that categorical limit. Growing academic 
thought has discovered that other organisations of know- 
ledge can fitly be framed; Birmingham now possesses a 
department of commerce, Cambridge has just established a 
new curriculum in economics, and not in one university 
alone has provision been made to meet a growing sense of 
the need for a department in the history, the theory, and 
the art, of education itself. 
The tale of demands is not yet full. Only those branches 
of useful knowledge have thus far in the scheme been 
selected for utilitarian organisation which are most closely 
associated with man’s health and man’s human relations. 
There still remain those other branches of useful knowledge 
which, fitly organised and selected, will train men to wield 
the forces of nature for the advantage of the community. 
Perhaps the most conspicuous example of such a group of 
branches of knowledge is provided by the school of engineer— 
ing which certainly must exist in our ideal university, to 
include instruction in electrical engineering, in mechanical 
engineering, and in naval engineering ; and other examples, 
following the wisdom of recent establishments, will be given 
by a school of agriculture, a school of tropical diseases, and 
departments of particular industries depending largely upon, 
the locality of the university. It lies with the future 
gradually to work out the balance between practice and 
training, and to settle the proportion between experiment 
and experience, in the equipment for professions of the 
newer order as has been done for the professions of 
medicine and surgery. And let me add two warnings. 
While the earlier stages in any such process continue, there 
is more than a probability that old ideas as to what con- 
stitutes a university education will receive rather rude 
shocks, and may occasionally be staggered. I would, very 
respectfully, urge a caution against the exclusion of any 
subject of new technical knowledge from the university, 
either actual or ideal, if only because no man can foretell’ 
its possible tribute to even abstract theories ; I would 
-suggest that its prudent reception in a not too unsympa~- 
thetic spirit is a preferable mode of exercising the caution of 
academic wisdom. On the other side, the fiery and 
occasionally arrogant advocates of devotion to the newest 
learning would do well to temper their vehemence with 
intellectual charity. Before they came upon the scene, 
thought had propounded problems which their sciences: 
cannot touch; after they shall have left it, thought will 
continue to propound problems equally unamenable to their 
sciences. 
EXTENSION OF KNOWLEDGE: RESEARCH. 
Hitherto, I have spoken of the university as a treasury 
of all ascertained knowledge which is to be given without 
stint to all qualified students coming for its wealth, and 
those who distribute this wealth are the professors and 
other teachers. But that duty, no matter how excellently 
discharged, is not the sole duty of these officers in respect 
of knowledge; if it were, the university would only be a 
rather glorified secondary school. It is true that we have 
not supposed our ranges of study to be confined to antique 
knowledge which is crystallised ; on the contrary, all know- 
ledge is to find its home in our university and, at the fitting 
stage, the students will be brought into contact with living 
knowledge, growing, increasing, and in its very vitality 
proving the greatest stimulus to the ardent mind. You 
would not be content that the estimates of literature should 
only be those of some bygone generation. The last word in 
judgment of painters and painting had not been uttered 
when Ruskin finished his great book. Almost from day to 
day, a chapter in the history of civilisation anterior to the 
Greeks is being opened up by the discoveries in Crete. 
Not all the problems of history are solved, and their solu- 
tion will add to the knowledge of the past, perhaps to the 
