Oct. 28, 1886 | 
NATURE 
633 
themselves firm friends of the University, is to pass over these 
differences of opinion lightly, and to lay them to the errors of 
the intelligent scholars themselves. “* What does a college pro- 
fessor know about life?” we say ; ‘‘he knows his speciality, his 
mathematics, his political economy, his physics. Let him keep 
to that and we are satisfied. But let us, who are engaged in the 
practical business of life, judge of life and its needs.” 
We, the faculties of the University, might admit this pro- 
visionally and for the sake of peace, and inside our web here at 
Berkeley go on spinning our theories and trusting to their truth 
for their commanding influence in the future of the State. We 
will do that most certainly, and if the theories are right they 
will prevail. If they are wrong we shall be brought to 
confusion. 
The University Useful and Practical.—But we claim more 
than this. We claim that the University is one of the most 
useful, and ina high sense practical parts of the machinery of 
the State. It has a function as important, or more important 
than any other. It shares this function with the Church, and 
the voices of both are to be your guide. ‘The chief and highest 
function of the University is to assert and perpetually prove to 
you that general principles—laws—govern man, society, nature, 
life, and to make wnending war on the reign of temporary 
expedients. 
Think how fundamental is this use of the University. Think 
in how many ways we accomplish it. In the lecture-room, in 
the laboratories, in the machine-shop, we bring the student face 
to face with history, with nature, with fixed qualities. In 
history, in philosophy, in politics, in physics, we sce that de- 
finite causes produce their definite and inevitable results. In 
the laboratories we find that nature, candidly interrogated, gives 
unambiguous answers; that mathematical prediction, —the 
modern prophecy—is inevitably fulfilled in experiment. In 
the machine-shop we learn that the hard results in brass and 
iron will not lie, but that they point relentlessly to careless, 
shiftless errors, if they exist, or testify to faithful, honest, 
laborious work if it has been done. 
General Principles against Temporary Expedients.—There is 
no day and there is no hour of the student’s life that he is not 
brought face to face with results, and taught to see that these 
flow from principles of universal application. Just in so far as 
a teacher can bring forth this great truth is he a successful 
teacher. Just in so far as a graduate has learned it, is the work 
of the University priceless to him. Just in so far as our pro- 
fessors and our students alike go forth into society and proclaim 
and prove the unending reign of general principles and the utter 
folly of putting temporary expedients in their place, is the Uni- 
versity of prime value and use to the State. There was never a 
period or a country in which the reign of fundamental law needed 
more constant assertion and more perpetual proof than in our 
own period and our own country. All our modern inventions 
which give quick locomotion and quick transmission of thought 
tend to exalt the temporary expedient and to debase the general 
principle. The merchant of old time sent his ships to the 
Indies with their orders for two years or more ; the diplomatist 
in a foreign country was separated by weeks or months from 
instructions by the Foreign Office. Now it requires but an hour 
to reach the uttermost parts of the earth. We have cable de- 
spatches which recount the doings of the King of Dahomey. 
(he merchant changes his orders in Bombay as he reads the 
morning paper; the Secretary of State arranges the affairs of 
Tuesday on the afternoon of Monday. 
The immediate and harmless effect of all this is to paralyse 
continuous effort based on sound belief, and to substitute a 
wavering policy of daily temporising. But the living danger is 
that society may come to permanently distrast the reign of laws. 
Recollect that we have to train our young men to appreciate this 
vital truth in the midst of a society where there are apparently 
many glaring exceptions to the rule; ina society where wealth 
has come, it seems by accident, and where power seems not to 
have been gained by work. And when you remember this, re- 
member also how deep and profound your gratitude should be 
to any institution which is by its traditions and its very nature 
devoted to the incessant announcement and to the perpetual 
proof of the fundamental truth of all life here and hereafter, 
namely, that it is governed by unchanging principles which can- 
not be evaded nor shirked, and that a national or a personal life 
built on the expedients of the day, like a house built on the 
sand, will inevitably come to ruin. When this truth is grasped 
and firmly builded into the character, then it is that the steam- 
‘ engine and the telegraph and all the myriad inventions of the 
The man who can command 
It is the 
day first become truly useful. 
them aright has his powers doubled and trebled. 
highest use of the University to train such men. 
President Gilman's Test of a University.—You must not for 
one moment forget that the power of a university lies in its mez. 
In its governors, its professors, and in its students. If youcome 
here to our beautiful grounds and see them fair as they are to- 
day and always, if you se2 fine buildings and many of them, if 
you find our laboratories stocked with costly apparatus and our 
libraries with splendid books, you must not for that reason sup- 
| pose you have a university fitted to the needs of the State. You 
are to inquire about far other things. And it is of prime im- 
portance that every citizen should know exactly what questions 
toask. Nowhere have these questions been more eloquently or 
more pregnantly put than in a splendid address recently de- 
livered by our former President, Dr. Gilman, at the noble Uni- 
versity over which he now presides: ‘‘ Remembering that a 
university is the best organisation for the liberal education of 
individuals and the best organisation for the advancement of 
science, apply the double test—what is done for personal instruc- 
tion, and what is done for the promotion of knowledge ?—and 
you will be able to judge any institution which assumes this 
name. 
“ Ask, first, is it a place of sound education? Are the youth 
who are trained within its walls honest lovers of the truth? Are 
they learned, are they ready, are they trustworthy? When they 
leave the academic classes do they soon find a demand for their 
services? Do they rise in professional life? Are they sought 
for as teachers? Do they show aptitude for mercantile, ad- 
ministrative, or editorial life? Do they acquit themselves with 
credit in the public service? Do the books they write find pub- 
lishers? Do they win repute among those who have added to 
the sum of human knowledge? Have they the power of enjoy- 
ing literature, music, art? Can they apply the lessons of history 
to the problems of our day? Are they always eager to enlarge 
their knowledge? Do they become conservative members of 
society, seekiny for progress by steady improvements rather than 
by the powers of destruction and death? Areaithey useful, 
courteous, co-operative citizens in all the relations of life? Do 
the charities, the churches, the schools, the public affairs of the 
community receive their constant consideration? Are there 
frequent manifestations among them of unusual ability in science, 
in literature, in oratory, in administration? As the roll of the 
alumni increases, and the graduates are counted by hundreds and 
not by scores, does it appear that a large proportion are men of 
honourable, faithful, learned, and public-spirited character? 
These are the questions by which, as the years go on, a univer- 
sity is to be tested; or, to sum up all questions in one, Is it 
proved to be a place for the development of manliness ? # 
It is to be noticed that the stress is laid upon one chief thing— 
manliness—and that two main questions are to be asked. What 
does the University do for personal instruction ? and what does 
it do for the promotion of knowledge ? 
The answers to these questions will depend in every case upon 
the men whom the University has chosen as its teachers. It 
will depend not only on their intellectual attainments, but upon 
their personal characters. It is a most fortunate thing that the 
following out of a life of true devotion to learning brings, in so 
vast a majority of cases, the excellences and beauties of character 
which we desire and look for. We can all point to eminent 
examples of this in our midst—and it is so everywhere. We 
should see in a true University the true spirit of research kept 
alive and eagerly active. Howican you teaeh a young and 
ardent mind by means of examples culled from books alone? 
The vast panorama of nature lies before us, glorious by day, re- 
splendent by night, and it is only from the actual pursuit of 
knowledge at first hand from nature itself that true teaching 
power is to be derived. Mere information can be gained from 
books and libraries. True knowledge must be attained by 
studies that develop mind and character at once. 
The Genuine Ihsues of Life.—How, then, are we, the 
faculties of this University, to send forth from our midst men 
and women who are genuine, true, high, noble, sincere, simple? 
Men and women whose natures are such, and whose training has 
developed, harmonised and rounded out their natures? We 
must be constantly on the watch to put the genuine issues of life 
before ourselves and before our pupils. We are constantly 
tempted to put the name for the thing. How hard it is to avoid 
this even in our personal conduct, and how doubly hard it is in 
