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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 834 



suitable parchments — written in an equally 

 suitable dead language — certifying that 

 they have remembered at least a certain 

 specified minimum of what their teachers 

 have told them. 



No one would now advocate shutting the 

 door of the university in the face of any 

 student of whatever grade of ability, pro- 

 vided he is able to pass those reasonable 

 standards imposed by the university to 

 test his capability of profiting by the in- 

 struction provided therein. Yet it is never- 

 theless true that the capable student has 

 a life-long grievance against the university 

 if he is allowed to leave without a vision of 

 the realms of assured knowledge, and some 

 appreciation of the regions yet to be ex- 

 plored, which shall be to him an intellec- 

 tual inspiration throughout the remainder 

 of his daj's. 



Varioiis men, some at very great length, 

 have given expression to what in their esti- 

 mation constitutes a university. And on 

 this occasion I wish to refer to two ' ' ideas ' ' 

 of a university which have the great virtue 

 of brevity, both of which are of American 

 origin. 



In establishing the great university 

 which bears his name, Ezra Cornell set 

 forth his ideal in these words: "I would 

 found an institution where any person can 

 find instruction in any subject." This 

 statement contains several truths. It rec- 

 ognizes the universality of instruction 

 requisite in a great modern institution; it 

 implies that new branches of learning as 

 they are organized must find suitable rec- 

 ognition in its courses of study; it ensures 

 that no small aristocratic group of sub- 

 jects, of ancient and honorable lineage, 

 from their medieval dais shall look down 

 with unregarded scorn upon a wider circle 

 of newer, equally educative, and even more 

 humanistic divisions of knowledge; it 

 teaches implicitly that culture, that most 

 distinguishing and characteristic charm of 



the truly educated man, is not a product 

 of the study of a particular group of sub- 

 jects. 



It denies to no man the right of admis- 

 sion on account either of race or of re- 

 ligion. No chapter in the history of 

 education affords more melancholy and 

 lamentable reading than that recording 

 the brutal policy of admitting to the univer- 

 sity only those who were willing to sub- 

 scribe to the particular religious belief or 

 form of worship embraced by its control- 

 ling body. No responsibility surely can be 

 more terrible than that of denying to any 

 inquiring mind full and free access to the 

 fountains of knowledge. But those dark 

 days of bigotry and intolerance, and of a 

 singular perversion of the spirit of relig- 

 ion, have so far receded that our indigna- 

 tion is now purely vicarious ; and that once 

 vital educational policy lies in the dust of 

 history dead in deathless dishonor. 



This ideal of Mr. Cornell, however, has one 

 fatal demerit which renders it singularly 

 unfit to be the confession of faith of a great 

 university. As it reads it implies merely the 

 dissemination of knowledge, not its crea- 

 tion ; it invites the student to quench his 

 intellectual thirst from placid glacial pools, 

 not from living streams. Acting up to the 

 fullest extent of the letter of this declara- 

 tion would give but half a university, or 

 rather not a university at all in the full 

 and proper conception of that term. But, 

 lest I should be misunderstood in my refer- 

 ence to Cornell University, an institution 

 which I venerate as my alma mater in this 

 country, let me hasten to add that that 

 university from its inception has been 

 under the administration of men possessed 

 of those qualities of wisdom, ability and 

 energy which have characterized the il- 

 lustrious succession of distinguished Amer- 

 ican university presidents; and under 

 their guidance that seat of learning has 



