42 



8CIENCE. 



[Vol. VIII., No. 179 



sanction was deskable if not essential to their 

 establishment, althougli the earliest colleges in 

 this country were strictly religions, and although 

 almost every denomination in the land desires its 

 own university, there is an undercurrent of talk 

 which shows that the influence of the higher edu- 

 cation is often regarded in certain circles as ad- 

 verse to spiritual and religious life. If this were 

 so, many would prefer to see the academic walls 

 fall down in a night, and the treasures of the ages 

 reduced to smoke and ashes. But fortunately, 

 indeed, there is no such danger. Alarmists are 

 cowards. That piety is infantile which appre- 

 hends that knowledge is fatal to reverence, devo- 

 tion, righteousness, and faith. As the most recent 

 utterances of science point more and more steadily 

 to the plan of a great designer, as the studies of 

 psycliology and of history confirm the doctrine, at 

 least as old as Solomon, that righteousness exalt- 

 eth a nation, so we may affirm that the two essen- 

 tials of Christianity, on which hang all the law 

 and the prophets, — the love of God and the love 

 of our neighbor, — are enforced and not weakened 

 by the influence of universities. We may also rest 

 assured that institutions devoted to the ascertain- 

 ment of truth as the ultimate object of intellectual 

 exertion, and to the promulgation of truth as an 

 imperative moral obligation, are not the harbin- 

 gers of harm. Individuals will err ; generations 

 will labor under false ideas ; domineering intellects 

 will dazzle for a time the ordinary mind ; error, 

 like disease, must be clearly understood before the 

 mode of correction can be formulated ; but there 

 is no better way known to man for securing in- 

 tellectual and moral integrity than to encourage 

 those habits, those methods, and those pursuits 

 which tend to establish truth. 



Near the close of his address before the Univer- 

 sity of Munich, at the celebration of its jubilee in 

 1872, a great theologian, Dr. Dolhnger, referred to 

 the perils of the times in words which were re- 

 ceived with prolonged applause. " Who knows," 

 said he, "but that for a time Germany may re- 

 main confined in that strait prison, without air 

 and light, which Ave call materialism ? This would 

 be a forerunner of approaching national ruin. 

 But this can only happen in case the universities 

 of Germany, forgetting their traditions and yield- 

 ing to a shameful lethargy, should waste their 

 best treasures. But no, om- universities will form 

 the impregnable wall ready to stop the devastating 

 flood." 



The maintenance of a high standard of profes- 

 sional learning may also be named among the 

 requisites of a university. So it is on the conti- 

 nent of Europe, so partially in Great Britain, so it 

 should be everywhere. The slender means of our 



fathers compelled them to restrict their outlays to 

 that which was regarded as fundamental or gen- 

 eral education ; and so it came to pass (as we have 

 already been reminded) that professional schools 

 were established in this country as independent 

 foundations. Even where they are placed under 

 the university aegis, they have been regarded as 

 only children by adoption, ready enough for the 

 funds which have been provided for academic 

 ti-aining, but without any claims to inherit the 

 birthriglit. The injury to the country from this 

 state of things is obvious. The professional schools 

 are everywhere in danger of being, nay, in many 

 places they actually are. places of technical instead 

 of liberal education. Their scholars are not en- 

 couraged to show a proficiency in those funda- 

 mental studies which the experience of the world 

 has demanded for the first degree in arts. It is 

 well known that many a medical school graduates 

 young men who could not get admission to a 

 college of repute. Ought we, then, to wonder 

 that quackery is popular, and that it is better to 

 own a patent medicine than a gold-mine ? It was 

 a wise and good man who said that there is no 

 greater curse to a country than an uneducated 

 ministry, and yet how common it is for the schools 

 of theology in this country to be isolated from the 

 best affiliations ! Lawyers are too often trained 

 with reference to getting on at the bar, and find 

 themselves unprepared for the higher walks of 

 jurisprudence and statesmanship. The members 

 of congress and of the state legislatures annually 

 exhibit to the world poverty of preparation for 

 the critical duties which devolve upon them. I 

 am far from believing tliat university schools of 

 law, medicine, and theology, will settle the per- 

 plexing questions of the day, either in science, 

 religion, or politics ; but, if the experience of the 

 world is worth any thing, it can nowhere be so 

 effectively and easily acquired as in the faculties 

 of a well-organized university, where each par- 

 ticular study is defined and illuminated by the 

 steady light which comes from collateral pursuits, 

 from the brilliant suggestions of learned and 

 gifted teachers. Moreover, science has developed 

 in modern society scores of professions, each of 

 which requu-es preparation as liberal as law, medi- 

 cine, or theology. The schools in which modern 

 sciences are studied may indeed grow up far apart 

 from the fostering care of universities ; and there 

 is some advantage doubtless, while they are in 

 their early years, in being free from academic 

 traditions : but schools of science are legitimate 

 branches of a modern university, and are gi'adual- 

 ly assuming their proper relations. In a signifi- 

 cant paragraph which has lately appeared in the 

 newspapers, it is said, that, with the new arrange- 



