March 21, 1890.] 



SCIENCE. 



187 



Tsetween immunity from taxation and the establishment of a uni- 

 versity. With a foresight which has been rarely paralleled, 

 they chose the latter, and the University of Leyden was ac- 

 cordingly founded in 1575. To this seat of learning, during 

 the years immediately following, came, as teachers and students, 

 a remarkable body of men. One of the earliest professors was 

 Lipsius, an industrious and prolific scholar, for the honor of 

 whose adhesion Protestants and Roman Catholics contended, 

 the latter finally prevailing. To make good this defection, 

 Joseph Scaliger was called, descended from the princely house 

 of Verona, whose tomb all travellers remember, possessed of a 

 wonderful memory, such as, in these days when memory is 

 a lost art, seems scarcely credible, but with still better title to 

 remembrance in the fact that he was the first to form the con- 

 ception of the science of historical criticism. His conjecture 

 that the Chronicle of Eusebius must originally have consisted 

 of tn-o books, and his conjectural restoration of the lost one, 

 subsequently confirmed in the main by its discovery, must rank 

 as one of the most noteworthy triumphs of historical imagina- 

 tion. Salmasius was another of the teachers at Leyden, in reply 

 to whom Milton composed his "Defense of the People of Eng- 

 land;" whose abusive personalities toward his antagonist are 

 ■equalled only by those of that antagonist toward him ; in re- 

 gard to which, however, it must be admitted that Milton was 

 the aggressor, since, desiring to render his opponent ridiculous, 

 Milton describes him, in graceful allusion to the supposed 

 ascendency of Madame Salmasius over her husband, as "an 

 eternally speaking ass, ridden by a woman;" to which polite 

 characterization the Dutch scholar retorts with various amiable 

 epithets, such as "puppy," "silly coxcomb, " "unclean beast." 

 Such, couched in irreproachable and sonorous Latin, are some 

 of the pleasant compliments which the controversial ethics of 

 that day did not condemn. Grotius was another of the famous 

 men produced at Leyden, a philosophical jurist of Christian 

 temper and of varied learning, often spoken of as the founder 

 of the modern science of the law of nations. Arminius was a 

 student at Leyden, whose name survives in polemical theology, 

 the seriousness of whose departures from Calvinistic orthodoxy 

 would not, I fear, be altogether appreciated, were I to recount 

 them in this place. These and many other distinguished men 

 gave the University of Leyden European celebrity. "In the 

 Batavian Netherlands," says Sir William Hamilton, "when 

 Leyden was founded, erudition was at a lower ebb than in most 

 other countries ; and a generation had hardly passed away when 

 the Dutch scholars of every profession were the most numerous 

 and learned in the world." The burghers had made a good 

 bargain; the fame of their city was carried all over Europe by 

 the fame of its university ; they got good return for the taxes 

 of which they were not relieved. We may perhaps think of a 

 city of our day, known far and near through the work of its 

 university, and may possibly regret, that, in the matter of the 

 taxes, the parallel fails to be complete. 



Equally signal examples of the influence of learned institu- 

 tions upon the general welfare of the communities in which 

 they are, might be easily multiplied. In 1807, when Fichte 

 delivered his "Addresses to the German People," his voice often 

 ■drowned by the trumpets of the French troops, setting forth 

 his idea of a common education as the basis of a common 

 nationality, the political condition and prospects of Germany 

 seemed well-nigh hopeless. The humiliations suffered at the 

 hands of Napoleon were not so discouraging as the fact that 

 these did not seem to rouse a united national spirit. The 

 brilliant literary production which marked these years of dis- 

 aster seemed to show that the intellectual activity of the people 

 was without relation to their political life. We can now see the 

 far-sighted wisdom of the declaration of Frederick William III., 

 in accordance with wliicb the University of Berlin was founded, 

 that the State must repair its outward losses through the de- 

 velopment of its spiritual energies. The connection between 

 the educational and the political history of Germany during 

 the present century, no one can overlook ; it was the intellectual 

 and moral conditions created by the work of its universities 

 which contributed in no small degree to make the united and 



tiiumphant empire possible. We sometimes regret the multi- 

 plication of colleges in our own country ; but, whatever evils 

 have attended it, we must not forget that every one of these 

 institutions has been a centre of enlightening and civilizing 

 power. 



It is remarkable how many movements which have become 

 popular and widespread have originated in select circles of 

 men gathered in academic relations. What was it which re- 

 stored to Christianity its influence upon the English nation, 

 after it had been so far lost that Bishop Butler declared, in 1736, 

 "It is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted by many 

 persons that Christianity is not so much as a subject of in- 

 quiry, but that it is now at length discovered to be fictitious" ? 

 The distinguished apologetic writers of the period contributed 

 little to this result. It was the little company of Oxford 

 students, contemptuously stigmatized as "Methodists," who 

 wrought this moral and social transformation. Reformations 

 in religion have ordinarily proceeded from institutions of learn- 

 ing, but reformations of all sorts are very likely to have this 

 origin. The reason is because the element of ideality is more 

 largely present in such communities than anywhere else, be- 

 cause things are judged in the light of principles more dispas- 

 sionately and disinterestedly by minds engaged in the pursuit 

 of truth than by i^ersons absorbed in the ordinary pursuits and 

 rivalries of life. The most hopeful appeal in behalf of any 

 interest of human progress is to those who are for the time 

 removed from itnmediate connection with the existing order, 

 whose enthusiasms are fresh, unselfish, and responsive. One 

 can hardly conceive an atmosphere more congenial to all high 

 inspirations than that which pervades those select circles of 

 young men not rarely gathered in our institutions of education. 



Let me recur, in conclusion, to the expressions of criticism 

 and discontent of which I spoke at the beginning, in order briefly 

 to raise the question whether these are likely to be as sharply 

 urged hereafter against present methods as they now are 

 against those which have preceded. There are, as it seems to 

 me, many reasons for believing that the educational work of 

 our time is indefinitely better than any in the past. 



The various intellectual interests are harmonized with one 

 another to a greater degree than at any previous time. Scholarly 

 activity is not predominantly determined in any one direction. 

 The legitimacy of all spheres of knowledge is admitted. No 

 one of any authority constitutes himself the partisan of one 

 discipline as against another. Speoialization, no doubt, tends 

 to narrowness of view ; but this tendency is counteracted by a 

 profounder realization of the unity of knowledge, leading us to 

 understand that every thing in some sort involves and leads to 

 every thing else. Provision is thus made for all minds to an 

 extent impossible under a narrower conception of the scope and 

 relations of learning. The undogmatic candor with which 

 knowledge is imparted is in favorable contrast to the political 

 and ecclesiastical prejudices and prescriptions which have so 

 often impaired the freedom and impartiality, if not the in- 

 tegrity, of academic teaching. That peculiar sentiment, in- 

 adequately described in the words "love of truth," whose 

 ethical value is attested by the laborious, self-denying lives so 

 often produced by it, has never been more fully developed 

 among scholars and teachers than it is to-day. The historic 

 method, whose abuse, as leading to intellectual indlflerentism, 

 is acutely indicated by Mr. John Morley, — "In the last 

 century men asked of a belief or story. Is it true? We now 

 ask. How did men come to take it for true?" — in its real 

 spirit and in its chief influence, is singularly humane and 

 practical, since it leads us to consider every department of 

 knowledge in its relation to the life of society and the welfare 

 of mankind, and blends in happy and admirable combination 

 the scientific and the philanthropic temper. It may surely be 

 claimed that never in the history of educational institutions 

 have they approached so nearly as now the standard of duty 

 and service indicated by Cardinal Newman : "If a practical end 

 must be assigned to a university course, I say it is that of 

 training good members of society. Its art is the art of social 

 life, and its end is fitness for the world." That aspiring and 



