Inaugural Address. 15 
among the studies of our fellow-countrymen in the old world. It would, 
indeed, ill become me, as a grateful son of the University of Oxford, to utter 
a single word in disparagement of the study of ethics, mathematics, history, 
and classical literature; or of the intellectual vigour and grace derived from 
the contemplation of the pure models of antiquity. Still, in common with 
the foremost philosophers, scholars, and statesmen of the present day, I am 
convinced that it is no longer wise, or even politically and socially safe, to 
cultivate exclusively those branches of learning. The intellect of the 
existing generation appears to be most progressive in the physical and 
natural sciences ; and the treasures won from them seem the richest heirlooms 
which we can bequeath to our posterity. It has been powerfully argued, 
moreover, that if we look to what should be the grand object of all study, the 
formation, namely, of the mind and the character, it will be found that there 
is scarcely any mental or moral faculty which science cannot develop and 
discipline. It was said of old that “there is no royal road to knowledge ;” 
and it has been said of late, with equal truth, that “there are no false keys 
to the book of Nature.” The successful student of that book must possess 
an almost ignominious love of minute details, as well as that sound and 
practical judgment which can arrange and classify the mass of facts and 
observations which he has stored up with patient and conscientious toil. 
But the reward is great; above all, for those who “look through Nature up 
to Nature’s God.” An able writer has remarked that “at the close of all 
labour a man must ask to what good end he has given himself. There are 
few who will find the answer so easy as those who have contributed even 
the smallest help in widening our knowledge of the order of Nature, and in 
revealing for our adoration the Divine ideas which are at the basis of all 
things. In the generous efforts they are called to make, they have a hope, 
better founded than most human expectations, that they will find that 
education of their faculties for the future, which we may reasonably suppose 
to be the most important object of our present existence.” In a like spirit, 
knowledge has been compared to that mystic ladder in the Patriarch’s 
dream, the base of which rested on the primeval earth, while its crest was 
lost in the glory of Heaven.* 
* Genesis xxviii. 12. 
