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 thf^t 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 tnowledge ;" 

 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 Grod." 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 xsviii. 12. 



