Don (university)

“ I consider, then, that I am chargeable with no paradox, when I speak of a Knowledge which is its own end, when I call it liberal knowledge, or a gentleman's knowledge, when I educate for it, and make it the scope of a University. ”

“ Many minds, so employed, have produced many works and much fame in that department; but if all liberal arts and sciences, useful to human life, had been taught there, if some had dedicated themselves to chemistry, some to mathematics, some to experimental philosophy, and if every attainment had been honoured in the mixt ratio of its difficulty and utility, the system of such a University would have been much more valuable, but the splendour of its name something less. ”

“ Here, as with his pupils in his rooms, his strength lay not merely in the abundance and accuracy of his knowledge, but even more in his method of interpreting an author and of marshalling his facts. As provost he ruled his college in a wise and liberal spirit; a sound judgment and a rare grasp of principle were linked to fine courtesy and warmth of heart. In the life and work of the university he played a leading part. ”

“ That done, the student, armed cap-à-pie in his intellectual armour, goes forth to face something infinitely sterner and more pitiless than tutors or proctors, ay, even than Masters and Chancellors themselves—the presiding genius of that infinitely greater University called the World, where taking your degree means anything that human fortune can give you, and where being plucked may mean anything from a clerkship in an office to selling matches in the gutter. ”

“ He—who knows how to construe a few pages of the classics, who knows how to demonstrate a few mathematical problems, scan a few verses, recite a few odes, carry on a few scientific experiments, undertake a small research—how shall he compete with these rulers of the thought of men?
Then it is that the real rule of a university—its spirit of humility, and of reverence for antiquity—begins. The true university man, born and bred in the century, not in the years, in the race halls, not those alone in his Alma Mater, is neither a scoffer nor an atheist, nor a critic, sceptic, or cynic. ”

“ No doubt it is considerations of this nature that must be taken to explain the fact that our universities are erected entirely for the service of the tractable mind, while the heart’s only education must be gotten from association with its neighbor heart, and in the ordinary courses of the world. Life is its only university. ”

“ And whatever be the profession you may choose, you may all in the exercise alike of it and of your personal influence, do much to awaken in others that desire for knowledge which this University trusts that she has been the means of awakening in you. If you are in the least worthy of the position in which you stand, you need not me to tell you that by doing so you will confer on them a greater boon than the very greatest that is merely material in its character. ”

“ Before I conclude, give me leave to offer a few remarks on a subject in which every member of the faculty has an equal and common interest. If there be any thing by which the University of William and Mary has been advantageously distinguished, it is the liberal and magnanimous character of its discipline. It has been the study of its professors to cultivate at the same time, the intellect, the principles, and the deportment of the student, laboring with equal diligence to infuse the spirit of the scholar and the spirit of the gentleman. He comes to us as a gentleman. ”

“ Let us consider the task of universities. As established in the countries of central Europe, they are destined to foster science in the widest sense, and to educate the leading professions: to be the hearth for the sum total of mental endeavour, this is their vocation; hence all things that contain truth and have educational value should join hands here. To eliminate the science of the highest sphere of knowledge would be tantamount to a mutilation of the university. ”

“ Our people, for the most part, look upon universities and other higher institutions of learning as merely schools for recruiting the learned professions, and estimate their efficiency solely by the amount of teaching-work which they perform. But, however important the teaching function of the university may be, I need not tell you that this is not its only or chief value to a community. The university should be the centre of scientific investigation and literary culture, the nursery of lofty aspirations and noble thoughts, and thus should become the soul of the higher life of the nation. ”

“ If, beside opportunity, the college can furnish also the inspiration which shall make opportunity precious and fruitful, its work is accomplished. The college that fulfils these two conditions—opportunity and inspiration—will be a success, will draw to itself the frequency of youth, the patronage of wealth, the consensus of all the good. Such a university, and no other, will be a power in the land. ”

“ It is not what is gained in knowledge of books, but in knowledge of self, of limitations and powers and capacities ; in what is acquired of habits of self-discipline and application, of methods of thought and research, that a college or university renders its truest service to its students ; as it is by the love of truth and learning which it instils, rather than by the honours and degrees which it confers, that a university puts its stamp upon the graduates it sends out into the world. ”

“ If I admire the energy and bravery with which you have undertaken the work of self-improvement, be sure I do not forget their public spirit and noble free devotion to the University any more than you do. ”

“ If then I am arguing, and shall argue, against Professional or Scientific knowledge as the sufficient end of a University Education, let me not be supposed, Gentlemen, to be disrespectful towards particular studies, or arts, or vocations, and those who are engaged in them. In saying that Law or Medicine is not the end of a University course, I do not mean to imply that the University does not teach Law or Medicine. What indeed can it teach at all, if it does not teach something particular? ”

“ Permit me, however, to measure this independence of yours by the standard of this culture, and to consider your university as an educational institution and nothing else. If a foreigner desires to know something of the methods of our universities, he asks first of all with emphasis: 'How is the student connected with the university?' We answer: 'By the ear, as a hearer.' The foreigner is astonished. ”

“ He alone, of all men in the United States, was able to foresee what might be done by an individual to develop the land-grant fund, and he alone was willing to make the great personal sacrifice thereby required.
But, while he thus left the general educational features to me, he uttered, during one of our conversations, words which showed that he had arrived at the true conception of a university. He expressed the hope that in the proposed institution every student might find instruction in whatever study interested him. ”

“ Following out that line of thought, there is a great deal that is attractive in a gathering of College men. They have such a winsome and a winning way with them.
Richest in endowments, foremost in progress, honored by the renown of a long line of distinguished sons, the university that claims you is worthy of the homage and respect which it receives from the educated men of America. ”

“ It teaches all knowledge by teaching all branches of knowledge, and in no other way. I do but say that there will be this distinction as regards a Professor of Law, or of Medicine, or of Geology, or of Political Economy, in a University and out of it, that out of a University he is in danger of being absorbed and narrowed by his pursuit, and of giving Lectures which are the Lectures of nothing more than a lawyer, physician, geologist, or political economist ”

“ All this might be done to-morrow, without any injury to anybody, and with every chance of producing results of the greatest value to the universities, to the country, and to the world at large. Let the university continue to do the excellent work which it does at present as a teacher, but let it not forget the equally important duty of a university, that of a worker. ”

“ A real university, or any other institution of learning, is made up of the men and the women who form its student and its teaching bodies. The character of the institution, its very life blood, is drawn from them. Their points of view, their motives, their scholarships, their visions, their aspirations, make it what it is in every instance.
You recall that ex-President Garfield's description of a university included only two factors as essential—the teacher and the student. The external equipment—buildings, libraries, laboratories—what not—is merely a tool in their hands. ”

“ Knowledge, viewed as Knowledge, exerts a subtle influence in throwing us back on ourselves, and making us our own centre, and our minds the measure of all things. This then is the tendency of that Liberal Education, of which a University is the school, viz., to view Revealed Religion from an aspect of its own,—to fuse and recast it,—to tune it, as it were, to a different key, and to reset its harmonies,—to circumscribe it by a circle which unwarrantably amputates here, and unduly develops there ”

“ And though my theme at present be mainly that intellectual character, the growth of which a University must always make its first concern, I may be permitted to point out before passing on, one noble result of a different kind which will have a tendency to flow from your faithfully pursuing wisdom and knowledge in whatever department of human thought. He that gives himself to this pursuit is raised above the power of some at least of the allurements with which the world is crowded. ”

“ We believe, consequently, that no department of study, particularly in the humanities, in any major university can be fully equipped without a properly trained specialist in the Indic phases of its discipline. ”

“ Nor can it justly be said that in thus acting she sacrifices Science, and, under a pretence of fulfilling the duties of her mission, perverts a University to ends not its own, as soon as it is taken into account that there are other institutions far more suited to act as instruments of stimulating philosophical inquiry, and extending the boundaries of our knowledge, than a University. ”

“ When the cult of research has thus reduced itself to absurdity the time [108] will come when we shall perhaps turn to the conception of a university as a place where, by the study and discussion of problems of fundamental importance, the most intelligent young men and women are brought into contact with the best and most stimulating minds, where the balance is held true between intellect and emotion, between thought and action. ”

“ The university, in like manner, stands to house the alphabets of civilization—the historic instruments and agencies of intellect. They are all akin to each other as the very name and function of the place imply. The presidents and professors who sit beside the fountains of knowledge bear different labels and teach subjects that are called by various names. But the thing which carries the label is no more than the shell. The life you cannot label; and it is to foster this life that universities exist. Enthusiasm comes out of the world and goes into the university. ”

“ A narrow mind is thought to be that which contains little knowledge; and an enlarged mind, that which holds a great deal; and what seems to put the matter beyond dispute is, the [pg 130] fact of the great number of studies which are pursued in a University, by its very profession. Lectures are given on every kind of subject; examinations are held; prizes awarded. There are moral, metaphysical, physical Professors; Professors of languages, of history, of mathematics, of experimental science. ”

“ Genius will work on even a narrow basis, but imperfect preparatory study leaves marks of imperfection in the product.
The same considerations that determine your voluntary studies determine also the university ideal. A university, in my view, stands or falls with its Arts' faculty. Without debating the details, we may say that this faculty should always be representative of the needs of our intelligence, both for the professional and for the extra-professional life; it should not be of the shop, shoppy. The university exists because the professions would stagnate without it ”

“ Tho the state does not, nor ever can, adequately pay you for your [Pg 170] best services, still you must not falter. You must continue to live up to your own high ideals of your noble profession. The very acceptance of such positions in such an institution carries with it the obligation of performance—Noblesse Oblige!
But who are these college and university students who have such a large and important future before them and for whose training and development, because of that future, such elaborate preparations are being made? The university man—who and what is he? ”

“ I cannot so construct my definition of the subject-matter of University Knowledge, and so draw my boundary lines around it, as to include therein the other sciences commonly studied at Universities, and to exclude the science of Religion. For instance, are we to limit our idea of University Knowledge by the evidence of our senses? then we exclude ethics; by intuition? we exclude history; by testimony? we exclude metaphysics; by abstract reasoning? we exclude physics. ”

“ It is difficult to give any idea of the quaintness, delight, and amusement caused by going back two hundred years to a University so like and so unlike—like, in that the men, although so different outwardly, had practically the same ideas as we have and carried them out in the same colleges, even in the same rooms, in a precisely similar manner; unlike in that the Dons were a breed of men differing in every respect from those who look after us to-day. ”