The Sun.
London, England, 1860-04-18 00:00:00

inquiry, as was that which they possessed some
centuries ago. The older history of the universities
of Europe not only presents many features of the
utmost interest, but upon the whole inspires satis-
faction, and challenges praise from the impartial
observer. I might detain you long upon the various
kinds of good they did, and I might search long
without discovering any characteristic evils to set
down against it. What the castle was to the feudal
baron, what the guild was to the infant middle
class, they were to knowledge and to mental free-
dom, nor was it only that from them local culture
received local shelter, and enjoyed through them an
immunity from the assaults of barbarism in its vici-
nity, they established, so to speak, a telegraph for

the mind; and all the elements of intellectual cul-
ture scattered throughout Europe were brought by
them into near communion. Without a visible head
or a coercive law, or a perilous tendency to aggres-
sion, they did for the mind of man what the unity
of the Roman Church aimed at doing for his soul.
They did it by the strong sympathy of an inward
life, and by a common interest and impulse, almost
from their nature incapable of being directed to
perverse or dangerous ends. Indeed, it was not in
their nature to supply the materials of any
combination formidable to other social powers act-
ing each in its proper sphere, for they were on
every side watched by jealous interests, and kept at
once in check and in activity by competition. 'I he
monasteries for the church, and the legal and medi-
cal professions, with their special establishments of
education, as they were matured in after times,
prevented an undue ascendancy; while in these
seats alone there was supplied that good preserva-
tion against excess and disorder that human know-
ledge was in them regarded as a whole, and its
various branches had, from this very neighbour-
hood, better dispositions of their proper provinces
and of their mutual relations. In whatever light
we view them, there was a completeness in the idea
and work of universities, in proportion as their
proper development was attained, which may well
excite our wonder, They aimed alike, as we have
seen, at the preservation of all old learning, and at
the appropriation of all new. They bound them-
selves to prosecute alike those studies which fit
men for the professions and the daily needs of life,
and those which terminate upon man himself, whe-
ther by the investigation of truth or by the pursuit
of refinement. They bore, and indeed they still
bear, a character at once conservative and progres-
sive. If not uniformly, yet in general, their influ-
ence tended to mitigate extreme opinions. The
Papal power, for example, knew no more formid-
able curb than the great University of Paris, and
in England it was the special privilege of Oxford
to rear up many centuries ago very eminent men of
the class who have been well described by a German
writer as Reformers before the Reformation. I
speak now of men of action ; but in both of the
universities I have named—and they are, I think,
the two placed by Huber at the head of all the
northern universities there were also reared
many men of the first order in power of thought,
who discussed even the highest subjects with a
freedom as well as a force much beyond what has
been tolerated in the Latin Church since the alarm
and shock of the Reformation. Of all these, the best
known name to modern ears is Abelard ; for it is
associated with a roman tic tale of passion, which some
and even some famous writers have not thought it
beneath them to degrade. But quite apart from the
profound and sad interest and the warning lessons
of his history, he was a man that gave to the human
mind one of those enduring impulses whose effects
remain long after their source has been forgotten,
and influence the course of!thought, and through
thought of action, after many generations. Univer-
sities were, in truth, a great mediating power be-
tween the high and the low, between the old and
the new, between speculation and action, between
authority and freedom. Of these last words, in
their application to the political sphere, modern
history, and the experience of our own time, afford
abundant exemplification. In countries whieh enjoy
political liberty the universities are usually firm
supports of the established order of things ; but in
countries under absolute government they acquire
a bias towards innovation. Some excess may be
noted in these tendencies, but in the main they beer
witness against greater and more pernicious ex-
cesses. To take instances—the University of Edin-
burgh did not very easily accommo late it elf to the
Revolution of 1688 ; it was long in the eighteenth
century before Cambridge returned Whig represen-
tatives to Parliament; and I believe the very latest
of the Jacobite risings and riots occurred in Oxford.
On the other hand, in some continental countries it
has been the practice during the present century,
when the political horizon threatened at once to
close the universities as the probable centres of agi-
tation—a proceeding so strange, according to our
ideas and experience, that the fact may sound hardly
credible ; and within the last few weeks we may all
have seen notices in the public journals of move-
ments in the University of Rome itself adverse to
the Pontifical Government. It is in itself deeply
interesting, and it should augment our thankfulness
for the ample liberties we now enjoy, to trace them
back to their cradle. At one time we find nobles,
at another country gentlemen, at another bur-
gesses, engaged in the struggle against arbitrary
power ; but nowhere in the ancient history of
this country is more deeply engraven her uncon-
querable love of freedom than in the constitution
and history of her universities. Each of them, as a
brotherhood, bound together by the noble bonds of
learning, was a standing and living protest against
the domination of mere wealth and of force in all
their forms ; and they strengthened themselves for
their conflict by the freedom of their arrangements,
both of teaching and of discipline. As respects
teaching, I neither define nor dispute the changes
that the altered conditions of modern society may
have required; but I think thereis no doubt that in
proportion as we can give a just freedom to teach-
ing, by introducing into it the element of a whole-
some competition. do we approach more closely to
the primitive spirit and system of universities. As
to discipline, we may read the aversion of our fore-
flthers to all slavish formalkm in the personal free-
dom which has been allowe to students—in that
curious distribution of them into nations which ap-
pears to have aimed at a system of self-government
combined with pupilage—in the occasional dangers;
sometimes for the moment serious enough, to the
public peace—(loud cheers)—which occurred from
time to time—and lastly, lot me say in those suf-
frages which have so long been enjoyed in Scotland,
and which have been extended to you by authority
of Parliament. It is indeed a fashion with some to
ridicule that method of disputation which was used
for testing talents and acquirements. I demur to
the propriety of the proceeding. It might be as just
to ridicule the clumsiness of their weapons or their
tools. These disputations were clumsy weapons;
but the question after all is, how did the men use
,hem ; let us confess, the defect was more than made

good by the zeal with which in those times learn-
ing was pursued ; their true test is in the capacity
and vigour which they gave to the mind,
than and this
' trial they can well abide. The sketch which I
have endeavoured to give, though longer
could wish, yet, touching as it does, subjecta
.I
of
vast and varied interest is, I admit, both slight
and general, and would require much adaptation
i it is
e makedetaielasteontiallya
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But
nova progenies cal° demittitur alto. The simpl
forms into which society was cast at the time when
universities were equal to their work, have given
place to a more extended and elaborate organisa-
tion, with greatly multiplied wants • and the very
same state of society which now makes immensely
enlarged demands on its
.establishments of learning
saunpdpryllineagantditohnthehomases. lfiokrewthise reduced the means of
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muinnidvewrsiitthiesr,e 8 altered the prevail.
respect to knowledge, and
for
of those who
own sake,
have disposed the overwhelming
seek for education, to seek it notin
:want: rdrn there
but for the sake simply of its
Aabtmetaairdeihsnrtmgaites the pro-
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glow
discontent with the existing universities, a sense
that they do not perform all their work. Part of
this discontent is exacting and unreasonable; a -
1 t her part of it is justified by a comparison of means,n
which all or some of them possess, with their per-
formances, and ought to be met, and to be removed.
Rut besides the two forms of discontent I have
named, there is a third, which is neither irrational
like the first, nor yet remediable like the second.
There must always be, especially in the most lumi-
nous and the most energetic minds, a sense of defi-
ciency which we may properly call discontent in
regard to the shortcomings of universities when
they are put to the test of measurement beside the
abstract and lofty standard supplied by their con-
ception, their aim, and their older history. The
truth is that that standard is one which surpasses
human wit to reach, especially
in a period
marked, as is this of ours, by a restless activity
of the human spirit. For let us remember that

is the proper work of universities, could they
but perform it, while they guard and cultivate
all ancient truth, to keep themselves in
the foremost rank of modern discovery, to har-
monise continually the inherited with the ac-
quired wealth of mankind, and to give a char-
ter to freedom of discussion, while they maintain
the reasonable limits of the domain of tradition and
of authority. The question how far endowments
for education are to be derived is beset with pecu-
liar difficulty. When they are small and remote
from public observation they tend rapidly to tor-
por. They are admirable where they come in aid
of a good will already existing, but where the good
will does not exist beforehand they are as likely to
stifle as to stimulate its growth. They make a high
cultivation accessible to the youth who deserves it,
and who could not otherwise attain his worthy and
noble end; on the other hand, they remove the
spur by which Providence neutralises the indolence
of man, and moves him to supply his wants. If the
teacher, when unendowed, may be constrained to
forego all high training for students, and to pro-
vide only for their lower and more immediate de-
mands ; on the other hand, the teacher, when en-
dowed, and in so far as he is endowed, is deprived
of the aid which personal interest and private ne-
cessities can lend to the sense of duty, and he may
be tempted to neglect or to minister but feebly to
the culture of his pupils, either in its higher or in
its lower sense. And it is never to be forgotten
that amidst all the kinds of exertion incident to our
human state, there is none more arduous, none more
exhausting, than the work of teaching worthily
performed. Some men, indeed, possess in this de-
partment a princely gift, which operates like a
charm upon the young, and they follow such an one
as soldiers follow their leader when he waves the
banner of their native land before their eyes.
(Cheers.) But such men are rare; they are not less
rare than are great men in any other work of life.
Speaking generally, the work of teaching is,
even when pursued with the whole heart, even
when felt to be an absorbing work, but moderately
successful ; while ho who teaches with half his
heart does not really teach at all. There are,
however, considerations which tell on the other
side. The solidity of establishments founded
on old endowments supplies a basis on
which there are gradually formed a mass of
continuous traditions, always powerful and gene-
rally noble ; and the very name of them, as it is
handed on from generation to generation, becomes
a watchword at once of affectionate remembrances
and of lofty aspirations. They lay hold of the
young by those properties which are the finest
characteristics of youth ; and in our happy country
the boy, when be is enrolled as a member of one of
these institutions, feels that he is admitted to a
share in a great inheritance, and instinctively burns
to be worthy of the badge he has assumed. (Cheers.)
Again, in a country like this, which is both free
and wealthy, all endowed establishments are open
to the competition of the unendowed, and few esta-
blishments are as amply endowed as not to leave
much room for the operation on the teacher of those
ordinary motives which prompt him to better his
condition. This remark is, I think, eminently ap-
plicable to the Universities in Scotland. (Cheers.)
It is indeed alleged, and I think with truth, that
the ancient universities of England, with their mag-
nificent endowments, do not effect so much as they
ought on behalf either of education or of learning ;
but with the spirit of improvement which now rules
in them, and with the powerful aid which the Le-
gislature has given for the more free and efficacious
use of their property, I believe that they will both
further enlarge their field and plough it more deeply.
But when all has been done that we can reasonably
hope I believe the result will still seem small when
compared with those produced in other times and in
other countries. It will still give rise to disappoint-
ment; let it not on that account be concluded that
it would be desirable to strip these great and ancient
foundations of their trappings. The real merits,
the real performances of universities cannot be
fairly j udged except by fairly measuring the strength
of the competing power, that of the outer world.
in all its busy spheres. The fact that a huudred
pounds will not bring as much learning in England,
or even in Scotland, as in Germany, is no more con-
clusive of the case than the fact that neither will the
same sum buy as many eggs ; not because eggs are
more scarce, but because money is more abundant. It
may be, though I will not presume to assert posi
tively it is,that the endowments of learning in our own
country do but redress, and that partially, the rela-
tive disadvantages at which, but for them, learning
itself must have been placed by the increased at-
tractions and multiplied openings which the exte-
rior spheres of modern life supply. This, however,
we must all feel, that now is the time when every
student and teacher connected with all these great
and venerable institutions should bestir himself to
refute at least in his own person the charge that an
endowment gravitates towards torpor as its natural
consummation, if we desire in a critical and not un-
kindly age that universities should still enjoy that
intelligent respect which has been paid them by so
many generations. I have been assuming all along
that all universities are united by a harmonious
bond of common interest and purpose, and I have
therefore discussed them at large. If, however, we
contract our view to the universities of Scotland—il
yet we bring it nearer home, and look at Edinburgh
alone, we have the consolation of thinking that envy
herself can scarcely charge either the whole of them,
or this one in particular, with an abuse of wealth.
(Laughter and cheers.) In the history of the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh we may clearly trace the na-
tional character of Scotland--(cheers)—we find
there all that hardy energy, that gift of extracting
much from little—(laughter and cheers)—of hus
banding every available provision—of supplying
the defect of external means and appliances within
their walls by the augmented effort and courage of
man, we find that power to make an ungenial cli-
mate smile, and a hungry soil teem with all the
bounties Providence, which have given to Scot-
land a ofm eaplace among men so far beyond
what were due to her geographical extent or to her
name
and a
natural resources. (Applause.) But the progress of
this university during the last century—l strive to
speak impartially—ls truly wonderful ; from the
days of Carstairs, Pitcairn, Monro, and Sibbald, at
its beginning, to those of Brown and Stewart, of
Robertson and Blair, of Cullen, the second Munro,
of Black, of Playfair, of Robertson, and of Sir Wm.
Hamilton—(cheers)—and many others both before
and since its close. But, gentlemen, it would be most
unjust in any review of the fortunes of this uni-
versity not to notice that great peculiarity in its
condition—its subjection to the local municipal au.
thorities. (Loud hisses and some laughter.) I speak,
gentlemen, of what history tells. (Loud cheers.) I
have stated that it is the business of universities to
give a charter to freedom oCdiscussion—(laughter)
—and I am sure you will allow me to say what,
without prejudice, is the impression that a perusal
of the ancient history of Edinburgh, in the days of
her poverty and weakness, could in general look
no further and no higher than to the council of the
good town itself. (Laughter and cheers.) That
relation, which was originally intended for a great
secondary school, survived that stage of the career
of the institution, and continued to influence its
affairs when it was to all intents and purposes a
university; and I must say that the history of this
relation appears to me to have been honourable to
all parties concerned. (Loud cheers.) On the side
of the teaching body we commonly find deference
and trust. Oa the side of the superintending cor-
poration in generations gone by—for the present is
not within the sphere of my discussion (loud cheers)
—we find patronage effectively and intelligently
exercised—(cheers)—and the most assiduous and
friendly care bestowed in improving and enlarging
the organisation, so that it will indeed be easier for
the Town Council of our own day, in the discharge
of the important share of governing duties that are
still lodged in its hands, to fall below than to rise
above the level of those who preceded it in the cri-
tical times that preceded and followed the Legisla-
tive Union. And now, my younger friends—you
to whom I owe the distinction of the office which
enables and requires me to address you, if I have
dwelt thus at length upon the character and scope
of universities and their place in the scheme of Chris-
tian civilisation, it is in order that, setting before
you the dignity that belongs to them, and that is
reflected on their members, and the great opportu-
nities which they offer both of advancement and
of improvement, I might chiefly suggest and im-
press by facts, which may be more eloquent than
precepts, the responsibilities that are laid upon you
by the enjoyment of these gifts and blessings.
Much, however, might be said to you on the acqui-
sition of the knowledge which will be directly ser-
viceable to you in your several professions—much
on the immense value of that kind of training in
which the subjects learned have for their chief aim
not to inure the hand (so to speak) to the use of its
tools in some particular art, but to operate on the
mind itself, and, by making it flexible,
manifold,
and strong, to endow it with a genial aptitude for
the duties and exigencies of
the frame of mind in which you should
pursue your
branches
work. Of these three
the
topics belong-
ing to the first are the
most obvious and simple, for
it requires no argument to persuade the workman
that he must be duly furnished
with his tools and
must know how
to use them. The reasons are
less directly
palpable which have made it the
habit of our country to spend,
where means
permit, rawly precious years upon studies
void in a great degree of immediate bearing
upon the intended occupations
of our after life.
There may, however, be the means
that even the directofthe studies which
uses
include under the general designation of
Humanity are more considerable, when they are
collected lilto one view, than might have been sup-

posed ; and, secondly, that the most distinguished
professional men bear witness with an overwhelm-
ing authority in favour of a course of education in
which to train the mind shall be the first ct,
and to stock it the second. Man is to be trained
chiefly by study and by knowing man ; and we are
prepared for knowing man in life by learning him
first in books, much as we are taught to draw from
drawings before we draw from nature. But if man
is to be studied in books, he will best be studied in
such books as present him to us in the largest,
strongest, simplest—in a word, the most typical
forms. These forms are principally found among
the ancients. Nor can the study of the ancients be
disassociated from the study of their languages.
There is a profound relation between thought and
the investiture which it chooses for itself ; and it is
as a general rule most true that we cannot know
wen or nations unless we know their tongue.
Diversity of language was, like labour, a temporal
penalty inflicted on our race for sin ; but, being
like labour originally penal, like labour it becomes
by the ordinance of God a fertile source of blessing
to those who use it aright. It is the instrument of
thought, but it is not a blind or dead instrument ;
it is like the works in metal that Daedalus and
Vulcan were fabled to produce ; and even as the
limping deity was supported in his walk by his
nymphs of so called brass, in like manner language
reacts upon and bears up the thoughts from which
it springs, and comes to take rank among the most
effective powers for the discipline of the mind.
But more important than the quest of professional
knowledge, more vital than the most effective in-
tellectual training, is the remaining question of the
temper and aim with which the youth prosecutes
his work. It is my privilege to be the first person
who has ever thus addressed you in the capacity of
Rector. But without doubt your ears have caught
the echo of those affectionate and weighty counsels
which the most eminent men of the age have not
thought it beneath them to address to the students
of a sister Scottish university. Let me remind
you how one of European fame, who is now
your and my academical superior—how the great
jurist, orator, philosopher, and legislator who is
our Chancellor—(cheers)—how Lord Brougham be-
' sought the youth of Glasgow, as I in his words
would more feebly, but not less earnestly, pray you
" to believe how incomparably the present season is
verily and indeed the most precious of your whole
lives," and how " every hour you squander here
will," in other days, " rise up against you and be
paid for by years of bitter but unavailing regrets."
Let me recal to you how another Lord Rector of
Glasgow, whose strong sagacity, vast range of ex-
perience, and energy of will were not one whit more
eminent than the tenderness of his conscience, and
his ever-watchful and wearing sense of public duty
—let me recal to you how Sir Robert Peel—(cheers)
—choosing from his quiver with a congenial fore-
thought that shaft which was most likely to strike
home, averred before the same academic audience
what may as safely be declared to you, that " there
is a presumption amounting almost to certainty that
if any one of you will determine to be eminent in
whatever profession you may choose, and will act
with unvarying steadiness in pursuance of that de-
termination, you will, if health and strength be
given to you, infallibly succeed." The mountain
tops of Scotland behold on every side of them the
witness, and many a one of what were once her
morasses and her moorlands, now blossoming as the
rose, carries on its face the proof that it is in man
and not in his circumstances that the secret of his
destiny resides. For most of you that destiny will
take its final bent towards evil or towards good,
not from the information you imbibe, but from the
habits of mind, thought, and life that you shall ac-
quire during your academical career. Could yelp with
the bodily eye see the moments of it as they fly, you
would see them all pass by you, as the bee that has
rifled the heather bears its honey through the air,
charged with the promise, or it may be the menace of
the future. In many th:ngs it is wise to believe before
experience until you can know, sand in order that
you may know ; and believe me when I tell you
that the thrift of time will repay you in after
life with an usury of profit beyond your
most sanguine dreams, and that the waste of it will
make you dwindle, alike in intellectual and in mo-
ral stature, beyond your darkest reckonings. lam
Scotchman enough te know that among you there
are always many who are already, even in their ten-
der years, fighting with tt. mature and manful cou-
rage the battle of life. (Cheers.) When they feel
themselves lonely amidst the crowd, when they are
for a moment disheartened by that difficulty which
is the rude rocking-cradle of every kind of excel-
lence—when they are conscious of the pinch of po-
verty and self-denial, lot them be conscious, too,
that a sleepless eye is watching them from above,
that their honest efforts are assisted, their humble
prayers are heard, and all things are working toge-
ther for their good. Is not this the life of faith,
which walks by your side from your rising in the
morning to your lying down at night—which lights
up for you the cheerless world, and transfigures all
that you encounter, whatever be its outward form,
• with hues brought down from heaven ? These con-
siderations are applicable to all of you. You are all
in training here for educated life, for the higher
forms of mental experience, for circles, limited,per-
haps, but yet circles of social influence and leader-
ship. Some of you may he chosen to greater distin-
tions and heavier trials, and may enter into that
class of which each member while he lives is envied
and admired—
" And when he dies he bears a lofty name,
A light, a landmark, on the cliffs of fame."
(Cheers.) And, gentlemen, the hope of an enduring
fame is without doubt a powerful incentive to vir-
tuous action, and you may suffer it to float before you
as a vision of refreshment, second always and second
with long interval to your conscience and the will
of God. For an enduring fame is one stamped by the
judgment of the future, that future which dispels
illusions and smashes idols into dust. Little of
what is criminal, little of what is idle, can endure
even the first touch of the ordeal ; it seems as
though this purging power, following at the heels
of man and trying his work, were a witness
and a harbinger of the great and final account.
So then the thirst of an enduring fame is near akin
to the love of true excellence. But the fame of the
moment is a dangerous possession and a bastard
motive ; and he who does his acts in order that the
echo of them may come back as a soft music in his
ears, plays false to his noble destiny as a Christian
man, places himself in continued danger of dallying
with wrong, and taints even his virtuous actions at
their source. Not the sublime words alone of the
Son of God and His apostles, but heathenism, too,
even while its vision is limited to this passing scene,
testifies with an hundred tongues that the passing
scene itself presents to us virtue as an object, and
a moral law, graven deeply in our whole nature as
a•guide. (Applause.) But now, when the screens
that so bounded human vision have been removed,
it were sad indeed, and not more sad and shameful,
if that being should be content to live for the
opinion of the moment who has immortality for his
inheritance. He that never dies, can he not afford
to wait patiently a while ? And can he not let
faith, which interprets the present, also guarantee
the future ? Nor are there any two habits of mind
more distinct than that which chooses success for
its aim and covets after popularity, and that, on the
other hand, which values and defers to the judg-
ments of our fellow-men, as helps in the attainment
of truth. But I would not confound with the sor-
did worship of popularity in after life, the graceful
and instinctive love of praise in the uncritical pe-
riod of youth. On the contrary, I say, avail your-
selves of that stimulus to good deeds, and when it
proceeds from worthy sources and lights upon
worthy conduct, yield yourselves to the warm satis-
faction it inspires ; but yet, even while young, and
even amidst the glow of that delight, keep a vigi-
lant eye upon yourselves, refer the honour to Him
from whom all honour comes, and ever be in-
wardly ashamed for not being worthier of His
gifts. But, gentlemen, if you let yourselves en-
joy the praise of your teachers, let me beseech
you to repay their care, and to help their ardu-
ous work, by entering into it with them, and
by showing that you meet their exertions neither
with a churlish mistrust, nor with a passive
indifference, but with free and ready gratitude.
(Cheers.) Rely upon it they require your sym-
pathy ; and they require it more in proportion as
they are worthy of their work. The faithful and
able teacher, says an old adage, is in loco parentis.
His charge certainly resembles the mother's care in
this, that if he be devoted to his task you can mea-
sure what is the cost to him of the efforts which he
makes, and the debt of gratitudeyou owe him. The
great poet of Italy—the profound and lofty Dante
—had had for an instructor one whom, for a mise-
rable vice, his poems places in the regions of the
damned ; and yet this lord of song—this prophet
of all the knowledge of his time—this master of
every gift that can adorn the human mind—when
in those dreary regions he sees the known image of
his tutor, avows in language of a magnificence all
his own that he cannot even now withhold his sym.
pathv and his sorrow from his unhappy teacher, '
for he recollects how, in the upper world, with a
father's tender care, that teacher had pointed to him
the way by which man becomes immortal. Gen-
tlemen, I have detained you long. (Applause.) Per-
haps I have not had time to be brief ; certainly I
could have wished for much larger opportunities of
maturing and verifying what I have addressed to
you upon subjects which have always possessed a
hold on my heart, and have long had public and
palpable claims on my attention. Such as I have I
give. (Applause.) And now finally in bidding
you farewell, let me invoke every blessing upon
your venerahlp university in its new career ; upon
the youth by whom its halls are gladdened, and
upon the distinguished head And abi teachers by