The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1894-06-28


series of her labors and honors. Well
might the laureate of her first deem
MUM adopt the hopeful prayer Of the
sweet Roman singer:
"Vosqua veraces cecinisse, Parcae
Quod semei dictum est stabilisque rerum,
Terminus serYat, bona jam peractis
Jungito fata,"
The history of such institutions as
your University constitutes one of the
most impressive chapters in the story
of the civilization of our race. What
was originally joint stock company
of learned men, society for the mu-
tual protection of students and teach
ers against the exactions of the violent
and the eYtortions of the fraudulent,
what in later ages developed into a
nursery of the church, a seminary for
the propagation of a learned and
pious ministry, has grown in modern
times into a department of the state,
has become auxiliary to all that is
highest and best in human govern
ment and has demonstrated its right
to the fostering care of legislatures
and parliaments as we'll as its claim
to the private benefactions of wealth
and power.
1t is, therefore, not without utility,
both for the authorities of such schools
of learning and for the friends of Gull
ture in all the walks of our complex
life to ask seriously what are the mu-
tual services due to each other by the
commonwealth of the University, OF
the one class there may be some who
rate too low both their duties and
their rights. In the other there are
doubtless those who look to the Uni
versity for services alike foreign to its
true nature and incompatible with its
ultimate aims May it not be possible
to classify and elevate the ideals of the
one and to limit and sober the expec-
tations of the other?
Let it be first said then that the aim
of university is not to make money.
In a state which has delt with it's edu-
cational interests in so princely fash
ion as Texas, which has consecrated to
their development a domain larger
than the entire state of West Virginia,
such a warning might seem absurd.
But so deeply have / found this error
rooted in the minds even of thought
full men that few words concerning it
may not be useless even in this great
commonwealth.
AS soon as it is attempted to make
the higher education self-supporting
serious limitation to its efficacy begin
to arice. The cry for numbers with
out regard T. Mality begins to be
heard. TfW hards of admission
and of graduatfon are wlfully or in,
sensibly lowered. The courses offered
are degraded, and those which meet
the aspirations of the higher min is
and finer natures only are erased
from the program. The instructors
are burdened with classes 80 large that
teaching loses its stimulus and its
spring and degenerates into mechan-
ical routine. The student himself fixes
his ambition on the low goal of mere
academical success and no longer seeks
as the chief aim of university life the
upbuilding of his own spirit the rein
ing of his own culture. Let it ever he
remembered that g true university is
a great charity school. AS soon as its
balance sheet shows profit, as soon
as it can be operated without aid from
the generosity of the state, or from the
usufruct of endowments by private be-
uevOlence it is a self confessed failure
1t has declined from its true and high
est mission, and to the children who
cry for bread it is feeding stones, or
even serpents.
There is yet another direction in
which it is often felt that University
should be made a source of direct pc.
cunis.ry profit to the state. This is
In the immediate production of com.
mercially valuable investigations OIL
useful discoveries in applied science.
1t is very far from my intention to be.
little the labors of the men who reach
these inventions and so powerfully
ameliorate the difficulties and pains
of human life. But as a rule, they
are not to be expected from men en-
gagged in extending the boundaries Of
the known. "Nhe great discoveries
of scientific truth, said Tyndall. "are
not made by practical men, and they
never will be made by them because
their minds are beset by ideas, which,
though of the highest value from one
point of view, are not those which
stimulate the original discoverer. y
For him, on the contrary, the true
University is the legitimate home, and
the radiance of his genius like the
flash of the lighthouse, throws its
beams less into the darkling circle
about its foot than over the wind
swept spaces of the distant future.
Lastly, | could wish that il might be
understood of all men that universe
ty is not a reformatory. believe il
true that influences are at work in a
well governed university which pow.
erfully tend to mature and sweeten
the best traits of human character
But college life is a microcosm, within
whose sphere all sorts and conditions
of men assemble. They import into il
not only the high ideals and pure man.
ners of cultured and Christian homes,
but bring other and evil tendencies
the malaria of circles of society, where
lNag.s 0Nl,