1705042624

1705042625 Religious teaching itself affords us an illustration of our subject to a certain point. It does not indeed seat itself merely in centers of the world; this is impossible from the nature of the case. It is intended for the many, not the few; its subject matter is truth necessary for us, not truth recondite and rare; but it concurs in the principle of a university so far as this, that its great instrument, or rather organ, has ever been that which nature prescribes in all education, the personal presence of a teacher, or, in the theological language, Oral Tradition. It is the living voice, the breathing form, the expressive countenance, which preaches, which catechizes. Truth, a subtle, invisible, manifold spirit, is poured into the mind of the scholar by his eyes and ears, through his affections, imagination, and reason; it is poured into his mind and is sealed up there in perpetuity, by propounding and repeating it, by questioning and requestioning, by correcting and explaining, by progressing and then recurring to first principles, by all those ways which are implied in the word “catechizing.” In the first ages, it was a work of long time;months, sometimes years, were devoted to the arduous task of disabusing the mind of the incipient Christian of its pagan errors, and of molding it upon the Christian faith. The scriptures, indeed, were at hand for the study of those who could avail themselves of them; but St. Irenæus does not hesitate to speak of whole races, who had been converted to Christianity, without being able to read them. To be unable to read and write was in those times no evidence of want of learning: the hermits of the deserts were, in this sense of the word, illiterate; yet the great St. Anthony, although he knew not letters, was a match in disputation for the learned philosophers who came to try him. Didymus again, the great Alexandrian theologian, was blind. The ancient discipline, called the Disciplina Arcani , involved the same principle. The more sacred doctrines of Revelation were not committed to books, but passed on by successive tradition. The teaching on the Blessed Trinity and the Eucharist appears to have been so handed down for some hundred years; and when at length reduced to writing, it has filled many folios, yet has not been exhausted.

1705042626

1705042627 But I have said more than enough in illustration; I end as I began—a university is a place of concourse, whither students come from every quarter for every kind of knowledge. You cannot have the best of every kind everywhere; you must go to some great city or emporium for it. There you have all the choicest productions of nature and art all together, which you find each in its own separate place elsewhere. All the riches of the land, and of the earth, are carried up thither; there are the best markets, and there the best workmen. It is the center of trade, the supreme court of fashion, the umpire of rival talents, and the standard of things rare and precious. It is the place for seeing galleries of first-rate pictures and for hearing wonderful voices and performers of transcendent skill. It is the place for great preachers, great orators, great nobles, great statesmen. In the nature of things, greatness and unity go together; excellence implies a center. And such, for the third or fourth time, is a university; I hope I do not weary out the reader by repeating it. It is the place to which a thousand schools make contributions; in which the intellect may safely range and speculate, sure to find its equal in some antagonist activity, and its judge in the tribunal of truth. It is a place where inquiry is pushed forward, and discoveries verified and perfected, and rashness rendered innocuous, and error exposed, by the collision of mind with mind, and knowledge with knowledge. It is a place where the professor becomes eloquent, and is a missionary and a preacher, displaying his science in its most complete and most winning form, pouring it forth with the zeal of enthusiasm, and lighting up his own love of it in the breasts of his hearers. It is the place where the catechist makes good his ground as he goes, treading in the truth day by day into the ready memory, and wedging and tightening it into the expanding reason. It is a place which wins the admiration of the young by its celebrity, kindles the affections of the middle-aged by its beauty, and rivets the fidelity of the old by its associations. It is a seat of wisdom, a light of the world, a minister of the faith, an Alma Mater of the rising generation. It is this and a great deal more, and demands a somewhat better head and hand than mine to describe it well.

1705042628

1705042629 Notes

1705042630

1705042631 designation, name or term.

1705042632

1705042633 assemblage, a group or collection of persons.

1705042634

1705042635 essence, the real character.

1705042636

1705042637 abduced, to be drawn away by persuasion or argument.

1705042638

1705042639 incessant, continuous.

1705042640

1705042641 litera scripta, the written letter or book.

1705042642

1705042643 prodigious, enormous.

1705042644

1705042645 never-intermitting, never ceasing; never ending.

1705042646

1705042647 promulgation, publication.

1705042648

1705042649 Sibyl, a woman endowed with a spirit of prophecy.

1705042650

1705042651 fecundity, fruitfulness in invention. From Shakespeare,As You Like It , II, i, 15-17.

1705042652

1705042653 “And this our life exempt from public haunt, Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”

1705042654

1705042655 placards, a bill placed upon a board as an advertisement.

1705042656

1705042657 pilgrimage, a journey to a sacred place.

1705042658

1705042659 unstudied, unprepared.

1705042660

1705042661 tone, prevailing style or character.

1705042662

1705042663 daguerreotype, a picture produced on a silvered plate.

1705042664

1705042665 carriage, behavior.

1705042666

1705042667 propriety, conformity to established rules or custom.

1705042668

1705042669 fence, debate.

1705042670

1705042671 metropolis, the chief city of a country.

1705042672

1705042673 beau monde, the fashionable world.

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