sometimes as necessary conditions of their being, sometimes for their well-being. Breath is not part of man; it comes to him from without; it is merely the surrounding air, inhaled, and then exhaled; yet no one can live without breathing. Place an animal under an exhausted receiver, and it dies: yet the air does not enter into its definition. When then I say, that a Great School or University consists in the communication of knowledge, in lecturers and hearers, that is, in the Professorial system, you must not run away with the notion that I consider personal influence enough for its well-being. It is indeed its essence, but something more is necessary than barely to get on from day to day; for its sure and comfortable existence we must look to law, rule, order; to religion, from which law proceeds; to the collegiate system, in which it is embodied; and to endowments, by which it is protected and perpetuated. This is the part of the subject which my papers have not yet touched upon; nor could they well treat of what comes second, till they had done justice to what comes first."

I thought that here he seemed disposed to interrupt me, so I interposed: "Now, please, let me bring out what I want to say, while I am full of it. I say then, that the personal influence of the teacher is able in some sort to dispense with an academical system, but that the system cannot in any sort dispense with personal influence. With influence there is life, without it there is none; if influence is deprived of its due position, it will not by those means be got rid of, it will only break out irregularly, dangerously. An academical system without the personal influence of teachers upon pupils, is an arctic winter; it will create an ice-bound, petrified, cast-iron University, and nothing else. You will not call this any new notion of mine; and you will not

suspect, after what happened to me a long twenty-five years ago, that I can ever be induced to think otherwise. No! I have known a time in a great School of Letters, when things went on for the most part by mere routine, and form took the place of earnestness. I have experienced a state of things, in which teachers were cut off from the taught as by an insurmountable barrier; when neither party entered into the thoughts of the other; when each lived by and in itself; when the tutor was supposed to fulfil his duty, if he trotted on like a squirrel in his cage, if at a certain hour he was in a certain room, or in hall, or in chapel, as it might be; and the pupil did his duty too, if he was careful to meet his tutor in that same room, or hall, or chapel, at the same certain hour; and when neither the one nor the other dreamed of seeing each other out of lecture, out of chapel, out of academical gown. I have known places where a stiff manner, a pompous voice, coldness and condescension, were the teacher's attributes, and where he neither knew, nor wished to know, and avowed he did not wish to know, the private irregularities of the youths committed to his charge.

"This was the reign of Law without Influence, System without Personality. And then again, I have seen in this dreary state of things, as you yourself well know, while the many went their way and rejoiced in their liberty, how that such as were better disposed and aimed at higher things, looked to the right and to the left, as sheep without a shepherd, to find those who would exert that influence upon them which its legitimate owners made light of; and how, wherever they saw a little more profession of strictness and distinctness of creed, a little more intellect, principle, and devotion, than was ordinary, thither they went, poor youths, like

St. Anthony when he first turned to God, for counsel and encouragement; and how, as this feeling, without visible cause, mysteriously increased in the subjects of that seat of learning a whole class of teachers gradually arose, unrecognised by its authorities, and rivals to the teachers whom it furnished, and gained the hearts and became the guides of the youthful generation, who found no sympathy were they had a claim for it. And then moreover, you recollect, as well as I, how, as time went on and that generation grew up and came into University office themselves, then, from the memory of their own past discomfort, they tried to mend matters, and to unite Rule and Influence together, which had been so long severed, and how they claimed from their pupils for themselves that personal attachment which in their own pupillage they were not invited to bestow; and then, how in consequence a struggle began between the dry old redtapists, as in politics they are called, and-"

Here my friend, who had been unaccountably impatient for some time, fairly interrupted me. "It seems very rude," he said, "very inhospitable; it is against my interest; perhaps you will stay the night; but if you must go, go at once you must, or you will lose the train." An announcement like this turned the current

of my thoughts, and I started up. In a few seconds we were walking, as briskly as elderly men walk, towards the garden entrance. Sorry was I to leave so abruptly so sweet a place, so old and so dear to me; sorry to have disturbed it with controversy instead of drinking in its calm. When we reached the lofty avenue, from which I entered, Richard shook my hand, and wished me God-speed,

"portâque emittit eburnâ.”

77

TAR

CHAPTER VII.

ATHENIAN SCHOOLS:

INFLUENCE.

AKING Influence and Law to be the two great principles of Government, it is plain that, historically speaking, Influence comes first, and then Law. Thus Orpheus preceded Lycurgus and Solon. Thus Deioces the Mede laid the foundations of his power in his personal reputation for justice, and then established. it in the seven walls by which he surrounded himself in Ecbatana. First we have the "virum pietate gravem," whose word "rules the spirits and soothes the breasts " of the multitude;-or the warrior;-or the mythologist and bard; then follow at length the dynasty and constitution. Such is the history of society: it begins in the poet, and ends in the policeman.

Universities are instances of the same course: they begin in Influence, they end in System. At first, whatever good they may have done, has been the work of persons, of personal exertions; of faith in persons, of personal attachments. Their Professors have been a sort of preachers and missionaries, and have not only taught, but have won over or inflamed their hearers. As time has gone on, it has been found out that personal in-J fluence does not last for ever; that individuals get past their work, that they die, that they cannot always be depended on, that they change; that, if they are to be

the exponents of a University, it will have no abidance, no steadiness; that it will be great and small again, and will inspire no trust. Accordingly, system has of necessity been superadded to individual action; a University has been embodied in a constitution, it has exerted authority, it has been protected by rights and privileges, it has enforced discipline, it has developed itself into Colleges, and has admitted Monasteries into its territory. The details of this advance and consummation are of course different in different instances; each University has a career of its own; I have been stating the process in the logical, rather than in the historical order; but such it has been on the whole, whether in ancient or medieval times. Zeal began, power and wisdom completed: private enterprise came first, national or governmental recognition followed; first the Greek, then the Macedonian and Roman; the Athenian created, the Imperialist organized and consolidated. This is the subject I am going to enter upon to-day.

Now as to Athens, I have already shown what it did, and implied what it did not do; and I shall proceed to say something more about it. I have another reason for dwelling on the subject; it will lead me to direct attention to certain characteristics of Athenian opinion, which are not only to my immediate purpose, but will form an introduction to something I should like to say on a future occasion, if I could grasp my own thoughts, about the philosophical sentiments of the present age, their drift, and their bearing on a University. This is another matter; but I mention it because it is one out of several reasons which will set me on a course, in which I shall seem to be ranging very wide of my mark, while all the time I shall have a meaning in my wanderings.