stowed on the home of Greek literature, and which by a thousand services Cambridge merits to have transferred to her, with almost equal honor. "All the triumphs of truth and genius over prejudice and power, in every country, and in every age, have been the triumphs of Athens. Wherever a few great minds have made a stand against violence and fraud in the cause of liberty and reason, there has been her spirit in the midst of them; inspiring, encouraging, consoling: by the lonely lamp of Erasmus; on the restless bed of Pascal; on the tribune of Mirabeau; in the cell of Galileo; on the scaffold of Sidney. But who shall estimate her influence upon private happiness? who shall say how many thousands have been made wiser, happier, better, by those pursuits in which she taught mankind to engage? to how many the studies which took their rise from her have been wealth in poverty, liberty in bondage, health in sickness, society in solitude? Her power is indeed manifested at the bar, in the senate, on the field of battle, in the schools of philosophy. But these are not her glory. Wherever literature consoles sorrow or assuages pain; wherever it brings gladness to eyes which fail with wakefulness and tears, and ache for the dark house and the long sleep, there is exhibited, in its noblest form, the immortal influence of Athens." * *Macaulay, Essay on Mitford's Greece. III. METHODS OF INSTRUCTION AND STUDY. COMPETITIVE EXAMINATIONS. THE FINAL ONE DESCRIBED. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: In my last lecture I brought to your notice the two great objects which have for six hundred years been pursued at the University of Cambridge. First, to furnish a home where learned men might congregate to pursue their studies, especially those which have for a long time been peculiarly honored in England, mathematical science and classical literature. Secondly, I called your attention to the fact that this great guild of scholars had stood forth as a training school for young men; that the people of England had found the studies pursued there a useful and elegant field wherein young men might extend and sharpen their mental powers, and fit themselves for their special professions, and for the general calls of life. Unquestionably the original attraction of University studies to youthful students was that they were what they set up to be, the whole mass - of human knowledge outside of the pursuits of war, commerce, and the mechanic arts. Now, they can no longer no longer arrogate to themselves so high a distinction, but as I endeavored to point out in my last lecture, we still find, after running through all branches of human knowledge, that memory, accuracy, correctness of taste, acuteness in tracing analogies and differences, are more completely given by the study of classical literature than any other subject, while concise and correct reasoning, aptness in applying discoveries, the perception of natural order and harmony, are most thoroughly inculcated by an extensive and close acquaintance with mathematics. In exploring the vast treasures of classical literature, as in a book already finished and placed on its appropriate shelf, the student is instructed as to the channels in which the infinitely flowing minds of the Greeks and Romans actually chose to run. It is the whole philosophy of established form, of the actual, of the past, of history. In the mathematics, on the other hand, he observes how a very few principles of thought, which are forced upon the acceptance of every mind by their simplicity and truth, may give rise to a thousand various, and to the untaught, inconsistent results, to which every day is adding new, and to which there is apparently no end. It is the philosophy of change, of the ideal, of the future, of progress. The first opens to us the pleasures, objects, and advantages E of literature, of taste, of rhetoric, the second unlocks, as with a master-key, the whole range of the useful arts, of science, and of logic. And do not mistake me. In thus extending the range of classical and mathematical studies. beyond what the two expressions commonly indicate to us, I am going no farther than is really contemplated by their eager votaries at Cambridge. Studied as they are there, in a constant course of three years and a half, and with the full intention, after youthful emulation has been rewarded, and the announcement of well-earned honors proclaims that the taskmaster is dismissed, of continuing within the same honored walls, to plunge yet deeper into the sacred mysteries; they are pursued with a zeal, a thoroughness, a devotion, which does permit their worshippersto expect the highest attainments, and makes the picture I have drawn of their effect on the human mind something more than rhetorical rhapsody. Add to this that they have been the favorite studies for three hundred years, a length of time in which any system, however doubtful its first principles, must have fallen into a practical shape, and you will, I think, be ready to allow that such interesting studies, so long honored, and so faithfully carried out, must be a useful system for training young men. So much for the theory. In a future part of this course I shall invite your attention to some of the practical results, in the lives of Cambridge graduates. I propose in the present lecture to call your attention to the methods of study and instruction adopted in the University and the separate colleges. In this point Cambridge has long been remarkable, differing from all other institutions of learning. Some few other colleges have partially adopted her system, but none in the entire thoroughness and perfection of its details. Yet such are its advantages, the facility of its practical operation, the general correctness of its results, that, although beyond a doubt the Universities are of less importance in England than they once were, yet this Cambridge system has taken a hold on the consent of the English people which seems unshakable, and is employed for a thousand purposes and among a thousand bodies, the most alien apparently to the University in spirit. The system in brief is, to subject all candidates for all University and college distinctions to the test of competitive written examinations, held at distinct and not frequent occasions, — and to allow the preparation and study for these examinations to be held whenever and in whatever way each individual thinks proper. Hence we have no class system, no daily recitations, no course of study, no list of rank, no lessons, no text-books, none of the paraphernalia of an American college, at least as officially recognized. Some of these things exist, but they exist as tradition, or choice, or convenience have dic |