feel inclined to ask, whether the rate-in-aid of the education of the wealthy and professional classes, thus levied on the resources of the community, is not, after all, a little heavy? And, still further, I am tempted to inquire what has become of the indigent scholars, the sons of the masses of the people, whose daily labor just suffices to meet their daily wants, for whose benefit these rich foundations were largely if not mainly instituted? It seems as if Pharaoh's dream had been rigorously carried out, and that even the fat scholar has eaten the lean one. And, when I turn from this picture to the no less real vision of many a brave and frugal Scotch boy, spending his summer in hard manual labor, that he may have the privilege of wending his way in autumn to this university, with a bag of oatmeal, ten pounds in his pocket, and his own stout heart to depend upon through the northern winter; not bent on seeking
"The bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth,"
but determined to wring knowledge from the hard hands of penury; when I see him win through all such outward obstacles to positions of wide usefulness and well-earned fame—I cannot but think that, in essence, Aberdeen has departed but little from the primitive intention of the founders of universities, and that the spirit of reform has so much to do on the other side of the border, that it may be long before he has leisure to look this way.
As compared with other actual universities, then, Aberdeen may, perhaps, be well satisfied with itself. But, do not think me an impracticable dreamer, if I ask you not to rest and be thankful in this state of satisfaction; if I ask you to consider, awhile, how this actual good stands related to that ideal better toward which both men and institutions must progress, if they would not retrograde.
In an ideal university, as I conceive it, a man should be able to obtain instruction in all forms of knowledge, and discipline in the use of all the methods by which knowledge is obtained. In such a university, the force of living example should fire the student with a noble ambition to emulate the learning of learned men, and to follow in the footsteps of the explorers of new fields of knowledge. And the very air he breathes should be charged with that enthusiasm for truth, that fanaticism of veracity, which is a greater possession than much learning; a nobler gift than the power of increasing knowledge; by so much greater and nobler than these, as the moral nature of man is greater than the intellectual—for veracity is the heart of morality.
But the man who is all morality and intellect, although he may be good and even great, is, after all, only half a man. There is beauty in the moral world and in the intellectual world; but there is also a beauty which is neither moral nor intellectual—the beauty of the world of art. There are men who are devoid of the power of seeing it, as there are men who are born deaf and blind, and the loss of
