Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/47

IV ] Emanuel was at the university shows that though science had intruded, the "ancients" still dominated. The professors of history were not even permitted to use any except classic textbooks. They got around that by compiling their own, with modern instances, and using those in the private tutorial classes which all professors were allowed to have and by which they added to their incomes.

Perhaps for this reason they slipped a little gentle advertising into the catalogue. The professor of philosophy promised "publicly to endeavor to insinuate into his auditors the Art of Logic by a succinct and easy method; and for the rest whatever of his private labor can be of service to those requiring the same, this he will willingly and sedulously contribute."

The professor of eloquence and politics intended to expound Pliny's Panegyric "with that faithfulness and care whereby as he judges both the cultivation of the Latin speech and the study of civil prudence can be most greatly advanced." If anyone desired private help he "would in no way fail them."

The professor of poetry was going to explain Virgil's Æneid. "In this he will first lead his auditors by the hand as it were to a knowledge of the nature and constitution of Epic poetry, and this publicly in the large Gustavian auditorium at one o'clock. Privately, from the more chaste writings of Ovid, Horace and other poets, he will demonstrate to students of poetry the art of making verses."

No scholar and gentleman was complete unless he could write Latin verses, and Emanuel rather fancied himself in this art. For years he now and then sought laurels as a Latin versifier. His efforts are said to be neither worse nor better than many similar ones of the time.

The professor of mathematics after he had "briefly covered music" intended "God willing" to set forth the doctrine of numbers, "that is to say arithmetic, both logistic and specious."

"With the good favor of God," the professor of astronomy was going to go into spherical trigonometry, and other fields, while, equally with divine assistance which but few of the professors dared to omit leaning on, a Greek philologist sensibly proposed to teach his subject "in the measure of his own ability, after the manner of his profession, and according to the grasp of his auditors."

The two professors of medicine, whatever they may have