Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/21

Rh of study in all, and are strictly along university lines. It is true that these students lose the large gain which comes from personal intercourse with the teacher, but they are in constant communication with him, and by his letters and printed notes he can be an immense help in the way of stimulating and directing. At the end of four years a regular examination will be held. Those who pass it successfully and whose progress during the course has been satisfactory will be awarded a certificate which it is the purpose of the society to make of recognized value.

It is, then, an almost realized dream that any one in any place whatsoever may have the advantage of university education. It is a mistaken idea altogether, and one that has robbed the race of much progress, that education ends when maturity begins. By that time one has only gathered a few of the materials of culture. A grown-up man or woman with a book in hand for the purpose of serious study is in too many American communities almost an anomaly. But we have now fallen, it is hoped, upon better days, and the education of men and women has become a national purpose.

When a rich man founds an institution, erects substantial buildings for its accommodation, and bestows his name upon it as well as his money, public attention is arrested, for there is something visible and tangible for comment to spend itself upon. But right here, in our very midst, there is growing up a university more vast, I am bound to believe, than any of these extensive benefactions, and one destined to make a more profound impression upon the intellectual life of America than has yet been made. It is a university whose strength lies in this, that its students are as miscellaneous as society itself; that it is bound to no creed, no class, no party, but is committed only to the service of truth—not truth as you or I see it, or as any particular body of men see it, but to that increasingly transparent vision of truth which comes to humanity as a whole. Nor is the purpose of this university defeated by distance and railroad fares. It is the guest of every man or woman who will make it welcome. Neither does it demand what so often can not be given, one's entire time. Its duties may be fulfilled at odd moments, at any time as well as at any place.

To carry out so vast a purpose as this is going to take a proportionate number of men. And to do it thoroughly, on the high plane which is promised, is going to take thoroughly equipped men. It is still an open question as to just how this need shall be supplied. All the lecturers so far, with the exception of Mr. Moulton and possibly one or two others, have been men holding positions in established institutions, and this has had its advantages. The men bring the experience and the disciplined spirit of