Page:Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute - Volume 1 (2nd ed.).djvu/31

Rh among the studies of our fellow-countrymen in the old world. It would, indeed, ill become me, as a grateful son of the University of Oxford, to utter a single word in disparagement of the study of ethics, mathematics, history, and classical literature; or of the intellectual vigour and grace derived from the contemplation of the pure models of antiquity. Still, in common with the foremost philosophers, scholars, and statesmen of the present day, I am convinced that it is no longer wise, or even politically and socially safe, to cultivate exclusively those branches of learning. The intellect of the existing generation appears to be most progressive in the physical and natural sciences; and the treasures won from them seem the richest heirlooms which we can bequeath to our posterity. It has been powerfully argued, moreover, that if we look to what should be the grand object of all study, the formation, namely, of the mind and the character, it will be found that there is scarcely any mental or moral faculty which science cannot develop and discipline. It was said of old that "there is no royal road to knowledge;" and it has been said of late, with equal truth, that "there are no false keys to the book of Nature." The successful student of that book must possess an almost ignominious love of minute details, as well as that sound and practical judgment which can arrange and classify the mass of facts and observations which he has stored up with patient and conscientious toil. But the reward is great; above all, for those who "look through Nature up to Nature's God." An able writer has remarked that "at the close of all labour a man must ask to what good end he has given himself. There are few who will find the answer so easy as those who have contributed even the smallest help in widening our knowledge of the order of Nature, and in revealing for our adoration the Divine ideas which are at the basis of all things. In the generous efforts they are called to make, they have a hope, better founded than most human expectations, that they will find that education of their faculties for the future, which we may reasonably suppose to be the most important object of our present existence." In a like spirit, knowledge has been compared to that mystic ladder in the Patriarch's dream, the base of which rested on the primeval earth, while its crest was lost in the glory of Heaven.