The Office and Work of Universities - Taschenbuch

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 116 CHAPTER VII. Athenian Schools: Influence. Taking Influence and Law to be the two great principles of Government, it is plain that, historically speaking, Influence comes first, and then Law. Thus Orpheus preceded Lycurgus and Solon. Thus Deioces the Mede laid the foundations of his power in his personal reputation for justice, and then established it in the seven walls by which he surrounded himself in Ecba- tana. First we have the " virum pietate gra- vem," whose word "rules the spirits and soothes the breasts" of the multitude;?or the warrior;? or the mythologist and bard;?then follow at length the dynasty and constitution. Such is the history of society: it begins in the poet, and ends in the policeman. Universities are instances of the same course: they begin in Influence, they end in System. At first, whatever good they may have done, has been the work of persons, of personal exertions; of faith in persons, of personal attachments. Their Professors have been a sort of preachers and missionaries, and have not only taught, but have won over or inflamed their hearers. As time has gone on, it has been found out that personal influence does not last for ever; that individuals get past their work, that they die, that they cannot always be depended on, that they change; that, if they are to be the exponents of a University, it will have no abidance, no steadiness; that it will be great and small again, and will inspire no trust. Accordingly, system has of necessity been superadded to individual action; a University has been embodied in a constitution, it has exerted authority, it has been protected by rights and privileges, it has enforced discipline, it has developed itself into Colleges, and has admitted Monasteries into its territory. The details of this advan...