Chapter 9 UNIVERSITIES

What is a University?

If I were asked to describe as briefly and

popularly as I could, what a University was, I

should draw my answer from its ancient

designation of a Studium Generale, or "School of

Universal Learning." This description implies{5}

the assemblage of strangers from all parts in one

spot-from all parts; else, how will you find

professors and students for every department of

knowledge? and in one spot; else, how can there

be any school at all? Accordingly, in its simple{10}

and rudimental form, it is a school of knowledge

of every kind, consisting of teachers and learners

from every quarter. Many things are requisite

to complete and satisfy the idea embodied in this

description; but such as this a University seems{15}

to be in its essence, a place for the

communication and circulation of thought, by means of

personal intercourse, through a wide extent of

country.

Mutual education, in a large sense of the word,{20}

is one of the great and incessant occupations of

human society, carried on partly with set

purpose, and partly not. One generation forms

another; and the existing generation is ever

acting and reacting upon itself in the persons of its

individual members. Now, in this process, books,

I need scarcely say, that is, the litera scripta,

are one special instrument. It is true; and{5}

emphatically so in this age. Considering the

prodigious powers of the press, and how they are

developed at this time in the never intermitting

issue of periodicals, tracts, pamphlets, works in

series, and light literature, we must allow there{10}

never was a time which promised fairer for

dispensing with every other means of information

and instruction. What can we want more, you

will say, for the intellectual education of the

whole man, and for every man, than so exuberant{15}

and diversified and persistent a promulgation

of all kinds of knowledge? Why, you will ask,

need we go up to knowledge, when knowledge

comes down to us? The Sibyl wrote her

prophecies upon the leaves of the forest, and wasted{20}

them; but here such careless profusion might be

prudently indulged, for it can be afforded

without loss, in consequence of the almost fabulous

fecundity of the instrument which these latter

ages have invented. We have sermons in stones,{25}

and books in the running brooks; works larger

and more comprehensive than those which have

gained for ancients an immortality, issue forth

every morning, and are projected onwards to

the ends of the earth at the rate of hundreds of{30}

miles a day. Our seats are strewed, our pavements

are powdered, with swarms of little tracts;

and the very bricks of our city walls preach

wisdom, by informing us by their placards where we

can at once cheaply purchase it.

I allow all this, and much more; such{5}

certainly is our popular education, and its effects are

remarkable. Nevertheless, after all, even in this

age, whenever men are really serious about

getting what, in the language of trade, is called "a

good article," when they aim at something{10}

precise, something refined, something really

luminous, something really large, something choice,

they go to another market; they avail themselves,

in some shape or other, of the rival method, the

ancient method, of oral instruction, of present{15}

communication between man and man, of teachers

instead of learning, of the personal influence of a

master, and the humble initiation of a disciple,

and, in consequence, of great centers of

pilgrimage and throng, which such a method of {20}

education necessarily involves.

If the actions of men may be taken as any test

of their convictions, then we have reason for

saying this, viz.: that the province and the

inestimable benefit of the litera scripta is that of{25}

being a record of truth, and an authority of appeal,

and an instrument of teaching in the hands of a

teacher; but that, if we wish to become exact and

fully furnished in any branch of knowledge which

is diversified and complicated, we must consult {30}

the living man and listen to his living voice....

No book can convey the special spirit and

delicate peculiarities of its subject with that

rapidity and certainty which attend on the sympathy

of mind with mind, through the eyes, the look,

the accent, and the manner, in casual expressions{5}

thrown off at the moment, and the unstudied

turns of familiar conversation. But I am already

dwelling too long on what is but an incidental

portion of my main subject. Whatever be the

cause, the fact is undeniable. The general{10}

principles of any study you may learn by books at

home; but the detail, the color, the tone, the

air, the life which makes it live in us, you must

catch all these from those in whom it lives

already. You must imitate the student in French{15}

or German, who is not content with his

grammar, but goes to Paris or Dresden: you must

take example from the young artist, who aspires

to visit the great Masters in Florence and in

Rome. Till we have discovered some{20}

intellectual daguerreotype, which takes off the course of

thought, and the form, lineaments, and features

of truth, as completely and minutely, as the

optical instrument reproduces the sensible

object, we must come to the teachers of wisdom{25}

to learn wisdom, we must repair to the fountain,

and drink there. Portions of it may go from

thence to the ends of the earth by means of

books; but the fullness is in one place alone. It

is in such assemblages and congregations of{30}

intellect that books themselves, the masterpieces

of human genius, are written, or at least

originated.

The principle on which I have been insisting

is so obvious, and instances in point are so ready,

that I should think it tiresome to proceed with{5}

the subject, except that one or two illustrations

may serve to explain my own language about it,

which may not have done justice to the doctrine

which it has been intended to enforce.

For instance, the polished manners and{10}

high-bred bearing which are so difficult of attainment,

and so strictly personal when attained,-which

are so much admired in society, from society

are acquired. All that goes to constitute a

gentleman,-the carriage, gait, address, gestures,{15}

voice; the ease, the self-possession, the courtesy,

the power of conversing, the talent of not

offending; the lofty principle, the delicacy of thought,

the happiness of expression, the taste and

propriety, the generosity and forbearance, the{20}

candor and consideration, the openness of

hand-these qualities, some of them come by nature,

some of them may be found in any rank, some of

them are a direct precept of Christianity; but

the full assemblage of them, bound up in the{25}

unity of an individual character, do we expect

they can be learned from books? are they not

necessarily acquired, where they are to be found,

in high society? The very nature of the case

leads us to say so; you cannot fence without an{30}

antagonist, nor challenge all comers in disputation

before you have supported a thesis; and in

like manner, it stands to reason, you cannot learn

to converse till you have the world to converse

with; you cannot unlearn your natural

bashfulness, or awkwardness, or stiffness, or other{5}

besetting deformity, till you serve your time in

some school of manners. Well, and is it not so

in matter of fact? The metropolis, the court,

the great houses of the land, are the centers to

which at stated times the country comes up, as to{10}

shrines of refinement and good taste; and then

in due time the country goes back again home,

enriched with a portion of the social

accomplishments, which those very visits serve to call out

and heighten in the gracious dispensers of them.{15}

We are unable to conceive how the

"gentleman-like" can otherwise be maintained; and

maintained in this way it is....

Religious teaching itself affords us an

illustration of our subject to a certain point. It{20}

does not indeed seat itself merely in centers of

the world; this is impossible from the nature of

the case. It is intended for the many not the

few; its subject-matter is truth necessary for us,

not truth recondite and rare; but it concurs in{25}

the principle of a University so far as this, that

its great instrument, or rather organ, has ever

been that which nature prescribes in all education,

the personal presence of a teacher, or, in

theological language, Oral Tradition. It is the living{30}

voice, the breathing form, the expressive countenance,

which preaches, which catechises. Truth,

a subtle, invisible, manifold spirit, is poured into

the mind of the scholar by his eyes and ears,

through his affections, imagination, and reason;

it is poured into his mind and is sealed up there{5}

in perpetuity, by propounding and repeating it,

by questioning and requestioning, by correcting

and explaining, by progressing and then recurring

to first principles, by all those ways which are

implied in the word "catechising." In the first{10}

ages, it was a work of long time; months,

sometimes years, were devoted to the arduous task

of disabusing the mind of the incipient Christian

of its pagan errors, and of molding it upon the

Christian faith. The Scriptures indeed were at{15}

hand for the study of those who could avail

themselves of them; but St. Iren?us does not

hesitate to speak of whole races, who had been

converted to Christianity, without being able to

read them. To be unable to read or write was in{20}

those times no evidence of want of learning: the

hermits of the deserts were, in this sense of the

word, illiterate; yet the great St. Anthony,

though he knew not letters, was a match in

disputation for the learned philosophers who came{25}

to try him. Didymus again, the great

Alexandrian theologian, was blind. The ancient

discipline, called the Disciplina Arcani, involved the

same principle. The more sacred doctrines of

Revelation were not committed to books but{30}

passed on by successive tradition. The teaching

on the Blessed Trinity, and the Eucharist

appears to have been so handed down for some

hundred years; and when at length reduced to

writing, it has filled many folios, yet has not been

exhausted.{5}

But I have said more than enough in

illustration; end as I began-a University is a place

of concourse, whither students come from every

quarter for every kind of knowledge. You

cannot have the best of every kind everywhere; you{10}

must go to some great city or emporium for it.

There you have all the choicest productions

of nature and art all together, which you find

each in its own separate place elsewhere. All

the riches of the land, and of the earth, are{15}

carried up thither; there are the best markets, and

there the best workmen. It is the center of

trade, the supreme court of fashion, the umpire

of rival talents, and the standard of things rare

and precious. It is the place for seeing galleries{20}

of first-rate pictures, and for hearing wonderful

voices and performers of transcendent skill. It

is the place for great preachers, great orators,

great nobles, great statesmen. In the nature of

things, greatness and unity go together;{25}

excellence implies a center. And such, for the third

or fourth time, is a University; I hope I do not

weary out the reader by repeating it. It is the

place to which a thousand schools make

contributions; in which the intellect may safely{30}

range and speculate, sure to find its equal in

some antagonist activity, and its judge in the

tribunal of truth. It is a place where inquiry

is pushed forward, and discoveries verified and

perfected, and rashness rendered innocuous, and

error exposed, by the collision of mind with mind,{5}

and knowledge with knowledge. It is the place

where the professor becomes eloquent, and is a

missionary and a preacher, displaying his science

in its most complete and most winning form,

pouring it forth with the zeal of enthusiasm, and{10}

lighting up his own love of it in the breasts of

his hearers. It is the place where the catechist

makes good his ground as he goes, treading in the

truth day by day into the ready memory, and

wedging and tightening it into the expanding{15}

reason. It is a place which wins the admiration

of the young by its celebrity, kindles the

affections of the middle-aged by its beauty, and rivets

the fidelity of the old by its associations. It is a

seat of wisdom, a light of the world, a minister of{20}

the faith, an Alma Mater of the rising generation.

It is this and a great deal more, and demands a

somewhat better head and hand than mine to

describe it well.

University Life: Athens

It has been my desire, were I able, to bring{25}

before the reader what Athens may have been,

viewed as what we have since called a University;

and to do this, not with any purpose of writing

a panegyric on a heathen city, or of denying

its many deformities, or of concealing what was

morally base in what was intellectually great, but

just the contrary, of representing as they really{5}

were; so far, that is, as to enable him to see what

a University is, in the very constitution of society

and in its own idea, what is its nature and object,

and what its needs of aid and support external to

itself to complete that nature and to secure that{10}

object.

So now let us fancy our Scythian, or Armenian,

or African, or Italian, or Gallic student, after

tossing on the Saronic waves, which would be his

more ordinary course to Athens, at last casting{15}

anchor at Pir?us. He is of any condition or rank

of life you please, and may be made to order,

from a prince to a peasant. Perhaps he is some

Cleanthes, who has been a boxer in the public

games. How did it ever cross his brain to betake{20}

himself to Athens in search of wisdom? or, if he

came thither by accident, how did the love of it

ever touch his heart? But so it was, to Athens he

came with three drachms in his girdle, and he got

his livelihood by drawing water, carrying loads,{25}

and the like servile occupations. He attached

himself, of all philosophers, to Zeno the

Stoic,-to Zeno, the most high-minded, the most haughty

of speculators; and out of his daily earnings the

poor scholar brought his master the daily sum of{30}

an obolus, in payment for attending his lectures.

Such progress did he make, that on Zeno's death

he actually was his successor in his school; and,

if my memory does not play me false, he is the

author of a hymn to the Supreme Being, which is

one of the noblest effusions of the kind in classical{5}

poetry. Yet, even when he was the head of a

school, he continued in his illiberal toil as if he

had been a monk; and, it is said, that once, when

the wind took his pallium, and blew it aside, he

was discovered to have no other garment at{10}

all-something like the German student who came up

to Heidelberg with nothing upon him but a great

coat and a pair of pistols.

Or it is another disciple of the Porch-Stoic

by nature, earlier than by profession-who is{15}

entering the city; but in what different fashion

he comes! It is no other than Marcus, Emperor

of Rome and philosopher. Professors long since

were summoned from Athens for his service, when

he was a youth, and now he comes, after his {20}

victories in the battlefield, to make his

acknowledgments at the end of life, to the city of wisdom, and

to submit himself to an initiation into the

Eleusinian mysteries.

Or it is a young man of great promise as an{25}

orator, were it not for his weakness of chest, which

renders it necessary that he should acquire the art

of speaking without over-exertion, and should

adopt a delivery sufficient for the display of his

rhetorical talents on the one hand, yet merciful{30}

to his physical resources on the other. He is

called Cicero; he will stop but a short time, and

will pass over to Asia Minor and its cities, before

he returns to continue a career which will render

his name immortal; and he will like his short

sojourn at Athens so well, that he will take good{5}

care to send his son thither at an earlier age than

he visited it himself.

But see where comes from Alexandria (for we

need not be very solicitous about anachronisms),

a young man from twenty to twenty-two, who{10}

has narrowly escaped drowning on his voyage,

and is to remain at Athens as many as eight or

ten years, yet in the course of that time will not

learn a line of Latin, thinking it enough to

become accomplished in Greek composition, and in{15}

that he will succeed. He is a grave person, and

difficult to make out; some say he is a Christian,

something or other in the Christian line his father

is for certain. His name is Gregory, he is by

country a Cappadocian, and will in time become{20}

pre?minently a theologian, and one of the

principal Doctors of the Greek Church.

Or it is one Horace, a youth of low stature and

black hair, whose father has given him an

education at Rome above his rank in life, and now is{25}

sending him to finish it at Athens; he is said to

have a turn for poetry: a hero he is not, and it

were well if he knew it; but he is caught by the

enthusiasm of the hour, and goes off campaigning

with Brutus and Cassius, and will leave his shield{30}

behind him on the field of Philippi.

Or it is a mere boy of fifteen: his name

Eunapius; though the voyage was not long, sea

sickness, or confinement, or bad living on board the

vessel, threw him into a fever, and, when the

passengers landed in the evening at Pir?us, he{5}

could not stand. His countrymen who

accompanied him, took him up among them and carried

him to the house of the great teacher of the day,

Pro?resius, who was a friend of the captain's,

and whose fame it was which drew the{10}

enthusiastic youth to Athens. His companions

understand the sort of place they are in, and, with the

license of academic students, they break into the

philosopher's house, though he appears to have

retired for the night, and proceed to make {15}

themselves free of it, with an absence of ceremony,

which is only not impudence, because Pro?resius

takes it so easily. Strange introduction for our

stranger to a seat of learning, but not out of

keeping with Athens; for what could you expect of a{20}

place where there was a mob of youths and not

even the pretense of control; where the poorer

lived any how, and got on as they could, and the

teachers themselves had no protection from the

humors and caprices of the students who filled{25}

their lecture halls? However, as to this

Eunapius, Pro?resius took a fancy to the boy, and told

him curious stories about Athenian life. He

himself had come up to the University with one

Heph?stion, and they were even worse off than{30}

Cleanthes the Stoic; for they had only one cloak

between them, and nothing whatever besides,

except some old bedding; so when Pro?resius

went abroad, Heph?stion lay in bed, and

practiced himself in oratory; and then Heph?stion

put on the cloak, and Pro?resius crept under the{5}

coverlet. At another time there was so fierce

a feud between what would be called "town and

gown" in an English University, that the

Professors did not dare lecture in public, for fear of

ill treatment.{10}

But a freshman like Eunapius soon got

experience for himself of the ways and manners

prevalent in Athens. Such a one as he had hardly

entered the city, when he was caught hold of by

a party of the academic youth, who proceeded to{15}

practice on his awkwardness and his ignorance.

At first sight one wonders at their childishness;

but the like conduct obtained in the medi?val

Universities; and not many months have passed

away since the journals have told us of sober{20}

Englishmen, given to matter-of-fact calculations,

and to the anxieties of money making, pelting

each other with snowballs on their own sacred

territory, and defying the magistracy, when they

would interfere with their privileges of{25}

becoming boys. So I suppose we must attribute it to

something or other in human nature. Meanwhile,

there stands the newcomer, surrounded by a circle

of his new associates, who forthwith proceed to

frighten, and to banter, and to make a fool of him,{30}

to the extent of their wit. Some address him with

mock politeness, others with fierceness; and so

they conduct him in solemn procession across the

Agora to the Baths; and as they approach, they

dance about him like madmen. But this was to

be the end of his trial, for the Bath was a sort of{5}

initiation; he thereupon received the pallium, or

University gown, and was suffered by his

tormentors to depart in peace. One alone is

recorded as having been exempted from this

persecution; it was a youth graver and loftier than{10}

even St. Gregory himself: but it was not from his

force of character, but at the instance of Gregory,

that he escaped. Gregory was his bosom friend,

and was ready in Athens to shelter him when

he came. It was another Saint and Doctor; the{15}

great Basil, then, (it would appear,) as Gregory,

but a catechumen of the Church.

But to return to our freshman. His troubles

are not at an end, though he has got his gown

upon him. Where is he to lodge? whom is he{20}

to attend? He finds himself seized, before he

well knows where he is, by another party of men

or three or four parties at once, like foreign

porters at a landing, who seize on the baggage of the

perplexed stranger, and thrust half a dozen cards{25}

into his unwilling hands. Our youth is plied by

the hangers-on of professor this, or sophist that,

each of whom wishes the fame or the profit of

having a houseful. We will say that he escapes

from their hands,-but then he will have to{30}

choose for himself where he will put up; and, to

tell the truth, with all the praise I have already

given, and the praise I shall have to give, to

the city of mind, nevertheless, between ourselves,

the brick and wood which formed it, the actual

tenements, where flesh and blood had to lodge{5}

(always excepting the mansions of great men of

the place), do not seem to have been much better

than those of Greek or Turkish towns, which are

at this moment a topic of interest and ridicule

in the public prints. A lively picture has lately{10}

been set before us of Gallipoli. Take, says the

writer,[41] a multitude of the dilapidated outhouses

found in farm-yards in England, of the rickety

old wooden tenements, the cracked, shutterless

structures of planks and tiles, the sheds and stalls,{15}

which our bye lanes, or fish-markets, or

river-sides can supply; tumble them down on the

declivity of a bare bald hill; let the spaces

between house and house, thus accidentally

determined, be understood to form streets, winding of{20}

course for no reason, and with no meaning, up and

down the town; the roadway always narrow, the

breadth never uniform, the separate houses

bulging or retiring below, as circumstances may have

determined, and leaning forward till they meet{25}

overhead-and you have a good idea of

Gallipoli. I question whether this picture would

not nearly correspond to the special seat of the

Muses in ancient times. Learned writers assure

us distinctly that the houses of Athens were for{30}

the most part small and mean; that the streets

were crooked and narrow; that the upper stories

projected over the roadway; and that staircases,

balustrades, and doors that opened outwards

obstructed it-a remarkable coincidence of{5}

description. I do not doubt at all, though

history is silent, that that roadway was jolting to

carriages, and all but impassable; and that it

was traversed by drains, as freely as any Turkish

town now. Athens seems in these respects to{10}

have been below the average cities of its time.

"A stranger," says an ancient, "might doubt, on

the sudden view, if really he saw Athens."

[41] Mr. Russell's Letters in the Times newspaper (1854).

I grant all this, and much more, if you will;

but, recollect, Athens was the home of the {15}

intellectual and beautiful; not of low mechanical

contrivances and material organization. Why

stop within your lodgings counting the rents in

your wall or the holes in your tiling, when nature

and art call you away? You must put up with{20}

such a chamber, and a table, and a stool, and a

sleeping board, anywhere else in the three

continents; one place does not differ from another

indoors; your magalia in Africa, or your grottoes

in Syria are not perfection. I suppose you did {25}

not come to Athens to swarm up a ladder, or to

grope about a closet: you came to see and to

hear, what hear and see you could not elsewhere.

What food for the intellect is it possible to

procure indoors, that you stay there looking about{30}

you? do you think to read there? where are your

books? do you expect to purchase books at

Athens-you are much out in your calculations.

True it is, we at this day, who live in the

nineteenth century, have the books of Greece as a

perpetual memorial; and copies there have been,{5}

since the time that they were written; but you

need not go to Athens to procure them, nor would

you find them in Athens. Strange to say, strange

to the nineteenth century, that in the age of Plato

and Thucydides, there was not, it is said, a{10}

bookshop in the whole place: nor was the book trade

in existence till the very time of Augustus.

Libraries, I suspect, were the bright invention of

Attalus or the Ptolemies;[42] I doubt whether

Athens had a library till the reign of Hadrian.{15}

It was what the student gazed on, what he heard,

what he caught by the magic of sympathy, not

what he read, which was the education furnished

by Athens.

[42] I do not go into controversy on the subject, for which the

reader must have recourse to Lipsius, Morhof, Boeckh, Bekker, etc.; and

this of course applies to whatever historical matter I introduce, or

shall introduce.

He leaves his narrow lodging early in the{20}

morning; and not till night, if even then, will he

return. It is but a crib or kennel, in which

he sleeps when the weather is inclement or the

ground damp; in no respect a home. And he

goes out of doors, not to read the day's{25}

newspaper, or to buy the gay shilling volume, but to

imbibe the invisible atmosphere of genius, and

to learn by heart the oral traditions of taste.

Out he goes; and, leaving the tumble-down

town behind him, he mounts the Acropolis to

the right, or he turns to the Areopagus on the left.

He goes to the Parthenon to study the sculptures {5}

of Phidias; to the temple of the Dioscuri to see

the paintings of Polygnotus. We indeed take

our Sophocles or ?schylus out of our coat pocket;

but, if our sojourner at Athens would understand

how a tragic poet can write, he must betake{10}

himself to the theater on the south, and see and

hear the drama literally in action. Or let him go

westward to the Agora, and there he will hear

Lysias or Andocides pleading, or Demosthenes

haranguing. He goes farther west still, along the{15}

shade of those noble planes, which Cimon has

planted there; and he looks around him at the

statues and porticoes and vestibules, each by

itself a work of genius and skill, enough to be the

making of another city. He passes through the{20}

city gate, and then he is at the famous Ceramicus;

here are the tombs of the mighty dead; and here,

we will suppose, is Pericles himself, the most

elevated, the most thrilling of orators, converting a

funeral oration over the slain into a philosophical{25}

panegyric of the living.

Onwards he proceeds still; and now he has

come to that still more celebrated Academe,

which has bestowed its own name on Universities

down to this day; and there he sees a sight which{30}

will be graven on his memory till he dies. Many

are the beauties of the place, the groves, and the

statues, and the temple, and the stream of the

Cephissus flowing by; many are the lessons

which will be taught him day after day by teacher

or by companion; but his eye is just now arrested{5}

by one object; it is the very presence of Plato.

He does not hear a word that he says; he does

not care to hear; he asks neither for discourse

nor disputation; what he sees is a whole,

complete in itself, not to be increased by addition, and{10}

greater than anything else. It will be a point in

the history of his life; a stay for his memory to

rest on, a burning thought in his heart, a bond of

union with men of like mind, ever afterwards.

Such is the spell which the living man exerts on{15}

his fellows, for good or for evil. How nature

impels us to lean upon others, making virtue, or

genius, or name, the qualification for our doing

so! A Spaniard is said to have traveled to Italy,

simply to see Livy; he had his fill of gazing, and{20}

then went back again home. Had our young

stranger got nothing by his voyage but the sight

of the breathing and moving Plato, had he

entered no lecture room to hear, no gymnasium to

converse, he had got some measure of education,{25}

and something to tell of to his grandchildren.

But Plato is not the only sage, nor the sight of

him the only lesson to be learned in this

wonderful suburb. It is the region and the realm

of philosophy. Colleges were the inventions of{30}

many centuries later; and they imply a sort of

cloistered life, or at least a life of rule, scarcely

natural to an Athenian. It was the boast of the

philosophic statesman of Athens, that his

countrymen achieved by the mere force of nature and

the love of the noble and the great, what other{5}

people aimed at by laborious discipline; and all

who came among them were submitted to the

same method of education. We have traced our

student on his wanderings from the Acropolis to

the Sacred Way; and now he is in the region of{10}

the schools. No awful arch, no window of

many-colored lights marks the seats of learning there

or elsewhere; philosophy lives out of doors. No

close atmosphere oppresses the brain or inflames

the eyelid; no long session stiffens the limbs.{15}

Epicurus is reclining in his garden; Zeno looks

like a divinity in his porch; the restless Aristotle,

on the other side of the city, as if in antagonism

to Plato, is walking his pupils off their legs in his

Lyceum by the Ilyssus. Our student has{20}

determined on entering himself as a disciple of

Theophrastus, a teacher of marvelous popularity, who

has brought together two thousand pupils from

all parts of the world. He himself is of Lesbos;

for masters, as well as students, come hither from{25}

all regions of the earth-as befits a University.

How could Athens have collected hearers in such

numbers, unless she had selected teachers of such

power? it was the range of territory, which the

notion of a University implies, which furnished{30}

both the quantity of the one and the quality of

the other. Anaxagoras was from Ionia, Carneades

from Africa, Zeno from Cyprus, Protagoras from

Thrace, and Gorgias from Sicily. Andromachus

was a Syrian, Pro?resius an Armenian, Hilarius

a Bithynian, Philiscus a Thessalian, Hadrian a{5}

Syrian. Rome is celebrated for her liberality in

civil matters; Athens was as liberal in

intellectual. There was no narrow jealousy, directed

against a Professor, because he was not an

Athenian; genius and talent were the qualifications;{10}

and to bring them to Athens, was to do homage

to it as a University. There was a brotherhood

and a citizenship of mind.

Mind came first, and was the foundation of the

academical polity; but it soon brought along with{15}

it, and gathered round itself, the gifts of fortune

and the prizes of life. As time went on, wisdom

was not always sentenced to the bare cloak of

Cleanthes; but, beginning in rags, it ended in

fine linen. The Professors became honorable{20}

and rich; and the students ranged themselves

under their names, and were proud of calling

themselves their countrymen. The University

was divided into four great nations, as the

medi?val antiquarian would style them; and in the{25}

middle of the fourth century, Pro?resius was the

leader or proctor of the Attic, Heph?stion of

the Oriental, Epiphanius of the Arabic, and

Diophantus of the Pontic. Thus the Professors

were both patrons of clients, and hosts and{30}

proxeni of strangers and visitors, as well as masters

of the schools: and the Cappadocian, Syrian,

or Sicilian youth who came to one or other of

them, would be encouraged to study by his

protection, and to aspire by his example.

Even Plato, when the schools of Athens were{5}

not a hundred years old, was in circumstances

to enjoy the otium cum dignitate. He had a villa

out at Heraclea; and he left his patrimony to

his school, in whose hands it remained, not only

safe, but fructifying, a marvelous phenomenon in{10}

tumultuous Greece, for the long space of eight

hundred years. Epicurus too had the property

of the Gardens where he lectured; and these too

became the property of his sect. But in Roman

times the chairs of grammar, rhetoric, politics,{15}

and the four philosophies were handsomely

endowed by the State; some of the Professors

were themselves statesmen or high functionaries,

and brought to their favorite study senatorial

rank or Asiatic opulence.{20}

Patrons such as these can compensate to the

freshman, in whom we have interested ourselves,

for the poorness of his lodging and the turbulence

of his companions. In everything there is a

better side and a worse; in every place a{25}

disreputable set and a respectable, and the one is

hardly known at all to the other. Men come

away from the same University at this day, with

contradictory impressions and contradictory

statements, according to the society they have found{30}

there; if you believe the one, nothing goes on

there as it should be: if you believe the other,

nothing goes on as it should not. Virtue,

however, and decency are at least in the minority

everywhere, and under some sort of a cloud or

disadvantage; and this being the case, it is so{5}

much gain whenever an Herodes Atticus is found,

to throw the influence of wealth and station on

the side even of a decorous philosophy. A

consular man, and the heir of an ample fortune, this

Herod was content to devote his life to a{10}

professorship, and his fortune to the patronage of

literature. He gave the sophist Polemo about

eight thousand pounds, as the sum is calculated,

for three declamations. He built at Athens a

stadium six hundred feet long, entirely of white{15}

marble, and capable of admitting the whole

population. His theater, erected to the memory of

his wife, was made of cedar wood curiously carved.

He had two villas, one at Marathon, the place of

his birth, about ten miles from Athens, the other{20}

at Cephissia, at the distance of six; and thither

he drew to him the èlite, and at times the whole

body of the students. Long arcades, groves of

trees, clear pools for the bath, delighted and

recruited the summer visitor. Never was so{25}

brilliant a lecture room as his evening

banqueting hall; highly connected students from Rome

mixed with the sharp-witted provincial of Greece

or Asia Minor; and the flippant sciolist, and the

nondescript visitor, half philosopher, half tramp,{30}

met with a reception, courteous always, but suitable

to his deserts. Herod was noted for his

repartees; and we have instances on record of

his setting down, according to the emergency,

both the one and the other.

A higher line, though a rarer one, was that{5}

allotted to the youthful Basil. He was one of

those men who seem by a sort of fascination to

draw others around them even without wishing

it. One might have deemed that his gravity and

his reserve would have kept them at a distance;{10}

but, almost in spite of himself, he was the center

of a knot of youths, who, pagans as most of them

were, used Athens honestly for the purpose for

which they professed to seek it; and, disappointed

and displeased with the place himself, he seems{15}

nevertheless to have been the means of their

profiting by its advantages. One of these was

Sophronius, who afterwards held a high office in

the State: Eusebius was another, at that time

the bosom friend of Sophronius, and afterwards{20}

a Bishop. Celsus too is named, who afterwards

was raised to the government of Cilicia by the

Emperor Julian. Julian himself, in the sequel of

unhappy memory, was then at Athens, and known

at least to St. Gregory. Another Julian is also{25}

mentioned, who was afterwards commissioner of

the land tax. Here we have a glimpse of the better

kind of society among the students of Athens; and

it is to the credit of the parties composing it,

that such young men as Gregory and Basil, men{30}

as intimately connected with Christianity, as they

were well known in the world, should hold so high

a place in their esteem and love. When the two

saints were departing, their companions came

around them with the hope of changing their

purpose. Basil persevered; but Gregory relented,{5}

and turned back to Athens for a season.

Supply and Demand

THE SCHOOLMEN

It is most interesting to observe how the

foundations of the present intellectual greatness

of Europe were laid, and most wonderful to think

that they were ever laid at all. Let us consider{10}

how wide and how high is the platform of our

knowledge at this day, and what openings in

every direction are in progress-openings of

such promise, that, unless some convulsion of

society takes place, even what we have attained,{15}

will in future times be nothing better than a poor

beginning; and then on the other hand, let us

recollect that, seven centuries ago, putting aside

revealed truths, Europe had little more than that

poor knowledge, partial and uncertain, and at{20}

best only practical, which is conveyed to us by the

senses. Even our first principles now are beyond

the most daring conjectures then; and what has

been said so touchingly of Christian ideas as

compared with pagan, is true in its way and degree{25}

of the progress of secular knowledge also in the

seven centuries I have named.

"What sages would have died to learn,

[Is] taught by cottage dames."

Nor is this the only point in which the

revelations of science may be compared to the

supernatural revelations of Christianity. Though{5}

sacred truth was delivered once for all, and

scientific discoveries are progressive, yet there is

a great resemblance in the respective histories of

Christianity and of Science. We are accustomed

to point to the rise and spread of Christianity as{10}

a miraculous fact, and rightly so, on account of

the weakness of its instruments, and the appalling

weight and multiplicity of the obstacles which

confronted it. To clear away those obstacles

was to move mountains; yet this was done by{15}

a few poor, obscure, unbefriended men, and

their poor, obscure, unbefriended followers. No

social movement can come up to this marvel,

which is singular and archetypical, certainly;

it is a Divine work, and we soon cease to admire{20}

it in order to adore. But there is more in it

than its own greatness to contemplate; it is so

great as to be prolific of greatness. Those whom

it has created, its children who have become such

by a supernatural power, have imitated, in their{25}

own acts, the dispensation which made them

what they were; and, though they have not

carried out works simply miraculous, yet they have

done exploits sufficient to bespeak their own

unearthly origin, and the new powers which had{30}

come into the world. The revival of letters by

the energy of Christian ecclesiastics and laymen,

when everything had to be done, reminds us of

the birth of Christianity itself, as far as a work of

man can resemble a work of God.

Two characteristics, as I have already had{5}

occasion to say, are generally found to attend the

history of Science: first, its instruments have

an innate force, and can dispense with foreign

assistance in their work; and secondly, these

instruments must exist and must begin to act,{10}

before subjects are found who are to profit by

their action. In plainer language, the teacher is

strong, not in the patronage of great men, but

in the intrinsic value and attraction of what he

has to communicate; and next, he must come{15}

forward and advertise himself, before he can gain

hearers. This I have expressed before, in saying

that a great school of learning lived in demand and

supply, and that the supply must be before the

demand. Now, what is this but the very history{20}

of the preaching of the Gospel? who but the

Apostles and Evangelists went out to the ends

of the earth without patron, or friend, or other

external advantage which could insure their

success? and again, who among the multitude they{25}

enlightened would have called for their aid unless

they had gone to that multitude first, and offered

to it blessings which up to that moment it had

not heard of? They had no commission, they

had no invitation, from man; their strength lay{30}

neither in their being sent, nor in their being sent

for; but in the circumstances that they had that

with them, a Divine message, which they knew

would at once, when it was uttered, thrill through

the hearts of those to whom they spoke, and

make for themselves friends in any place,{5}

strangers and outcasts as they were when they first

came. They appealed to the secret wants and

aspirations of human nature, to its laden

conscience, its weariness, its desolateness, and its

sense of the true and the Divine; nor did they{10}

long wait for listeners and disciples, when they

announced the remedy of evils which were so real.

Something like this were the first stages of the

process by which in medi?val Christendom the

structure of our present intellectual elevation{15}

was carried forward. From Rome as from a

center, as the Apostles from Jerusalem, went

forth the missionaries of knowledge, passing to

and fro all over Europe; and, as Metropolitan

sees were the record of the presence of Apostles,{20}

so did Paris, Pavia, and Bologna, and Padua,

and Ferrara, Pisa and Naples, Vienna, Louvain,

and Oxford, rise into Universities at the voice of

the theologian or the philosopher. Moreover, as

the Apostles went through labors untold, by{25}

sea and land, in their charity to souls; so, if

robbers, shipwrecks, bad lodging, and scanty fare

are trials of zeal, such trials were encountered

without hesitation by the martyrs and confessors

of science. And as Evangelists had grounded{30}

their teaching upon the longing for happiness

natural to man, so did these securely rest their

cause on the natural thirst for knowledge: and

again as the preachers of Gospel peace had often

to bewail the ruin which persecution or

dissension had brought upon their nourishing colonies,{5}

so also did the professors of science often find or

flee the ravages of sword or pestilence in those

places, which they themselves perhaps in former

times had made the seats of religious, honorable,

and useful learning. And lastly, as kings and{10}

nobles have fortified and advanced the interests

of the Christian faith without being necessary

to it, so in like manner we may enumerate with

honor Charlemagne, Alfred, Henry the First of

England, Joan of Navarre, and many others, as{15}

patrons of the schools of learning, without being

obliged to allow that those schools could not have

progressed without such countenance.

These are some of the points of resemblance

between the propagation of Christian truth and{20}

the revival of letters; and, to return to the two

points, to which I have particularly drawn

attention, the University Professor's confidence in his

own powers, and his taking the initiative in the

exercise of them, I find both these distinctly{25}

recognized by Mr. Hallam in his history of Literature.

As to the latter point, he says, "The schools of

Charlemagne were designed to lay the basis of a

learned education, for which there was at that time

no sufficient desire"-that is, the supply was{30}

prior to the demand. As to the former: "In

the twelfth century," he says, "the impetuosity

with which men rushed to that source of what

they deemed wisdom, the great University of

Paris, did not depend upon academical privileges

or eleemosynary stipends, though these were{5}

undoubtedly very effectual in keeping it up. The

University created patrons, and was not created

by them"-that is, demand and supply were all

in all....

Bec, a poor monastery of Normandy, set up in {10}

the eleventh century by an illiterate soldier, who

sought the cloister, soon attracted scholars to its

dreary clime from Italy, and transmitted them

to England. Lanfranc, afterwards Archbishop of

Canterbury, was one of these, and he found the{15}

simple monks so necessitous, that he opened a

school of logic to all comers, in order, says William

of Malmesbury, "that he might support his needy

monastery by the pay of the students." The

same author adds, that "his reputation went into{20}

the most remote parts of the Latin world, and

Bec became a great and famous Academy of

letters." Here is an instance of a

commencement without support, without scholars, in order

to attract scholars, and in them to find support.{25}

William of Jumièges, too, bears witness to the

effect, powerful, sudden, wide spreading, and

various, of Lanfranc's advertisement of himself.

The fame of Bec and Lanfranc, he says, quickly

penetrated through the whole world; and "clerks,{30}

the sons of dukes, the most esteemed masters of

the Latin schools, powerful laymen, high nobles,

flocked to him." What words can more strikingly

attest the enthusiastic character of the movement

which he began, than to say that it carried away

with it all classes; rich as well as poor, laymen as{5}

well as ecclesiastics, those who were in that day

in the habit of despising letters, as well as those

who might wish to live by them?...

The Strength and Weakness of Universities

ABELARD

We can have few more apposite illustrations

of at once the strength and weakness of what{10}

may be called the University principle, of what

it can do and what it cannot, of its power to

collect students, and its impotence to preserve and

edify them, than the history of the celebrated

Abelard. His name is closely associated with{15}

the commencement of the University of Paris;

and in his popularity and in his reverses, in the

criticisms of John of Salisbury on his method,

and the protest of St. Bernard against his

teaching, we read, as in a pattern specimen, what a{20}

University professes in its essence, and what it

needs for its "integrity." It is not to be supposed,

that I am prepared to show this here, as fully as

it might be shown; but it is a subject so

pertinent to the general object of these Essays, that it{25}

may be useful to devote even a few pages to it.

The oracles of Divine Truth, as time goes on,

do but repeat the one message from above which

they have ever uttered, since the tongues of fire

attested the coming of the Paraclete; still, as

time goes on, they utter it with greater force and{5}

precision, under diverse forms, with fuller

luminousness, and a richer ministration of thought

statement, and argument. They meet the

varying wants, and encounter the special resistance

of each successive age; and, though prescient of{10}

coming errors and their remedy long before, they

cautiously reserve their new enunciation of the

old Truth, till it is imperatively demanded. And,

as it happens in kings' cabinets, that surmises

arise, and rumors spread, of what is said in{15}

council, and is in course of preparation, and secrets

perhaps get wind, true in substance or in direction,

though distorted in detail; so too, before the

Church speaks, one or other of her forward

children speaks for her, and, while he does anticipate{20}

to a certain point what she is about to say or

enjoin, he states it incorrectly, makes it error

instead of truth, and risks his own faith in the

process. Indeed, this is actually one source, or

rather concomitant, of heresy, the presence of{25}

some misshapen, huge, and grotesque foreshadow

of true statements which are to come. Speaking

under correction, I would apply this remark to

the heresy of Tertullian or of Sabellius, which may

be considered a reaction from existing errors, and{30}

an attempt, presumptuous, and therefore unsuccessful,

to meet them with those divinely

appointed correctives which the Church alone can

apply, and which she will actually apply, when

the proper moment comes. The Gnostics boasted

of their intellectual proficiency before the time{5}

of St. Iren?us, St. Athanasius, and St.

Augustine; yet, when these doctors made their

appearance, I suppose they were examples of that

knowledge, true and deep, which the Gnostics

professed. Apollinaris anticipated the work of{10}

St. Cyril and the Ephesine Council, and became

a heresiarch in consequence; and, to come down

to the present times, we may conceive that

writers, who have impatiently fallen away from

the Church, because she would not adopt their{15}

views, would have found, had they but trusted

her, and waited, that she knew how to profit by

them, though she never could have need to

borrow her enunciations from them; for their

writings contained, so to speak, truth in the ore, truth{20}

which they themselves had not the gift to

disengage from its foreign concomitants, and safely

use, which she alone could use, which she would

use in her destined hour, and which became their

stone of stumbling simply because she did not{25}

use it faster. Now, applying this principle to

the subject before us, I observe, that, supposing

Abelard to be the first master of scholastic

philosophy, as many seem to hold, we shall have still

no difficulty in condemning the author, while we{30}

honor the work. To him is only the glory of

spoiling by his own self-will what would have

been done well and surely under the teaching

and guidance of Infallible Authority.

Nothing is more certain than that some ideas

are consistent with one another, and others{5}

inconsistent; and, again, that every truth must be

consistent with every other truth-hence, that

all truths of whatever kind form into one large

body of Truth, by virtue of the consistency

between one truth and another, which is a{10}

connecting link running through them all. The science

which discovers this connection is logic; and,

as it discovers the connection when the truths are

given, so, having one truth given and the

connecting principle, it is able to go on to ascertain{15}

the other. Though all this is obvious, it was

realized and acted on in the middle age with

a distinctness unknown before; all subjects of

knowledge were viewed as parts of one vast

system, each with its own place in it, and from{20}

knowing one, another was inferred. Not indeed

always rightly inferred, because the art might

be less perfect than the science, the instrument

than the theory and aim; but I am speaking of

the principle of the scholastic method, of which{25}

Saints and Doctors were the teachers-such

I conceive it to be, and Abelard was the ill-fated

logician who had a principal share in bringing it

into operation.

Others will consider the great St. Anselm and{30}

the school of Bec, as the proper source of Scholasticism;

I am not going to discuss the question;

anyhow, Abelard, and not St. Anselm, was the

Professor at the University of Paris, and it is

of Universities that I am speaking; anyhow,

Abelard illustrates the strength and the{5}

weakness of the principle of advertising and

communicating knowledge for its own sake, which I have

called the University principle, whether he is,

or is not, the first of scholastic philosophers or

scholastic theologians. And, though I could not{10}

speak of him at all without mentioning the

subject of his teaching, yet, after all, it is of him and

of his teaching itself, that I am going to speak,

whatever that might be which he actually taught.

Since Charlemagne's time the schools of Paris{15}

had continued, with various fortunes, faithful, as

far as the age admitted, to the old learning, as

other schools elsewhere, when, in the eleventh

century, the famous school of Bec began to

develop the powers of logic in forming a new{20}

philosophy. As the inductive method rose in

Bacon, so did the logical in the medi?val

schoolmen; and Aristotle, the most comprehensive

intellect of Antiquity, as the one who had

conceived the sublime idea of mapping the whole{25}

field of knowledge, and subjecting all things to

one profound analysis, became the presiding

master in their lecture halls. It was at the end

of the eleventh century that William of

Champeaux founded the celebrated Abbey of St.{30}

Victor under the shadow of St, Geneviève, and by

the dialectic methods which he introduced into his

teaching, has a claim to have commenced the

work of forming the University out of the Schools

of Paris. For one at least, out of the two

characteristics of a University, he prepared the way;{5}

for, though the schools were not public till after

his day, so as to admit laymen as well as clerks,

and foreigners as well as natives of the place, yet

the logical principle of constructing all sciences

into one system, implied of course a recognition{10}

of all the sciences that are comprehended in it.

Of this William of Champeaux, or de Campellis,

Abelard was the pupil; he had studied the

dialectic art elsewhere, before he offered himself for

his instructions; and, in the course of two years,{15}

when as yet he had only reached the age of

twenty-two, he made such progress, as to be

capable of quarreling with his master, and

setting up a school for himself.

This school of Abelard was first situated in{20}

the royal castle of Melun; then at Corbeil, which

was nearer to Paris, and where he attracted to

himself a considerable number of hearers. His

labors had an injurious effect upon his health;

and at length he withdrew for two years to his{25}

native Britanny. Whether other causes co?perated

in this withdrawal, I think, is not known;

but, at the end of the two years, we find him

returning to Paris, and renewing his attendance

on the lectures of William, who was by this time{30}

a monk. Rhetoric was the subject of the lectures

he now heard; and after a while the pupil

repeated with greater force and success his

former treatment of his teacher. He held a

public disputation with him, got the victory,

and reduced him to silence. The school of{5}

William was deserted, and its master himself became

an instance of the vicissitudes incident to that

gladiatorial wisdom (as I may style it) which was

then eclipsing the old Benedictine method of the

Seven Arts. After a time, Abelard found his{10}

reputation sufficient to warrant him in setting

up a school himself on Mount St. Geneviève;

whence he waged incessant war against the

unwearied logician, who by this time had rallied

his forces to repel the young and ungrateful{15}

adventurer who had raised his hand against him.

Great things are done by devotion to one idea;

there is one class of geniuses, who would never

be what they are, could they grasp a second.

The calm philosophical mind, which{20}

contemplates parts without denying the whole, and the

whole without confusing the parts, is notoriously

indisposed to action; whereas single and simple

views arrest the mind, and hurry it on to carry

them out. Thus, men of one idea and nothing{25}

more, whatever their merit, must be to a certain

extent narrow-minded; and it is not wonderful

that Abelard's devotion to the new philosophy

made him undervalue the Seven Arts out of which

it had grown. He felt it impossible so to honor{30}

what was now to be added, as not to dishonor

what existed before. He would not suffer the

Arts to have their own use, since he had found a

new instrument for a new purpose. So he

opposed the reading of the Classics. The monks

had opposed them before him; but this is little{5}

to our present purpose; it was the duty of men,

who abjured the gifts of this world on the

principle of mortification, to deny themselves

literature just as they would deny themselves

particular friendships or figured music. The doctrine{10}

which Abelard introduced and represents was

founded on a different basis. He did not

recognize in the poets of antiquity any other merit

than that of furnishing an assemblage of elegant

phrases and figures; and accordingly he asks{15}

why they should not be banished from the city

of God, since Plato banished them from his own

commonwealth. The animus of this language is

clear, when we turn to the pages of John of

Salisbury and Peter of Blois, who were champions of{20}

the ancient learning. We find them complaining

that the careful "getting up," as we now call it,

"of books," was growing out of fashion. Youths

once studied critically the text of poets or

philosophers; they got them by heart; they analyzed{25}

their arguments; they noted down their fallacies;

they were closely examined in the matters which

had been brought before them in lecture; they

composed. But now, another teaching was

coming in; students were promised truth in a{30}

nutshell; they intended to get possession of the sum-total

of philosophy in less than two or three

years; and facts were apprehended, not in their

substance and details, by means of living and,

as it were, personal documents, but in dead

abstracts and tables. Such were the{5}

reclamations to which the new Logic gave occasion.

These, however, are lesser matters; we have

a graver quarrel with Abelard than that of his

undervaluing the Classics. As I have said, my

main object here is not what he taught, but why{10}

and how, and how he lived. Now it is certain

his activity was stimulated by nothing very high,

but something very earthly and sordid. I grant

there is nothing morally wrong in the mere desire

to rise in the world, though Ambition and it are{15}

twin sisters. I should not blame Abelard merely

for wishing to distinguish himself at the

University; but when he makes the ecclesiastical

state the instrument of his ambition, mixes up

spiritual matters with temporal, and aims at a{20}

bishopric through the medium of his logic, he

joins together things incompatible, and cannot

complain of being censured. It is he himself,

who tells us, unless my memory plays me false,

that the circumstance of William of Champeaux{25}

being promoted to the see of Chalons, was an

incentive to him to pursue the same path with an

eye to the same reward. Accordingly, we next

hear of his attending the theological lectures of

a certain master of William's, named Anselm, an{30}

old man, whose school was situated at Laon. This

person had a great reputation in his day; John

of Salisbury, speaking of him in the next

generation, calls him the doctor of doctors; he had been

attended by students from Italy and Germany;

but the age had advanced since he was in his{5}

prime, and Abelard was disappointed in a teacher,

who had been good enough for William. He left

Anselm, and began to lecture on the prophet

Ezekiel on his own resources.

Now came the time of his great popularity,{10}

which was more than his head could bear; which

dizzied him, took him off his legs, and whirled

him to his destruction. I spoke in my foregoing

Chapter of those three qualities of true wisdom,

which a University, absolutely and nakedly{15}

considered, apart from the safeguards which

constitute its integrity, is sure to compromise.

Wisdom, says the inspired writer, is desursum, is

pudica, is pacifica, "from above, chaste,

peaceable." We have already seen enough of Abelard's{20}

career to understand that his wisdom, instead of

being "pacifica," was ambitious and contentious.

An Apostle speaks of the tongue both as a blessing

and as a curse. It may be the beginning of a fire,

he says, a "Universitas iniquitatis"; and alas!{25}

such did it become in the mouth of the gifted

Abelard. His eloquence was wonderful; he

dazzled his contemporaries, says Fulco, "by the

brilliancy of his genius, the sweetness of his

eloquence, the ready flow of his language, and the{30}

subtlety of his knowledge." People came to

him from all quarters-from Rome, in spite of

mountains and robbers; from England, in spite

of the sea; from Flanders and Germany; from

Normandy, and the remote districts of France;

from Angers and Poitiers; from Navarre by the{5}

Pyrenees, and from Spain, besides the students

of Paris itself; and among those, who sought his

instructions now or afterwards, were the great

luminaries of the schools in the next generation.

Such were Peter of Poitiers, Peter Lombard, John{10}

of Salisbury, Arnold of Brescia, Ivo, and Geoffrey

of Auxerre. It was too much for a weak head

and heart, weak in spite of intellectual power;

for vanity will possess the head, and worldliness

the heart, of the man, however gifted, whose{15}

wisdom is not an effluence of the Eternal Light.

True wisdom is not only "pacifica," it is

"pudica"; chaste as well as peaceable. Alas for

Abelard! a second disgrace, deeper than

ambition, is his portion now. The strong man-the{20}

Samson of the schools in the wildness of his course,

the Solomon in the fascination of his

genius-shivers and falls before the temptation which

overcame that mighty pair, the most excelling

in body and in mind.{25}

In a time when Colleges were unknown, and the

young scholar was commonly thrown upon the

dubious hospitality of a great city, Abelard might

even be thought careful of his honor, that he

went to lodge with an old ecclesiastic, had not{30}

his host's niece Eloisa lived with him. A more

subtle snare was laid for him than beset the

heroic champion or the all-accomplished monarch of

Israel; for sensuality came upon him under the

guise of intellect, and it was the high mental

endowments of Eloisa, who became his pupil,{5}

speaking in her eyes, and thrilling on her tongue,

which were the intoxication and the delirium of

Abelard....

He is judged, he is punished; but he is not

reclaimed. True wisdom is not only "pacifica,"{10}

not only "pudica;" it is "desursum" too. It is

a revelation from above; it knows heresy as

little as it knows strife or license. But Abelard,

who had run the career of earthly wisdom in two

of its phases, now is destined to represent its{15}

third.

It is at the famous Abbey of St. Denis that we

find him languidly rising from his dream of sin,

and the suffering that followed. The bad dream

is cleared away; clerks come to him, and the{20}

Abbot begging him to lecture still, for love

now, as for gain before. Once more his school is

thronged by the curious and the studious; but

at length a rumor spreads, that Abelard is

exploring the way to some novel view on the{25}

subject of the Most Holy Trinity. Wherefore is

hardly clear, but about the same time the monks

drive him away from the place of refuge he had

gained. He betakes himself to a cell, and thither

his pupils follow him. "I betook myself to a{30}

certain cell," he says, "wishing to give myself to

the schools, as was my custom. Thither so great

a multitude of scholars flocked, that there was

neither room to house them, nor fruits of the

earth to feed them," such was the enthusiasm of

the student, such the attraction of the teacher,{5}

when knowledge was advertised freely, and its

market opened.

Next he is in Champagne, in a delightful

solitude near Nogent in the diocese of Troyes. Here

the same phenomenon presents itself, which is{10}

so frequent in his history. "When the scholars

knew it," he says, "they began to crowd thither

from all parts; and, leaving other cities and

strongholds, they were content to dwell in the

wilderness. For spacious houses they framed for{15}

themselves small tabernacles, and for delicate food they

put up with wild herbs. Secretly did they

whisper among themselves: 'Behold, the whole

world is gone out after him!' When, however,

my Oratory could not hold even a moderate{20}

portion of them, then they were forced to enlarge

it, and to build it up with wood and stone."

He called the place his Paraclete, because it had

been his consolation.

I do not know why I need follow his life further.{25}

I have said enough to illustrate the course of one,

who may be called the founder, or at least the first

great name, of the Parisian Schools. After the

events I have mentioned he is found in Lower

Britanny; then, being about forty-eight years of{30}

age, in the Abbey of St. Gildas; then with St.

Geneviève again. He had to sustain the fiery

eloquence of a Saint, directed against his novelties;

he had to present himself before two Councils;

he had to burn the book which had given offense

to pious ears. His last two years were spent at{5}

Clugni on his way to Rome. The home of the

weary, the hospital of the sick, the school of the

erring, the tribunal of the penitent, is the city

of St. Peter. He did not reach it; but he is

said to have retracted what had given scandal in{10}

his writings, and to have made an edifying end.

He died at the age of sixty-two, in the year of

grace 1142.

In reviewing his career, the career of so great

an intellect so miserably thrown away, we are{15}

reminded of the famous words of the dying

scholar and jurist, which are a lesson to us all,

"Heu, vitam perdidi, operosè nihil agendo." A

happier lot be ours!

* * *