The holders
of professorial chairs must be expected and encouraged to advance by
positive researches the sciences to which they are devoted; and
arrangements must be made in some way to publish and bring before the
criticism of the world the results of such investigations. Primarily,
instruction is the duty of the professor in a university as it is in a
college; but university students should be so mature and so well trained
as to exact from their teachers the most advanced instruction, and even
to quicken and inspire by their appreciative responses the new
investigations which their professors undertake. Such work is costly and
complex; it varies with time, place, and teacher; it is always somewhat
remote from popular sympathy, and liable to be depreciated by the
ignorant and thoughtless. But it is by the influence of universities,
with their comprehensive libraries, their costly instruments, their
stimulating associations and helpful criticisms, and especially their
great professors, indifferent to popular applause, superior to
authoritative dicta, devoted to the discovery and revelation of truth,
that knowledge has been promoted, and society released from the fetters
of superstition and the trammels of ignorance, ever since the revival of
letters.
Pages:
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97