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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1868 Excerpt: ... and abstract treatment of any matter whatsoever. Wissenschaft expresses the purpose and aim for which a university exists. Not that in a university, any more than in the world at large, man is for knowledge. Much rather is knowledge for man. Not to enlarge the sciences, or to heap up libraries, is our object, but to maintain through successive generations an order of minds, in each of the great departments of human inquiry, cultivated to the utmost point which their powers admit of. Upon the prevalence and realisation of this idea depends the life of a university. But this is a conception which cannot be imported into Oxford from without, either by public opinion or the Legislature, because neither the public nor the Legislature can give an idea or a sentiment which they do not themselves possess. The idea, however, exists in germ in the university itself. It is sure to grow and develop itself under favourable influences. All that the Legislature can do is to create the conditions, or to remove the obstructions. Sec. 6.--Of The Studies Preliminary To The Degree. § 1.--"Pass" and " Class." In treating the question, What studies shall compose the curriculum for young men passing through a university? one of two methods is usually adopted by speakers or writers. One mode of treatment is the abstract. The writer lays down a psychological principle of education. He will say, e.g., that the business of education is the communication of that knowledge which has most value for the conduct of life. And from this he will proceed to deduce the rule that a university should teach all those branches of knowledge, the practical applications of which are required to guide or adorn human life. To this a counter-theorist will reply, that education should be, not initia...