Synopsis
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. 1888 edition. Excerpt: ... truer conception of proportion. But, whatever be the task of the German university, it cannot be precisely the same task as ours, nor are its ways, while admirable, necessarily to he our ways. The German university is largely a nursery for specialists, an invaluable training-ground for teachers and investigators. Based upon the common schools, and affording the sole supply for the learned professions, it has an intimate and unshaken hold upon the nation. We, too, have an obligation to perform toward our nation also. The minor part of our own duty may be to train a limited number of bright minds in progressive and independent work; the major portion of our labors must be consumed in helping large numbers of students to gain such a vantage ground of vision that their sympathies will be permanently enlarged, and their intellectual life possess a generous and catholic range whose influence will touch distant circles which we can never directly reach, but which ought to share whatever diversities of gifts a university may have at its command. Is there any better method of advancing this aim than the careful and sympathetic study of the noblest expressions of modern literary thought? It has been the great privilege of many here present to draw liberally from the fountains of learning which spring so freely from Teutonic sources; and the severe and successful methods there in vogue are exerting a powerful and not unfavorable influence upon our own higher education. But may we not retain our gratitude and acknowledge our manifold indebtedness without too general a surrender to foreign precedents? Perhaps I may be permitted, in closing, to strengthen and make clear the position which I am endeavoring to maintain, by quoting some words from a memorable...
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
