sound strange to many ears if I venture to maintain the
proposition that a young person, educated thus far, has had a liberal,
though perhaps not a full, education. But it seems to me that such
training as that to which I have referred may be termed liberal, in both
the senses in which that word is employed, with perfect accuracy. In the
first place, it is liberal in breadth. It extends over the whole ground
of things to be known and of faculties to be trained, and it gives equal
importance to the two great sides of human activity--art and science. In
the second place, it is liberal in the sense of being an education
fitted for free men; for men to whom every career is open, and from whom
their country may demand that they should be fitted to perform the
duties of any career. I cannot too strongly impress upon you the fact
that, with such a primary education as this, and with no more than is to
be obtained by building strictly upon its lines, a man of ability may
become a great writer or speaker, a statesman, a lawyer, a man of
science, painter, sculptor, architect, or musician. That even
development of all a man's faculties, which is what properly constitutes
culture, may be effected by such an education, while it opens the way
for the indefinite strengthening of any special capabilities with which
he may be gifted.

In a country like this, where most men have to carve out their own
fortunes and devote themselves early to the practical affairs of life,
comparatively few can hope to pursue their studies up to, still less
beyond, the age of manhood. But it is of vital importance to the welfare
of the community that those who are relieved from the need of making a
livelihood, and still more, those who are stirred by the divine impulses
of intellectual thirst or artistic genius, should be enabled to devote
themselves to the higher service of their kind, as centres of
intelligence, interpreters of nature, or creators of new forms of
beauty. And it is the function of a university to furnish such men with
the means of becoming that which it is their privilege and duty to be.
To this end the university need cover no ground foreign to that occupied
by the elementary school. Indeed it cannot; for the elementary
instruction which I have referred to embraces all the kinds of real
knowledge and mental activity possible to man. The university can add no
new departments of knowledge, can offer no new fields of mental
activity; but w