The doctrine is only a new
reading of the old maxim, _non multa sed multum_, but it is as much
needed now as ever it was. Still more appropriate to the present day
was Mr. Carlyle's protest against the notion that a University is
the place where a man is to be fitted for the special work of a
profession. A University, as he puts it, teaches a man how to read,
or, as we may say more generally, how to learn. It is not the function
of such a place to offer particular and technical knowledge, but to
prepare a man for mastering any science by teaching him the method of
all. A child learns the use of his body, not the art of a carpenter or
smith, and the University student learns the use of his mind, not the
professional lore of a lawyer or a physician. It is pleasant to meet
with a strong reassertion of doctrines which the utilitarianism of a
commercial and manufacturing age is too apt to make us all forget.
Mr. Carlyle is essentially conservative in his notions on academic
functions. Accuracy, discrimination, judgment, are with him the be-all
and end-all of educational training.
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