is to be found in nations which are not rich in other respects; we have only to mention Germany and Italy and Scotland to show that a country need not be wealthy to indulge in academic luxuries. We have lately witnessed a strong protest against the system of competitive examinations as opposed to the development of man^s faculties. In many of the arguments which have been urged against multiplication of examinations we have a just criticism, especially of the evil influence of that system on University teaching which is constantly opening up new courses of study, and which in the same degree must restrict its examinations to an absolute minimum. Universities are, in the first place, called to train the few who will in their turn open up new avenues of learning, and who for that purpose devote their lives to literary, scientific, or critical studies. The history of all great Universities is the history of men who have thrown a new light on the subject which they had made their own particular field of research, or of men who have brought to light errors of past times, or of men who have exposed fallacies which obtained during their lives, whether they were recognised as fallacies by their own or by a subsequent generation.
The best organised University is the University which leaves to its professors A Model University. the maximum of time for original research, for independent criticism, for culture in all its ramifications. The duty of Universities is to keep intact the highest traditions of a people by constantly raising the standard of its intellectual life by an unflinching opposition to degrading and demoralising tendencies which weaken the fibre of nations. You must enthrone on the high seats of learning all that is noble, all that is brilliant, all that is superior in the nations. You must give to rising generations the benefit of the afflatus of the genius of a preceding generation and also—if it exists—of their own. It is the nature of the environment which in most cases decides the future of clever young men and of the future of nations. It is impossible to overrate the influence exercised by men who know how to appeal to the best instincts of the rising generation—who kindle in them enthusiasm for the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. For such men, for such students, examinations are unnecessary, because they are constantly examining themselves. Study has no other meaning than perpetual self-examination. No real student ever ceases to examine his results. Periodical University examinations are from this point of view mainly a necessary evil, because they presuppose that previous studies have not answered their object, and inasmuch as they lead to subsequent cessation ofPage:Convocation Addresses of the Universities of Bombay and Madras.djvu/237
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University of Bombay.
