"Onager by right is named the wild ass; of it the Physiologus says, in his speech, when March in his course has completed twenty-five days, then that day of the month he brays twelve times, and also in the night for this reason, that that season is the equinox, that is that night and day are of equal length; by the twelve times that it makes its braying and its crying, it shows that night and day have twelve hours in their circuit. The ass is grieved when he makes his cry, that the night and day have equal length; he likes better the length of the night than of the day. Now hear without doubt the signification of this. Onager signifies the devil in this life; and by March we understand all the time that we have; by the day we understand good people, by right, who will go in light; and by night we understand those who were Neros; and by hours we understand the number of people. And when the devil perceives that his people decrease, as do the hours which are in the night, after the vernal equinox which we have in March, then he begins to cry, to deplore greatly, as the ass does which brays and crys."
One need not go back to the middle ages for a measure of progress, for all who remember the American college of thirty years ago know there has been notable improvement in this short time, and they also know that every change has not been an improvement. All who are concerned with education see many defects, and wish to do what they can to remedy them, and to increase the efficiency and usefulness of our whole educational system in all its branches from the lowest to the highest, although I believe they still find much wisdom in the advice of the prophet of old, "that we make a stand upon the ancient way, and then look about us and discover what is the straight and right way, and so walk in it."
Many who are now before the public as reformers seem to me to fall into error through belief that our educational system has been devised by some one, either in the twelfth century or at some other time, and that they may therefore hope to devise a better. All who know that it is a highly complex and delicate organism which has grown up imperceptibly and naturally in accordance with many needs, fulfilling many different purposes and acting in many diversified and far-reaching ways, know also that while reform always has been and always will be needed, organic change is quite another matter. They know, too, that a disposition to pull it to pieces in the interest of some theory or speculation must inevitably end in disaster, for they must agree with Bacon that "it were good, therefore, that men in their innovations would follow the example of time itself, which indeed innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by degrees scarce to be perceived."
The complaint that learning is no longer treated with due deference is not exclusively modern, for it was enumerated long ago among the things that are not new under the sun; and he who for his own pleasure or distinction devotes himself to work in fields that yield nothing but the interest of the exploration should look to his own pleasure for his reward, since learning is no more exalted by turning it into an aristocratic and exclusive pleasure ground than by making it a shop for profit. While no weak and foolish brother of the laboratory should be permitted to think that he belongs to a favored class or has any claims to support or respect except for service rendered, it is the duty of our graduates to teach the world, by the example of their lives, what the work of the university is.
Lyceum lectures and summer schools and systematic courses of reading are good things, and the common school and the home are the foundation of all education. Travel is a most valuable adjunct, but those who are to profit by it must first know what they go out to see, "for else shall young men go hooded and look abroad little."
No school or college can improve its work by calling itself a university, although the prevalence of belief that its work is the work of a university may bring harm incalculable; for that university is universal, in the best sense of the word, where students are inspired with enthusiasm for truth by the example of those whose minds are "as a mirror or glass capable of the image of the universal world, and joyful to receive the impression thereof as the eye joyeth to receive light."
What nobler task can our graduate undertake than to teach the world that while the benefits which learning confers are its only claim to consideration, these benefits will cease so soon as they are made an end or aim? All men prize the fruit; but who else is there to tell them that the tree will soon be barren if they visit it only at the harvest, that they must dig about it and nourish it and cherish the flowers and green leaves? What better service can he render than to point out that the gifts of learning are like health, which comes to him who does not seek it, but flies farther and farther from him who would lure it back by physic or indulgence?
The two authors I referred to at the beginning can not both be right, and both may be partly wrong, for it is possible that neither plutocracy nor a democratic majority makes a state. No university need humble itself to seek the favor of either plutocracy or democracy if its graduates can convince mankind, by their own lives, that its aim is not to gain deference or success or distinction or reward of any sort, but solely to propagate and diffuse among mankind "that enthusiasm for truth, that fanaticism of veracity, which is a greater possession than much learning, a nobler gift than the power of increasing knowledge."