L06 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
in the next generation, at least, will achieve full and symmetrical pre- 
eminence on every possible side of university work. So unsatisfactory is 
‘he first of our two theories of university development ; so sure, in almost 
all cases, to lead to disappointment and partial failure. 
Let us suppose the other theory to prevail, the theory which asks for 
special excellence in certain portions only of the wide field of knowledge. 
No university would in that case abandon advantages already gained. 
No one would cease to aim at a general understanding and presentation of 
the learning and science of the age. Ambition to impart what is already 
known is as important as ambition to enlarge the boundaries of knowl- 
edge. Said a college president in this State: “You are eager to discover 
new truth; I am eager to develop new minds.” No narrow lines of 
struction should satisfy the aspirations of any university or college 
faculty. But it is equally imperative to add to the sum of knowledge. 
Investigation is the watchword of the highest education. What Professor 
Hale calls creative scholarship is the stimulus needful to infuse fresh life- 
vlood ; it is the prize which brings the choicest fame. 
For such productive work, is it not clear that special and limited ambi- 
sions are better than a general, all-embracing ambition ? So long as a 
aniversity insists on a full and symmetrical development, it will think 
more of strengthening its weak sides than of making its strong sides 
stronger. But when it accepts large limitations, it will give its chief 
2nergies to its most successful work. The circle of knowledge is growing 
on every side, pushing its radii into the surrounding ignorance. Where 
will the push be hardest ? Certainly where the greatest force is expended 
In a single direction. Any university, not cosmopolitan in equipment, 
can most enlarge the boundaries of knowledge, most increase the light of 
ruth, by concentrating its energies on a few lines of investigation. If 
:t is good for one man to have a hobby—I use the word in a higher sense 
shan Dr. Harris does ; I mean by it a worthy specialty, enthusiastically 
followed —it is good for a university faculty to have an assortment of 
hobbies. The individual worker finds a narrow choice essential to suc- 
cess; the university can make many more choices, but it, too, is under the 
law of limitation. There is a genius loci in all our American foundations. 
[t breaks forth in university competitions ; it shows itself in the celebra- 
sion of public events ; none the less does it direct the patient work of the 
laboratory and the classroom. It makes the great men of the university; 
and no university has enough of its great men to deal with all the vital 
oranches of knowledge. 
So, for the sum total of beneficent results, it would be better that our 
aniversities should have each its peculiar aims, and that all should differ 
in their lines of excellence. We have already a few examples ; there are 
aniversities which have taken themselves out of the procession, and trod- 
den separate and more distinguished paths of their own. 
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