al pre- 
story is 
almost 
sks for 
vledge. 
yained. 
tion of 
Uready 
knowl- 
scover 
nes of 
college 
vledge. 
ofessor 
h life- 
ambi- 
Yas a 
think 
sides 
chief 
rowing 
Where 
vended 
yment, 
ght of 
a. If 
* sense 
stically 
ent of 
0 suc- 
ler the 
tions, 
slebra- 
of the 
ersity; 
e vital 
at our 
differ 
re are 
. trod- 
HOW FAR SHOULD UNIVERSITIES BE OF ONE TYPE? 107 
It is no small recommendation of this theory, that, if generally adopted, 
t would lessen, if not extinguish, a certain ungracious competition. 
Universities which range equally the whole field of the higher education are 
weally rivals. With aims essentially the same and alike unbounded, they 
wre tempted to make numbers the test of eminence, and to canvass the 
whole country in order to swell their numbers. The competition is some- 
;imes sharp. There is also a shame at being outclassed in any one line of 
progress. A university seeing superior inducements elsewhere, in any 
‘mportant study, forthwith strives to make up the deficiency. If one 
leading institution makes a new departure, and establishes a school > of 
political science, or philosophy, or biology, others strain every nerve to do 
the same. It is a succession of races, to be run as often as a newcomer 
challenges the field; and a veritable devil of disrepute is believed to lie in 
vait for the hindmost. 
What if every university should allow precedence to others in certain 
ines of excellence, and bid them a hearty Godspeed in their own peculiar 
work ? It could at the same time strengthen its own strong redoubts, 
make more sure its own acknowledged preéminence in some field of its 
sown, and receive reciprocal congratulations. T can imagine so healthy a 
tone of university fellowship, so complete a comity of intercourse, that 
she Apostolic injunction to individual good men would be realized by the 
aggregations of good men in university faculties : boasting would be ex- 
>luded, and in honor they would be ready to prefer one another; yet 
abating no jot of effort in developing their own several departments of 
aonorable and useful work. 
This comity should extend so far that a student with special wants, 
who could do better elsewhere, would be advised to go elsewhere. That is 
aot, I am glad to say, a mere stretch of imagination. I have known such 
rages of honest advice. 
Such an interchange of students would lead—would it not ?—to a 
tuller recognition of the work done in other reputable institutions. Why 
should there not be a license of migration, akin to that of the German 
universities >—not identical with that, but suited to the conditions of 
»ur own body of students. 
Such a theory of university development would give larger honor and 
1sefulness to many institutions which do not aspire to the name of uni- 
rersities. It is but recently that some of our best universities have been 
rechristened. They were for a long time colleges, and it was as colleges 
shat they laid all the foundations of their present excellence. 
There have been other colleges that gloried in great teachers, like Mark 
Hopkins. There are colleges now possessing eminent names in their facul- 
ies. The want of means or a purposed limitation restricts them to fewer 
lines of excellence than are possible to the larger foundations of universi- 
ses. Butin their narrower field they may still achieve the most substantial