But what the university can give him which his own personal character and probably his home surroundings cannot, is the way to set about making of learning a possession for ever. Some nice person said “mathematics is such a consolation in affliction,” and there is much to be said for the point of view. A university can teach these things because, unlike technical colleges or seminaries for the professions, it exists first and foremost for the advancement of learning. Traditionally inseparable from this is its other object--education; and together they provide the tests it applies to all such questions as ‘how far it shall adapt itself to a commercial standard.’ For a university is not only a place of higher studies, it is the nursery of study; and to instil the love of learning for its own sake will always be required of it. In the words of Elizabeth of Clare: “When skill in learning has been found, it sends out disciples who have tasted its sweetness.” In the last resort universities must stand for these things; the day when they cease to do so the idea of a university will have oozed out of them. Like all good things the university will bring forth from its treasure things new and old. We shall not look for degrees in cricket, but there may be degrees in agriculture, degrees in engineering, degrees in forestry. Why not, if a degree signifies a diploma of competence? But there should be degrees and degrees. There should be licentiates in the technical arts by the side of bachelors and masters in the liberal arts: the university must claim to mete with its own measure, and to teach its own lesson to all sorts of men. _Hinc lucem et pocula sacra_---- CHAPTER IV COLLEGIATE AND SOCIAL LIFE AT THE UNIVERSITY