But it is more than probable that, as in our own universities, so at Athens, the best and most earnest of the teachers set themselves so exclusively to their task that they left nothing behind them except in the note-books of their classes. This sort of university teacher never earns any wider popularity than that of his college; and yet there, and among those who have known his diligence, his patience, and his power, he will always rank far higher than those who rush before the public from ambition, often with badly digested ideas. We shall, therefore, do well not to set down the philosophical teaching at Athens at the level of those tedious commentaries which the student will find collected in the later volumes[70] of Mullach’s “Fragmenta Philosophorum Græcorum.” § 82. As regards the length of the course which the students were expected to attend, there are very varying statements. Five to eight years are mentioned, a period far too long for young gentlemen like Cicero’s nephews, and probably only meant to apply to those who went for professional purposes. There were lads of tender age, sometimes under the care of a pædagogue, and men of middle-age, waiting for the chance of a post. There seems to have been no limit of age, or any compulsion or rule as to the number of courses to be kept. Every student (or his parent) was supposed to select for himself what subjects he should pursue. This was perhaps less mischievous than it would now be, seeing the quadrivium of humanities was so fixed by tradition that most students fell into it as a matter of course. Neither was there in old days that multitude of special subjects, totally unconnected either with each other or with a liberal education, which now infests our educational establishments, and causes the hurry after tangible results to displace the only true outcome of a higher education--that capacity to think consecutively and clearly, which is to be acquired by studying a logical and thoroughly articulated branch of knowledge for the sake of its accuracy and method.