The remedy against this natural tendency of the teacher's mind is to be found in the University, where in theory, and so far as is possible, in practice too, science is presented not as ready-made, definitely turned out in final theories, enclosed in consecrated manuals; but as inquiry, as research, as spiritual activity which does not rest satisfied with its accomplishments, but for ever feels that it does not yet know or does not know enough, aware of the difficulties which threaten every attained position, and ready unrestingly to track them, to reveal them, and meet them squarely. This life, which is perpetual criticism, and unceasing progress in a learning which is never completed, which never aspires to be complete, is the serious and fruitful purpose of the University. Here we must come, to restore freshness to our spiritual activities, which alone give value to knowledge, and wrest it from deadening crystallisation, from mechanical rigidity. For this reason, it seems to me, special provision should be made in the University to satisfy the needs of school teachers. It is not a question of merely furnishing them with additional information which they might just as well get out of books. The University must act on their minds, shake them, start them going, instil in them salutary doubt by criticism, and develop a taste for true knowledge. The following chapters contain a series of University lectures, in accordance with these criteria, and delivered originally to the elementary teachers of Trieste, now for the first time again an Italian city. They constitute a course which aims not to increase the quantity of culture, but to change its character. It is an attempt to introduce the elementary teacher into those spiritual workshops which are the halls of a University, to induce him to take part in the original investigations which constantly contribute to the formation of our national learning; which forever make and reshape our ideas and our convictions as to what we should want Italian science to be, the Italian concepts of life and literature; as to what constitute the heirloom of our school, that sacred possession bequeathed to us by our forefathers which makes us what we are, which gives us a name and endows us with a personality, by which we are enabled to look forward to a future of Italy which is not solely economic and political, but moral and intellectual as well.