plication of religious sects, with the progress of secular
culture, with the mental emancipation which followed the great
convulsions of the eighteenth century, the maintenance of the
ecclesiastical type originally impressed on the College ceased to be
practicable,--ceased to be desirable. The preparation of young men for
the service of the Church is still a recognized part of the general
scheme of University education, but is only one in the multiplicity of
objects which that scheme embraces, and can never again have the
prominence once assigned to it. This secularization, however it might
seem to compromise the design of the founders of the College, was
inevitable,--a wise and needful concession to the exigencies of the
altered time. Nor is there, in a larger view, any real contravention
here of the purpose of the founders. The secularization of the College
is no violation of its motto, "_Christo et Ecclesiae_." For, as I
interpret those sacred ideas, the cause of Christ and the Church is
advanced by whatever liberalizes and enriches and enlarges the mind. All
study, scientifically pursued, is at bottom a study of theology; for all
scientific study is the study of Law; and "of Law nothing less can be
acknowledged than that her seat is in the bosom of God."

But something more than secularization of the course of study is
required to satisfy the idea of a university. What is a university? Dr.
Newman answers this question with the ancient designation of a _Studium
Generale_,--a school of universal learning. "Such a university," he
says, "is in its essence a place for the communication and circulation
of thought by means of personal intercourse over a wide tract of
country."[B] Accepting this definition, can we say that Harvard College,
as at present constituted, is a University? Must we not rather describe
it as a place where boys are made to recite lessons from text-books, and
to write compulsory exercises, and are marked according to their
proficiency and fidelity in these performances, with a view to a
somewhat protracted exhibition of themselves at the close of their
college course, which, according to a pleasant academic fiction, is
termed their "Commencement"? This description applies only, it is true,
to what is called the Undergraduate Department. But that department
stands for the College, constitutes the College, in the public
estimation. The professional schools which have gathered about it are
scarcely regar