" he says, "qu'il y ait
aucune veritable opposition entre l'esprit des Academies et celui des
Universites; ce sont seulement des vues differentes. Les Universites sont
etablies pour _enseigner_ les sciences _aux eleves_ qui veulent s'y
former; les Academies se proposent _de nouvelles recherches_ a faire dans
la carriare des sciences. Les Universites d'Italie ont fourni des sujets
qui ont fait honneur aux Academies; et celles-ci ont donne aux Universites
des Professeurs, qui ont rempli les chaires avec la plus grande
distinction."(2)

The nature of the case and the history of philosophy combine to recommend
to us this division of intellectual labour between Academies and
Universities. To discover and to teach are distinct functions; they are
also distinct gifts, and are not commonly found united in the same person.
He, too, who spends his day in dispensing his existing knowledge to all
comers is unlikely to have either leisure or energy to acquire new. The
common sense of mankind has associated the search after truth with
seclusion and quiet. The greatest thinkers have been too intent on their
subject to admit of interruption; they have been men of absent minds and
idosyncratic habits, and have, more or less, shunned the lecture room and
the public school. Pythagoras, the light of Magna Graecia, lived for a time
in a cave. Thales, the light of Ionia, lived unmarried and in private, and
refused the invitations of princes. Plato withdrew from Athens to the
groves of Academus. Aristotle gave twenty years to a studious discipleship
under him. Friar Bacon lived in his tower upon the Isis. Newton indulged
in an intense severity of meditation which almost shook his reason. The
great discoveries in chemistry and electricity were not made in
Universities. Observatories are more frequently out of Universities than
in them, and even when within their bounds need have no moral connexion
with them. Porson had no classes; Elmsley lived a good part of his life in
the country. I do not say that there are not great examples the other way,
perhaps Socrates, certainly Lord Bacon; still I think it must be allowed
on the whole that, while teaching involves external engagements, the
natural home for experiment and speculation is retirement.

Returning, then, to the consideration of the question, from which I may
seem to have digressed, thus much I think I have made good,--that, whether
or no a Catholic University should put before it, as its