traffic, united, as is well known, these achievements with the highest accomplishments in painting and sculpture. His training was obtained under Verrocchio, goldsmith, sculptor, painter, and teacher, and the universality of his education is testified to not only by his early sketches and paintings, but by the tales of his daring architectural and engineering projects. Bramante and Brunelleschi are known almost as well for their proficiency in art and letters as because of St. Peter's Church and the Duomo of Florence. The versatile Franklin, the all-wise Humboldt, the accomplished Bunsen, and the cultured Priestley, are illustrations of the fact that mere technical education alone has never secured the first rank in the life of the community. The written word is more imperishable than marble and steel.

"The aspiring youth that fired the Ephesian dome outlives in fame the pious fool that raised it."

The epic tales of Homer, the Divine Comedy of Dante, the logic of Aristotle, the human drama of Shakespeare, all teach the lesson of human life, in the knowledge of which is to be found power to comprehend and help and guide and lead men, which is the supremest accomplishment of man.

The temple of Diana at Ephesus has crumbled away, but the tragedies of Eschylus and the comedies of Euripides remain. The Roman Forum is an interesting collection of ruins. Only fragments remain to indicate to us the skill of the

forgotten engineers who built the great aqueducts and bridges and temples of imperial Rome. But the Odes and Satires of Horace, the Letters of Pliny, and the Lives of Plutarch make the great men of Rome as real to us as those of yesterday in France or England. From them, from their experience, their ideas, their failures, and their accomplishments, many an inventive mind has caught inspiration and has had imagination stimulated to the solution of great problems in art, in architecture, and in science. The man who goes out into the world without the knowledge of these humanities is therefore lacking in a mental equipment which leaves him subject to a serious handicap. True, he may make it up after leaving college, but it is difficult, and requires exceptional character.

Robert Louis Stevenson, writing of his grandfather Robert, one of the most distinguished engineers of his time, describes him as "a man of the most zealous industry, greedy of occupation, greedy of knowledge, a stern husband of time, a reader, a writer, unflagging in his task of self improvement.

Such a man will overcome all lack of early advantages. But general cultivation to-day is so widespread, that the man who enters upon his life work with a mere technical training, when he comes in competition with men of broad culture is at a decided disadvantage.

That the faculty of this institution shares these

views is demonstrated by this announcement in the Register:

The desirability of a liberal training for an engineer has led the University to offer courses in which, by combining the studies of the several technical departments with the work of the course in arts and science, a student may gain both a literary and professional education, with the corresponding degrees, in six years.

That this is not an extravagant expenditure of time will be appreciated when it is considered that the work of a course in arts and law requires seven years, and in arts and medicine eight.

To quote the Register again:

These courses possess decided advantages over the usual engineering curriculum of four years, the studies of which are necessarily almost wholly technical, and the value of the wider training for which they provide far outweighs the extra expenditure of time.

The combination of the ideals of purely technical study with broad university culture, offers to students the opportunity of becoming not merely engineers, but educated gentlemen.

I have thus far dwelt only upon the practical advantages of this broader than merely technical education. But the refining influence and the intellectual pleasures opened by such study should not be lost sight of.

James Russell Lowell once exclaimed out of the fullness of his scholarly mind:

"Neither would I have you neglect the humanities. I would wish that every one of you could enjoy in the originals, Homer and Virgil and Dante and Rabelais and Goethe." In an essay written shortly before his death he revised this list somewhat, and characterized Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Goethe as "the five indispensable authors." Certainly if the work of any one of them were eliminated from our literature and speech, there would be ragged spaces in the fabric.

Is it not then well worth the time and effort of an engineer or a chemist, as well as of a lawyer or doctor, to study and know the works of these great, these indispensable authors? From them each of us may catch something of their knowledge, their insight, their inspiration; and with quickened imagination and sharpened perceptions may more clearly see the solution of problems which have baffled us. As the sage of Israel long ago declared:

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom, and with all thy getting get understanding.. Take fast hold of instruction, let her not go, keep her; for she is thy life.

6

VII

THE STUDY OF LAW AND THE WORK OF LAWYERS'

THER

HERE can be no higher mission in life than the work of educating men in a knowledge of the laws of our country, unless we regard law merely as described in Blackstone's definition, "a rule of civil conduct prescribed by the supreme power in a state, commanding what is right and prohibiting what is wrong. But if we consider our laws as the expression of the will of God working through his people the manifestation of their sense of right and justice; sometimes, as is true of all human institutions, clouded by misunderstanding and misapplication, but always, in so far as they are permanent and vital, reaching out to establish justice and insure domestic tranquillity, then we come to a realization that the study of the law has a higher aim than the mere ascertainment of police regulations.

No better description ever has been given of the

* Substance of an address before the Law School of Georgetown University.

21 Bl. Com., p. 44.