On The Art of Reading by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
page 14 of 272 (05%)
page 14 of 272 (05%)
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the voice of some small man faintly protesting 'But I don't want
to be governed by business men; because I know them and, without asking much of life, I have a hankering to die with a shirt on my back.' VI But let us postpone _What Is_ for a moment, and deal with _What Does_ and _What Knows._ They too, of course, have had their oppositions, and the very meaning of a University such as Cambridge--its _fons,_ its _origo,_ its [Greek: to ti en einai]-- was to assert _What Knows_ against _What Does_ in a medieval world pranced over by men-at-arms, Normans, English, Burgundians, Scots. Ancillary to Theology, which then had a meaning vastly different from its meaning to-day, the University tended as portress of the gate of knowledge--of such knowledge as the Church required, encouraged, or permitted--and kept the flag of intellectual life, as I may put it, flying above that gate and over the passing throngs of 'doers' and mailed-fisters. The University was a Seat of Learning: the Colleges, as they sprang up, were Houses of Learning. But note this, which in their origin and still in the frame of their constitution differentiates Oxford and Cambridge from all their ancient sisters and rivals. These two (and no third, I believe, in Europe) were corporations of Teachers, existing for Teachers, governed by Teachers. In a Scottish University the students by vote choose their Rector: but here or at Oxford no undergraduate, no Bachelor, counts at all in the government, both remaining alike _in statu pupillari_ until qualified as Masters-- |
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