Excerpt from A Plea for Liberal Culture As it seems to me, through the influence of the elec tive system we have been gradually drifting into a dangerous position, which recent action has only more clearly defined, in changing the basis of our first de gree in arts from a period of residence to a number of courses of study. All this tends to give to our cofie'ge course the tone of an educational mill, rather than of a studious retreat. It tends to substitute for the in fluence of lofty associations and refined intercourse the feverish acquisition of a definite amount of know ledge in the shortest time. It tends to replace the contemplative life of the scholar by the restlessmivalry of the market; and is, in my v'ew, a yielding of the great purposes for which univeisities were founded to the commercial spirit of the age. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.