student left largely with his text-book the teacher a rarely appearing phantom except at examinations, where he sits clothed in the black robes of Rhadamanthus to determine if the cramming has been sufficient, this is neither drill nor education, but is rather akin to the commercial processes in which the young men will soon be engaged- a process of rapid inflation and soon following disgorgement. It is no surprise that athletics are the inspiring theme in our colleges, when the possible finer enthusiasms are quenched by such methods as these.

It is the first duty of scholars to lift themselves above their age and to search it with judicial scrutiny. If there is weakness or fault or faulty tendency, it is their business to detect it. No man can or should separate himself from his age; least of all should the scholar seek such isolation—either in the past, sighing for that which cannot come again, or in the future, longing for that which cannot yet come. But while the scholar should preëminently live in his age and even yield to it in a measure, remembering that it is a step in the march of the Eternal Providence,- it should be in a way far different from that of the masses who always sink themselves in their age, and conceive of progress only as an ultimating of the present idea or force. What thought to-day has place in the American mind beyond that of developing its physical resources? The scholar should recognize this, but he should also recognize far more. He should see that material progress is but traveling in the old round of vanity whose sure phases have been fixed over and over again in history. He should see that the masses require higher conceptions than they assume for themselves; that while they do the immediate work of their day, they should be led and stimulated in the harder and loftier lessons of life. As a scholar he should understand that his vocation is to labor for those great, corrective principles of truth and virtue and reason that men do not readily heed and obey. Hence, there is no sadder sight than that of education bending and shaping itself to the demands of a low utilitarianism. When the university departs from its vocation of rearing scholars who shall think for the age and guide its thought and lead it to act on solid principles, and instead furnishes a set of specialists to do the intellectual drudgery of the day, it falls away from the line of true progress; this is not an advance, but a capitulation. Specialists there must be; physical science must have full and due regard; every page of the book of nature must be turned, but let these specialists and students of science be also scholars who have been taught in the broader schools of

philosophy and of humanity, for in these are found the secret laws that determine social destiny.

The chief aim of the American university at present should be to produce scholars who shall be able to see the full significance of the idea that lies at the foundations of the American nation and in the fulfillment of which runs the true line of its progress. I refer to the democratic idea-or, as plainly stated by Mr. Lowell, democracy, stated by him with epigrammatic insight, but drawn out into philosophical fullness, traced to its divine origin, set in its historic relations, and applied to the details and institutions of our government by Dr. Mulford, in his work - "The Nation." It has so happened that, for the first time in the world, this democratic idea with its associate idea of federation has been wrought into national form on this continent. Christianity, the doctrine of evolution when properly interpreted, and history have yielded a practical, working form of this idea. Christianity teaches nothing unless it teaches the self-sovereignty of man. Evolution crowns its process with man who acts in freedom and holds his destiny in his own hands. History ends its records of struggle with tyranny in a nation that at last is actually governing itself. From these three conspiring and coöperative sources do we get what I have called the democratic and federative idea, and now hold it in actual realization. In the perfecting of it lie the destinies of the nation, and through it runs the line of progress. The apostle of this idea is the scholar, for he alone can take in its immense significance and direct its fulfillment. This idea must be accepted and held and applied in the light of its sources.

The irrefragable proof, the persistent life, the power of Christianity, lie in the fact that in its very nature and substance it is composed of this idea of self-sovereignty; it is the gift of Christianity to the social life of humanity. I am quite aware that Christianity has not been so apprehended, but when it is delivered from ecclesiasticism on one side and from dogmatism on the other — as is fast being done the world will behold in it a philosophy of human society that it cannot fail to accept. The doctrine of evolution as it is now coming to be interpreted by philosophy, is a deliverance from that sense of necessity which has brooded over humanity from the beginning the adumbration of the nature from which man has hardly yet escaped and a birth into freedom and self-sovereignty. History, as the record of ethnology, jurisprudence, and institutions, illustrates the steps by which the great purpose of the ages has advanced toward its ideal of man as a self-governing being.

We do not as a nation yet apprehend the peculiar and wholly exceptional position that we occupy. As one who stands in the sun may be in darkness, so we look at this wondrous spectacle of a nation ideal in its structure, divine in its conception, the perfect fruit of evolving history, in a dull, matter-of-fact way, and we take Mr. Matthew Arnold at his word when he tells us that we happen to have good institutions! Even so the solar system happens to be orderly and stable; so a tree happens to yield fruit. Mr. Arnold is quite well pleased with our institutions, and thinks his England would do well to adopt them. Were he the critic he might be, he would lash us with scorn for our dullness before the meaning of our institutions. For the democratic idea supplemented by federation, and realized in a nation and a history such as ours, is an absolute novelty in the annals of the world. It is as truly the necessary and foreordained outcome of the history of humanity as the birth of a child is the product of gestation. The democratic idea, or self-sovereignty, is the eternal and absolute principle of government; the principle of federation is that which renders it practicable-its clothing body, not, as Mr. Arnold says, its clothes, but its vital, working organism. Sir Henry Maine and Mr. Scherer tell us that "democracy is only a form of government," so difficult is it even for great men to apprehend the secret of history and the nature of man. Democracy worked by the federative principle is the exact solution that a pure reason would have worked out at the beginning, having at hand the contents of human nature. It stands in exactly the same relation to government in which man stands to the process of development,- the purposed end, the perfect, fixed product of the whole process.

This ideal of a nation is being realized on this continent. Many have stood on Pisgah and viewed the promised land, but our feet press its borders, and our lips taste its clusters.

Here, then, in the development of this ideal, lie the lines of progress; here is the field of the American scholar; here is the vocation of the American university. Its main question should be, How shall it train its men so as to best fit them to conduct and develop this mighty enterprise of a self-governing, federated nation?

The question nearly answers itself,-first, by a spontaneous negative; not by training men in special ways for the special errands of material industry, for the destinies of the nation do not lie there. It must educate its men through those studies in which there is revealed the sources of our national life, and still more in those studies that reveal its principles, and must guide their development and application to society. This nation is founded in the nature of man, and hence man must be studied, and not merely as an animal, but also as a moral being. This nation is founded on morals, and on hardly anything else; it rests on morals and feeds on morals, nor does it live by any other bread; hence the university should teach ethics. This nation is an evolution of human history; hence the university should teach history in its broad sense, ethnology, institutions, religions, environments, events, indeed, but as related to causes. The age is analytic; the university should be synthetic.

In brief, the chief aim of the university should be to send out men who are thoroughly grounded in the philosophy of the nation, who understand the depths from which it has been drawn, and the secret forces by which it may be guided. Its work lies aside from the tendency to specialization and skill in material lines, and looks toward those broad studies that may be summed up as philosophy.

To know man, to understand society, to serve the nation with self-sacrificing intelligence,- this is the vocation of the scholar; and the university must heed the requirement to educate him accordingly.

IN the 2d of May, 1864, a group of officers stood at the Confederate signal station on Clark's Mountain, Virginia, south of the Rapidan, and examined closely through their field glasses the position of the Federal army then lying north of the river in Culpeper county. The central figure of the group was the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, who had requested his corps and division commanders to meet him there. Though some demonstrations had been made in the direction of the upper fords, General Lee expressed the opinion that the Federal army would cross the river at Germanna or Ely's. Thirty-six hours later General Meade's army, General Grant, now commander-inchief, being with it, commenced its march to the crossings indicated by General Lee.

The Army of the Potomac, which had now commenced its march towards Richmond, was more powerful in numbers than at any previous period of the war. It consisted of three corps: the Second (Hancock's), the Fifth (Warren's), and the Sixth (Sedgwick's); but the Ninth (Burnside's) acted with Meade throughout the campaign. It was thoroughly equipped, and provided with every appliance of modern warfare. On the other hand, the Army of Northern Virginia had gained little in numbers during the winter. just passed and had never been so scantily supplied with food and clothing. The equipment as to arms was well enough for men who knew how to use them, but commissary and quartermaster's supplies were lamentably deficient. A new pair of shoes or an overcoat was a luxury, and full rations would have astonished the stomachs of Lee's ragged Confederates. But they took their privations cheerfully, VOL. XXXIV.-39.

and complaints were seldom heard. I recall an instance of one hardy fellow whose trousers were literally "worn to a frazzle," and would no longer adhere to his legs even by dint of the most persistent patching. Unable to buy, beg, or borrow another pair, he wore instead a pair of thin cotton drawers. By nursing these carefully he managed to get through the winter. Before the campaign opened in the spring, the quartermaster received a small lot of clothing, and he was the first man of his regiment to be supplied.

I have often heard expressions of surprise that these ragged, barefooted, half-starved men would fight at all. But the very fact that they remained with their colors through such privations and hardships was sufficient to prove that they would be dangerous foes to encounter upon the line of battle. The morale of the army at this time was excellent, and it moved forward confidently to the grim deathgrapple in the wilderness of Spotsylvania with its old enemy, the Army of the Potomac.

General Lee's headquarters were at Orange Court House; of his three corps, Longstreet's was at Gordonsville, Ewell's was on the Rapidan, above Mine Run, and Hill's on his

by General Grant led entirely around the right of Lee's position on the river above. His passage of the Rapidan was unopposed, and he struck boldly out on the direct road to Richmond. Two roads lead from Orange Court House down the Rapidan towards Fredericksburg. They follow the general direction of the river, and are almost parallel to each other, the "Old turnpike" nearest the river, and the "Plank road" a short distance south of it. The route of the Federal army lay directly across these two roads, along the western borders of the famous Wilderness. About noon on the 4th of May Ewell's corps was put in motion on the Orange turnpike, while A. P. Hill, with two divisions, moved parallel with him on the Orange Plank road. The two divisions of Longstreet's corps, encamped near Gordonsville, were ordered to move rapidly across the country and follow Hill on the Plank road. Ewell's corps was the first to find itself in the presence of the enemy. As it advanced along the turnpike on the morning of the 5th, the Federal column was seen crossing it from the direction of Germanna Ford. Ewell promptly formed line of battle

the firing in its front, and not to bring on a general engagement until Longstreet should come up. The position of Ewell's troops, so near the flank of the Federal line of march, was anything but favorable to a preservation of the peace, and a collision soon occurred which opened the campaign in earnest.

BATTLES IN THE WILDERNESS.

GENERAL WARREN, whose corps was passing when Ewell came up, halted, and turning to the right made a vigorous attack upon Edward Johnson's division, posted across the turnpike. J. M. Jones's brigade, which held the road, was driven back in confusion. Steuart's brigade was pushed forward to take its place. Rodes's division was thrown in on Johnson's right, south of the road, and the line, thus reëstablished, moved forward, reversed the tide of battle, and rolled back the Federal attack. The fighting was severe and bloody while it lasted. The lines were in such proximity at one point in the woods that when the Federal troops gave way, the 146th New York regiment threw down its arms and surrendered in a body.