Mr. J. S. Mill, Lord Rector of St. Andrew's, addressed
a fine inaugural lecture to the students of that University yesterday week. It was a review of the whole territory of the higher edu- cation, and included a cordial defence of classical culture (minus the verse-making), on the ground that to estimate words for what they are,—the "counters" representing thought,—you must know intimately other languages and literatures besides your own ; and that these particular languages and literatures are of such carious perfection, such artistic completeness. Mr. Mill excluded none of the great cultivating studies from the University curriculum, pleading not only for classics, mathematics, logic, ethics—rather historically than dogmatically taught—experimental science, and physiology, but even for ecclesiastical history from an undogmatic point of view. On all he said some fine things. On all he gave a curious impression of a mind of the most sensitive susceptibilities, casting out fibres into every branch of human culture, and yet shrinking on every side from the assertion of ultimate principles or soots. The definite, gradually springing into shape out of the indefinite,—that is Mr. Mill's conception of almost every branch of human knowledge.
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