SOURCES OF HISTORY. I

Summary

The attempt to write a History of the University has been made at different times with various degrees of failure; a result which may rather be laid to the arduousness and extent of the subject, than to incompetency on the part of those who have undertaken the task. For let us reflect upon the nature and position of the University, that it is an incorporated assemblage of corporate bodies, with powers, privileges and property belonging to the whole and to the parts separately, in different kinds and proportions: that it holds a high station in national interest by the exercise of functions highly important, and a connexion with publick affairs, indirect through its members–but direct by its own open conduct. It is further to be remembered, that these considerations apply not to the present time only, but to a duration of centuries: through a long series of years has the professed Historian to account for the origin and trace the changing aspect of all these numerous independent and yet connected subjects,

series longissima rerum

Per tot ducta viros antiquæ ab origine gentis.

This view of the case will be confirmed by looking at the efforts made by these authors, and conducted up to different degrees of advancement, by hearing their own views of the undertaking they had in hand, and by casting our eyes over the field from which they had to gather their materials.