RUSSIAN VARSITY LIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13497, 25 May 1907, Page 1 (Supplement)

RUSSIA N VARSITY LIFE.

Nowhere is the ..university, and nowhere, are the students, held in such high esteem las in Russia. For the average educated Russian, a university professor is not merely a scholar - who , teaches chemistry or mathematics or law tc a number of young men. This is all very well for a teacher in a lyceum, but mucu more is expected of a professor.:-" .

The latter, if he keeps true to the good old traditions, says a writer in the Windsor Magazine, must be an enthusiast and a philosopher in his subject. He must possess a spark ' of divine fire, so as to be able to inspire his students with the worship of science and. truth; and, .jabove all, he must be a man advanced in thought —one of those who make history,/and not one of those who let. themselves be dragged along by historical events. * ■As to the student, he, too, ■ must 'not merely be a young man who' studies certain manners in order to become in due time a doctor or a lawyer, so as to get earnings so much higher than those of an artisan. This might do for the men whose on© aim is to make a'successful "career," and of whom, of course, there are a number in each university, but ; the true student must be a worshipper of science and art—-a seeker of truth, one of those whom the great philosophical questions ."> of human understanding interest and perplex more than the miserable, petty questions concerning personal welfare, and one who has come to the university to find there a reply to these questions. "■•■■.■ ■■;■'■' :.-;«-.-: Such is the tradition; such were all the best men in Russia who have left in literature 'a| description of their student life; and whatever one may become in after life; the real Russian / students try to keep in i harmony with v the good tradition during j [ the years they pass at the university. / J