Here have we the primordial illustration of that subjective mystery of the mind's desire which is ever pushing out beyond the verge of the known, and which is not content until it has tried to tell the next generation what it has learned, and has found expression objectively in such institutions as this and in such systems of education as to-day cover great portions of the earth.
There is a subsidiary legend about this primal teacher, inventor of sewing, and scientist (whose first text-book was one of these pillars) that has further pertinency. It is said of this patriarch, who did not die (and who may thus be said to personify the generic ideal teacher, in that his influence persists as if he were living), that he visited heaven once before his final translation, in order that he might be prepared to teach his fellow men upon his return to earth. (This would seem to impart a theological training, such as your new president has had--at any rate, instruction in sacred things.) He was lifted to the abode of the archangels, who, it is said, not only arrange and study the revolutions of the stars, the changes of the moon, and the revolutions of the sun, "but also arrange teachings and instruction and sweet speaking and singing of all kinds of glorious praise." What better or more enchanting picture of an ideal institution for the preparation of teachers, established from the foundation of the earth! A curriculum in which science is interspersed with sweet speaking and singing by archangels! "Bring first," said the Lord, "the books from the store place and give a reed to Enoch and interpret the books to him." And so it was that this first university, with an archangel for its president, instructed its first earth pupil. For thirty days and thirty nights did the archangel instruct intensively (the legend has it, "his lips never ceased speaking") while Enoch wrote down "all the things about heaven and earth, angels and men and all that it is suitable to be instructed in."
And when the course of instruction was ended and Enoch had filled three hundred thirty-six note-books (this sounds very like a modern university lecture course), the Lord said: "Go thou with them upon the earth.... Give them the works written out by thee and they shall read them and shall distribute works to their children's children and from generation to generation and from nation to nation."