University of Ex. (Taken from a speech made by Professor Udo Humgreen on an important occasion) "My friends is it not a marvellous, nay, magnificent event that we witness here today: a banquet at the table built by Siew Hong Water in The Year of the Contemptible Blessing (1499) to celebrate the opening of this, the greatest experiment in learning ever attempted - and not only attempted ladies and gentlemen but accomplished! - in Umbagollah, this fair country where we live, on this day, during this hour, in this place, that is, in other words, here? In no other building in the world are all the branches of knowlege gathered together under a single roof. Here our teachers enjoy a single house, albeit a huge house, a house, ladies and gentlemen that, may I remind you, we are, right now, currently, inside of. And we like it!" (From a rare paper by by Lucinda Clutter, the architect who designed the University in The Year of Tumbling Fog (1430). The language of the original document ('Eyt is tew resumbul en inmens organick boddy') has been altered for the sake of clarity.) "It is to resemble an immense organic body. A deal of my life has been spent swimming through the coral reef to the north of our city and it is this living reef that shaped my thoughts as I was conceiving your University. Her towers will burst forth like coral branches and her foundations will take the form of a star. See that it is so. The lower stories will be a market-place of activity. We will have a a warren of rooms in our bowels. Here, the students will bustle to and fro. Classes will assemble in corridors and grottos and mysteriously will they disperse. In this, as in all things, we shall move like a living creature, like the fish that gather together for mysterious purposes of their own and scatter suddenly without a breath of an excuse. This is the form of our classes. See that it is so. Likewise our lecturers will teach their specialities in places and in places and the students will walk from place to place finding those classes that suit their paticular craving to learn. Wisdom dictates that we ask each student to voice their desires upon entering the university and that we direct them toward those teachers most likely to burden them with what they love. After each student has been under our roof for twenty days giving us time to observe their manners, actions and determination we will have decided upon the duration of their stay and of this they will be informed. Therefore according to circumstance two students of equal cleverness may be retained for vastly different lengths of time. See that it is so. In the lower sections also shall there be large and small furniture and drapes of heavy velvet so that those who learn here may rearrange them to and fro and thereby create architectures that are their own. See that it is so. Serenity sings in the high towers. Lecturers will see their homes perched in the branches of our coral tree and here they are safe as birds in their eyries. Safe and silent also will be the West Wing, for this is our Library. I have made it a dome with a dome of glass. The topmost reaches of the dome will be a lofty distance above the heads of our readers so that one long walkway of bookshelves may be coaxed to run in a spiral up the inner wall of the structure to a height of four stories. See that it is so. Here, I have ended my piece." Visit the page of one of the University's Professors, Kunshuhito Wa and a student, Isaak Bickerstaff.