will remain but an imperfect test of knowledge, and a still more imperfect test of capacity, while it tells next to nothing about a man's power as an investigator. There is much to be said in favour of restricting the highest degrees in each Faculty, to those who have shown evidence of such original power, by prosecuting a research under the eye of the Professor in whose province it lies; or, at any rate, under conditions which shall afford satisfactory proof that the work is theirs. The notion may sound revolutionary, but it is really very old; for, I take it, that it lies at the bottom of that presentation of a thesis by the candidate for a doctorate, which has now, too often, become little better than a matter of form. Thus far, I have endeavoured to lay before you, in a too brief and imperfect manner, my views respecting the teaching half-the Magistri and Regentes-of the University of the Future. Now let me turn to the learning half-the Scholares. If the Universities are to be the sanctuaries of the highest culture of the country, those who would enter that sanctuary must not come with unwashed hands. If the good seed is to yield its hundredfold harvest, it must not be scattered amidst the stones of ignorance, or the tares of undisciplined indolence and wantonness. On the contrary, the soil must have been carefully prepared, and the Professor should find that the operations of clod-crushing, draining, and weeding, and even a good deal of planting, have been done by the Schoolmaster. That is exactly what the Professor does not find in any University in the three Kingdoms that I can hear of-the reason of which state of things lies in the extremely faulty organisation of the majority of secondary schools. Students come to the Universities ill-prepared in classics and mathematics, not at all prepared in anything else; and half their time is spent in learning that which they ought to have known when they came. I sometimes hear it said that the Scottish Universities differ from the English, in being to a much greater extent places of comparatively elementary education for a younger class of students. But it would seem doubtful if any great difference of this kind really exists; for a high authority, himself Head of an English College, has solemnly affirmed that: "Elementary teaching of youths under twenty is now the only function performed by the University;" and that Colleges are "boarding schools in which the elements of the learned languages are taught to youths." 1 1 Suggestions for Academical Organisation, with Especial Reference to Oxford. By the Rector of Lincoln. This is not the first time that I have quoted those remarkable assertions. I should like to engrave them in public view, for they have not been refuted; and I am convinced that if their import is once clearly apprehended, they will play no mean part when the question of University reorganisation, with a view to practical measures, comes on for discussion. You are not responsible for this anomalous state of affairs now; but, as you pass into active life and acquire the political influence to which your education and your position should entitle you, you will become responsible for it, unless each in his sphere does his best to alter it, by insisting on the improvement of secondary schools. Your present responsibility is of another, though not less serious, kind. Institutions do not make men, any more than organisation makes life; and even the ideal University we have been dreaming about will be but a superior piece of mechanism, unless each student strive after the ideal of the Scholar. And that ideal, it seems to me, has never been better embodied than by the great Poet, who, though lapped in luxury, the favourite of a Court, and the idol of his countrymen, remained through all the length of his honoured years a Scholar in Art, in Science, and in Life. "Wouldst shape a noble life? Then cast And though somewhat be lost and gone, What each day needs, that shalt thou ask; Not of thine own the merits raise. Beware no fellow man thou hate: And so in God's hands leave thy fate."1 1 Goethe, Zahme Xenien, Vierte Abtheilung. I should be glad to take credit for the close and vigorous English version; but it is my wife's, and not mine. IX ADDRESS ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION1 [1876] THE actual work of the University founded in this city by the well-considered munificence of Johns Hopkins commences to-morrow, and among the many marks of confidence and good-will which have been bestowed upon me in the United States, there is none which I value more highly than that conferred by the authorities of the University when they invited me to deliver an address on such an occasion. For the event which has brought us together is, in many respects, unique. A vast property is handed over to an administrative body, hampered 1 Delivered at the formal opening of the Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, U.S., September 12. The total amount bequeathed by Johns Hopkins is more than 7,000,000 dollars. The sum of 3,500,000 dollars is appropriated to a university, a like sum to a hospital, and the rest to local institutions of education and charity. |