536 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



out upon a sea which was certain, from the history I have brought 

 before you, to be full of opposing currents. 



I have had a statement prepared showing what the most distin- 

 guished of our old students and of those who have succeeded in the 

 department's examinations are now doing. The statement shows that 

 those who have been responsible for our share in the progress of 

 scientific instruction have no cause to be ashamed. 



Conclusion. — I have referred previously to the questions of sec- 

 ondary education and of a true London University, soon, let us hope, 

 to be realized. 



Our college will be the first institution to gain from a proper sys- 

 tem of secondary education, for the reason that scientific studies 

 gain enormously by the results of literary culture, without which we 

 can neither learn so thoroughly nor teach so effectively as one could 

 wish. 



To keep a proper mind-balance, engaged as we are here continu- 

 ously in scientific thought, literature is essential, as essential as bodily 

 exercise, and if I may be permitted to give you a little advice, I 

 should say organize your athletics as students of the college, and 

 organize your literature as individuals. I do not think you will 

 gain so much by studying scientific books when away from here 

 as you will by reading English and foreign classics, including a large 

 number of works of imagination; and study French and German 

 also in your holidays by taking short trips abroad. 



With regard to the university. If it be properly organized, in 

 the light of the latest German experience, with complete science and 

 technical faculties of the highest order, it should certainly insist 

 upon annexing the School of Mines portion of our institution; the 

 past history of the school is so creditable that the new university for 

 its own sake should insist upon such a course. It would be absurd, 

 i.*i the case of a nation which depends so much on mining and metal- 

 lurgy, if these subjects were not taught in the chief national univer- 

 sity, as the University of London must become. 



But the London University, like the Paris University, if the little 

 history of science teaching I have given you is of any value, must 

 leave our normal college alone, at all events till we have more than 

 trebled our present supply of science teachers. 



But while it would be madness to abolish such an institution as 

 our normal school, and undesirable if not impossible to graft it on the 

 new university, our school, like its elder sister in Paris, should be 

 enabled to gain by each increase in the teaching power of the uni- 

 versity. The students on the scientific side of the Paris school, in 

 spite of the fact that their studies and researches are looked after by 

 fourteen professors entitled Maitres de Conferences, attend certain 



