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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



esting statement of his relations with Mrs. 

 John Taylor, whom, after twenty years' ac- 

 quaintance as a married woman, after the 

 death of her husband, Mill married. There 

 is a critical examination of his extravagant 

 claims in regard to the talent of this lady, 

 and also of Mill's attitude toward the 

 " woman question " generally. 



There are various important points, on 

 which Dr. Bain disagrees with Mill, which 

 we should like to have seen further eluci- 

 dated, and to a consideration of some of 

 these we may return in future. But the 

 points of objection are generally well taken. 

 We are gratified to observe that Dr. Bain 

 holds exactly the opinion which we have 

 maintained in regard to Mill's celebrated 

 "University Address" on education. As 

 the questions involved are of permanent in- 

 terest, it may be well to quote what Bain 

 says about this performance of Mill : 



The St. Andrews address was a very length- 

 ened performance ; its delivery lasted three 

 hours. It aimed at a complete survey of the 

 higher education. Its absolute value is con- 

 siderable ; but, in relation to the time, place, 

 and circumstances, I consider it to have been a 

 mistake. Mill had taken it into his head that 

 the Greek and Roman classics had been too 

 hardly pressed by the votaries of science, and 

 were in some danger of being excluded from 

 the higher teaching ; and he occupies nearly 

 half of the address in vindicating their impor- 

 tance. The secoud half is a vigorous enforce- 

 ment of the claims of science. 



The performance was a failure, in my opin 

 ion, for this simple reason, that he had no con- 

 ception of the limits of a university curriculum. 

 The Scotch universities have been distinguished 

 for the amount of study comprised in their arts 

 degree. Mill would have them keep up the 

 classics intact, and even raise their standard; 

 he would also include a complete course of the 

 primary sciences mathematics, physics, chem- 

 istry, physiology, logic, and psychology to 

 which he would add political economy, juris- 

 prudence, and international law. Now at pres- 

 ent the obligatory sciences are mathematics, 

 natural philosophy, logic, and moral philoso- 

 phy. If he had consulted me on this occasion, 

 I should have endeavored to impress upon him 

 the limits of our possible curriculum, and should 

 have asked aim to arbitrate between the claims 

 of literature and science, so as to make the very 

 most of our time and means. He would then 

 have had to balance Latin and Greek against 

 chemistry, physiology, and jurisprudence ; for 

 it is quite certain that both these languages 

 would have to be dropped absolutely, to admit 

 his extended science course. In that case he 

 would have been more careful in his statements 

 as to the Greek and Latin languages. He would 



not have put these languages as synonymous 

 with "literature"; and he would have made 

 much more allowance for translations and ex- 

 positions through the modern languages. He 

 would have found that at the present day we 

 have other methods of correcting the tendency 

 to mistake words for things than learning any 

 two or three additional languages. He would 

 not have assumed that our pupils are made all 

 "to think in Greek' 1 ; nor would he have con- 

 sidered it impossible to get at the sources of 

 Greek and Roman history without studying the 

 languages. If he had a real opponent, he would 

 not have given the authority of his name to the 

 assertion that grammar is "'elementary logic.'" 

 His mode of speaking of the style of the ancient 

 writers, to my mind at least, is greatly exagger- 

 ated. "Look at an oration of Demosthenes; 

 there is nothing in it which calls attention to 

 itself as style at all ... . The Athenians do not 

 cry out, What a splendid speaker, but, Let us 

 march against Philip." He also gives way to the 

 common remark that the teaching of Latin and 

 Greek could be so much improved as to make it 

 an inconsiderable draft upona pupil's energies. 

 On this point he had no experience to go upon 

 but his own, and that did not support his posi- 

 tion. 



In the scientific departments he carries out 

 strictly the Comte hierarchy of the fundamental 

 sciences, and, in this respect, the address was 

 valuable as against the mischievous practice of 

 culling out a science from the middle of the se- 

 ries, say chemistry, and prescribing it by itself 

 to the exclusion of its forerunners in the hier- 

 archy. While he speaks fairly and well on the 

 mathematical and physical sciences, his remarks 

 on the moral and political display, as usual, the 

 master's hand. He next goes on to talk of free 

 thought, on which he maintains a somewhat 

 impracticable ideal for our universities. From 

 science he proceeds to art, and enforces a favor- 

 ite theme the subservience of poetry to virtue 

 and morality. One feels that on this topic a 

 little more discrimination was necessary ; art 

 being a very wide word. His conclusion was a 

 double entendre : "I do not attempt to instigate 

 you by the prospect of direct rewards, either 

 earthly or heavenly ; the less we think about 

 being rewarded in either way, the better for 

 us." 



In the reception given to the address, he was 

 most struck with the vociferous applause of the 

 divinity students at the free-thought passage. 

 He was privately thanked by others among the 

 hearers for this part. 



The Medical Adviser in Life Assurance. 

 By Edward Henry Sieveking, M. D. 

 Philadelphia : P. Blakiston, Son & Co. 

 Pp. 206. Price, $2. 



The author's object is to frrnish the 

 reader with information which, if it is to be 

 found at all in the ordinary works of medi- 

 cine, is so scattered as not to be readily 



