264 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



The fact that the students of to-day have such a wealth of apparatus 

 at their hands, printed instructions supplied them, text-books galore, 

 has made them globe-trotters in the region of science. They lack the 

 self-reliance, the initiative to devise expedients for accomplishing ends 

 which the emigrant pioneers in science fifty years ago had to employ. 

 Indeed, it is becoming a question whether using a dictionary to trans- 

 late a Latin or Greek play is not a better training for the inquiring 

 faculty than working in a modern physical laboratory, since at any 

 rate the translator has to use some thought. 



Thomson openly expressed his contempt for a university that spent 

 its time merely in holding examinations, as did the Burlington House 

 University of London at that time. One day I was in his lecture 

 room puzzling over an examination paper that he had set, when he 

 advised me to take the paper home to my lodgings, as I should be much 

 more comfortable there. Such a permission was an upheaval of all 

 my ideas about scholarship examinations; so, boy like, I asked him 

 how he would know that I should not look at books. But he only 

 replied, " When you bring me your answers to-morrow I shall know 

 what you have got out of books." I expect he sent me to my lodgings 

 partly to impress on me the important lesson that all the books that 

 exist will not solve a new problem. 



The incident left a deep, lasting impression on me, partly because 

 at the public announcement of the examination results he referred to 

 his method, and jokingly ended with the remark : " This course was on 

 hydrodynamics, and when we got into deep water there was only one 

 student who was still in his depth." What a young engineer can do, 

 using all existing knowledge, is, of course, what an examiner should 

 try to test, not what the examinee can remember and reproduce. 



He had great belief that one of the main uses of a university was to 

 form character. He, Eankine, Tait and some other professors had a 

 long discussion in his house one evening after dinner. Would he have 

 been justified in asking that the student who had that day thrown a 

 paper dart at the blackboard when he himself was writing on it should 

 declare himself. Thomson thought no ! As a matter of fact the 

 student owned up. He was asked to absent himself from the class, 

 but, on the other students pointing out that he would lose his degree 

 by not attending, Thomson readmitted him. 



Thomson always began his nine-o'clock lecture by devoutly repeat- 

 ing the General Confession from the Church of England Morning 

 Service. I do not know whether the other Glasgow professors did. 

 There was never the slightest interruption; the Scotch student is nat- 

 urally reverent, besides, the prayer was said by Thomson with such 

 fervor and impressiveness that the most stanch freethinker, the most 

 frisky dart-thrower, could not but respect the convictions of the teacher 



