EDITOR'S TABLE. 



559 



taught the forms of civility, and that it 

 is good manners to defer to others, hut 

 unless morally precocious they are not 

 gentle men. That they should be indif- 

 ferent at annoying and distressing peo- 

 ple on the sidewalk with their bicycles 

 is but natural. But as boys they are 

 more than inconsiderate, and, if they 

 did not run down old women, would 

 enjoy scaring them. "We, however, find 

 little fault with the Stockbridge boys. 

 But they need discipline in the recogni- 

 tion of mutual rights as well as indulg- 

 ence for their pastimes, and the com- 

 munity which allows them to pursue 

 their gratifications at the expense of 

 the comfort of their neighbors is in 

 that respect and to that degree well 

 not in the highest degree civilized. 



BAIN ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION. 



The brief history of the higher edu- 

 cation contained in the Eectoral Ad- 

 dress of Dr. Bain at Aberdeen on " The 

 University Ideal," which is herewith 

 printed, will interest all thoughtful 

 readers. It will prove chiefly interest- 

 ing as a compact review of changing 

 university methods daring the rise of 

 modern knowledge, and a statement of 

 the present status of the university in 

 the exigencies of modern life. As re- 

 gards modes of teaching, the type of 

 the university which has grown up 

 within the last hundred years is based 

 upon the principle of the division of 

 labor by which men specially qualified 

 for the work are especially intrusted 

 with the subjects they have mastered. 

 Obvious as this principle is to us, and 

 difficult as it is for us to conceive how 

 the higher education could stand upon 

 any other principle, yet the present 

 method is but the product of centuries 

 of struggle before this policy could be 

 established. It is undoubtedly a result 

 of that general progress of science 



which can not be said to have got its 

 initiation in the older university meth- 

 ods. With the division of labor in 

 teaching comes the new aim of the 

 higher schools of learning. " Its watch- 

 word is progress, and there can not be 

 progress without a sincere and single 

 eye to the truth. The fatal sterility of 

 the middle ages, and of our first and 

 second university periods, had to do 

 with the mistake of gagging men's 

 mouths and dictating all their conclu- 

 sions. Things came to be so arranged 

 that contradictory views ran side by 

 side like opposing electric currents, 

 the thick wrappage of ingenious phra- 

 seology arresting the destructive dis- 

 charge. There was, indeed, an elabo- 

 rate and pretentious logic supplied by 

 Aristotle and emended Bacon ; what 

 was still wanted was a taste of the logic 

 of freedom." 



Dr. Bain insists that the bearing of 

 modern science upon the higher educa- 

 tion creates the demand for three fun- 

 damental elements in any adequate 

 university curriculum, and he main- 

 tains that Aberdeen Universitv holds 

 the leading place in having recognized 

 these elements for the past hundred 

 years. He says: '"Our curriculum is one 

 of the completest in the country, or per- 

 haps anywhere. By the happy thought 

 of the Senatus of Marischal College, in 

 1753, you have a fundamental class not 

 existing in the other colleges. You 

 have a fair representation of the three 

 great lines of science the abstract, 

 the experimental, and the classifying. 

 "When it is a general education that you 

 are thinking of, every scheme of option 

 is imperfect that does not provide for 

 such three-sided cultivation of our rea- 

 soning powers. A larger quantity of 

 one will no more serve for the absence 

 of the rest than a double covering of 

 one part of the body will enable an- 

 other part to be left bare." 



