SCIENCE PROGRESS 



OXFORD ON THE UPPER GRADE 1 



It is clear that the comprehensive message offered to Oxford 

 by her Chancellor, diplomatically indefinite though it be in most 

 respects, is bound to lead to changes of importance — such a ball 

 having been set rolling will not be stopped until some of the 

 existing asperities have been flattened out and the roads made 

 more serviceable. The physician is so rarely prepared to heal 

 himself that when he is seen to attempt an honest and thorough 

 diagnosis of his ailments, any effort he may make to cure 

 himself is bound to attract not only the sympathy but also 

 the support of interested onlookers. On this occasion the 

 onlookers are more than interested — those who have any eyes 

 at all for the situation are aware that our Empire is most deeply 

 concerned in a proper solution being found of the many serious 

 problems which confront our two ancient Universities. The 

 newer Universities alone cannot carry us to salvation : at 

 present they are dependent, as all things educational in this 

 country are more or less, on Oxford and Cambridge. 



A few months ago, the writer ventured to say in presence 

 of a select audience at Cambridge that nothing astonished 

 outsiders like himself more than the masterly inactivity the 

 University (and the sister University also) displayed in taking 

 charge of her own affairs. We all know how a settlement of the 

 Greek question has been rendered impossible, time after time, 

 not merely by internal dissensions but mainly by the conservative 



1 "Oxford on the Up Grade." See Nature, June 16, 1904, vol. 70, p. 145. 

 In this article the attempt was made to reproduce the argument of An Oxford 

 Correspondence of igoj, by W. Warde Fowler, one of the most charming and 

 valuable statements of opinion on the Oxford system published in recent years ; 

 this book should be read together with Prof. Gardner's Oxford at the Cross Roads, 

 which is also an illuminating contribution to the discussion of the shortcomings of 

 Oxford. The subject had been dealt with previously in articles which are to be 

 found in the writer's collected papers on The Teaching of Scientific Method 

 (Macmillan & Co.), cf. The Need of General Culture at Oxford and Cambridge. 



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