OXFORD ON THE UPPER GRADE 9 



Philistia has come to be thought by us the true Land of Promise 

 and it is anything but that ; the born lover of ideas, the born 

 hater of commonplaces, must feel in this country, that the sk} 

 over his head is of brass and iron." 



Since Arnold wrote the sky has hardened into adamant. 



Having secured a prominent position at our Universities — 

 first because literary studies were almost the only possible 

 studies not so long ago, more recently, owing to the con- 

 tinued selection of the scholar rather than the man of action 

 through the operation of the examination system — the classical 

 and literary school have, to use Matthew Arnold's expression, 

 suppressed what was intolerably inconvenient to them, viz. 

 modern scientific studies : the times were against them and they 

 have only succeeded in delaying their development but even 

 now, such is their habit of mind, they have no sympathy with 

 them. Men like Matthew Arnold have addressed them in vain — 

 only here and there have they met with any cordiality of reception. 



The late distinguished French savant, Mons. Berthelot, 

 whose death took place recently at the advanced age of eighty 

 years, has summed up the present situation in the state- 

 ment — " La science domine tout : elle rende seule des services 

 definitifs. Nul homme, nulle institution desormais n'aura une 

 autorite durable s'il ne se conforme a ses enseignements." l 



This, however, is not the position taken up in our Uni- 

 versities — " science" has no place in their entrance requirements 

 and is in no way a necessary part in their curricula. Yet as 

 Professor Gardner remarks in his Oxford at the Cross Roads, 

 " The value of method, of organisation — in a word, of science — 

 is every year becoming greater." 



The time is come to take action. Lord Curzon publishes the 

 following list of Scholarships and Exhibitions given at Oxford : 



1 Science et Morale, Paris, 1897. 



