2U UNIVERSITIES: ACTUAL AND IDEAL viii 



waste time. As they teach it, I have no doubt it is. 

 But to teach it otherwise requires an amount of 

 personal labour and a development of means and 

 appliances, which must strike horror and dismay 

 into a man accustomed to mere book work; and 

 who has been in the habit of teaching a class of 

 fifty without much strain upon his energies. And 

 this is one of the real difficulties in the way of the 

 introduction of physical science into the ordinary 

 University course, to which I have alluded. It is 

 a difliculty which will not be overcome, until 

 years of patient study have organised scientific 

 teaching as well as, or I hope better than, classical 

 teaching has been organised hitherto. 



A little while ago, I ventured to hint a doubt 

 as to the perfection of some of the arrangements 

 "in the ancient Universities of England; but, in 

 their provision for giving instruction in Science as 

 such, and without direct reference to anv of its 

 practical a]i])lications, they have set a brilliant ex- 

 ample. "Within the last twenty years, Oxford alone 

 has sunk more than a hundred and twenty thou- 

 sand pounds in building and furnishing Physical, 

 Chemical, and Physiological Laboratories, and a 

 magnificent Museum, arranged with an almost 

 luxurious regard for the needs of the student. 

 Cambridge, less rich, but aided by the munificence 

 of her Chancellor, is taking the same course; and 

 in a few vcars, it will be for no lack of the means 

 and appliances of sound teaching, if the mass of 



