VIII UNIVERSITIES: ACTUAL AND IDEAL 227 



The obligation to produce results for the in- 

 struction of others, seems to me to be a more 

 effectual check on these tendencies than even the 

 love of usefulness or the ambition for fame. 



But supposing the Professorial forces of our 

 University to be duly organised, there remains an 

 important question, relating to the teaching power, 

 to be considered. Is the Professorial system — the 

 system, I mean, of teaching in ,the lecture-room 

 alone, and leaving the student to find his own way 

 when he is outside the lecture-room — adequate to 

 the wants of learners? In answering this ques- 

 tion, I confine myself to my own province, and I 

 venture to reply for Physical Science, assuredly 

 and undoubtedly, No. As I have already inti- 

 mated, practical work in the Laboratory is absolute- 

 ly indispensable, and that practical work must be 

 guided and superintended by a sufficient staff of 

 Demonstrators, who are for Science what Tutors 

 are for other branches of study. And there must 

 be a good supply of such Demonstrators. I doubt 

 if the practical work of more than twenty students 

 can be properly superintended by one Demon- 

 strator. If we take the working day at six hours, 

 that is less than twenty minutes apiece — not a 

 very large allowance of time for helping a dull 

 man, for correcting an inaccurate one, or even for 

 makins: an intelligent student clearly apprehend 

 what he is about. And, no doubt, the supplying 

 of a proper amount of this tutorial, practical teach- 



