IX ADDRESS ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 237 



ful consideration. I have been endeavouring to 

 ascertain how far the principles which underlie 

 it are in accordance with those which have been 

 established in my own mind by much and long- 

 continued thought upon educational questions. 

 Permit me to place before you the result of my re- 

 flections. 



Under one aspect a university is a particular 

 kind of educational institution, and the views 

 which we may take of the proper nature of a uni- 

 versity are corollaries from those which we hold 

 respecting education in general. I think it must 

 be admitted that the school should prepare for 

 the university, and that the university should 

 crown the edifice, the foundations of which are 

 laid in the school. University education should 

 not be something distinct from elementary edu- 

 cation, but should be the natural outgrowth and 

 development of the latter. Now I have a very 

 clear conviction as to what elementary education 

 ought to be; what it really may be, when properly 

 organised; and what I think it will be, before 

 many years have passed over our heads, in Eng- 

 land and in America. Such education should 

 enable an average boy of fifteen or sixteen to 

 read and write his own lanojua^e with ease and 

 accuracy, and with a sense of literary excellence 

 derived from the study of our classic writers: 

 to have a general acquaintance with the history 

 of his own country and with the great laws of 



