64 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



The necessity for producing results for the instruction 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 

 organized, there remains an important question, relating to the teach- 

 ing 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 of the lecture-room — adequate 

 to the wants of learners ? In answering this question, I confine myself 

 to my own province, and I venture to reply for physical science, as- 

 suredly and undoubtedly, No. As I have already intimated, practical 

 work in the laboratory is absolutely indispensable, and that practical 

 work must be guided and superintended by a sufiicient staff of demon- 

 strators, 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 prop- 

 erly superintended by one demonstrator — if we take the working- 

 day at six hours, that is, twenty minutes apiece — not a very large al- 

 lowance of time for helping a dull man, for correcting an inaccurate 

 one, or even for making an intelligent student clearly apprehend what 

 he is about. And, no doubt, the supplying of a proper amount of this 

 tutorial, practical teaching is a difficulty in the way of giving proper 

 instruction in physical science in such universities as that of Aberdeen, 

 which are devoid of endowments ; and, unlike the English universities, 

 have no moral claim on the funds of richly-endowed bodies to supply 

 their wants. 



Examination — thorough, searching examination — is an indispensa- 

 ble accompaniment of teaching ; but I am almost inclined to commit 

 myself to the very heterodox proposition that it is a necessary evil. I 

 am a very old examiner, having, for some twenty years past, been 

 occupied with examinations on a considerable scale, of all sorts and 

 conditions of men, and women too — from the boys and girls of element- 

 ary schools, to the candidates for honors and fellowships in the uni- 

 versities. I will not say that, in this case, as in so many others, the 

 adage that familiarity breeds contempt holds good ; but ray admira- 

 tion for the existing system of examination, and its products, does not 

 wax warmer as I see more of it. Examination, like fire, is a good ser- 

 vant, but a bad master ; and there seems to me to be some danger of 

 its becoming our master. I by no means stand alone in this opinion. 

 Experienced friends of mine do not hesitate to say that students whose 

 career they watch, appear to them to become deteriorated by the con- 

 stant effort to pass this or that examination, just as we hear of men's 

 brains becoming affected by the daily necessity of catching a train. 

 They work fo pass, not to know ; and outraged Science takes her re- 

 venge. They do pass, and they don't know. I have passed sundry 



not without credit, and I confess I am 



