66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



afford satisfactory proof that the work is theirs. The notion may- 

 sound revolutionary, but it is really very old — for, I take it, that it 

 lies at the bottom of that presentation of a thesis by the candidate for 

 a doctorate, which has now too often become little better than a mat- 

 ter of form. 



Thus far, I have endeavored to lay before you, in a too brief and 

 imperfect manner, my views respecting the teaching half — the magistri 

 and regentes — of the university of the future. Now let me turn to 

 the learning half — the scholares. 



If the universities are to be the sanctuaries of the highest culture 

 of the country — those who would enter that sanctuary must not come 

 with unwashed hands. If the good seed is to yield its hundred-fold 

 harvest, it must not be scattered amid the stones of ignorance, or the 

 tares of undisciplined indolence and wantonness. On the contrary, 

 the soil must have been carefully prepared, and the professor should 

 find that the operations of clod-crushing, draining, and weeding, and 

 even a good deal of planting, have been done by the school-master. 



That is exactly what the professor does not find in any university 

 in the three kingdoms that I can hear of — the reason of which state 

 of things lies in the extremely faulty organization of the majority of 

 secondary schools. Students come to the universities ill-prepared in 

 classics and mathematics, not at all prepared in any thing else ; and 

 half their time is spent in learning that which they ought to have 

 known when they came. 



I sometimes hear it said that the Scottish universities differ from 

 the English in being to a much greater extent places of comparatively 

 elementary education for a younger class of students. But it would 

 seem doubtful if any great difference of this kind really exists ; for a 

 high authority, himself head of an English college, has solemnly 

 affirmed that " elementary teaching of youths under twenty is now 

 the only function performed by the university ; " and that colleges are 

 " boarding-schools in which the elements of the learned languages are 

 taught to youths." ^ 



This is not the first time that I have quoted those remarkable as- 

 sertions. I should like to engrave them in public view, for they have 

 not been refuted ; and I am convinced that, if their import is once 

 clearly apprehended, they will play no mean part when the question 

 of university reorganization, with a view to practical measures, comes 

 on for discussion. You are not responsible for this anomalous state 

 of affairs now ; but, as you pass into active life, and acquire the po- 

 litical influence to which your education and your position should 

 entitle you, you will become responsible for it, unless each in his 



^ " Suggestions for Academical Organization, with Especial Reference to Oxford," By 

 the Rector of Lincoln. 



