24 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



unite in o})pusition not only to the Hegeliun movement, which, 

 led by Caird and Bradley of Oxford, Seth and Stirling of Edin- 

 burgh, threatens the invasion of England, but also to the Spen- 

 cerian jjhilosophy. The latter system has not many adherents 

 at either university, but the writer has been told by Professor 

 Sully that the ascendency of the neo-Hegelian and other systems 

 is by no means so pronounced elsewhere in England. The Spen- 

 cerian biology, on the contrary, has been largely defended at Cam- 

 bridge, while Weisniannism, for the most part, is repudiated there 

 and at Oxford. 



The teaching at Cambridge, as at all universities, is of many 

 grades. In many subjects the lectures are not meant to give a 



student sufficient material 

 to get him through an ex- 

 amination, and a " coach " 

 becomes requisite, or at any 

 rate is employed. This sys- 

 tem of coaching has attained 

 large dimensions; its results 

 are often good, but it means 

 an additional expense and 

 seems an incentive to lazi- 

 ness, making it unnecessary 

 for a student to exert his 

 own mental aggressiveness 

 or ])owers of application as 

 he who fights his own bat- 

 tles must do. The Socratic 

 form of instruction, produc- 

 ing a more intimate and un- 

 restricted relation between 

 instructor and student, and 

 which is largely in operation 

 in the States, is little prac- 

 ticed in England. In science the methods of instruction at Cam- 

 l)ri(1gc are ideal. That practical acquaintance with the facts of 

 Xatui-e which ITuxley and Tyndall taught is the only true means 

 of kiKiwitig Xatui-e, is the hey according to whii-li nil biological and 

 physical instruction at these institutions is conducted. 



Tn the last half dozen years two radical steps have been taken 

 by botli Oxford mill ( 'iniilu'idge — steps leading, to many respect- 

 able minds, in diainetrically opposite directions. The step back- 

 ward (in the writer's view) occurred when the universities, after 

 niucli excitement, defeated with slaughter the proposition grant- 



.James Ward, Se. D., Trinity. 

 Professor of Meutal Philosophy and Logic. 



