APPENDIX A Lil 
done by the student and without which the degree of Ph.D. is not 
conferred, it may be objected that much of it is not important and 
sometimes even trivial. It may be said, however, that it must all 
stand the test of publication after being approved by the professor, 
so that its value may at once be estimated by the learned world, 
and the scholastic standing of professor and student rated accordingly. 
The place and importance of research in the German system is 
further indicated by the fact that even teachers in the gymnasium 
devote themselves to such work, their papers being published in the 
annual reports of these institutions. With such respect is the ability 
for research regarded that the publication of a paper of this kind 
may lead directly to a professorship in the university, as was the case, 
for instance, in the appointment of Weierstrass, the celebrated math- 
ematician. 
Let us now turn our attention for a few moments to the British 
university system. An extended description is unnecessary, since 
we are all familiar with the working of British universities them- 
selves, or with the Canadian or American development of the original 
British type. Hence, it may suffice if I conitrast briefly the British 
and German systems in some of their essential features. 
In the organization of the German university research has been 
shown to be a fundamental principle; in the British university it is 
as yet incidental or of sporadic manifestation. I do not, of course, 
ignore the very important contributions which have been made by 
British scholars to the advancement of learning, but it is worthy 
of note that the credit for their splendid achievements is rather due 
to the individuals themselves than to the universities with which 
many of them were connected. The British university is not prim- 
arily an institution for research. In its function of providing the 
higher grades of a liberal education the proper comparison is with 
the upper classes of the German gymnasium, not with the German 
university proper. True, we find in some of the British universities 
a specialization in certain subjects, e. g., in honour classics and mathe- 
matics at Oxford and Cambridge leading to higher work than that 
attempted in the gymnasium; but however advanced the studies may 
be, there is rarely any attempt to guide the English undergraduate 
in the direction of research. Reading and examinations are the 
academic watchwords, and to the great mass of students and tutors 
the field of research is a terra incognita. 
The attitude of the British nation has been hitherto largely 
that of indifference towards organized research, and this has been 
true not only of the general public, but also of those engaged in 
