4 JOHN GEOEGE BOURINOT 



man, Dicey, aud Stubbs, I need hardly toll you, staud iu the foremost rauk of constitu- 

 tional writers and indicate the desire on the part of the great English seats of learning 

 within recent years to strengthen this branch of higher education. It has been well 

 observed by Mr. Andrew "White, who presided for many years so ably over Cornell 

 University, that a remarkable change has taken place in this direction on the part of 

 Oxford and Cambridge since he first visited them thirty years ago " when the provision 

 for instruction in political and social science, to say nothing of the natural sciences, 

 was wretchedly inadequate." ' 



It is to France and Germany confessedly that we should look for the most perfect 

 system of education of this class. No country in the world has more effective methods of 

 administration, or a better instructed civil service, than the Empire of Gî-ermany — the 

 very qualities which have made the G-erman soldier a remarkable military machine tend 

 to fit him for official life. The German is educated to habits of obedience aud discipline 

 iu all walks of life, and has had from his youth excellent opportunities for instruction in 

 all branches of knowledge. He is naturally plodding and industrious. He studies in 

 universities where the opportunities for being deeply grounded in all branches of know- 

 ledge are not surpassed by institutions in any other country ; for a long time they have 

 given a special course of training suitable for political life or the work of administration. 

 The same thing may be said of France, where the official service has been always admir- 

 ably administered by servants of the state capable in every essential particular. "What- 

 ever may be the faults of the politicians of that great country, it can be truly said that 

 the permanent public service, by the stability, capacity, and knowledge of its members, 

 has proved a veritable bulwark against the impulsiveness and unsteadiness of the 

 politician or demagogue at times of intense political excitement. 



The College of France and the Independent School of Political Sciences in Paris have 

 for a long time past presented a course of studies, which enable a diligent student to 

 make himself thoroughly conversant with all those branches of history, and of Political 

 Science which assist him to master the great problems of government and social life that 

 are daily presenting themselves around him, and help to make him a more useful mem- 

 ber of the commonwealth. 



It is therefore eminently satisfactory to find that Canada is commencing to follow, 

 in this particular, the example set her by the countries just mentioned. Our population 

 and wealth are very insignificant as yet compared with the United States, or with those 

 peoples from whom the two races that inhabit this Dominion derive their origin and 

 institutions ; but though it may not be jiossible for us for a while to offer the large 

 opportunities which the rich institutions of these countries give to the student, still it 

 is for us to make a beginning, and lay the foundation for the study of those branches of 

 knowledge which are admitted to be essentially within the province of all seats of the 

 higher education that wish to be en rapport with the times. 



No course of studies is better calculated to profit the student than this, when it is 

 fully and faithfully carried out. It is one inseparably connected with the vital interests 

 of the whole community. Every man, woman, and child has an interest in the efficient 

 administration of government, and in the impartial execution of the laws. These 



' See Johns Hopkins University Studies, 5th Series, xii. 



