438 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 
I will here recapitulate the heads of the several branches of instruction 
I have above endeavoured to recommend. 
Laneuacers.—Latin and German, Greek Alphabet and Vocabulary;— 
French, evtra. 
History.—1. Ancient Greek, Roman (Jewish ?). 
2. Modern—chiefly those of England and Holland; European 
and General in less detail. 
Natura History.—1. General subdivisions of Organic nature. 
2. Particular History of the more remarkable Animals and 
Vegetables. 
-GrocrapHy.—1l. Political—Ancient and Modern. 
2. Physical-—-1. Form of the Earth.—2. Traces of its former 
condition.—3. Natural subdivisions.—4. Climates.—5. Atmo- 
sphere. Winds. Seas. Tides. 
PuysitcaL Scrence.—Mechanics, including Hydrostatics, &c. Astro- 
nomy. Chemistry. Optics, &c. 
N.B. The climate is remarkably favourable for Optical Lectures, which 
might be splendid and most attractive. 
Usrrut Arts.—Engineering, including the nature of the Steam Engine. 
Agriculture and Horticulture. Draftsmanship (extra). 
Sociat Retations.—Ethics. Jurisprudence. Political Economy. 
Maruemarics.—Arithmetic, Geometry, Analysis, Applications. 
Inpuctive PHiLtosopuy.—Novum Organum of Bacon, omitting his 
specimen of the application of his own principles to the Nature of 
Heat. 
A few brief remarks on the subject of public examinations may not be 
irrelevant, and I should certainly not have hazarded them had I not been 
requested by you to state my impressions as to what may prove of benefit 
to the objects of the institution prospectively ; and it is in the spirit of 
that request, and without the slightest wish to criticise anything which I 
have observed in the only examination at which I have had the honour to 
be present, that T do so. 
First, then, I think it would be desirable that some portion of the ex- 
amination of the senior classes should be conducted in writing, and with 
deliberation, not only in mathematics but on other subjects. From what 
I have been in the habit of observing in such matters, I am disposed to 
think that a combination of written with oral answers, is necessary to give 
an effectual trial to the merits of any proficient. 
In the next place, I would suggest, that the number and variety of prizes 
given may quite as easily be too great as too small, and that a certain re- 
serve on this point is essential to keeping up the value of such distinctions 
in general. 
Lastly, I should be disposed to suppress altogether a practice which I 
have observed to exist, of the successful candidates for prizes returning 
thanks to their judges. There is no distinction which can possibly be 
awarded to a youth at college which ought not to have the immediate 
effect of humbling him in his own sight, and inducing him to retire in si- 
lence and meditation on the share which his own good fortune, or the ill- 
luck or diffidence of his competitors may have had in his success—on the 
numbers of questions which might have been proposed to him, and which 
he could not have answered, and on the immeasurable interval which still 
separates him from excellence—as well as in forming inward resolves, 
to let his future exertions be greater than his past. Sucha frame of mind 
is incompatible with any kind of public declamation. 
{ remain, dear Sir, yours, with much esteem, 
J. F. W. HERSCHEL. 
