248 PETER GUTHRIE TAIT 



this address was given above (p. n) in reference to cramming or coaching 

 for examinations. The question of central boards of examiners and their 

 necessary concomitant cram received many a hard hit from Tait in his 

 graduation addresses, which present in somewhat whimsical guise his horror 

 of the examiner who is not at the same time a teacher. The same views are 

 expressed in an article on " Artificial Selection " which appeared in Macmillans 

 Magazine for 1872 and which contains some racy illustrations of how not to 

 examine. The following quotation from this article indicates the ideal 

 University which Tait at that time pictured to himself: 



A combination of the Scottish and English University systems, to the exclusion 

 of what is manifestly bad in each, is the thing really wanted. England's superiority 

 consists in very great measure of money and lands that of Scotland in making 

 the University Professors the actual teachers. Let us have in the great English 

 Universities Professors teaching the many, to take the place of the all-pervading 

 Coach in addition of course to the almost unequalled body of Professors they now 

 possess.... In Scottish Universities let many of the chairs be doubled or even trebled ; 

 let there be, for instance, a Professor of Experimental Physics in each, and a 

 Professor of Applied Mathematics, in the place of the present solitary Professor of 

 the enormous subject Natural Philosophy ; let us have a Professor of Chemistry 

 and Medicine, and a Professor of the Theory of Chemistry, etc.. ..Let the multi- 

 farious duties now discharged by one over-burdened man be distributed among two, 

 three or four ; let their salaries not depend for so much as half the whole amount on 

 the numbers attending their classes, so that there shall be no possible incitement 

 to lower their standard to attract more listeners. But also let us take every care 

 that they be kept rigorously to their work, and at once laid aside whenever they 

 have ceased to be working teachers. 



This unfortunately is not likely to be done. The extreme poverty of the 

 Scottish Universities, more especially of the Metropolitan one, prevents their doing 

 much. And Scotland's share of the Imperial Revenue has always been insignificant 

 compared with her contributions to it. Still it is surely possible that a few annual 

 thousands might be obtained from Parliament to furnish her universities properly 

 with laboratories ; and the overworked and underpaid professors with adequate 

 remuneration and with additional assistants, from whom in turn their successors 

 might be chosen. Then the country, having done something to deserve success, 

 cannot fail to attain it. 



Recent developments have in some respects, although not in all, been 

 along the very lines here sketched by one who, because of his conservative 

 political sympathies, was believed by many to be averse to progress of any 

 kind. In one particular, however, we have not worked towards the ideal 

 imagined by Tait. The exaltation of the examination still continues ; and 

 some of his strong characteristic statements are quite to the point in these 



