THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN ENGLAND. 



261 



been. For it is the principal object of this work to 

 attempt to portray the actual progress of thought, the 

 valuable contributions of each of the three nations to the 



education." In Germany, the real 

 home of the educationalist or Er- 

 zieher has not been the university ; 

 the home of the man of science has 

 not been and is not the university 

 in England. The German educa- 

 tionalist can point to a special crea- 

 tion of his own, the Volksschule. 

 The English man of science has 

 no organisation to point to except 

 it be the select society of a dozen 

 great names of world -wide fame, 

 corresponding to the solitary and 

 unconnected heights of Homer, So- 

 phocles, Dante, Shakespeare, and 

 Goethe in literature. To descend, 

 however, from generalities to the 

 real thing, I give here some ex- 

 tracts referring to English univer- 

 sity life, chosen from among hun- 

 dreds, all variations on the same 

 theme. Dr Thomas Young, who 

 knew both German and English 

 universities, having studied at Got- 

 tingen and taken his degree at 

 Cambridge, was not indebted to 

 any university for his position or 

 his knowledge ; yet he significantly 

 defends the English universities 

 against the criticism of the Edin- 

 burgh Reviewer : " We do not in- 

 tend to imply a censure of the 

 system adopted by our universities ; 

 . . . for it must be remembered 

 that the advancement of learning is 

 by no means the principal object of 

 an academical institution : the diffu- 

 sion of a respectable share of in- 

 struction in literature and in the 

 sciences among those classes which 

 hold the highest situations and have 

 the most extensive influence in the 

 State is an object of more import- 

 ance to the public than the dis- 

 covery of new truths. . . . We 

 think that we have observed num- 

 erous instances, both in public life 



and in the pursuit of natural know- 

 ledge, in which great scholars and 

 great mathematicians have reasoned 

 less soundly, although more ingeni- 

 ously, than others, who, being some- 

 what more completely in the pos- 

 session of common -sense, . . . were 

 still far inferior to them in the re- 

 finements of learning or of science " 

 (' Quarterly Review,' May 1810, 

 reprinted in Miscellaneous Works, 

 vol. i. p. 235, &c.) I shall now 

 give a quotation from an entirely 

 different source, from one who in 

 his department was equally well 

 acquainted with German and Eng- 

 lish thought and life. In 1830 E. 

 B. Pusey attempted to give his 

 friend, Prof. Tholuck of Halle, a 

 sketch of what had been " recently 

 done in English theology." He 

 begins by referring to the "prac- 

 tical character of the nation" and 

 " the different condition of the uni- 

 versities," and then continues as 

 follows : " Few, if any, of our writ- 

 ings have originated in an abstract 

 love of investigation : our greatest 

 and some immortal works have 

 arisen in some exigencies of the 

 times. ... A German writes be- 

 cause he has something to say ; an 

 Englishman only because it is, or 

 he thinks it is, needed" ('Life of 

 Pusey,' vol. i. p. 238). The man 

 who did most for the widening of 

 the circle of university studies in 

 England during the first half of the 

 century was William Whewell (1794- 

 1866), whose influence at Cambridge 

 extended over more than a genera- 

 tion. In the beginning he assisted 

 the movement begun by Babbage, 

 Herschel, and Peacock, and pub- 

 lished several text -books on me- 

 chanics and dynamics, in which the 

 influence of Continental, especially 



