ClfAP. I.] DEFECTIVE TEACHING IN THE UNIVERSITIES. 75 



many things worthy to be known. And if Alexander placed 

 so large a treasure at Aristotle s command, for the support 

 of hunters, fowlers, Ushers, and the like, in much more need 

 do they stand of this beneficence who unfold the labyrinths 

 of nature. 



Another defect I discover is the neglect in vice-chan 

 cellors, heads of houses, princes, inspectors, and others, of 

 proper supervision or diligent inquiry into the course of 

 studies, with a view to a thorough reformation of such parts 

 as are ill suited to the age, or of unwise institution. For it 

 is one of your Majesty s sage maxims, that as respects cus 

 toms and precedents, we must consider the times in which 

 they took their rise, since much is detracted from their 

 authority, if such are found feeble and ignorant. It is, there 

 fore, all the more requisite, since the university statues were 

 framed in very obscure times, to institute an inquiry into 

 their origin. Of errors of this nature I will give an example 

 or two from such objects as are most obvious and familiar. 

 The one is, that scholars are inducted too early into logic and 

 rhetoric, arts which, being the cream of all others, are fitter 

 for graduates than children and novices. Now, being the 

 gravest of the sciences, these arts are composed of rules and 

 directions, for setting forth and methodizing the matter of the 

 rest, and, therefore, for rude and blank minds, who have not yet 

 gathered that which Cicero styles sylva and supellex* matter, 

 and fecundity, to begin with those arts is as if one were to paint 

 or measure the wind, and has no other effect than to degrade 

 the universal wisdom of these arts into childish sophistry and 

 contemptible affectation. This error has had the inevitable 

 result of rendering the treatises on those sciences superficial, 

 and dwarfing them to the capacities of children. Another 

 error to be noticed in the present academical system is the 

 separation between invention and memory, their exercises 

 either being nothing but a set form of words, where no play is 

 given to the understanding, or extemporaneous, in the deli 

 very of which no room is left to the memory. In practical 

 life, however, a blending of the powers of judgment and 

 memory is alone put into requisition, so that these practices, 

 not being adapted to the life of action, rather pervert than 



f Sylva de Orat iii. 26 ; Supellex Orat. xxiv. 



