in.] A LIBERAL EDUCATION. 45 



and distinctive in their social tone ! But until they have suc 

 ceeded, a liberal education will be no more obtainable in our 

 Oxford and Cambridge Universities than in our public schools. 



If I am justified in my conception of the ideal of a liberal 

 education ; and if what I have said about the existing educational 

 institutions of the country is also true, it is clear that the two 

 have no sort of relation to one another ; that the best of our 

 schools and the most complete of our university trainings give 

 but a narrow, one-sided, and essentially illiberal education 

 while the worst give what is really next to no education at all. 

 The South London Working-Men s College could not copy any 

 of these institutions, if it would I am bold enough to express the 

 conviction that it ought not if it could. 



For what is wanted is the reality and not the mere name of a 

 liberal education ; and this College must steadily set before itself 

 the ambition to be able to give that education sooner or later. 

 At present we are but beginning, sharpening our educational 

 tools, as it were, and, except a modicum of physical science, we 

 are not able to offer much more than is to be found in an 

 ordinary school. 



Moral and social science one of the greatest and most fruitful 

 of our future classes, I hope at present lacks only one thing 

 in our programme, and that is a teacher. A considerable want, 

 no doubt ; but it must be recollected that it is much better to 

 want a teacher than to want the desire to learn. 



Further, we need what, for want of a better name, I must call 

 Physical Geography. What I mean is that which the Germans 

 call &quot; Erdkunde&quot; It is a description of the earth, of its place and 

 relation to other bodies ; of its general structure, and of its great 

 features winds, tides, mountains, plains ; of the chief forms of 

 the vegetable and animal worlds, of the varieties of man. It is 

 the peg upon which the greatest quantity of useful and enter 

 taining scientific information can be suspended. 



Literature is not upon the College programme ; but I hope 

 some day to see it there. For literature is the greatest of 



