546 



NATURE 



[Oct. 19, 1876 



point of the orbit that a very material change of elements 

 may have been then occasioned, perhaos sufficiently great 

 to account for the difference of the elements from those 

 of the first comet of 1743, which Clausen conjectured to 

 be identical with Blanpain's. 



PROF. HUXLEY ON UNIVERSITY 

 EDUCATION^ 



THE actual work of the University founded in this 

 city by the well-considered munificence of Johns 

 Hopkins commences to-morrow, and among the many 

 marks of confidence and good-will which have been 

 bestowed upon me in the United States, there is none 

 which I value more highly than that conferred by the 

 authorities of the University when they invited me to 

 deliver an address on such an occasion. 



For the event which has brought us together is, in 

 many respects, unique. A vast property is handed over 

 to an administrative body, hampered by no conditions 

 save these : — That the principal shall not be employed in 

 building ; that the funds shall be appropriated in equal 

 proportions to the promotion of natural knowledge, and 

 to the alleviation of the bodily sufferings of mankind ; 

 and, finally, that neither political nor ecclesiastical sec- 

 tarianism shall be permitted to disturb the impartial dis- 

 tribution of the testator's benefactions. 



In my experience of life a truth which sounds very 

 much like a paradox has often asserted itself, viz., that a 

 man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as 

 he likes. So long as a man is struggling with obstacles 

 he has an excuse for failure or shortcoming ; but when 

 fortune removes them all and gives him the power of 

 doing as he thinks best, then comes the time of trial. 

 There is but one right, and the possibilities of wrong are 

 infinite. I doubt not that the trustees of the Johns Hop- 

 kins University felt the full force of this truth when they 

 entered on the administration of their trust a year and a 

 half ago ; and I can but admire the activity and resolu- 

 tion which have enabled them, aided by the able presi- 

 dent whom they have selected, to lay down the great 

 outlines of their plan, and carry it thus far into execution. 

 It is impossible to study that plan without perceiving that 

 great care, forethought, and sagacity, have been bestowed 

 upon it, and that it demands the most respectful conside- 

 ration. I have been endeavouring to ascertain how far the 

 principles which underlie it are in accordance with those 

 which have been established in my own mind by much 

 and long-continued thought upon educational questions. 

 Permit me to place before you the result of my reflections. 



Under one aspect, a university is a particular kind of 

 educational institution, and the views which we may take 

 of the proper nature of a university are corollaries from 

 those which we hold respecting education in general. I 

 think it must be admitted that the school should prepare 

 for the university, and that the university should crown 

 the edifice, the foundations of which are laid in the school. 

 University education should not be something distinct 

 from elementary education, but should be the natural out- 

 growth and development of the latter. Now I have a very 

 clear conviction as to what elementary education ought to 

 be ; what it really may be when properly organised, and 

 what I think it will be before many years have passed over 

 our heads in England and in America. Such education 

 should enable an average boy of fifteen or sixteen to read 

 and write his own language with ease and accuracy, and 

 with a sense of literary excellence derived from the study 

 of our classic writers ; to have a general acquaintance with 

 the history of his own country and with the great laws 

 of social existence ; to have acquired the rudiments of 



' Address (revised by the Author) delivered at the formal opening of the 

 Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, U.S., September 12. The total 

 amount bequeathed by Johns Hopkins is more than 7,000,000 dollars. The 

 sum of 3,5oo,«oo dollars is appropriated to a university, a like sum to a hos- 

 pital, and the rest to local institutions of education and charity. 



the physical and psychological sciences, and a'^fair know- 

 ledge of elementary arithmetic and geometry. He should 

 have obtained an acquaintance with logic rather by ex- 

 ample than by precept, while the acquirement of the ele- 

 ments of music and drawing should have been pleasure 

 rather than work. 



It may sound strange to many ears if I venture to 

 maintain the proposition that a young person, educated 

 thus far, has had a liberal, though perhaps not a full edu- 

 cation. But it seems to me that such training as that 

 to which I have referred may be termed liberal in both 

 the senses in which that word is employed with perfect 

 accuracy. In the first place, it is liberal in breadth. It 

 extends over the whole ground of things to be known 

 and of faculties to be trained, and it gives equal import- 

 ance to the two great sides of human activity — art and 

 science. In the second place, it is liberal in the sense 

 of being an education fitted for free men ; for men to 

 whom every career is open, and from whom their country 

 may demand that they should be fitted to perform the 

 duties of any career. I cannot too strongly impress upon 

 you the fact that with such a primary education as this, 

 and with no more than is to be obtained by building 

 strictly upon its lines, a man of ability may become a 

 great writer or speaker, a statesman, a lawyer, a man 

 of science, painter, sculptor, architect, or musician. That 

 even development of all a man's faculties, which is what 

 properly constitutes culture, may be effected by such an 

 education, while it opens the way for the indefinite 

 strengthening of any special capabilities with which he 

 may be gifted. 



In a country like this, where most men have to carve 

 out their own fortunes and devote themselves early to the 

 practical affairs of life, comparatively i^fi can hope to 

 pursue their studies up to or beyond the age of man- 

 hood. But it is of vital importance to the welfare of the 

 community that those who are relieved from the need of 

 making a livelihood, and still more, those who are stirred 

 by the divine impulses of intellectual thirst or artistic 

 genius, should be enabled to devote themselves to the 

 higher service of their kind as centres of intelligence, 

 interpreters of nature, or creators of new forms of beauty. 

 And it is the function of a university to furnish such 

 men with the means of becoming that which it is their 

 privilege and duty to be. To this end the university need 

 cover no ground foreign to that occupied by the elemen- 

 tary school. Indeed, it cannot ; for the elementary in- 

 struction which I have referred to embraces all the kinds 

 of real knowledge and mental activity possible to man. 

 The university can add no new departments of know- 

 ledge, can offer no new fields of mental activity ; bu*" 

 what it can do is to intensify and specialise the instrut 

 tion in each department. Thus literature and philology, 

 represented in the elementary school by English alone, 

 in the university will extend over the ancient and modern 

 languages. History, which like charity best begins at 

 home, but, like charity, should not end there, will ramify 

 into archaeology, political history and geography, with the 

 history of the growth of the human mind and its products 

 in the shape of philosophy, science, and art. And the 

 university will present to the student libraries, museums 

 of antiquities, collections of coins, and the like which will 

 efficiently subserve these studies. Instruction in the ele- 

 ments of social economy, a most essential, but hitherto 

 sadly-neglected part of elementary education, will develop 

 in the university into political economy, sociology, and law. 

 Physical science will have its great divisions of physical 

 geography, with geology and astronomy ; physics, chemis- 

 try and biology, represented not merely by professors 

 and their lectures, but by laboratories, in which the stu- 

 dents, under guidance of demonstrators, will work out 

 facts for themselves and come into that direct contact 

 with reality which constitutes the fundamental distinction 

 of scientific education. Mathematics v.'ill soai^ into its 



