December 28, 191 1] 



NATURE 



299 



mere logical deductions from a few simple premises which, 

 for all he knows, may be quite wrong. 



Academic .nethods of teaching mathematics have quite 

 iailed with the average student, whereas the system which 

 is called practical mathematics has proved most successful, 

 not only with him, but for men who are capable of be- 

 coming great mathematicians. The average student now 

 gets a thoroughly good working power over what are 

 usually called higher mathematical methods ; he can use 

 his knowledge readily in all kinds of practical problems. 

 It used to be that when an evening mathematics class was 

 started in September only about one-third of the students 

 were in attendance in December, and when May came 

 round there might be only one or two students in the 

 ■class. Now the attendance keeps up to the end of the 

 session, and there is scarcely any subject in which the 

 students show so much interest. Their eyes and faces are 

 bright, they work hard, and they evidently enjoy the work. 

 We have merely introduced some common sense into the 

 teaching ; we have approached the student's mind from 

 another point of view than the old academic one, from the 

 only side on which he has ever been taught anything — 

 the side of observation and trial. We educate his reason- 

 ing powers through concrete examples until he gets a firm 

 grasp of abstract truths. There is nothing really new in 

 what we are doing ; it was insisted on by Milton, by 

 Herbert Spencer, and by many another philosopher. The 

 authorities of this institute were among the first to adopt 

 this method of teaching. 



I praise all these things which your institute is doing, 

 and I think that my praise is of value, because I am 

 specially competent to speak of these things. Many of you 

 understand better than I do the value of the textile and 

 ■other trade classes, but we all feel that the work that is 

 being done in them is valuable work. 



I wish I had time to speak about it, but I am neglecting 

 a great deal in this address. For example, I am saying 

 nothing about some exceedingly important research in 

 •engineering science that is going on in this institute which 

 is adding to our knowledge of the strength and trust- 

 worthiness of materials and other things. 



I said in opening the advanced laboratories to-night that 

 there was a scientific educational thread of thought running 

 through the whole scheme of Prof. Smith. Before he 

 •enters that laboratory a student must be prepared for this 

 higher work by work in the other labor3tories. Every 

 unit to be experimented upon is small ; that is, it is not a 

 huge thing that scares the student; a group of three or 

 four students can take charge of the work ; and it is not 

 -so small but what the results of experiments shall be of 

 practical value. The actions of steam engines, steam 

 turbines, gas engines, oil engines, petrol engines, electrical 

 generators, various pumps and water turbines, re- 

 1 liberators, and many other things, can be fully investi- 

 gated through actual measurement of their performance 

 in all sorts of circumstances. It is almost the best labora- 

 tory of its kind that I have ever seen. 



As I am speaking of the evening work in particular, 

 what I say is that few boys at the age of fifteen are fit 

 to be apprentices in any kind of engineering in Belfast ; 

 "but if a boy is fit he will certainly attend these classes 

 in the evening, and in the day time if he is allowed. If 

 he attends two or three nights, and perhaps half a dav 

 twice in the week, until he is twenty, then I say that he 

 has h.^d a finer engineering training than he could have had 

 ; as a rich man's son in Germany or .'\merica or anywhere 

 ' else. 



I know the breed well ; I get fifteen or twenty of them 



•every year who have scholarships to maintain them in 



London. They know all that is in the text-books before 



"^"v come. Four or five of them come from the Govern- 



nt dockyards, where they have attended excellent science 



-es ;ind have be-en live or six years in the workshops, 



i the rest are all good workmen too. 



i;ut Belfast men of this type ought not to have to go to 

 idon or Dublin to complete their scientific education. 

 V ought to be able to do this in Belfast in attending the 

 classes of this very college. Why, even two years of 

 highest kind of instruction here would fit rnen like 

 ional Scholars for the best posts. I need not tell vou, 

 ever, that even then they shall only have entered on 



NO. 2200, VOL. 88] 



the race for the highest posts; much experience of men 

 and things, and a foundation of character, a developed 

 imagination and general culture, and much else go to the 

 making of the great engineer. 



This evening work is now the most important work of 

 your institute, and if you can only improve the character 

 of your students at fifteen or sixteen the work will become 

 infinitely more important ; but surely this costly institution 

 is not going to neglect the work that is more important 

 still — its work during the day. 



Do you know why those clever experienced National 

 Scholars and others of which I spoke just now— do you 

 know why they come to us in London? It is because the 

 Royal College of Science is the only college of high rank 

 in Great Britain where these men can pursue their studies. 

 If they can write a decent letter ; if they can write in fair 

 English an account of anything they have done or seen, 

 that is enough to secure admission. We give them chances 

 of learning French or German free of cost, but they can 

 get the highest honours which the college has to give 

 without a knowledge of these languages. 



There is not one college of university rank in Great 

 Britain which these students can enter unless for a time 

 they cease the studies they love, to work up Latin and 

 French or German merely for the purpose of passing a 

 matriculation examination. Now just as there are great 

 classical scholars who cannot comprehend Euclid, so many 

 of the men who most incline to the study of natural science 

 hate Latin and Greek, and, indeed, all other languages 

 than their own, and the study of these languages ought not 

 to be forced upon them. 



Your college here ought to give the highest kind of 

 instruction in the day time to all kinds of engineers ; 

 Belfast needs such a science college, and you ought to aim 

 at getting three or four hundred of fit students every year. 

 This college ought to be, and will, I hope, become" the 

 great engineering school of the Queen's University of 

 Belfast, and every day or evening student who is made fit 

 to be an engineer ought to receive a university degree. 



In a university there are always many schools, and every 

 student ought to pass an entrance examination. Now I 

 wish to direct attention to the fact that the authorities of 

 modern universities have forgotten the object of an 

 entrance examination. It is simply to test whether a man 

 is likely to benefit by any of the courses of study. Four 

 hundred years ago all lectures were in Latin, all books 

 were in Latin ; unless a man knew Latin he could not 

 benefit by any of the courses of study, and it was right to 

 reject him ; there was a commendable custom at some 

 Oxford colleges that if a student spoke one word of any 

 other language he was fined. Then at the Renaissance 

 Greek was made obligatory, and geometry for students 

 who had to follow certain courses of study. 



And now, when all lectures are in English, when our 

 English literature is greater (if we include translations) 

 than any other literature that has ever been, we still make 

 a knowledge of Latin and Greek compulsory. 



The Queen's University of Belfast is intended for the 

 education of men who intend to enter professions connected 

 with politics, divinity, law, education, medicine and 

 surgery, economics, literature, and engineering. In almost 

 all cases a knowledge of Latin, and in many cases a know- 

 ledge of Greek or of one or more modern languages, and 

 above all a university degree, are essential for professional 

 qualification. 



No one, therefore, can object to obligatory Latin and 

 other philological subjects being required from the greater 

 number of the existing students of Queen's University, 

 which has been so eminently successful in preparing men 

 for some of the above professions. It has been so 

 successful that people forget that the general higher educa- 

 tion of the community is being altogether neglected, the 

 general culture of professional men is being neglected ; and 

 in the case of professions involving applications of physical 

 science, the numerous branches of engineering, useless 

 obligatory subjects are insisted upon, so that for these pro- 

 fessions the university is a harmful institution. 



Medical students have so much hard work in various 

 kinds of grammar subjects required for matriculation that 

 they must be forgiven f"' iii.'lr utter ignorance of all things 

 in natural science. F -ide Philistine may also be 



