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NATURE 



\March 15, 1877 



MR. TROTTER ON UNIVERSITY REFORM 

 Oft Sovte Questions of University Reform. By Coutts 

 Trotter, M.A., Senior Fellow and Tutor of Trinity Col- 

 lege, Cambridge. (Cambridge, Deighton.) 

 TTVURING the short life of the Oxford and Cambridge 

 •Lv Bills of last year, it was my lot to hear from many 

 of my London friends many dismal, sometimes almost 

 contemptuous, prophecies concerning the future of 

 natural science at the old universities. For myself, in 

 looking forward towards possible and probable changes, 

 I always lay to heart the hackneyed consolation of the 

 unsuccessful Liberal Orator, "Time is on our side." 

 Whatever happens, science cannot lose much and may 

 gain largely. How great a progress might with the least 

 possible shock to conservative principles be effected by 

 the help of men in whose minds a broad sympathetic 

 love of learning is associated with a delicate appreciation 

 of the present university feelings and habits, may be 

 learnt by any one who will take the trouble to read Mr. 

 Trotter's brief pamphlet. 



There are men who in their so-called radical ways of 

 thinking, exalt theoretical statements above practical 

 suggestions, and thus are led to insist that all university 

 reform is useless which is not based on the two abstract 

 principles :— i. That the interests of education are essen- 

 tially opposed to those of learning : 2. That the interests 

 of the colleges are essentially opposed to those of the uni- 

 versity. Such men argue with great vehemence that it is 

 hopeless to expect learning to flourish in a place like 

 Cambridge, for instance, where education, so far from 

 being neglected, as Mr. Lowe seems to think, is pushed 

 with yearly increasing energy (they speak of it as being 

 " rampant," and assert that the students, who have been 

 long over-examined, are now in danger of being over- 

 taught), and where a poor university, like an almost 

 penniless king whose only subjects are a few wealthy 

 barons, contends in vain with colleges which not only are 

 at the present moment far richer and stronger than it, 

 but must always tend to be so, since the feeling which 

 binds a student to his university is akin to the mild emo- 

 tion of patriotism, while his affection for his college is 

 more like the family love of home. 



To this class of reformers Mr. Trotter does not belong. 

 How far he would agree with these abstract principles 

 cannot be learnt from his pamphlet. He, perhaps, is one 

 of those who think that abstract principles are like the 

 timbers of a ship, which, through the very making of the 

 vessel, come to the surface only after shipwreck. At any 

 rate, he adopts what to many will seem the wise course 

 of confining himself to the practical consideration of how, 

 with the least possible dissipation of energy, education 

 may be converted into learning, and how the university, 

 which ought to be the seat of the latter, may be fortified 

 without injuring that " college life " which is the natural 

 instrument of the former, and which, to all who know 

 it, has charms too great to be neglected by any wise 

 reformer. 



On these matters, all his remarks, coming as they do 

 from one who, having a true love of learning, has for 

 several years been prominently engaged in college and 

 university business, seem to me worthy of very serious 

 attention. I can readily imagine that his views will be 

 condemned by two opposing parties. Many academic J 



conservatives will call them " revolutionary." Many aca . 

 demic and other radicals will stigmatise them as a com- 

 promise. They do indeed favour that dreadfully common- 

 place "middle way"; but they possess this notable 

 characteristic— they are tentative and progressive. They 

 may not at first convert the university into a palace of 

 learning ; but if adopted, may, without fear of strain, 

 be expanded in proportion to the demands of knowledge 

 and the wealth of the united corporations. 



In the first of the three divisions of his pamphlet, Mr. 

 Trotter deals with the relations of education and know- 

 ledge ; and his leading idea is the multiplication of what, in 

 general terms, may be called professorships, the duties of 

 which shall be so light as to afford leisure for research, 

 and the promotion to which shall be at least largely de- 

 pendent on fruitfulness in advancing learning. He would 

 make learning and education, what the pious founders 

 thought they had provided for their being, co-partners in 

 the wealth of the colleges ; and would sweeten and lighten 

 teaching with the spirit of research. In this he will 

 doubtless fail to please those who press for the endow- 

 ment of research " untrammelled by teaching duties ;" 

 but is not, after all, the difference between him and them 

 one of detail only, and not of " abstract principle 1 " 

 Putting aside certain tasks of continued observation, all 

 investigators, or at least all with comparatively few ex- 

 ceptions, would be assisted rather than hampered in their 

 inquiries by having from time to time to give expositions 

 of their particular studies to an audience of some kind or 

 other. And that is all which is really included under the 

 duties of professor. How much or how little teaching 

 ought to be demanded of this or that man must depend on 

 the particular circumstances of each case ; and the few 

 instances where absolute dumbness is an essential to 

 successful research, might without difficulty be provided 

 for by special arrangements. 



These professorships Mr. Trotter would divide into 

 three classes :— (i) Ordinary Professorships, such as now 

 exist ; (2) Lectureships, somewhat corresponding to the 

 present College Lectureships ; and (3), what, in the 

 absence of any more suitable word, he proposes to call 

 Extraordinary Professorships. The first class he pro- 

 poses to limit in number and exalt in dignity so that each 

 professor should be considered as at least the nominal 

 head of the particular study to which he is devoted. 

 Although he does not expressly state it, Mr. Trotter 

 evidently intends that the men holding these offices 

 should be eminently men of research ; and hence while 

 their incomes would be ample, their official duties would 

 be light. The extraordinary professors would form a 

 more numerous' class and would be appointed either 

 for fiuitfulness in research or for great teaching talent, or 

 (and it is hoped frequently) for both. The emoluments 

 and status of an extraordinary professorship ought to be ! 

 such that a man might look to it as a post for life and 

 not merely as a stepping-stone to something else. The 

 third class of lectureships would be still more numerous, 

 and serve in part at least as feeders to the other profes- 

 sorships. Though, for them, as for the other two classes? 

 research would be a qualification at least on a level with 

 didactic ability, the teaching duties of a lecturer would 

 naturally be heavier than those of a professor. It may 

 be urged, as Mr. Trotter himself feels, that extraordinary 



