284 



NA TURE 



[July 21, 1898 



wniversity — the faculty of theology, the faculty of law, and the 

 faculty of medicine. And, if one reads what those men of old 

 ■wrote concerning what they thought ought to be done in the 

 imiversity, one is very much impressed by the conviction which 

 they had that the teaching should be an earnest preparation for 

 practical life. If it soon became necessary to establish a fourth 

 faculty, the faculty of arts, that was simply as a faculty 

 preparatory to the others, as one supplying the first steps for 

 •and leading up towards the knowledge which should be of use in 

 practical life ; and it is worth noting that although they called 

 that faculty the faculty of arts, and although the acquisition of the 

 Latin language was one of the chief studies of that faculty, 

 necessarily so because all the instruction which could be given 

 was given in that tongue, among what they called the arts were 

 the beginnings of the kind of knowledge which we now call 

 science. 



Another feature of the university life of those early times was 

 the very strong feeling that the work of the university consisted 

 not in the mere acquisition of knowledge, but in the training of 

 the mind. The amount of knowledge which they had for 

 distribution was very limited ; but they used that small stock of 

 knowledge to the very best of their ability, as the means of 

 awakening the minds of the students and training them for 

 thinking and arriving at conclusions. This is seen even in what 

 they called at that time examinations, though the word then had 

 a very different meaning from what it has now ; there were then 

 no written examinations, there was not that demand on paper so 

 characteristic of modern times, and thatgreatnecessity of modern 

 civilisation, the waste-paper basket, was unknown. The 

 examiners went quietly to work to ascertain in the most sure way 

 whether a student had profited by what he had listened to. 

 Instead of having two examiners for some hundreds of students, 

 they appointed nine to each student ; and these went in with him 

 and out with him until they satisfied themselves that he knew 

 something, and had gathered something from what had been told 

 iiim. And then as a final test they put him on the "stool" and 

 made him debate in public, the test being used in such a way as to 

 bring out his stock of knowledge, and especially his power of 

 using it and of showing that his mind had been trained at the 

 same time that he had gathered in a certain number of facts. 



There was another feature of the university which we some- 

 times find it difficult to realise : the spirit of inquiry was rife 

 among them. At that time the ways of thinking were devious ; 

 but still within the limited circle in which they moved, along the 

 only lines then open to them, the thinkers used their minds in 

 the spirit of free inquiry. When one reflects upon the circum- 

 stances in which they worked, one cannot help realising that 

 their long-drawn-out discussions were at bottom an expression of 

 the love of inquiry, and that if they had had the advantages which 

 we enjoy now, that which we call their subtlety would have 

 broken out into discovery and invention. 



Lastly, it was a feature of the university at that time that it 

 was willing to take into its bosom any one who showed that he had 

 any promise of benefiting by the instruction there given. It was 

 an open home for all who wished for learning. 



These are some of the features of the University of Cambridge 

 in the olden times ; and may we not, using them as a text, 

 attempt to draw some conclusions as to what are the proper and 

 essential functions of a university, and what ought to be some of 

 its guiding principles ? As I said just now, the knowledge which 

 they possessed was extremely limited, the facts with which they 

 had to deal were very few. What can we say of knowledge at the 

 present time ? May we not say, if theirs was too little for them, 

 •ours threatens to be too great for us ; that we are entering upon 

 an age in which the facts which have to be learned, and the 

 various kinds of knowledge which have to be acquired are 

 becoming too many for us ? It is, or it may be perfectly true that 

 one of the advantages of learning is that it enables the learner to 

 learn more rapidly ; but is not this true, notwithstanding that the 

 increment of knowledge is increasing far more rapidly than the 

 increment of the power to learn ? Is it not a serious matter for 

 consideration that the things that the university has to teach are 

 rapidly becoming far too numerous for the learner to learn ? Is 

 it not true that we cannot do now as they did in those old times, 

 teach the student all that was known ? We are compelled to 

 make a choice, we must teach to the student some things and 

 omit to teach him others. That is a necessity which it seems to 

 tne is increasing as the years go on. Nevertheless that position 

 is a cruel one ; for it may be truly said that every kind of 

 knowledge has a value of its own ; each kind of knowledge has 



NO. 1499, VOL. 58] 



for the learner a value which can be given by no other kind, and 

 he who fails to gain any one kind of knowledge is thereby a loser. 

 For building up the student into the full and complete man, the 

 best course would be to take in all the knowledge which can be 

 offered by a university ; but, as I said just now, a choice must be 

 made, and the consideration of the principles which should guide 

 the decision^as to what should be chosen and what should be left, 

 demands the most serious attention. Here I think we may 

 venture to follow the example of the old university. Admitting 

 that each kind of knowledge is particularly fitting for a particular 

 calling, that for every particular calling in life there is a 

 knowledge, or there are kinds of knowledge which are suited or 

 fitted for that calling, and without which that calling can not be 

 pursued with success, in the necessary choice which must be made 

 between this study and that, is it not a wise course to take that 

 which best serves the future calling of the student? I cannot 

 but think that in this choice of which I am speaking, the 

 arguments for what are sometimes called technical education are 

 unanswerable ; that one of the principles of most importance in 

 determining the choice of the studies to be taken up by the 

 student lies in the fitness of the study for giving him power in 

 the calling which he proposes to adopt. We must, however, 

 remember that the knowledge which is thus to be imparted to 

 him must be not merely a knowledge of facts, but bring with it 

 the power of thinking. If technical education is understood in 

 this way, not as a mere accumulation of facts, not as the mere 

 heaping of knowledge, but as the training of the mind in some 

 particular kind of knowledge, the dangers, I venture to say, 

 which some fear, will prove unreal, and it will be seen to be a 

 true principle of university education. 



There is another aspect in which we may look at university 

 duties. May we not say that the tendency of modern civilis- 

 ation is to smooth down individual differences, and that the whole 

 tendency of the environment of man is to make each man 

 increasingly more like his brother ? There was a time when one 

 could tell by the dress where a man came from ; but this has become 

 less and less easy, and it is not in dress alone, but in his very 

 nature that man all over the world becomes more like his fellows. 

 I myself during the short time I have been in this country have felt 

 it more and more difficult to tell what are the differences between 

 an American and an Englishman, and I trust that these dif- 

 ferences are equally difficult to you. This may be a favourable 

 aspect, but there is an unfavourable side to this continual 

 influence of things about us. Mr. Francis Galton has shown that 

 there is a great tendency in things to make men more and more 

 alike in stature, and there seems a corresponding tendency to 

 make men all alike in the stature of their minds. We seem 

 tending in many ways to a monotonous mediocrity of intellect. 

 This influence is especially strong among young people. I see 

 for myself in the University of Cambridge that when one young 

 man does one thing they all do it ; they go astray like sheep, and 

 they also go straight like sheep. Surely it ought to be a function 

 of the university to counteract this tendency, and so to bring the 

 influences of learning upon the young as to develop individual 

 differences. That I take it is one of the most important 

 functions which a university can exercise, but one which is not 

 always kept in view in university enactments. Here I can speak 

 of my own university, and in doing so can lay the blame for the 

 present condition of things on the traditions of the past. I find 

 in my own university discouragement for the development of 

 individual power. Every lad who comes to the University of 

 Cambridge is compelled to pass through the same examination, 

 to know the same things to the same extent, whatever may be 

 the nature of his mind. He must know a little Latin, a little 

 Greek, a little mathematics, a little history and one or two other 

 subjects. Each one who comes, whatever his previous history, 

 must pass through this one gate ; the whole university has been 

 pushed through this one common gate. Now I know that this 

 may be defended ; it may be said, for instance, that it is a bad 

 thing not to know Latin. I quite agree with that. I think it 

 a very bad thing not to know Latin, but I also think it a very 

 bad thing for a lad to be thrown into life, it may be to go through 

 life, without any clear idea whatever of the fundamental laws 

 which govern the phenomena of living things. It may be said 

 that it is a bad thing not to know Greek ; I agree with that. 

 Not to know Greek is to my mind worse than not to know Latin, 

 but I think also that it is a bad thing for a lad to go through life 

 ignorant of the fundamental laws of chemical action. If you go 

 along in that line of argument, you end by compelling a lad to 

 know everything before he enters the university. If I had 



