THE FUNCTIONS OF A UNIVERSITY 241 



difficult to become a successful investigator as a successful 

 barrister or doctor, and it requires at least as hard appli- 

 cation and as long a period of study. 



I do not believe that it is possible for young men or 

 women to devote sufficient time during the evening to 

 such work. Those who devote their evening hours to 

 study and investigation do not bring fresh brains to bear 

 on the subject; they are already fatigued by a long day's 

 work; and, moreover, it is the custom in most of the 

 colleges which have evening classes to insist upon their 

 teachers doing a certain share of day work ; they, too, are 

 not in a fit state to direct the work of their pupils nor to 

 make suggestions as to the best method of carrying it out. 

 Moreover, the official evening class is from seven to ten 

 o'clock, and for investigation in science a spell of three 

 hours at a time is barely sufficient to carry out success- 

 fully the end in view ; indeed, an eight hours' day might 

 profitably be lengthened into a twelve hours' day, as it not 

 infrequently is. It is heartrending in the middle of some 

 important experiment to be obliged to close and postpone 

 it till a future occasion, when much of the work must 

 necessarily be done over again. 



These are some of the reasons why I doubt whether 

 University education, in the Philosophical Faculty at 

 least, can be successfully given by means of evening 

 classes. 



Although my work has lain almost entirely in the 

 domain of science, I should be the last man not to do my 

 best to encourage research in the sphere of what is gener- 

 ally called ' arts.' In Germany of recent years a kind of 

 institution has sprung up which is termed a Seminar. 

 The word may be translated a ' literary laboratory.' I will 

 endeavour to give a short sketch on the way in which 

 these literary laboratories are conducted. After the 

 student has attended a course of lectures on the subjects 



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