ADDRESS ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 149 



and scholars, and not upon their numbers of buildings 

 constructed for their use." And I look upon it as an essen- 

 tial and most important feature of your plan that the income 

 of the professors and teachers shall be independent of the 

 number of students whom they can attract. In this way 

 you provide against the danger, patent elsewhere, of find- 

 ing attempts at improvement obstructed by vested inter- 

 ests; and, in the department of medical education espe- 

 cially, you are free of the temptation to set loose upon the 

 world men utterly incompetent to perform the serious and 

 responsible duties of their profession. 



It is a delicate matter for a stranger to the practical 

 working of your "institutions, like myself, to pretend to give 

 an opinion as to the organisation of your governing power. 

 I can conceive nothing better than that it should remain as 

 it is, if you can secure a succession of wise, liberal, honest, 

 and conscientious men to fill the vacancies that occur 

 among you. I do not greatly believe in the efficacy of any 

 kind of machinery for securing such a result; but I would 

 venture to suggest that the exclusive adoption of the method 

 of co-optation for filling the vacancies which must occur in 

 your body, appears to me to be somewhat like a tempting 

 of Providence. Doubtless there are grave practical objec- 

 tions to the appointment of persons outside of your body 

 and not directly interested in the welfare of the university; 

 but might it not be well if there were an understanding 

 that "your academic staff should be officially represented on 

 the board, perhaps even the heads of one or two independent 

 learned bodies, so that academic opinion and the views of 

 the outside world might have a certain influence in that 

 most important matter, the appointment of your professors ? 

 I throw out these suggestions, as I have said, in ignorance 

 of the practical difficulties that may lie in the way of carry- 



