Lhe University and Women's Work’ 
HE movement which we inaugurate to-day embodies one 
more attempt to knit university studies to the common 
occupations of life and to break down the barriers which 
custom has set up between thought and action. This is a 
cause which I serve with my whole heart, for nothing has 
seemed to me more necessary in the interest both of education 
and of right-living. 
I think that no one who surveys the educational history 
of this country can fail to see that there is a tendency for the 
world of learning and the world of action to drift apart, until 
they seem to be almost in opposition. The earlier part of my 
life was spent largely in the atmosphere of what is convention- 
ally called business, and I am certain there prevailed a general 
feeling among business men, that not only a little but also 
a good deal of learning was a dangerous thing. Such aphor- 
isms as ‘an ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory’ are 
characteristic of that feeling. Later on I became more 
immersed in the world of learning, and encountered men 
whose habitual attitude towards business was one of intellec- 
tual disdain. 
I believe that the explanation of this state of things is to 
be found in the fact that the educational system of this 
country has been for so long conceived exclusively from the 
point of view of the learned professions. We must remember 
1 Address delivered at the Inauguration of the King’s College (London 
University) courses for the Higher Education of Women in Home Science 
and Household_Economics, October 2, 1908. 
