VIEWS ON EDUCATION 205 



Ramsay had an opportunity of setting forth his views 

 on the subject of university education in an oration 

 delivered at University College on the 6th June in the 

 same year. This was printed in the volume of Essays, 

 Biographical and Chemical, which he published in 1908, 

 and which was afterwards translated into German and 

 issued in Leipzig by the Academische Verlagsgesell- 

 schaft under the title Vergangenes und Kunftiges aus der 

 Chemie. The second edition of the German version, 

 published in 1913, contains the autobiographical sketch 

 from which extracts have been quoted in a previous 

 chapter. The last essay in the volume of Essays con- 

 sists of the oration referred to, which is entitled " The 

 Functions of a University." It occupies about twenty 

 pages of print, but the following abstract will serve 

 sufficiently to give the substance of the essay : 



" I am about to speak of the Functions of a University. The 

 word university has borne many significations ; and indeed its 

 functions are various, and the signification of the word has 

 depended on the particular point of view taken at the time. 

 An eminent German, who visited me some years ago, made the 

 remark after seeing University College : ' Aber lieber Herr 

 College, University College ist eine kleine Universitat.' So it 

 is, for it fulfils most of the functions of the most successful univer- 

 sities in the world. . . . The traditions of University College 

 have always been that it is not merely a place where known 

 facts and theories should be administered in daily doses to young 

 men and young women, but that the duty of the professors, 

 assistant professors, teachers and advanced students is to increase 

 knowledge. That is the chief function of a university to 

 increase knowledge. But it is not the only one." 



