VIEWS ON EDUCATION 207 



itself, for the human race is differentiated from the lower animals 

 by the desire which it has to know ' why ? ' 



Now the most important function, I hold, of a university is 

 to attempt to answer that question ' why ? ' The ancients tried 

 to do so, but they had not learned that its answer must be pre- 

 ceded by the answer to the question ' how J ? and that in most 

 cases indeed in all we must learn to be contented with the 

 answer to ' how ? ' The better we can tell how things are, the 

 more nearly shall we be able to say why they are. 



Such a question is applicable to all kinds of subjects ; to what 

 our forerunners on this earth did ; how they lived ; if we go 

 even further back, what preceded them on the earth. The 

 history of these enquiries is the function of geology, palaeontology 

 and palaeontological botany ; it is continued through archaeo- 

 logy, Egyptian and Assyrian, Greek and Roman ; it evolves 

 into history, and lights are thrown on it by languages and phil- 

 ology ; it dovetails with literature and economics. In all these 

 research is possible, and a university should be equipped for the 

 successful prosecution of enquiries in all such branches. 



Another class of enquiries relates to what we think and how we 

 reason ; and here we have philosophy and logic. A different 

 branch of the same enquiry leads us to mathematics, which deals 

 with spatial and numerical concepts of the human mind, geometry 

 and algebra. By an easy transition we have the natural sciences ; 

 those less closely connected with ourselves as persons, but in- 

 timately related to our surroundings. Zoology and botany, 

 anatomy, physiology and pathology deal with living organisms 

 as structural machines ; and they are based on physics and 

 chemistry, which are themselves dependent on mathematics. 



Such enquiries are worth making for their own sakes. They 

 interest a large part of the human race ; and not to feel interested 

 in them is to lack intelligence. The man who is content to live 

 from day to day, glad if each day will but produce him food to 



