IX ADDRESS ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 253 



of elementary science teaching carried out under 

 the auspices of the Science and Art Department, 

 by which elementary scientific instruction is made 

 readily accessible to the scholars of all the ele- 

 mentary schools in the country. Commencing 

 with small beginnings, carefully developed and 

 improved, that system now brings up for exami- 

 nation as many as seven thousand scholars* in the 

 subject of human physiology alone. I can say 

 that, out of that number, a large proportion have 

 acquired a fair amount of substantial knowledge ; 

 and that no inconsiderable percentage show as 

 good an acquaintance with human physiology as 

 used to be exhibited by the average candidates 

 for medical degrees in the University of London, 

 when I was first an examiner there twenty years 

 ago ; and quite as much knowledge as is possessed 

 by the ordinary student of medicine at the present 

 day. I am justified, therefore, in looking forward 

 to the time when the student who proposes to 

 devote himself to medicine will come, not abso- 

 lutely raw and inexperienced as he is at present, 

 but in a certain state of preparation for further 

 study ; and I look to the university to help him 

 still further forward in that stage of preparation, 

 through the organisation of its biological depart- 

 ment. Here the student will find means of 

 acquainting himself with the phenomena of life 

 in their broadest acceptation. He will study not 

 botany and zoology, which, as I have said, would 



