Lord Milner and Imperial Scholarships 443 



matter whether it is a chemical or physical or physiological 

 laboratory or even a dissecting-room. The primary object 

 is not to learn the subject taught but the language in 

 which it is taught. Hearing lectures is not sufficient for 

 this. During them the student keeps silence, and a foreign 

 language is not learned by listening but by trying to speak. 

 When the Junior Fellow has heard his lecture, let us say, on 

 chemistry, he goes to his work in the laboratory, where he 

 finds himself in the company of twenty or thirty other young 

 men of his own age and engaged for the time being on the 

 same pursuit. From the very first day it is impossible for 

 him not to listen to what the others are saying around him, 

 and before the first week has passed he will be doing his 

 best to let them hear what he has to say. This discipline 

 should be continued for at least one year, during which he 

 should not return to his own country. At the end of this 

 year he may return to his own University to take up the 

 duties of his Fellowship, and he will not fail to feel that his 

 activity abroad has made him a much more efficient member 

 of his college and University than if he had remained at 

 home and only shifted his place at meat from a lower to 

 a higher table. 



But it will be said that the young man, before he gets 

 his Fellowship, has been spending considerable sums of 

 money on his education, and his opportunity of getting it 

 back and earning a living dates from his election. I admit 

 this, but the election to a Fellowship does not require 

 residence, and I understand that this was done in order 

 to give the newly-elected Fellow the opportunity of doing 

 what I recommend, and although not common it is still 

 far from rare. All objections to the proposal would disap- 

 pear if a fund were instituted for supplementing the stipend 

 attached to the Fellowship by such amount that, while it 

 would afford no temptation to extravagance, it would con- 

 stitute such an augmentation of the stipend that the extra 

 expenses of living abroad and the University fees and 

 charges would be rather more than covered. In these 

 circumstances the temptation to take advantage of it would 



