56 MEMOIR OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN. 



1832. career had shown him how much was needed in the Cam- 

 bridge system to adapt the methods and processes of in- 

 struction to the wants of learners of every degree and 

 variety of ability. His own place in the tripos of his year 

 was an evidence of the inadequacy of the competitive sys- 

 tem, faulty as it was then, and as it is now, to ascertain 

 the quantity or quality of mental power. Before he left 

 this world he saw that the method of crowding so much 

 learning into a short time, at an age when the brain needs 

 vital strength to bring it to maturity, was not the right 

 way to secure future excellence. Its results, too, were 

 beginning to be seen in nervous and other diseases ; but 

 he felt, and often said, that remonstrance as yet would 

 be useless, and that those who saw the evil only too 

 plainly must wait till the conviction of its reality should 

 be forced upon all. I have not been able to get his letters 

 Archdeacon to his old tutor, Dr. Thorp, but, judging by the replies, he 

 must have felt and expressed this belief at an early period. 

 The answers generally announce the reception of an essay 

 or book, or a new pupil sent by the old one to a teacher to 

 whom he held himself indebted. In one Dr. Thorp says : 



You will see that I have taken some pains to attend to the 

 spirit of your wishes about your young friend. We are going 

 upon the plan of discouraging private tuition as much as possible, 

 for the sake both of tutors and pupils, as I hold that a lecture- 

 room ought to supply all that is necessary ; but as long as such 

 a various crew is sent up to us as we get every year, part re- 

 quiring the highest kind of scholarship and part unacquainted 

 with the rudiments, the latter must avail themselves of some 

 extra help to bring them up to the comprehension of such lectures 

 as the former require. 



Surely the means and appliances now at work to pre- 

 pare young men for Cambridge ought to make private 

 tuition even less wanted than it was in 1832 ; and if stu- 

 dents were examined only 011 the real knowledge legiti- 

 mately gained in the lecture-room, which, as Dr. Thorp 

 says, ought to supply all that is necessary, what would 



