226 MEMOIR OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN. 



1853. his place determines whether he is above or below any given 

 competitor. At Oxford his mind may, though not without 

 certain wholesome restraint, develop itself in reading and 

 thought dictated by its natural bent. At Cambridge the exami- 

 nation realises the bed of Procrustes. The Oxford system has a 

 tendency to develop the useful differences between the varied types 

 of human character. The Cambridge system is an unconscious 

 effort to destroy them. I shall not be suspected of any original 

 bias against the Cambridge system. I once thought that the 

 race for the place in the list was a valuable part of that system, 

 but I have slowly arrived at the full conviction that the Oxford 

 plan is greatly superior. The system of private tutors, the drill 

 in writing out, and the mode in which so many of the elementary 

 books are got up, are well worthy the attention of all who are 

 interested in the subject of this letter. They are the natural 

 consequences of the personal competition for honours ; and if 

 ever the number of candidates in the University of London 

 should bear any considerable proportion to that in the University 

 of Cambridge, the same cause will produce the same effect. I 

 hope this subject will receive some attention, Why, because 

 political tendencies have thrown the University of London 

 almost entirely into Cambridge hands at the outset, should all 

 that is from Cambridge be received as of course, and without a 

 discussion of what is to be found at Oxford ? 



Probably it will be objected that the medals and honours 

 cannot be awarded without a competitive examination. To this 

 I answer that the existence of medals and scholarships is of 

 very small importance compared with that of the evils I have 

 alluded to. If I am right, they had better be abolished than 

 allowed to introduce the evils of competition into the main 

 examinations for honours. And the natural consequence would 

 be that they should be given, not for general proficiency, but on 

 special grounds, to be tried some time after the elementary 

 career has closed. 



My view of the advantages of a liberal education is most 

 assuredly not peculiar to myself. Let it be supposed that the 

 former student has forgotten everything, that not a word of 

 Latin is left, and not a proposition of Euclid. What remains to 

 him ? If little or nothing, then his education has not deserved 

 its name. But if, in spite of the loss of all that acquirement 

 which he has had no daily need to recall, he be a man of trained 

 mind, able to apply vigorously, to think justly, to doubt dis- 



