278 MEMOIR OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN. 



1861. P.S. It will be seen that I write as if I were addressing the 

 Fellows at large. This means that I expect that my letter will 

 be entered on the minutes of the Council, which are by express 

 by-laws accessible to the Fellows at their meetings. 



These suggestions on government might apply to 

 larger bodies than the one addressed. They give an idea 

 of his political principles, which demanded the utmost 

 possible freedom for the individual, subject to a conserva- 

 tive respect for law. I have been told that the Astro- 

 nomical Society suffered at this time from the causes 

 which led him to leave it. But these things occurred 

 twenty years ago, and their effects have, no doubt, long 

 passed away. 



1862, His correspondence with M. Biot had been chiefly on 

 the Life of Newton. In this year M. Biot died, and Mr. 

 De Morgan received from his son-in-law, M. Lefort, some 

 particulars of his early life as material for a biographical 

 notice. 



introduc- An introductory lecture, the last he ever gave at 



at Univesr- University College, on the opening of this session, was 

 lege. never printed. How greatly this was regretted by many 

 of his hearers I am unable to say. Seldom was an 

 address listened to within those walls with a more lively 

 interest, or received with such mirth and hearty acclama- 

 tions. The subject was a branch of his favourite one 

 * Education,' and that branch was the method of exa- 

 mining at Cambridge. The attacks on the system were 

 made with so much humour, and so much good humour, 

 that the attacked could hardly have resented what they must 

 feel was so well deserved. Great amusement was caused 

 by the description of the self-satisfaction of an examiner 

 after he had set a question well fitted to show off his own 

 ingenuity and cleverness, but unfitted to elicit the thought 

 or power of the student. The illustrations which half 

 filled the lecture were taken from common sayings, old 

 ballads, and nursery rhymes ; and if the grave body in 

 the centre of the theatre, a few of whom could appreciate 



