September 19, 1901] 



NA TURE 



509 



for the higher purposes of university training, especially when 

 the very immature age at which English students generally 

 begin their university career is taken into consideration. The 

 period of academic study should be forthwith extended to five 

 years, as it is only in this way that the university can be 

 effectively made a centre of research. Without a course of 

 study of such duration, and of which research forms a part, it 

 is quite impossible that the highly trained men who are now so 

 urgently needed for practical avocations should be produced. 



In this connection, again, we all know that much mischief 

 has been going on in recent years. Instead of the terms on 

 which degrees are at present obtainable being regarded as too 

 lenient and easy, proposals are actually being put forward in 

 some quarters to enable persons attending evening classes to 

 thereby qualify for university degrees. Now, whilst it is of the 

 utmost importance to provide abundant opportunities for the 

 talented poor to obtain a university education by reducing the 

 fees and by instituting a sufficient number of bursaries, it is 

 imperative that those who are to be stamped with the distinctive 

 mark of a university should have devoted their whole and un- 

 divided attention, over a certain period of time, to the courses 

 of study prescribed. Let us beware of introducing the half- 

 time system into the university, a system which we know to be 

 a deplorable makeshift even in the elementary school. 



In this matter of the aspirations, scope and functions of a 

 university we have not merely to contend with the ignorance 

 and apathy of the average Philistine, but we are wrestling 

 against principalities, against powers and against darkness in 

 high places. Thus only four months ago one of our most 

 prominent statesmen, whose oracular and sporadic utterances 

 inspire amongst millions almost the awe and respect which is 

 felt for the supernatural, is reported in the columns of the daily 

 papers to have said at one of the most important educational 

 gatherings of this first year of the new century : — " Vou, Mr. 

 Vice-Chancellor, spoke of the stigma that would rest on the 

 University if it did not annually produce some work of original 

 research. I, from another point of view, am contented if you 

 do nothing of the kind. I am satisfied to think that in a large 

 and increasing degree you will train men and women fit for the 

 manifold requirements of this Empire." This statesman, who 

 it is not surprising to find was educated at Eton and Cxford, is 

 thus of the opinion to-day, unless, indeed, his views have 

 changed in the interim, that it is possible to train men and 

 women fit for the manifold requirements of this Empire without 

 bringing, at any rate, some of them mto contact with the living 

 spirit of research — that spirit which, operating through the 

 ages, has enabled man to transform the wilderness in which he 

 was placed by his Creator into the garden of material and 

 intellectual enjoyments in which that statesman was himself 

 born. 



I would ask you to contrast with the views of the distinguished 

 alumnus of Eton and Oxford the utterance of another statesman 

 who, unhampered by such educational antecedents, has formu- 

 lated the following ideal for the guidance of that university 

 which he has himself created : — 



"The third feature to which I should call attention, and 

 which, I am inclined to say, is of all the most important, is that 

 a university should be a place where knowledge is increased, 

 and where the limits of learning are extended. Original 

 research, the addition of something to the total sum of human 

 knowledge, must always be an essential part of our proposals." 



Lastly, we have to consider whether this university work, in 

 which we hope for such great developments in the twentieth 

 century, is still to be carried on by what is virtually private 

 enterprise and private endowment, or whether it is to be 

 provided for by taxation. 



If the reforms and developments which are being preached 

 from so many platforms are to be really carried out, if even our 

 higher scientific training alone is to be brought into line with 

 that which is provided in many other countries, it is indubitable 

 that expenditure will have to be enormously increased. Now, 

 profoundly as we all admire the enlightened public spirit of 

 the men and women who have in the past endeavoured out, of 

 their private resources to help forward the great movement of 

 higher education, it is, I believe, the firm conviction of all who 

 have any real knowledge of what this higher education means, 

 and a clear conception of what must be done in order to put it on a 

 proper footing in this country, that on private benefaction alone 

 this work cannot be accomplished. But even if private endow- 

 ment could raise this great edifice in our midst, it is obvious 



NO. 1664, VOL. 64] 



that we should have to wait indefinitely for its realisation. 

 Voluntary contributions cannot be made to come at the bidding 

 of those who stand in need, nor directed into the channels- 

 where they will produce the most good ; they have to be 

 patiently waited for, with the result that valuable time is lost and 

 opportunities pass by never to return. Private benefaction, 

 moreover, is almost always retrospective : a hospital is not 

 founded by the charitable until the sick are dying unattended ; 

 almshouses and orphanages are not thought of until the widow 

 and the fatherless are either starving in the streets or begging on 

 the doorstep. What we so forcibly recognise in this matter, 

 however, is that we have not only to make up for leeway in the 

 past, but that we must now exercise prevision to prevent 

 similar disastrous lapses in the future. The state of aftairs to 

 which we have been reduced must not be allowed to occur again ; 

 the warnings of those possessing special knowledge in these 

 matters must not be disregarded in the future as they have been, 

 in the past, for it is no exaggeration that the whole of the learned 

 societies and academic bodies of this country put together have 

 at present a smaller corporate share of political influence 

 than a Temperance League or a Trades Union. To what 

 has this state of things reduced us ? The humiliating 

 spectacle of "the greatest empire the world has ever seen"^ 

 at the beginning of the twentieth century without a teaching 

 university in its metropolis, and engaged upon the task of 

 I tardily patching one together out of those heterogeneous elements 

 ■ of uncertain valency which are to hand. Is the completion of 

 I this structure, on a scale challenging comparison with the 

 I universities which are to be found in the other great capitals of 

 I Europe, to be delayed until a millionaire, or rather series of 

 millionaires, can be induced to finance it ? To this work, and 

 to other works like it, is it not fitting that every inhabitant of 

 this country should contribute ? For these are works which 

 assuredly benefit all classes, not only of this generation, but of 

 those which are to come — at least as much as the acquisition of 

 territory at a distance of 8000 miles from home, and for which 

 purpose the nation is apparently willing to pay at the rate of 

 one and a quarter inillion sterling per week for an indefinite 

 period of time. 



It is sometimes urged that this higher education does not 

 benefit the masses ; but could any contention be more erroneous ? 

 The poor have really a far greater stake in the prosperity of our 

 home industries and commerce than the rich ; for whilst the 

 decay of our producing power will remove the very means of 

 subsistence from the poor, it matters very little to many of the 

 rich whether their dividends are derived from home-enterprises 

 or from those of a Billion Dollar Combine or some similar 

 transatlantic Trust or Corporation. 



Higher education and true universities are also amongst the 

 most potent factors in breaking down the hereditary stratification 

 of society and in minimising the advantages depending upon the 

 accident of birth, so that, with the greatly enhanced facilities 

 which must be provided for students without means, they should 

 afford in the future, even more than they have done in the past, an 

 avenue for the humblest boy of talent to that position which he 

 is by natural endowment and by his own exertion best fitted to 

 fill in the interests of the State. 



Is this great work of raising up a worthy system of national 

 higher education, and of creating a living interest and widely 

 diffused enthusiasm for knowledge and for the increase of know- 

 ledge in all its branches, going to be accomplished during the 

 century of which we have but crossed the threshold ? Even the 

 most sanguine among us dare not unhesitatingly say Yes ; but 

 assuredly upon the answer, which is hidden by the veil of the 

 inscrutable future, depends in the very highest degree, not only 

 the material and intellectual welfare of the rising generations,- 

 but also the good name and reputation of the Empire in our owi^ 

 time and the gratitude which, above all things, we should strive 

 to earn from that immortal part of us which we call Posterity. 



SECTION C. 



GEOLOGY. 



Opening Address by John Horne, F.R.S., F.R.S.E.^ 

 F.G.S., President of the Sectio.n. 

 Recent Advances in Scottish Geology. 

 A quarter of a century has elapsed since the British Associ- 

 ation met in this great industrial centre, when Prof. Young, in 

 his presidential address to this Section, pointed out some of the 

 difficulties which, as a teacher, he experienced in summarising. 



