412 



NA TURE 



{March 5, 1885 



them measure and weigh whatever requires measurement 

 and weighing in the course of the investigation. I look 

 with admiration to what has been done by those who have 

 worked up physical laboratories to their present advanced 

 condition. The physical laboratories of King's College 

 and University College, London, under the admirable 

 organisation and work of Professor Adams and Pro- 

 fessor Carey Foster ; the Cavendish laboratory at Cam- 

 bridge, originated by Clerk Maxwell, and admirably 

 systematised and perfected by Lord Rayleigh, have ren- 

 dered splendid services to physical science all over the 

 world. Much has been done even to provide suitable 

 text-books for use in the systematic practical training of 

 students in laboratory work: for example, the "Treatise 

 on Physical Measurement," by Kohlrausch, which has 

 been for several years a most serviceable manual, and the 

 lately published " Practical Physics " of Glazebrook and 

 Shaw. The physical laboratory system has now become 

 quite universal. No university in the world can now live 

 unless it has a well-equipped laboratory. I hope you will 

 all do your best to make the physical and chemical 

 laboratories of this college a great success ; that you will 

 follow example in everything exemplary until the Bangor 

 laboratories become a model to be followed in future labora- 

 tories in Wales, England, or any other part of the world. 

 I was not quite accurate when I spoke of this new college in 

 this City of Bangor as///t> University College of North Wales. 

 My friend, Mr. Cadwaladr Davies, your secretary, has re- 

 minded me that there was a university of North Wales at 

 Bangor-is-y-coed, in Flintshire — not a city, because it 

 did not combine a bishop and a mayor — but a town which 

 had the honour of having been the seat of the first Welsh 

 university known to history. There may have been 

 universities in Wales before the one which flourished 

 1200 years ago at Bangor-is-y-coed ; but their history is 

 lost in the long night of silence, because no sacred bard 

 sung of their existence. The university of Bangor-is-y- 

 coed had its bard, who tells us that the institution had 

 2100 students. There you have a worthy object of ambi- 

 tion for the city of Bangor ! May it soon have a goodly 

 proportion of the 2100. Perhaps not so long a time may 

 elapse before your college and the other colleges in Wales 

 may reach to such a number. Indeed, I do not see any- 

 thing unreasonable in hoping and expecting that in a 

 dozen years there will be 2100 university-students in Wales. 

 The population of Wales is more than a million and a half, 

 which is, I think, about a fourth of the population of Scot- 

 land ; and I do not see why Wales should not have 

 university students in proportion to its population as well 

 as Scotland. I believe the brightness and activity of the 

 Welsh intelligence will thoroughly take up the idea of a 

 university, and profit by it to the utmost, and, I believe, 

 the existence of this institution at Bangor will before 

 twenty years have passed away, be looked upon as 

 having been a great benefit to the Principality. What 

 Wales gained by the university at Bangor-is-y-coed can 

 scarcely now be told, but alas, for that university with its 

 2000 students, it was destroyed in the year 613 by 

 Ethelfred, King of Northumbria, and its destruction was 

 followed by 900 years of dark ages. Thus we see 

 what the world lost by the annihilation of the first univer- 

 sity of North Wales. Another bard, Lewis Glencothy, 

 advocated and sang of the possibility of a university in 

 Wales in the time of Henry VII. Richard Baxter, 

 not a Welshman nor a bard but the great English Puritan 

 divine, reported to the then Government under Cromwell 

 in favour of a university for Wales. Cromwell died before 

 action was taken, and nothing was done in the matter for 

 nearly 200 years, when a very active desire sprang up and 

 active co-operation among all parties was entered upon, 

 for having a university established in Wales. We see 

 everything now prospering in that direction. I look for- 

 ward hopefully to the time when this college of Bangor — 

 if not an independent university of its own — will be a 



college of the University of Wales. All the colleges of 

 Wales, equipped to do the work of a university, might be 

 united to form a University of Wales. There are very many 

 important advantages in favour of such an arrangement. 

 No doubt it is an object of honourable ambition ; but it may- 

 be asked if a college does all the work of a university, what 

 does it matter whether it is called a university or not ? It 

 is of considerable importance that your college should be 

 either a university itself, or part of a university of which it 

 is an integral college. One of the advantages would be 

 that the teaching of the college would be enabled to take 

 a more practical form than it can possibly take as long as 

 its main purpose is that of preparing students for the 

 degree examinations of London University. The degree 

 system of London University fills a widespread want — a 

 want felt over the whole range of the British empire ; a 

 want of marking by the stamp of a university degree, if 

 not by some more suitable title, the possession of know- 

 ledge and of a certain amount of training by those who 

 have not had the opportunity of obtaining that knowledge 

 in any thoroughly equipped college or university. That is 

 a splendid reason for the existence of the London Uni- 

 versity, and it has well fulfilled its reason for existence. 

 But, for all that, it would be greatly better for the students 

 of the University College of North Wales if the teaching 

 were conducted with reference to an examination carried 

 on by their own professors and colleague professors in 

 other properly equipped Welsh colleges. It is the greatest 

 mistake in respect to teaching and examining to think 

 that the examiner is an inspector. An examiner of schools 

 must to some extent take that position. But in university 

 work teaching and examining must go side by side, hand 

 in hand, day by day, week by week together, if the work 

 is to be well done. The object of a university is teaching, 

 not testing. Testing products comes at some times, and 

 for some special purposes, to be a necessity ; but in respect 

 to the teaching of a university, the object of examination 

 is to promote the teaching. The examination should be, 

 in the first place, daily. No professor should meet his 

 class without talking to them. He should talk to them 

 and they to him. The French call a lecture a conference, 

 and I admire the idea involved in that name. Every 

 lecture should be a conference of teacher and students. It 

 is the true ideal of a professorial lecture. I have found that 

 many students are afflicted when they come up to college 

 with the disease called " aphasia." . They will not answer 

 when questioned, even when the very words of the answer 

 are put in their mouths, or when the answer is simply " yes " 

 or "no." That disease wears off in a few weeks, but the 

 great cure for it is in repeated and careful and very free 

 interchange of question and answer between teacher and 

 student. Professors and students must speak to one 

 another. One of the greatest things is to promute freedom 

 of conversation in such classes, to cultivate in them the 

 power of expressing ideas in words. Then something more 

 definite than viva voce examination can come. Written 

 examinations are very important, as training the student to 

 express with clearness and accuracy the knowledge he has 

 gained, and to work out problems, or numerical results, 

 but they should be once a week to be beneficial. If only 

 occurring once in two or three months they will lose their 

 effect in promoting good teaching, and can be scarcely 

 more than a test ; if only once a year they are merely 

 inspector's work. The object of the university should be 

 teaching, and examining should only be part of its work, 

 and that only so far as it promotes teaching. The credit 

 of the University should depend on good teaching, and no 

 candidate should be granted a degree who does not show 

 that he has taken advantage of the good teaching. But it 

 is impossible to carry out that programme to best ad- 

 vantage by a college which is not in itself an integral part 

 of a university. Such examinations as those of the London 

 University are necessarily arranged to suit thousands of 

 candidates who have learned in different schools, and 



