74 
back upon. That is partly the same object of charity; but 
mixed up with it is another notion, that it is a good thing for the 
bar that in this way men of high education are brought into it, 
That is a very important question indeed, but he could not say that 
it is a question which we of the universities are called upon to 
discuss, There are other institutions which have charge of the 
‘interests of the bar—let them consider it. We have in London 
several great Inns of Court; and it is often said that they have 
funds. If it be so, and if it be desirable, by means of fellow- 
ships, to procure men of high education to enter the profession 
of the law, let them establish fellowships themselves for that 
purpose. That is a very simple course. But now comes the 
question which this resolution deals with. Is this fellow of a 
college, of whom we have been speaking, a person of 
mature study, a person who devotes his life to advanc- 
ing the bounds of knowledge? Of course it is quite 
possible to mention the names of distinguished men, who 
have risen to distinction in their particular branches as fellows. 
But the question for us is, are fellows of a college, as a rule, 
men who are preparing themselves for that career,—is their life 
devoted to study and to knowledge—are they persons who are 
either enlarging the bounds of knowledge, or are on the way to 
enlarging them? He answered, confidently, they are not the 
class of men. He did not charge them with being a class of 
men with whom any fault whatever can be found. ‘They are not 
what we are told they used to be many years ago. It would not 
be possible, perhaps, to find instances of the torpid, vacant lives 
which used to be led under the protection of a fellowship. They 
occupy themselves nowin some way. They supply the scholastic 
world, they supply the clerical world, sometimes they supply the 
bar, they conduct a great many examinations in the country, 
and they do a great deal of work which is very valuable ; but 
mature study is a work which they do not, as a rule, engage 
in, only with some exceptions here and there. The Professor 
went on to say that fellows were neither chosen by the right kind 
of electing body, nor according to the right method, for the 
end of furthering mature research. He criticised the existing 
terms of the tenure of fellowships, as well as the existing system 
of examination at the universities. 
The Chairman then put the resolution: ‘‘That the present 
mode of awarding fellowships as prizes has been found unsuccess- 
ful as a means of promoting mature study and original research, 
and that it is therefore desirable that it should be discontinued,” 
which was carried. 
The Chairman then said that the subject of the professoriate 
is of course a very wide subject, and it is impossible to do more 
than just indicate the position which that question holds in our 
scheme. It is desirable that we should make it clearly under- 
stood that we are not aiming a blow at what is called the educa- 
tional efficiency of the place. The question of the professoriate 
is one which was first mooted twenty years ago as the question 
of the professoriate v, the tutoriate, and it was regarded as a 
revolution in the educational institutes of the University. The 
question which we are now raising of converting the University 
into a centre of mature study was not then raised. The question 
of University reform turned entirely upon the educational ques- 
tion of professors v. tutors. What the Executive Commission of 
1854 did was not to substitute professors for tutors in any 
great measure in the educational system of the University. The 
storm that had been raised by the mere sound of the word 
‘* professor” was so great that they were daunted, and did not 
dare to propose any large creation of the professoriate. Things 
are entirely changed now, and even if we confine ourselves only 
* to educational requirements, we have not that battle to fight. 
But we have the situation which the Commissioners of 1854 
created for us, and that situation is this. They raised a certain 
number of the then existing professoriates, and added to them a 
few others ; and so called into existence a body of professors, 
many of whom have been extremely valuable and influential 
members of the University. But the situation of a professor in 
the University at present, or at any rate of the philosophical 
professors, is that of persons who are entirely outside the work- 
ing of the system. For instance a very eminent professor once 
advertised a course of lectures on accents simply. This course 
of lectures he had prepared not only with very great pains, but 
he had‘for years investigated the subject of the origin and growth 
of the accentuation of language, in a way in which it had never 
been done before. His work was an original work. He had 
collected all the special programmes that bore on the subject, 
and he had constructed a history of language accentuation. He 
NATURE 
advertised this course, and proceeded to give it. At the f 
lecture the room was full ; but when they found that this was 
original philological investigation, and not a lecture as to 
rules for accenting the perfect participle of the Greek verb, 
order that they might use it in Moderations, they immediatel 
fell off, and left it. The consequence is that the professors 2 
not at all working now as a portion of the system. Now if 
say that we want to set up more of theseprofessors, University 
men will say, ‘‘ Professorships areydoing no good as they are at 
present. We are doing the work. It is we, the tutors, who 
are doing the work of the place, and you professors are simp 
ornamental.” This is the result of the way in which the Con 
mission of 1854 set about its work. They were told that 
great evil of the University at that time was that the colleg 
had absorbed the University, and the first thing that a reform | 
the University should aim at was the reconstituting the Universi 
as against the colleges. Now, it is very important for us to 
our attitude be understood to be quite different. We do not wan 
as the phrase is, to rob the colleges to make the University rich. 
The antithesis between colleges and university is #7, for our pur- 
pose. We do not intend to perpetuate the mistake which the 
Commissioners of 1854 did, and to take away a few thousand 
pounds from the colleges, make it over to the universities, and 
leave the colleges as they are. The speaker then went on to 
specify the diversions of college revenues effected by the Commis- 
sioners of 1854 by the endowment of professorships, and said tha 
was not the kind of precedent which the present meeting was 
anxious to see followed. We are agreed (he continued) in desir- 
ing the creation of a body of resident students and teachers—rea 
students and real teachers—and the attitude we shall take will 
to say, ** We will leave the colleges exactly where they are. We 
do not intend to rob the colleges and give the proceeds over to 
the University, but we will gradually convert them into what we 
wish to see them.” The supposed antithesis between professor 
and tutor should be sunk entirely, in our point of view, and the 
whole body of resident graduates should be brought into one 
homogeneous association of teachers all working together—th 
teachers naturally being of different ages, and consequently 
different attainments. We would begin, as they do in German 
with the privat docent, It has been very well said that the Z 
docent is the order upon which the principle of German unive' 
sities principally rests. The eminent professors of whom we hi 
are not the actual working men of the place, but they are 
men who have gone through the ordeal of working men as p77 
docent, They have been trained to that European celebrity under 
which we learn their names, but the Arivat docent are the working 
men of the place. Now, instead of putting the tutors into an 
attitude of hostility to the professors, as is the case at present, the} 
might be reconciled to the professors by making them also pro= 
fessors, but making them of a lower grade in the teaching system. 
Of course there are various steps through which a successful tutor 
should have opportunities of working himself up until he ma 
hope to attain the highest eminence that the University can 
afford him, Again (remarked the speaker) we must not endea- 
vour directly to oppose the present examination system, however. 
much we may be convinced of its effect, as actually carried oui 
in sacrificing literary and scientific ability. We must endeavour, 
as far as we can, to enfilter our system into the examination sys- 
tem ; and for this reason we must not talk about professors who 
can be planted there to pursue their original research only, and 
make that our single object. We must take up the whole inst 
tution of teaching in the universities, and we must endeavour to 
impress upon the teaching the fact which has already been dwelt 
upon, namely, that there can be no healthy intellectual training 
unless the man who conducts it is a person who is himself capable 
of, and has the opportunity of engaging in, original research. 
That is the strong point ; but we must not set ourselves to go and 
pull down the present system of examination directly. Another 
notion of university reform which we shall have to meet is that 
notion of transplanting a certain portion of the university revenue 
into the manufacturing and commercial centres of the population. 
That is an idea which, to those who attend to what one sees in 
the papers on the progress of opinion on the subject of the uni- 
versities, has evidently taken deep root, and which more or less 
runs counter to our object—not altogether, but more or less, But 
that idea has taken such deep root, that it is doubtful whether, if. 
we were to try, we could prevent something of that sort being 
done. Ifthese persons who are sent over to Manchester and 
Liverpool are entirely under our direction, and are made\not 
mere persons who go and deliver an evening lecture for the amuse- 
