414 
calculated to promote the advancement of learning. But a 
thing which is good in itself may produce evil effects in relation 
to others, or good effects incommensurate with its cost. Thus 
examinations afford most valuable aid to educational work when 
carried on in conjunction with earnest teachers ; yet when esta- 
blished in the absence of a good system of education, they are 
liable to give rise to a one-sided training contrived with a special 
view of getting young men through the examinations. If no 
properly educated young men were found for a particular depart- 
ment of the public service, and an examination of all candidates 
for such appointments were to be established for the purpose of 
improving the system of training, candidates would consider 
their power of answering such questions as appeared likely to be 
set as the condition of thcir obtaining the appointments, and 
they would look out for men able and willing to train them to 
that particular work in as direct and effective a manner as pos- 
sible. ‘The demand for such instruction would soon be supplied. 
Some teachers would undertake to give instruction for the mere 
purpose of enabling candidates to get’through the examination ; 
and by the continued habit of such work would gradually come 
to look upon the examiners as malignant beings who keep youths 
ont of office, and whose vigilance ought to be evaded by such 
means as experience might show to be most effective tor the pur- 
pose. Once this kind of direct examination-teaching has taken 
root, and is known to produce the desired effect of getting young 
men through the examinations, its existence encourages the ten- 
dency on the part of the aandidates to look merely to the exami- 
nation as the end and aim of their study ; and a class of teachers 
is developed whose exertions are essentially antagonistic to those 
of the examiners. 
There are, no doubt, teachers with a sufficiently clear appre- 
hension of their duty, and sufficient authority, to convince some 
of the candidates that the proper object of their study should be 
to increase their power of usefulness in the career for which they 
are preparing themselves, by thoroughly mastering up to a pre- 
scribed point certain branches of knowledge ; and that until they 
had honestly taken the means to do this and believed they had 
done it effectua!ly, they ought not to go up for examination nor 
to wish to commence their career. 
But it is desirable that all teachers be placed in such circum- 
stances that it may become their interest as well as their duty to 
co-operate to the utmost of their powers in the cbject for which 
the examiners are working. For this purpose their records of 
the work done under their guidance by each pupil ought to be 
carefully inspected by the examiners ‘before framing their ques- 
tians, and ought to be accepted as affording the chief evidence of 
the respective merits of the pupils. 
This is not the place for considering how the general funds for 
an effective system of national education can best be raised, nor 
how existing educational endowments can best be used in aid of 
those funds. It is well known that some colleges of Oxford and 
Cambridge are possessed of rich endowments, and that many dis- 
tinguished members of those universities are desirous that the 
annual proceeds of those endowments should be distributed upon 
some system better calculated to promote the advancement of 
learning than that which generally prevails. Indeed we may 
confidently hope that, true to their glorious traditions, those col- 
leges will be led, by the high-minded and enlightened counsels 
of their members, to rely upon improving usefulness in the ad- 
vancement of learhing as the only secure and worthy basis of 
their action in the use of their funds, so that they may take a 
leading part in such system of national education as may be 
moulded out of the present chaos. 
But the foundations of a national system of education ought 
to be laid independently of the present arrangements at Oxford 
and Cambridge, for we may be sure that the more progress the 
system makes the more easy will become the necessary reforms 
in the older universities and- colleges. 
It is clearly undesirab’e that Government should longer delay 
obtaining such full and accurate knowledge of the existing na- 
tional resources for educational purposes, and of the manner in 
which they are respectively utilised, as may enable them to 
judge of the comparative prospects of usefulness presented by 
the various modes of distributing educational grants. They 
ought to know what has been done and what is doing in the 
various public educational establishments before they can judge 
which of them would be likely to make the best use of a grant 
of public money. 
We have official authority for expecting such impartial admi- 
nistration of educational grants ; and it cannot be doubted that, 
NATURE 
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[Sepz. 18, 1873 
before long, due means will be taken to supply the prelimin: 
conditions. : 
You are no doubt aware that a Royal Commission was ap- 
pointed some time ago in consequence of representations made 
to Government by the British Association on this subject, and it 
is understood that their instructions are so framed as to direct 
their particular attention to the marher in which Government 
may distribute educational grants. The Commission is moreover 
composed of most distinguished men, and we have every reason 
to anticipate from their labours a result worthy of the nation and 
of the momentous occasion. 
In speaking of public educational establishments, I refer to 
those which by their constitution are devoted to the advancement 
of learning without pecuniary profit to their respective governing 
bodies. The annual expenditure requisite for keeping up a na- 
tional system of popular education will necessarily be considerable 
from the first, and will become greater from year to year ; but 
once Englishmen are fully alive to the parhmount importance 
of the subject, and see that its attainment is within their reach, 
we may be sure that its expense will be no impediment. Eng- 
land woul not deserve to reap the glorious fruits of the harvest of 
knowledge if she grudged the necessary outlay tor seed and til- 
lage, were it even ten times greater than it will be. It is no use 
attempting to establish a national system on any other than a 
truly national basis. Private and corporate funds inevitably get 
diverted from popular use, after a few generations, to the use of 
the influential and rich. A national system must steadily keep 
in view the improvement of the poor, and distribute public funds 
each year in the manner best calculated to give to the youths of 
the poorest classes full opportunities of improvement? propor- 
tional to their capacities, so that they may qualify themselves for — 
the utmost usefulness to their country of which they are capable. 
The best possible security for the proper administration of the 
system will be found in the full and speedy publicity of all the 
particulars of its working. 
It has been frequently remarked that a great proportion of 
English investigators are men of independent means, who not 
only seek no advancement as a reward of their labours, but 
often sacrifice those opportunities of improving their worldly 
position which their abilities and influence open up to them, for — 
the sake of quietly advancing human knowledge. Rich ant 
powerful men have very great temptations to turn away from — 
science, so that those who devote their time and money to its 
service prove to us how true and pure a love of science exists in — 
this country, and how Englishmen will cultivate it when it is in 
their power to do so. 
Now and then a youth from the poorer classes is enabled by 
fortunate accidents and by the aid of a friendly hand to climb to 
a position of scientific activity, and to give us, as Faraday did, a 
sample of the intellectual powers which lie fallow in the great 
mass of the people. 
Now, the practical conclusion to which I want to lead you is 
that it rests with you, who represent the national desire for the 
advancement of science, to take the onlo measures which can 
now be taken towards the establishment of a system of edu- 
cation worthy of this country, and adapted to the requirements 
of science. In the present stage of the business the first thing to 
be done is to arouse public attention by all practicable means to 
the importance of the want, and to get people gradually to ria 
to some definite and practicable plan of action. You will, I 
think, find that the best way to promote such agreement is to 
make people consider the natural forces which have to be sys- 
tematised by legislation, with a view of enabling them to work 
freely for the desired purpose. When the conditions essential to 
any national system come to be duly appreciated by those in- 
terested in the cause of education, means will soon be found to 
carry out the necessary legislative enactments. : 
The highest offices in the State are on our present system filled 
by men who, whatever their political opinions and party ties, 
almost infallibly agree in their disinterested desire to signalise 
their respective terms of office by doing any good in their power. 
Convince them that a measure desired by the leaders of public 
opinion is in itself good and useful, and you are sure to carry it. 
And, on the other hand, England is not wanting in men both 
able and willing to come forward as the champions of any great 
cause, and to devote their best powers to its service. 
I may well say this at Bradford after the results achieved by 
your Member in the Elementary Education Act. 
Objections will of course be raised to any system on the score 
of difficulty and expense, more especially to a complete and — 
