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fol x6) 18S) 
NATURE 
5°07 
_ College can boast a body of teachers not surpassed in any 
respect by any university in the kingdom. 
The college is rich in scholarships, fellowships, and 
‘prizes founded by Manchester men, and by means of 
‘these, and its admirable system of day and evening 
classes, affords facilities to all classes of obtaining a 
literary and scientific education, both general and pro- 
essional, of the highest and most advanced kind. In 
Most respects, indeed, it may be regarded as a model 
institution for the higher education. 
Of the many excellent addresses given on the occasion, 
we have only space for a few extracts from those of 
Principal Greenwood and Sir Benjamin Brodie. We 
Shall take another opportunity of referring to the address 
of Prof. Roscoe at the opening of the Chemical School. 
Principal Greenwood said :—“I am addressing the 
assembled students of the new year; and it is because 
TI feel that you are even more concerned in the 
‘inquiry than are my colleagues and myself that I 
ask you to consider some of the relations which subsist 
between culture and practical life, not as matters 
of speculative interest, but as bearing closely on the aims 
and the temper with which you should take up the studies 
of this place. This inquiry might take either of two 
directions, according as we consider the debt due from 
society to the student, or the debt due from the student to 
society. It is not possible altogether to separate these 
inquiries ; but it is of the latter that I propose to speak 
more especially this morning, not only because in address- 
ing students, as in addressing other men, it is more 
wholesome to speak of their obligations than of their 
claims, but also because in this place and on this day, 
there is little need to urge the duties of society to the 
student. 
“. ...» For us the normal principles of education, in 
their whole range and mutual bearings, are of infinitely 
greater weight than the special questions which fix atten- 
tion at the moment ; but our thoughts are in danger of 
being drawn away from these deeper truths, and our 
springs of action of being in that degree weakened or 
perverted. An illustration of this position may be seen 
in the history of the vigorous and successful efforts which, 
within a few years, have been made in favour of the claims 
of the natural sciences to a leading place in the curriculum 
of study. Men of genius and of public spirit have insisted 
on them with unanswerable arguments; and I shall not 
be suspected by those who happen to be cognizant of the 
part which Owens College has taken in this matter with 
any inclination to call these claims in question. I wish, 
however, to point out that arguments are urged in their 
support of very unequal force ; and that while the able 
leaders of the crusade dwell most on the stronger among 
them, their followers are wont to recur too frequently to 
the weaker, and by raising them into undue prominence 
to run the risk of inducing—not the general public only, 
but what is in reality a more serious thing, of inducing 
you and us to hold pernicious views as to what education 
is and what are the appropriate motives forit. Of these 
arguments the weightiestis, I will venture to affirm, the most 
seldom heard. Imean the assertion that the natural and ex- 
perimental sciences have a characteristic discipline for the 
mind. This positionmay in this place be taken forgranted ; 
and it constitutes of itself anargument at once unanswerable 
and sufficient. But when we hear the further argument 
that physical sciences should hold a prominent place in 
education because their promotion contributes to the ma- 
terial advancement of the country, or because to possess 
a knowledge of them will give the learner a greater com- 
mand of money and what money brings, we are then 
offered motives of a very different order. As collateral 
motives they have great value, I admit, for exaggeration 
on one side must not be met by exaggeration on the other, 
but a value subordinate to that of the former consi- 
deration. It is, of course, true that all good education, 
through whatever medium, tends to produce good and 
well-furnished citizens, and therefore promotes the gene- 
ral, including the material, well-being of a country; and 
all good sound education tends to make men manly and 
self-reliant, and so trains their faculties as to enable them, 
among other things, to win with ease their share of mate- 
rial good. It is true too, that in choosing the subjects of 
study regard should be paid, in due degree, to the des- 
tination of the future life. 
by nature inferior aim takes the first rank, the fatal con- 
sequence follows that the higher good is not even sought 
in the second place. The greater may include the less, 
but not the less the greater. 
“Another instance of harm to the business of edu- 
cation from the passing controversies of the hour 
lies in the sudden development of the system of 
competitive examinations. To discuss the merits of 
this system in itself is altogether beside my object. I wish 
to refer only to its oblique influence on teachers and 
pupils, or rather (for each of these schemes would admit 
of long discussion) of its influence on the temper of the 
student. Can anything be more deplorable—if it were 
not deplorable it would be grotesque—than the change 
which this system threatens to bring about in the mutual 
relations of study and examination? By the old theory 
the business of education was—first, the discipline of the 
intellect by means of the arts and sciences as instruments ; 
and, secondly, the storing of the mind with methodical 
knowledge gained in the process. Examinations were 
but the handmaid of the teaching, designed to test and 
measure the results of study, and so to correct its methods ; 
and if honours and more substantial rewards were con- 
ferred on those who took the foremost places, this was 
partly to stimulate the flagging, and enable the more pro- 
mising wits to prolong their season of study, and partly 
that public or academical offices might be filled by the 
fittest occupants. Now, however, men are almost 
tempted to think that the public service exists for the 
sake of the sharp-witted or the industrious, and not they 
for it. ‘La carriére ouverte aux talens, once the stirring 
motto of an indignant people, has become a circumlocu- 
tory and more decorous version of the frank maxim of 
ancient Pistol— 
‘The world’s mine oyster, 
Which I with sword will open.’ 
“., Weare now prepared to answer the question which 
I wish to propose: What were the conditions under which 
for many centuries the theory of the higher education was 
this—that to all who sought it a common culture was 
provided in the first instance, and that from this, as from 
a trunk, three or four types of special or professional 
training branched off. And again, to what influences is it 
due that in the present day many are found to advocate 
the abandonment of this principle in favour of a method 
by which, the common groundwork being reduced to the 
narrowest limits, the special training is made to begin 
with the first years of college life or even at a still earlier 
date? One answer to this question (but not the only 
answer) I have already indicated, viz., that according to 
the older theory ‘a complete and generous education,’ in 
the words of Milton, was ‘that which fits a man to per- 
form justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, 
both private and public, of peace and war ;’ whilst the 
other theory holds that the aims and interests of the 
individual are to be chiefly kept in view. Now it is no 
doubt true that, as is sometimes urged, these rival theories 
may be so handled as in appearance to lead to the same 
result ; but in appearance only. It is true that the highest 
development of any community not only allows, but re- 
quires, that the best possible should be made of each of 
its members ; and it is not less true, if less obvious, that 
an enlightened selfishness might discover that in the long 
run it can serve itself best by serving others, But ‘en- 
lightened selfishness’ has been a great many centuries 
But when the secondary and 
