600 
NATURE 
([OcTOBER 9, 1902 
It is to the lasting shame of our State organisation and of 
our School Boards that so little has been done to provide com- 
petent teachers. 
The future rests with the Universities ; but to save the nation 
the Universities must be practical, and broader conceptions must 
prevail in them. A course of training which will give true 
culture must be insisted on, The Universities have recently 
shown a disposition—to use a vulgarism—to throw themselves 
at the heads of the military authorities and to make special 
provision for the training of military students. It is much more 
their office to train teachers. Why should not the example to 
hand in the engineering school at Cambridge be followed ?, Why 
should not a special Tripos be established for teachers in train- 
ing? I believe this to be the true solution of the problem, 
The desire now manifest in several of our large towns to 
establish new Universities comes most opportunely, and should 
receive every possible encouragement from all who have the 
interests of our country at heart. I believe the objections to be 
altogether fanciful and the outcome of academic views. It is 
said that the value of the degree will go down like that of 
Consols. But in what does the value of a degree consist? 
Simply and solely in the evidence it affords of training. We 
regard the Oxford and Cambridge degrees as of value because they 
are proof that their possessors have lived for some time under 
certain conditions which are recognised to be productive of good. 
The degrees of other Universities must soon come to be regarded 
as proof of sound and healthy training. It must become 
impossible to obtain degrees such as the University of London 
has been in the habit of awarding, which have been the result of 
mere garret-study ; proof of training will be required of all 
candidates for degrees. 
But I must now bring this Address to a conclusion. The only 
apology that I can offer for its length is that having had over 
thirty years’ experience as a teacher, and being profoundly im- 
pressed by the serious character of the outlook, the opportunity 
being given me, I felt that, as the walrus said to the carpenter, 
‘* The time has come, - 
To talk of many things : 
Of shoes, and ships, and sealing-wax, 
Of cabbages, and kings, 
And why the sea is boiling hot, 
And whether pigs have wings.” 
(‘Alice through the Looking-glass.’’) 
This list of subjects is no more varied and disconnected—the 
problems set no deeper—than those to which we must give our 
attention in dealing with education; and the sooner the fate of 
the oysters is that of our present educational ‘‘ system” the 
better. Having shown by this quotation that I am not an 
absolute modern, but have some knowledge of the classics, let 
me finally say, in the words of another poet—of him who on 
various occasions gave utterance to much wisdom at the per 
fast table, that ‘‘ I don’t want you to believe anything I say, I 
only want you to try to see what makes me believe it.’ 
Something more than an apology for an Education Act such as 
the powers are now engaged in shaping for us must be framed at 
no distant date, and a determinate policy arrived at. That policy 
may perhaps be found in the words put into Hamlet’s mouth :— 
Hamlet. Towhat base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not 
imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander, till he find it stopping a 
bung-hole ? 
Horatio. 
Hamlet. No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with modesty 
enough, and likelihood to lead it, as thus; Alexander died, Alexander was 
buried, Alexander returneth into dust ; the dust is earth; of earth we make 
loam ; and why of that loam, whereto he was converted, might they not 
stop a beer barrel? 
"Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so. 
Imperious Czsar, dead and turned to clay, 
Might stop ahole to keep the wind away ; 
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe, 
Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw! 
Shakespeare thus taught the use of the imagination before 
Tyndall! The fact that we can now carry our imagination far 
further afield and contemplate the survival of atoms once 
embodied in imperious Czesar in the flowers and fruit which deck 
the fair face of Nature—a higher end than that Hamlet paints— 
may serve to justify the adoption of a method he advocated. 
Modern progress is based on research—the application of 
imagination. Surely then there is every reason to make the 
spirit of research the dominant force in education ! 
NO. 1719, VOL. 66] 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
Pror. C. F. Myers Warp, of the University College, 
Sheffield, has been appointed lecturer in physiology at the 
Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, vice Mr. Benjamin 
Moore, who was recently elected to the newly established chair 
of Biological Chemistry at the University College, Liverpool. 
Tue jubilee of Sydney University was celebrated on October 1, 
when addresses of congratulation were presented from British, 
colonial and foreign universities. The Australian universities 
were represented in an address by Prof. Tucker, and Prof, 
Baldwin Spencer, F.R.S., spoke for the English universities. 
REFERRING to the Education Bill, in a letter in Monday's 
Times, Sir Henry Roscoe favours the view first stated in 
NATURE, namely, that the part of the Bill dealing with 
secondary education should be dealt with separately and passed 
before taking that concerned with primary instruction. Since 
this suggestion was made in these columns, excitement over 
the religious difficulty involved in the representation clause of 
the Bill has greatly increased, and there seems little hope that a 
compromise will be effected between the contending clerics. 
It is now clear that the Government would have been well 
advised to have divided the Bill into two and settled secondary 
education apart from primary education. As Sir Henry*oseoe 
remarks, ‘‘ To the mind of the nation at large, the question as to 
whether children are to be taught the Catechism or not looms 
small in comparison with that as to whether the next generation 
can be better prepared than our own to sustain and improve the 
industrial and commercial position of the Empire.” Whatever 
may be thought about religious instruction in primary schools, 
it is unreasonable to delay the coordination of secondary educa- 
tion until the various parties have settled their differences, more 
particularly as public opinion is in favour of placing secondary 
education on a sound basis as soon as possible. 
2 
PAGE 
573 
CONTENTS. 
Mendel’s Theory of Heredity. By F. A. D. . 
Lightning Arrestors in Electrical Engineering. 
ByICC: \G.". ines wile) uw ie! (0, 70 Foe te 
Our Book Shelf :— 
‘Catalogue of Scientific Papers irs SES) Bee 
mentary Volume”. . 574 
Westell : ‘‘ The Early Life of the Y oung Cuckoo.” 
I Re o 574 
Slate : “ Physics : a Text-book for Secondary Schools.” 
Sao 575 
Carvallo: ‘‘ ‘ LElectricité (déduite de PExpérience et 
ramenée au Principe des Travaux virtuels)”” ; Men- 
delssohn : “Les Phénoménes Aer chez les 
Etres vivants” . . 575 
Carmody : ‘« Elementary Chemical Analysis. ’ Dis- 
tinguishing Tables and Tests”... . 575 
Letters to the Editor :— 
“*The Primrose and Darwinism.” — Author of 
“ Primrose and Darwinism”; The Writer of 
the Review . a4 o 6 ROPE rc aor: nT! 
A Method of Treating Parallels. —W. R. Jamieson 576 
Symbol for Partial Differentiation.—A. B. Basset, 
EARS. 2, See 577 
Bipedal Locomotion in ‘Lizards. nN “Annandale 577 
A Possible Meteor Shower on October 4.—G. Percy 
Bailey 577 
Fall ofa Meteoric Stone near Crumlin (Co. Antrim) 
on September 13. (J//ustvated.) By W. H. Milli- § 
gan; Dr. L. Fletcher, F.R.S. - Sn 
Opening Addresses at the Medical Schools. By 
Reavy. 1. ort eons Bere Gis 
Notes .. 579 
The Scientific and Technical Exhibits at the Royal 
Photographic Society’s Exhibition . 582 
The British Association at Belfast :-— 
Section K.—Botany.—Opening Address by Prof. J. 
Reynolds Green, M.A., Sc.D., F.R.S., Presi- 
dent of the Section . 582 
Section L.—Educational Science. — Opening Address 
by Prof. Henry E. Armstrong, LL.D., Ph.D., 
V.P.R.S., President of the Section. . . - 589 
University and ‘Educational Intelligence 600 
