OcTOBER 23, 1902] 
NATURE 
647 
country ; if they knew of the development which has been going 
on for some years in the functions of this department ; if they 
knew the importance to the country of a general recognition of 
“the services of the department, they would, I amcsure, refrain 
from hiding their enormous obligations to it. No Government 
department has had so much intelligent criticism, because the 
only people who know about it are its own students, and they 
have by it been brought up in an atmosphere of scientific 
criticism. 
And here are you students—about half of you—the picked men 
of these science classes, caught in our net, the net that Huxley 
spoke of, selected from thousands of students who are themselves 
select, selected that we may train most of you to be leaders of 
scientific thought or great appliers of science, or great teachers 
of science! There is the idea that for the good of the country 
our net has caught in one of you the young man most likely 
to repay cultivation, and I cannot too often repeat that it is not 
for your sake that this is done. If one of you happens to be a 
potential Faraday, however poor he may be, and so far as I can 
see he is just as likely to be poor as to be rich, it is our duty to 
try to discover him and give him chances of development. We 
are supposed to give you enough money to live upon ; we ask no 
fees from you ; we set you as men whom the King delighteth to 
honour, side by side with the most promising fee-paying students 
—men from our public schools, men taught to admire what you 
have done in the past, encouraged to think you men of promise— 
and we ask you to develop those exceptional faculties which 
to you are your own, but which we believe to be national 
assets. 
I will conclude this address by bringing another and much 
more important problem before your consideration. The matric- 
ulation examination of a teaching university has this meaning 
only—that it is inadvisable to admit men who are obviously 
unfit to benefit by the instruction given in the university. 
When in medieval Europe all university lectures were given in 
the one universal language, Latin; when men from all nations 
came to hear the same lectures, it was evident that no man ought 
to be admitted who had not enough Latin to be able to com- 
prehend the lectures. As present in Glasgow it is assumed that 
everybody has had the usual school training, and the only matric- 
ulation is in signing one’s name in a book. Hitherto at this 
college men who have passed certain examinations in elementary 
natural science are thaught to be fitand proper students, and of 
course you scholars who have all passed rather difficult exami- 
nations in natural science are admitted without question. I am 
glaé to think that every student admitted to this college does 
always seem capable of benefiting by our instruction ; but if you 
consider what our object is, the education of true scientific men, 
you will see that there is something much higher than is 
attempted elsewhere. 
Merely to be able to benefit by the instruction, that is 
a small thing. Men who come here with valuable scholar- 
ships are expected, not merely to benefit, but to benefit in 
a very exceptional way. They are supposed to develop 
to the very utmost their obvious scientific ability. To test 
for this likelihood of development in even the roughest 
way is evidently difficult. Even to apply any test outside the 
old limits seems difficult, because of the peculiar circumstances 
under which you are selected for scholarships. In more than 
half your cases you are not aware beforehand that you have a 
chance of being selected. You joined science classes merely to 
obtain a kind of knowledge which would be useful in your daily 
work. Your prospects were those of a workshop with a slow 
rise to foremanship. Your spare time was meagre ; it was stolen 
at enormous sacritice from family duty and from those pursuits 
which make a man popular with his fellow workers; the study 
of language and literature was comparatively unimportant to 
you, and you were suddenly told that your scientific talents 
were such that you were selected for the higher life, the life of 
the seeker after truth ; of the man of brains rather than muscle. In 
seven cases out of ten, it was quite impossible for you to prepare 
yourselves for any examination in language or literature in the 
two months before entering this college. I wish I saw clearly 
what ought to be done, You are valuable material, and if you 
come here without that training in your own language, that love 
of reading which leads to the power to use books and the know- 
ledge of all subjects derivable from books, I am quite sure that 
you are greatly wasted. I have a solution of this problem, but 
I am not sure that it is the best solution, and therefore I leave 
the problem for you yourselves to consider. 
NO. 1721, VOL. 66] 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
PARLIAMENT reassembled on Thursday, October 16, for the 
resumed debate on the Committee stage of the Education Bill. 
In moving a resolution to give Government business precedence 
of all other matters during the remainder of the session, the 
Prime Minister took the opportunity to point out that the main 
object of the autumn sitting was to pass the Education Bill. 
The Committee has since its reassembly been engaged upon 
Clause 8 of the Bill, which defines the powers and duties of 
local education authorities and the managers of schools. The 
part of the clause passed reads as follows :—‘‘ The local educa- 
tion authority shall maintain and keep efficient all public ele- 
mentary schools within their area which are necessary, and have 
the control of all expenditure required for that purpose other 
than expenditure for which, under this Act, provision is to be 
made by the managers.” As we go to press the subsections of 
this clause are under consideration. 
AN appendix to the calendar for the session 1902-3 of the 
University College of North Wales provides a very complete 
account of the agricultural department, which has been much 
developed since its inauguration in 1888. In addition to the 
ordinary entrance scholarships and exhibitions open to all 
students entering the College, there are five scholarships for 
which students proposing to take the agricultural course may 
alone compete. The College offers a diploma in agriculture, 
and students may enter for the degree of bachelor of science, in 
the group of agriculture and rural economy, in connection with 
the University of Wales. In cooperation with five county 
councils, a complete scheme of ‘‘ out-college ” work in agriculture 
has been organised. 
THE many good results which will eventually follow the re- 
constitution of the University of London are heralded by the 
new departures in the work of University College, London, all 
of them explained fully in the calendar for the session 1902-3. 
Complete university courses of study in the various faculties in- 
cluded in the work of the College have now been established. 
Among other developments are the institution of a full sessional, 
instead of a terminal, course in the psychological laboratory ; the 
endowment of the department of pure mathematics by Mr. 
Astor; the reorganisation of the department of chemistry and 
the appointment of Prof. Collie to the chair of organic 
chemistry ; the institution of a new matriculation examination 
for engineering students and the reorganisation of the curriculum 
preparatory for the diploma in engineering. 
THE University of Birmingham Engineering Magazine (a well- 
edited little paper published by the University Engineering 
Society) contains in its October number an article on continental 
methods of training engineers, from the penof Dr. D. K. Morris. 
The author considers that the chief differences in the courses of 
study are due to the high quality of the preliminary training and 
to the number of students. The latter enables special courses 
to be held ; a student can in consequence take, in a subject not 
actually his own, a course which is specially suited to him, and 
has not to rest content with taking part of the general course for 
students of that subject. The electrical laboratories, it is said, 
have outdistanced those for civil and mechanical engineering, 
and a special feature in some of the technical high schools is a 
loan collection of the latest types of machinery provided by the 
leading manufacturers. Certainly a striking feature of technical 
education abroad seems to be the cooperation of the manufacturers 
and the teachers. 
THE calendar of the Bristol University College for the ses- 
sion 1902-3 reveals the existence of very satisfactory coopera- 
tion between the college and the manufacturers and other em- 
ployers of labour in the district. In addition to a college 
engineering scholarship competed for annually, many of the 
local engineering firms have recently consented to give entrance 
scholarships to their works. The students nominated will 
obtain the combined college and works’ education for about 50/. 
a year, whereas the ordinary premium paid by non-collegiate 
students in works is in general 100/. annually. The college 
council has consented to allow any firm offering these conces- 
sions to send one deserving apprentice to the college to attend 
the day lectures at half fees. A large number of local civil 
engineers, manufacturing engineers and architects have expressed 
approval of the courses of instruction arranged for students 
entering upon any of the careers they respectively represent. 
