October 13, 19 10] 



NATURE 



and that those who pass to the University come with fair 

 mental training and sufficient intelligence, let me inquire 

 what should be the relation of University teaching to that 

 which the student has received at school. 



Under present conditions the schools which aim at send- 

 ing students to the Universities endeavour to give a general 

 education which will fit their pupils to enter either upon 

 a University course or upon whatever profession or occupa- 

 tion they may select on leaving school. They do not confine 

 thf teaching of any pupil to preparation for a special pro- 

 fession or occupation, and they do not generally encourage 

 special preparation for the University. 



Now contrast what happens to the pupils leaving such a 

 school to enter a profession or business with what happens 

 to those who proceed to the University. The former pass 

 into an entirely different atmosphere ; they are no longer 

 occupied with exercises and preparatory courses which serve 

 a disciplinary purpose ; they are brought face to face with 

 the realities of their business or profession, and, though 

 they have to gain their experience by beginning at the lower 

 or more elementary stages, they do actually and at once 

 take part in it. 



The University student, on the other hand, too often 

 continues what he did at school ; he may att-^nd lectures 

 instead of the school class, but neither the method nor the 

 material need differ much from what he has alreadv done. 

 Should not the break with school be as complete for him 

 as for his schoolfellow who goes into business? Should he 

 not be brought face to face with the actualities of learn- 

 ing? After his years of preparation and mental drill at 

 school should he not, under the direction of his University 

 teachers, appreciate the purpose of his work and share the 

 responsibility of it? 



Ilet me take, as an illustration, the subject of history. 

 .•\ student who comes to the University and takes 

 up the study of history should learn at once how to use 

 the original sources. It will, of course, be easier for him 

 if he has learnt the rudiments of history and become in- 

 terested in the subject at school ; but, if he is really keen 

 upon his University work, it should not be absolutely neces- 

 sary for him to have learnt any history whatever. In any 

 case, if he has received a good general education and has 

 reached the standard of intelligence required for University 

 work, he ought to be able to enter at once upon the intelli- 

 gent study of history at first hand ; his teachers will make 

 it their duty to show him how to do this; their lectures 

 and seminars will illustrate the methods of independent 

 study, and will make the need of them clear to him. If, 

 as is probable, some acquaintance wJth one or more foreign 

 languages be necessary, he will take instruction in them 

 as an essential part of his history course, in order that 

 he may acquire the needful working knowledge, and to 

 learn something of them with a definite purpose will be 

 to him far more interesting and profitable than to study 

 them only for linguistic training, as he would have been 

 compelled to do at school. After all, this is what would 

 be done by his schoolfellow who goes into business and 

 finds it necessary, and probably also interesting, to acquire 

 some knowledge of the particular foreign language required 

 in the correspondence of his firm. It will, of course, be 

 all the better for a University student of history to have 

 acquired some training at school in the rudiments of history 

 both ancient and modern, together with the knowledge of 

 classics which is necessary for the former, and of modern 

 languages which is necessary for the latter. But there is 

 not space in the school curriculum for all the subjects that 

 may be required either for the University or for the business 

 of life ; the best that can be done is to give a good all-round 

 training and to foster a marked taste or ability where 

 it exists by allowing the boy or girl to include the subjects 

 which are most congenial to them in the studies of their 

 last two years of school life, as I have already suggested, 

 provided that mere specialisation is not encouraged at 

 school even towards the end of the school career. 



The University course might then become a more com- 

 plete specialisation, but of a broad character — the study of 

 a special subject in its wi_der aspects, and with the help of 

 all the other knowledge which may be necessary to that 

 purpose. 



The University teacher will also differ from the school 

 teacher in his methods, for it will be his business not so 



NO. 2137, VOL. 84] 



much to teach history as to teach his pupil so to learn and 

 study history as though it were his purpose to become an 

 historian ; in so doing he will have opportunities to explain 

 his own views and to contrast them with those of other 

 authorities, and so to express his individuality as a Univer- 

 sity teacher should. 



One might choose any other subject as an illustration. 

 In science there should be all the difference between the 

 school exercises, on one hand, which teach the pupil 

 the methods of experiment, illustrate the principles laid 

 down in his te.xt-books, and exercise his mind in scientific 

 reasoning, and, on the other, the University training, 

 which sets him on a course involving the methods of the 

 classical researches of great investigators and a study of 

 the original papers in which they are contained, illuminated 

 by the views of his own teacher. He also should awaken 

 to the necessity of modern languages. A boy who, on leav- 

 ing school, passes not to the scientific laboratories of a 

 University, but to a scientific assistantship in a business 

 or Government department, will very soon find it necessary 

 to go to the original sources and acquire a working know- 

 ledge of foreign languages. It is regrettable that under 

 existing conditions a scientific student sometimes passes 

 through his University without acquiring even this neces- 

 sary equipment. I believe this to be largely due to the 

 fact that he is compelled to spend so much of his time in 

 preparatory work of a school character during the early 

 stages of his University career. 



In the literary subjects, and especially in classics, there 

 is, of course, not the same scope for the spirit of investiga- 

 tion which it is so easy to encourage in experimental 

 science. Here the only new advances and discoveries which 

 can appeal to the imagination in quite the same way are 

 those which are being made every year in the field of 

 archaeology, and it is therefore not surprising that this 

 subject attracts many of the most ardent students ; the 

 methods of the archsologist are more akin to those of the 

 scientific investigator, and his work is accompanied by the 

 same enthralling excitement of possible discovery. For the 

 more able pupils and those who had a natural taste for 

 language and literature no subjects have been more 

 thoroughly and systematically taught for very many years 

 at school, as well as at the University, than the classics ; 

 but for the less intellectual children or those who had no 

 natural taste for such studies no methods could well be 

 more unsuitable than those which used to prevail at schools. 

 The grammatical rules and exceptions, the unintelligent and 

 uncouth translation, the dry comparison of parallel passages, 

 the merely mechanical construction of Greek and Latin 

 verse, produced in many minds nothing but distaste for 

 the finest literature that exists. 



With the improved methods now in use Greek and Latin 

 may be, and are, presented to the ordinary boy and girl 

 as living literature and history, and school training in them 

 may be made as interesting as anything else in the curri- 

 culum. Upon such a foundation the University should 

 surely be able to build a course devoted to literary, philo- 

 sophical, historical, or philological learning even for the 

 average student, provided that the University teacher under- 

 takes the task of helping his pupils to learn for themselves, 

 and to pursue their studies with a purpose, not merely as 

 a preparation. 



The spirit of inquiry which drives the literary student to 

 find for himself the meaning of an author by study and by 

 comparison of the views of others is really the same spirit 

 of inqury which drives the scientific student to interpret an 

 experiment, or the mathematical student to solve a problem. 

 Only by kindling the spirit of inquiry can teaching of a 

 real University character be carried on. Give it what name 

 you will, and exercise it in whatever manner you desire, 

 there is no subject of study to which it cannot be applied, 

 and there are no intelligent minds in which it cannot be 

 excited. 



The first question which a University teacher should 

 ask hiirtself is, " Am I rousing a spirit of inquiry in my 

 pupils? " And if this cannot be answered in the affirm- 

 ative it is a confession that the University ideal is not 

 being realised. 



Some assert that this principle should also guide school 

 education, and that it should be the first aim of the 

 school teacher to stimulate the spirit of inquiry. My own 



