October 13, 19 10] 



NATURE 



487 



attended by persons carefully selected for the purpose and 

 anxious to pursue a continuous course of study of ■ an 

 advanced standard. In these classes the Universities will 

 be compelled to begin new subjects for studen's of matured 

 minds who have not received the usual preparation, and 

 will therefore necessarily deal with them in a new way. 

 Here, if anywhere, the difference between school methods 

 of teaching and University methods ought to be apparent ; 

 and I feel sure that, if University teachers attempt con- 

 ventional methods with these students, they will be con- 

 demned to failure. It is certain that these classes will 

 increase enormously and rapidly, and I have great hope 

 that they will for this reason influence the methods of 

 University teaching in a very healthy manner. In the 

 tutorial classes the teachers will be confronted with the 

 entirely new problem of students who have thought much, 

 and of whom many are experienced speakers, well able 

 to express their thoughts by the spoken word, but who, 

 nevertheless, have received little training, and have had 

 still less experience, in expressing their ideas in writing. 

 Many of the students whom I have met have told me 

 that this difficulty of writing is their real obstacle, and 

 the matter in which they feel the want of experience most 

 acutely. It will be a very valuable exercise for those who 

 conduct these classes to instruct their students in the art 

 of writing simple and intelligible English, and I hope that 

 the necessity of giving this instruction will have a good 

 effect upon the conventional methods of teaching English 

 in schools as well as in Universities. 



I am conscious that this address is lamentably incom- 

 plete in that it is concerned only with the manner of 

 University teaching, and scarcely at all with its matter, 

 and that, to carry any conviction, I should apply myself 

 to the task of working out in detail the suggestions that 

 I have made. But this would lead me far beyond the 

 limits of an address, and I am content to do little more 

 than touch the fringe of the problem. Reduced to its 

 simplest terms, this, like so many educational problems, 

 involves an attempt to reconcile two different aims. 



The acquisition of knowledge and the training of the 

 mind are two inseparable aims of education, and yet it 

 often appears difficult to provide adequately for the one 

 without neglecting the other. If childhood is the time 

 when systematic training is most desirable, it is also the 

 time when knowledge is most easily acquired ; if early 

 manhood is the time when special knowledge must be 

 sought, it is also the time when training for the special 

 business of life is necessary. To withdraw from the child 

 the opfKjrtunities of absorbing knowledge may be as 

 harmful as it is unnatural ; to turn a young man or young 

 woman loose into a profession without proper preparation 

 is cruel, and may be disastrous. 



.^nd so we get the battle of syllabus, time-table, scholar- 

 ships, examinations, professional training, technical instruc- 

 tion, under all of which lies the disturbing distinction 

 between training and knowledge. 



But, if we inquire further into these matters, I think 

 we shall find that the fundamental question is to a large 

 extent one of responsibility. Left to himself, a boy or a 

 man will acquire a knowledge of the things which interest 

 him, even though they be only the arts of a pickpocket, 

 and will obtain a training from experience such as no 

 school or college can give. If education is to achieve the 

 great purpose of interesting and instructing him while 

 j-oung in the right objects, and also of training him for 

 the proper business of his life before it is too late, is it 

 not mainly a question of deciding when and how far to 

 take for him, or to leave to him, the responsibility of 

 what he is to learn and how he is to learn it? If the 

 teacher bears the responsibility during the period of school 

 training, should not the student have a large share of 

 responsibility in the quest of knowledge at the University? 



Now it is of the essence of responsibility that there 

 should be something sudden and unexpected about it. If, 

 before putting a young man into a position of trust, you 

 lead him through a kindergarten preparation for it, in 

 which he plays with the semblance before being admitted 

 to the reality, if you teacti him first all the rules and 

 regulations which should prevent him from making a 

 mistake, you will effectually smother his independence and 

 stifle his initiative. But plunge him into a new experi- 

 ence and make him feel the responsibility of his position, 

 NO. 2137, VOL. 84] 



and you will give him the impulse to learn his new duties 

 and the opportunity to show his real powers. It is 

 because I feel that this sudden entrance into an environ- 

 ment of new responsibility is so necessary that I would 

 regard with suspicion any attempt to provide a gradual 

 transition between school and University methods. 



In matters of discipline and self-control it is possible and 

 advisable to place responsibility upon school children ; in 

 intellectual matters it is not advisable, except for the few 

 who are matured beyond their years. It is, therefore, all 

 the more necessary that this should be done at the moment 

 when they enter the University. 



This should be the moment of which Emerson says : 

 " There is a time in every man's education when he arrives 

 at the conviction that he must take himself for better or 

 worse as his portion ; that, though the wide universe is 

 full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to 

 him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground 

 which is given him to till. The power which resides in 

 him is new in Nature, and none but he knows what that 

 is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried." 



The spirit of independent inquiry, which should dominate 

 all University teaching and learning, is not to be measured, 

 as I have already said, by the number of memoirs pub- 

 lished, but it is to be tested by the extent to which Uni- 

 versity students are engaged upon work for which they 

 feel a responsibility. Visit the Universities at the present 

 moment, and, in spite of all the admirable investigation 

 which is being carried on, you will find the majority of 

 students engaged in exercises in which they feel no re- 

 sponsibility whatever. In my opinion this indicates that 

 for them the spirit of true University education has never 

 been awakened. It is, after all, very largely a question 

 of attitude of mind. Any subject of study, whether it be 

 a scientific experiment or an historical event, or the 

 significance of a text, is a matter of interpretation, and to 

 approach it in the University spirit is to approach it with 

 the question, "Is this the right interpretation?" Upon 

 that question can be hung a whole philosophy of the sub- 

 ject, and from it can proceed a whole series of investiga- 

 tions : it embodies the true spirit of research and it opens 

 the door to true learning. 



In discussing University education I have not, of course, 

 forgotten that many persons have taught themselves up to 

 a University standard entirely without the aid of pro- 

 fessors ; indeed, the University of London long ago pro- 

 vided an avenue to a University degree which has been 

 successfully followed by many such persons with the best 

 possible results. But I have endeavoured to remind you 

 that at the University, as at school, for most students^ the 

 personal influence of the teacher is the important thing ; 

 that ,at the University, as at school, success in teaching 

 depends mainly on the extent to which the interest of the 

 student is aroused ; and that at the University this is only 

 to be done by providing him with a purpose and a 

 responsibility in his work in order that he may understand 

 to what conclusions it is leading him. Until this is done 

 we shall still have University students complaining that 

 thev do not see the object of what they are learning or 

 understand what it all means. This complaint, which 1 

 have often heard from past and present students of different 

 Universities, suggested to me that I should on the present 

 occasion deal with this defect in our customary methods. 



In the hope that the attention of University teachers 

 may be turned more fully to this aspect of their work I 

 have ventured to make it the subject of my address. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — At Emmanuel College research studentships 

 of the value of 150Z. each have been awarded to G. E. K. 

 Braunholtz and A. LI. Hughes. Grants of the following 

 amounts have also been made : — S. Mangham, 60Z. ; R. H. 

 Snape, 40}. ; C. S. Robinson, 20/. The exhibition of 50/. 

 offered to an advanced student commencing residence this 

 October has been awarded to J. Ivon Graham, London, 

 Royal College of Science for Ireland. Additional exhibi- 

 tions of 30/. have also been awarded to A. J. Grove, 

 Birmingham University, and F. Smith, Manchester 

 University. 



The Clerk Maxwell scholarship is vacant by the 



