September 28, 191 1] 



NATURE 



VOJ 



would enhance the difficulties of the master or mistress. 

 I do not, therefore, anticipate that co-education in schools 

 will assume a large importance in English life. 



So far I have tried to indicate a few of the problems 

 calling for the attention of persons who are engaged or 

 interested in secondary education. Here at least 1 may 

 claim to speak with some degree of experience. It is with 

 hesitation that 1 approach the subject of the highest edu- 

 cation as given in the universities, especially in the 

 Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. 



The elasticity which is characteristic of English life 

 has in the last half-century created a number of local 

 universities beside the two ancient universities. It would 

 be unwise, even if it were feasible, to aim at assimilating 

 the ancient and the modern universities. It is not im- 

 gpssible that the modern universities will lead the way in 

 educational reform. The dead hand of the past lies heavily 

 upon the historical seats of learning. No fact of educa- 

 tional history seems to be stranger than the inability, 

 perhaps I ought to say the unwillingness, of the universities 

 to reform themselves. It might have been anticipated that 

 a home of learning would be a seat of powerful reforming 

 energy. It has not proved to be so. The Universities of 

 Oxford and Cambridge have been reformed more than 

 once, but the reform has come from without and not from 

 within. Whether the present Chancellor of the University 

 of Oxford will succeed in persuading the university of 

 which he is the distinguished head to reform itself without 

 waiting for the action of Parliament is a question on which 

 it would be unsafe for me to venture an opinion. But 

 his plea for reform is itself a proof that reform is needed. 

 It will not, however, be unfitting that I should insist upon 



i' value, and the ever-increasing value as I think, of the 

 work belonging to the modern universities in the great 

 cities of the land — can I be Wrong in saying pre-eminently 

 to the Victoria University of Manchester? History 51 - ms 

 -t that the association of a seat of learning with 

 a great centre of industry may produce the best results, 

 in so far as it imparts culture to industry and practicality 

 to learning. The modern universities have appealed with 

 striking success to the generous instincts of local patriotism. 

 Thev have shown the possibility of gathering an earnest 

 body of teachers, and through them of imparting a genuine 

 intellectual culture to a large number of students, without 

 imposing artificial restrictions upon their studies. They 

 have proved the possibility of uniting men and women 

 upon equal terms in the same academic institutions. The 

 Victoria University has aimed with conspicuous success at 

 solving the difficult problem of uniting the teachers who 

 belong to the different branches of the Church in a common 

 faculty of theological learning. In some of these respects 

 if not' in all, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridgi 

 will probably follow suit. It can scarcely be doubted that 

 the time is not distant when Oxford ami Cambridge will 

 men their doors to students without insisting upon the so- 

 called compulsory study of the Greek language. I speak as 

 otie who more than a quarter of a century ago argued 

 against the policy of requiring some knowledge of two dead 

 languages from all students as a condition of entrance into 

 the ancient universities. Such a requirement may have been 

 possible, and even reasonable, when educational subjects 

 were few. It cannot be maintained when those subjects 

 have been greatly multiplied. For the result is either that 

 the study of two dead languages, or at least of one among 

 them, is little more than a farce, or that it causes an 

 unhappy disturbance at a critical period of a boy's intellec- 

 tual life. Nay, I should be tempted to say that to boys 

 who have received their education on the modern sides of 

 public schools the obligation of acquiring some smattering 

 of Greek knowledge is both a farce and a nuisance. 



Nobodv feels more keenly than I the intellectual benefit 

 of studving the Greek language and literature. It is my 

 sincere hope, as it is my firm belief, that, when Greek rests 

 upon its own intrinsic merits as a factor in human culture, 

 the study of Greek, if it is less general, will not be less 

 profound than it has been. But times change, and com- 

 pulsory Greek as a universal subject is unsuitable to the 

 present time, not because it is useless in itself, but because 

 it bars the way more or less against other studies which are 

 still more important. The universities enforce their law 

 upon secondary schools. The schools must teach what the 



NO. 2187, VOL. 87] 



universities require ; they cannot teach, or they can oak 

 teach within a fixed limit, what is not required at tht 

 universities. 



In my own mind, however, the abolition of compulsory 

 Greek is only a step to a change in the intellectual atmo- 

 sphere of the universities. I hope that Oxford and Cam- 

 bridge will cease to insist upon Greek; but I hope that, 

 when they cease to insist upon Greek, they will require frorr. 

 all students the evidence of some serious learning in some 

 subject or subjects of higher education. Nobody who is con- 

 versant both with the ancient and with the modern univer- 

 sities can fail to be aware of the difference in their tone. 

 The atmosphere of a modern university is intellectual. Men 

 and women come there as students: they come to learn, 

 and they do learn. At Oxford and Cambridge the atmo- 

 sphere is much more social ; and the number of under- 

 graduates who can in any sense be called serious students 

 is but a fraction of the undergraduate body. The time is, 

 I hope, approaching when a degree conferred by the 

 Universities of Oxford and Cambridge even upon a passman 

 will be a certificate of a certain definite proficiency in some 

 recognised subject of academic study. For it seems to me 

 that the ancient universities in conferring degrees without 

 an adequate guarantee of knowledge are largely responsible 

 for the indifference of English society as a whole to the 

 value and dignity of learning. 



No doubt there is force in the plea that the universities 

 cannot afford the pecuniary loss which would result from 

 the policy of excluding passmen, or of pressing hardly upon 

 them. It may be answered that no pecuniary consideration 

 can justify a university in ceasing to be primarily a learned 

 body. But women students are more earnest than men ; 

 and if the universities grant degrees, as I hope they will, 

 to women equally with men, they will probably find that 

 thev will receive as much money from the addition of the 

 serious students, who will then belong to them, as thev now 

 receive from those students who are not serious at all. 



The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge have mad'! 

 frequent appeals for pecuniary support. Education — especi- 

 ally scientific education — is expensive, and it tends to 

 increase in expensiveness. But I have sometimes wished 

 that, before monev is poured into the exchequers of the 

 universities, a commission, composed of men who are fully 

 sympathetic with academic culture and yet have been 

 trained in the habits of business, could issue a report upon 

 the use now made by the universities and by the colleges 

 of the funds which" they severally command. I am of 

 opinion that such a commission would not prove unable to 

 suggest the possibility of large economies which might be 

 carried out without impairing the efficiency of the univer- 

 sities as seats of learning, or even of the colleges as homes 

 for the students whose proper object in their academic 

 life is to acquire learning. 



All that remains is to offer an opinion in some few brief 

 words upon some subordinate matters of academic educa- 

 tion. 



There is something to be said in favour of, but more 

 perhaps to be said against, the proposal for two concurrent 

 kinds of degrees, the degrees of Bachelor and Master in 

 Arts and of Bachelor and Master in Science. For the 

 academic degree possesses a recognised advantage as 

 setting one and the same hall-mark upon all persons who 

 possess it. It would be less distinctive, and therefore less 

 valuable, if its significance were not uniform. Nor does- 

 there seem to be any valid reason against conferring the 

 degree of B.A. and M.A. upon all students who have shown 

 themselves to possess a certain uniform culture, whatever 

 special study or studies they may have pursued and what- 

 ever degree' of excellence they may there have attained, 

 after satisfying the requirement of culture demanded from 

 all persons' who aspire to the possession of an academic 

 degree. 



Again, it is desirable that every university should be 

 free from theological restrictions. I look forward, there- 

 fore, to the time when the Universities of Oxford and 

 Cambridge will recognise Nonconformists no less than 

 Churchmen as eligible, not only for degrees, but for 

 lectureships and professorships in the technological faculty. 

 There is a broad distinction between the study of theology 

 and the profession of theological beliefs. It is no hardship 

 upon a student that he should be examined in theology so 



