March 31, 1881] 



NATURE 



509 



above-mentioned kind. Desiring ^to obtain a good specimen of 

 this not very common bird for our collection, I expressed my 

 regret at not having tlie gun, but the ser\'ant replied : "Never 

 mind, if you vvi-h, we w\\\ get the bird." And he caught it 

 with my assistance in the above way without injuring it. 

 Marburg, March i6 Carl Ochsenius 



Flying-Fish 

 June ii, 1S73, at sea 300 miles south of Panama, I saw a 

 man-of-war hawk and a school of bonitos in pursuit of a school 

 of flying-fish. As one of the latter came out of the water, 

 closely pursued by his enemy, the hawk swooped down, not fifty 

 yards from the ship, but missed his prey, the fish apparently 

 turning from its course to avoid him. A second attempt was 

 more successful, and the hawk fle v off with the flying-fiah in his 

 talons. The whole affair was plainly seen, as also v\as the 

 continued chase of the flying-fish by the bonitos. 



Allan D. Broun, 

 Commander U.S. Navy 

 U.S. Torpedo Station, Newport, R.I., U.S.A., March 10 



THE OXFORD COMMISSIONERS ON 

 PROFESSORS 



WE are not disposed to agree with the outcry which 

 has been raised in some quarters in reference 

 to the proposition of the Oxford University Commis- 

 sioners to enact certain regulations with the view of 

 compelling Oxford Professors to reside in the University 

 and to give lectures. 



Some of the Commissioners' regulations relating to 

 this subject appear to many to be ill-advised, but they 

 have been improved by the recent modifications, and the 

 general intention seetns not only a right one, but also 

 one which must be carried out whenever public opinion 

 is brought to bear on the matter. 



A very simple view of the matter may be suggested. The 

 professors in the English Universities might be put on 

 the same footing as are the professors in German Uni- 

 versities. In those Universities the professors carry on 

 abundant research ; they also give very numerous lec- 

 tures, usually what may be called " representative 

 courses," that is, courses in which an attempt is made 

 to present to the student the main outlines and much 

 of the detail of the subject professed. Even in the 

 College de France at Paris, which is not (strictly speaking) 

 an educational institution, each professor is required to 

 give an annual course of lectures (to the number of forty, 

 we believe). 



Research and the advancement of learning are, we do 

 not for a moment doubt, the highest, and therefore in a 

 certain sense the first business of University professors. 

 It is perhaps because this is so generally admitted that 

 the Commissioners did not at first insist upon it. But it is 

 in order that he may teach — not huge popular audiences 

 nor cram-classes, but devoted thoroughgoing stu'ients — 

 that the professor creates new knowledge. His best 

 result is not new knowledge itself, but new youthful inves- 

 tigators ready and able to carry on the researches which 

 he has commenced, and through which thev have learnt 

 method and gained enthusiasm. There is no stimulus to 

 research so healthy and so sure as that afforded by the 

 opportunity of converting a class of generous-minded 

 young men into ardent disciples and loving fellow-workers. 



Hence, it may be maintained, there is no neces- 

 sary antagonism between true pro/essoria/ teaching {i.e. 

 definite courses of lecture^) and the profoundest study 

 and research. 



That the Commissioners have introduced no binding 

 regulations with the object of forcing a professor to carry 

 on research, is, we believe, a proof of wisdom and a 

 just tribute to the dignity of such work. No reguLuions 

 can make an investigator : the question as to whether a 

 given professorship will be used for the advancement of 



science and learning is decided before any regulations 

 can have effect, viz., when the choice of a person to fill 

 the post is made. If he is a "searcher" already, he will 

 remain so ; if he is not, a bad choice will have been 

 made, and no regulations as to research can ever 

 amend it. It is, however, well that the Commissioners 

 have seen fit to improve their first set of regulations in so 

 far as to state that an Oxford professor is expected to 

 advance the study of the subject to which his chair is 

 assigned. 



The measures which the Commissioners propose for 

 insuring the delivery of lectures by Oxford professors 

 are objectionable on the ground that they are purely 

 penal. They should be persuasive. The German pro- 

 fessor is only too glad to give a thorough and attractive 

 course of lectures if he has it in him to do so, because he 

 thereby doubles or trebles the income which he derives 

 from endowment. The Oxford Commissioners have made 

 a great mistake in prohibiting the professors from charging 

 fees for the compulsory course of two or three lectures a 

 week. All students, whether belonging to the professor's 

 own college or not, should be liable to pay fees to the 

 professors for attendance on their courses of instruction, 

 whether lectures or laboratorial. It is only by so arranging 

 the position and endowment of a professor that he is both 

 able and willing to increase his income by the fees paid 

 by his class, that a really firm and satisfactory basis for 

 the regulation of a professor's duties can be obtained. 



It has been maintained that where an income derived 

 from an endowment of 600/. can be increased to 1000/. a 

 year by the receipts from lecture-fees, the professor will be 

 anxious to give such lectures as will attract students^and 

 in spite of objections ready to hand, it 1= held that those 

 are the lectures which should be given. It is not true that 

 a professor so circumstanced will necessarily degenerate 

 into a mere examination coach. If he should be tempted 

 to do so the fault lies with the examination. The pro- 

 fessor should himself have a voice in the arrangement of 

 the examination, and care should be taken by the Uni- 

 versity thit it is so organised and defined in all its parts 

 that students who have carefully followed a high class of 

 professorial teaching, such as would be offered by a 

 Huxley, a Ludwig, a Bunsen, or a Fischer, should come 

 to the front in it rather than those who have crammed 

 with some newly-fledged classman, or with an expe- 

 rienced "coach" versed in all the artifices of sham 

 knowledge. 



It appears to be an excellent and necessary provision to 

 which it is to be hoped that the Commissioners will adhere 

 in spite of all opposition, that the professors in each 

 faculty should with other University teachers in the same 

 faculty constitute a council having the power of con- 

 trolling to some extent the lectures of each individual 

 professor. There is no degradation in this ; it is the 

 almost universal custom in existing Universities. The 

 faculty has to provide for the teaching of its proper 

 studies, and naturally mu,t exercise a friendly control 

 over the extent and scope of the courses of instruction 

 offered by its members. 



It is owing to the absence of any such control at the 

 present moment that even by those Oxford professors 

 who do lecture, no representative course on any subject is 

 ever given. A student in Oxford cannot by any possibility 

 attend a thorough course of lectures or laboratory instruc- 

 tion in physiology, nor in zoology, nor in botany, nor in 

 physics, nor in chemistry. And yet in the smallest as 

 well as the largest of the often despised "medical schools " 

 of London, a student has provided for him courses of 

 from thirty to a hundred lectures every year in all these 

 subjects, as well as in others, to be attended, of course, in 

 successive sessions. The same absence of complete or 

 representative courses of instruction is to be noted at 

 Oxford in other departments, such as philology, archaeo- 

 logy, various departments of history, (Sic. 



