NATURE 



337 



THURSDAY, MARCH s, i874 



PROFESSOR HUXLEY AT ABERDEEN 



'"pHE Address just given by the Lord Rector of Aber- 

 J- deen University, and published in extenso in the 

 March number of the Contemporary Review, is second in 

 importance to none of the similar utterances virhich have 

 been heard of late years. It bears in every line the stamp 

 of a master mind. The many topics touched on, 

 the apparent diversity of which has alarmed the 

 shallow critic of the Times, are all grouped round 

 one central idea — the advancement of Science ; and 

 there is not only a splendid unity throughout the 

 Address, and no "[uncertain sound," which, coming 

 as it does from a Royal Commissioner charged 

 with a special survey of our scientific needs, as well as a 

 Lord Rector, may well fill us with confidence for his 

 ad\ocacy, even if one despairs of much improvement 

 being effected in the lifetime of the present generation. 

 It is indeed to be feared, as Mr. Huxley himself antici- 

 pates, that on many points he will be " The Rector who 

 was always beaten ; " if so, it is none the less certain that 

 his defeats will become '' victories in the hands of his 

 successors." 



It is especially fitting that the Address, dealing, as it did 

 by its title, with " Universities : Actual and Idea!,'' 

 should have been delivered in connection with one of the 

 Scotch Universities, which, in regard to scientific research 

 and teaching, rank higher than the older English LTniver- 

 sities, given up in the main to "elementary teaching of 

 y ouths under twenty," as the ideal University must take 

 rank above them. We cannot too much thank Prof. Huxley 

 for bringing out this point sharply, and quoting Mr. Mark 

 Pattison to intensify it, all the more because the Times 

 has taken hold of another sentence of the address, to 

 point out the importance of a " pause " in the Reforms at 

 Oxford and Cambridge, as if things were moving too fast ' 

 Surely the older English Universities may at least ap- 

 proach the level of the Scotch Universities, to say nothing 

 of the French and German ones, in the matter of the 

 higher teaching and of research before this "pause" is 

 insisted on ? 



And, more than this, we conceive it to be possible that 

 the present Government may not treat the Report of the 

 Commission appointed to inquire into the Revenues of 

 the Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge as mere waste 

 paper. It has frequently been roundly asserted that the 

 political distinctions between Liberals and Conservatives 

 by no means represent the line of demarcation between 

 those most and least anxious for University reforms. 

 However this may be, it is well known that one of the 

 most enlightened and far-seeing among University re- 

 formers, so far as the highest functions of a University 

 are concerned, is a member of the present Government. 

 Let us hope, therefore, that the magnitude of the pause 

 may have been exaggerated ; that the Heads after all 

 may not oversleep themselves, that the last of Endow- 

 ment may be even as the first, Endowment being, accord- 

 ing to Professor Huxley, a foreign element, 



"Which silently dropped into the soil of Univer- 

 sities like the grain of mustard-seed in the parable ; 

 Vol. IX. — No. 227 



and, like that grain, grew into a tree in whose 



branches a whole aviary of fowls took shelter 



It differed from the preceding, in its original design 

 to serve as a prop to the young plant, not to be a 

 parasite upon it. The charitable and the humane, blessed 

 with wealth, were very early penetrated by the misery of 

 the poor student. And the wise saw that intellectual 

 ability is not so common or so unimportant a gift that it 

 should be allowed to run to waste upon mere handicrafts 

 and chares. The man who was a blessing to his contem- 

 poraries, but who so often has been converted into a 

 curse, by the blind adherence of his posterity to the letter, 

 rather than to the spirit, of his wishes — ^I mean the 'pious 

 founder' — gave money and lands, that the student who 

 was rich in brain and poor in all else might be taken 

 from the plough or from the stithy, and enabled to devote 

 himself to the higher service of mankind ; and built col- 

 leges and halls in which he might be not only housed and 

 fed, but tautrht. 



" The colleges were very generally placed in strict 

 subordination to the University by their founders ; but, 

 in many cases, their endowment, consisting of land, has 

 undergone an ' unearned increment,' which has given 

 these societies a continually increasing weight and im- 

 portance as against the unendowed, or fixedly endowed, 

 University. In Pharaoh's dream the seven lean kine ate 

 up the seven fat ones. In the reality of historical fact, the 

 fat Colleges have eaten up the lean Universities." 



We have already, in Nature, referred to Prof. 

 Huxley's suggested reforms in respect to the Medical 

 Curriculum, and we may therefore pass lightly over this 

 part of his Address, expressing a hope, however, that his 

 reference to this subject at length may be indicative that 

 it will be considered by the Commission of which he is so 

 distinguished a member. 



The Lord Rector points out that while he would drop 

 Zoology and Botany in the Medical Curriculum, he 

 would make them part of the Arts Curriculum ; and after 

 remarking that the Faculties of Theology, Law, and Medi- 

 cine are technical schools, intended to equip men who 

 have received general culture with the special knowledge 

 which is needed for the proper performance of the duties 

 of clergymen, lawyers, and medical practitioners, he 

 adds, — 



" I have no sort of doubt that, in view of the relation of 

 Physical Science to the practical life of the present day, 

 it has the same right as Theology, Law, and Medicine, to 

 a Faculty of its own in which men shall bs trained to be 

 professional men of science. It may be doubted whether 

 Universities are the places for technical schools of Engi- 

 neering, or Applied Chemistry, or Agriculture. But there 

 can surely be little question that instruction in the 

 branches of Science which lie at the foundation of these 

 Arts, of a far more advanced and special character than 

 could, with any propriety, be included in the ordinary 

 Arts Curriculum, ought to be obtainable by means of a 

 duly organised Faculty of Science in every University. 



" The estabhshment of such a Faculty would have the 

 additional advantage of providing, in some measure, for 

 one of the greatest wants of our time and country. I 

 mean the proper support and encouragement of original 

 research." 



This at once brings us to what we consider by far the 

 most important part of the Address, the Lord Rector's 

 opinions on the endowment of unremunerative research : — 



"The other day, an emphatic friend of mine com- 

 mitted himself to the opinion that, in England, it is 

 better for a man's worldly prospects to be a drunkard) 



