226 



A' A rURE 



[July 9, 1S96 



from the University, exercise an intellectual patronage 

 to the extent of nearly ^50,000 per annum. How is this 

 patronaye exercised, and what share of it falls to natural 

 science ? 



It is not unreasonable to say that bare justice would 

 be done if the number of scholarships allotted to science 

 bore the same proportion to the number of men readinjf 

 for honours in that subject as the number of scholar- 

 ships allotted to literary subjects bears to the number 

 of men reading for the literary schools. This bare 

 measure of justice is not done. In 1895 one hundred 

 and fifty-three men were classed in the honour school of 

 Litera: Humaniores (a number beyond all previous pre- 

 cedent) ; eighty-seven were classed in Modern History ; 

 sixty-six in the honour school of Jurisprudence ; forty- 

 three in Natural Science ; thirty-seven in Theology ; 

 twenty-three in Mathematics ; and one in " Literis Semi- 

 ticis"; in all four hundred and ten. Deduct twenty 

 from this number to exclude those who took a second 

 final school, and there remain three hundred and ninety, 

 of whom forty-three, or one ninth of the whole, belonged 

 to the school of Natural Science. Science, on this 

 reckoning, should claim fifty-five out of the five hundred 

 existing scholarships. It is not very easy to ascertain 

 the exact number of science scholarships, but there are 

 certainly not more than forty. It appears from the 

 University Gazetle that in the academical year 1894-95 

 only ten out of twenty-one colleges offered scholarships 

 01 exhibitions in Natural Science, and that those ten 

 have offered science scholarships for some years past. 

 The ten are Balliol, Merton, New College, Magdalen, 

 Christ Church, Trinity, Corpus Christi, Jesus, Keble, and 

 Queen's. The scholarship at the last named, though in 

 fact awarded to a candidate who offered Natural Science, 

 was equally open to candidates offering Classics or 

 Mathematics. In addition, St. John's offered and awarded 

 a scholarship in mathematics and physics, either sepa- 

 rately or in combination. As each of the ten colleges 

 gave one science scholarship, and as the tenure of a 

 scholarship is four years, it follows that there are only 

 forty science scholarships in the University, or if St. 

 John's be added, forty four — at the lowest computation 

 ten less than there should be. 



The paucity of science scholarships has been a frequent 

 subject of comment ; but the colleges have a ready and a 

 very plausible answer, which is best illustrated by the 

 fact that in November last Balliol did not award a science 

 scholarship because no candidate of sufficient merit 

 presented himself. It is a fact that the candidates for 

 science scholarships are not only few in number, but also 

 of low average merit ; there are, of course, brilliant 

 exceptions. It is not easy to fix a common measure for 

 the intellectual acquirements of classical and scientific 

 students, but as far as a comparison can be instituted, it 

 is vastly to the advantage of the classical scholar. He is 

 a better classic than his scientific confrere is a man of 

 science, and is in addition more widely read and has a 

 greater knowledge of subjects of general interest. The 

 tnost that can be said is that the science scholar knows a 

 little of classics, a classical scholar as a rule is profoundly 

 ignorant of science. But in powers of expression, in the 

 ability to handle an unfamiliar theme, and in range and 

 variety of knowledge, there is simply no comparison. 

 Hence the colleges justify themselves by saying that 

 they award scholarships to candidates of the greatest 

 intellectual merit, and it is their experience that the 

 greatest merit is found in those who have had a classical 

 education. As for science scholarships, the competitors, 

 they say, are not worthy of the prize, and the prize is 

 accordingly withdrawn, with the result that the number 

 of science scholarships tends to diminish rather than to 

 increase. 



This is true, and it is a lamentable state of things, 

 pointing to a serious deficiency in the secondary education 

 NO. 1393, VOL. 54] 



which precedes and leads up to a University education. 

 It is, however, remarkable that Cambridge, which gives 

 plenty of science scholarships, finds no difficulty in 

 getting candidates of sufficient merit. The explanation 

 of this is probably somewhat as follows. At Oxford 

 scholarships are nearly exclusively awarded to boys who 

 are still at school ; very few are open to undergraduates 

 who have been in residence for more than one University 

 Term. At Cambridge many scholarships are open to 

 men of one year's standing, giving an opportunity to 

 those who have come up to the University with a fair 

 general education and only a moderate acquaintance 

 with science, to learn enough science in their first year to 

 bring thenisehes up to the standard of a scholarship ; 

 many at Oxford would be glad of such a chance, but it 

 is not open to them. In the second place, the science 

 school at Cambridge has acquired such a prestige that 

 the best boys go there, and only the second best to 

 Oxford ; and thirdly, Oxford draws its undergraduates 

 more exclusively from the great public schools than 

 Cambridge does. Taken on the whole the teaching of 

 science in public schools is bad. There are, of course, 

 some exceptions, but they are rare, and in many science 

 can hardly be said to be taught at all. It may be 

 objected that every public school has one or more science 

 masters of tried capacity, and that science is a com- 

 pulsory subject in nearly all. It may be so, but the 

 inducements offered to the study of science in public 

 schools are very few ; in most of them there are not only 

 no inducements, but the study is openly discouraged. 

 Boys are not generally inclined to give themselves 

 unnecessary trouble over their studies, and are only too 

 ready to neglect th^t which may safely be neglected ; the 

 science masters have no chance with the majority of 

 them, and have to resign themselves to giving as much 

 trouble and time as school regulations permit to the few 

 enthusiasts who care to add science to their classical 

 burdens. For all the pretence that public schools make 

 of teaching science, the average schoolboy comes up to 

 the University destitute of the most rudimentary scientific 

 ideas. If, as is sometimes the case, he wishes to take up 

 science on his arrival there, he has to begin with ideas 

 and facts which he might well have learnt in the nursery ; 

 if he prefers a literary course, he remains to the end of 

 his life as ignorant of the alphabet of science as any 

 baby. There is room for considerable difterence of 

 opinion as to how far the technicalities of any branch of 

 science should be taught to schoolboys, but it must be 

 admitted that in this age, which is above all things an 

 age of science, an understanding of the fundamental 

 laws of at least physics and chemistry ought to form a 

 part of that vague but cherished ideal " a good general 

 education." But are the public schools altogether to 

 blame? In our system of education the universities call 

 the tune, and the schools may be excused if they only 

 play what is called for. The universities do not call for 

 science. They say in effect, '" before you can be of us 

 you must know Latin and Greek, and you must know a 

 certain minimum of arithmetic and of algebra or of 

 geometry, but of any knowledge of science you may be 

 as innocent as a babe. We care nothing for it, and we 

 will confer our highest distinctions on you without asking 

 you for one syllable of it." 



The gates to an Oxford career are the ITniversity 

 examination, resnonsions, or more familiarly " smalls,'' 

 which takes no cognisance of science, and rhe college 

 matriculation examinations, which in only a few cases 

 give it a bare recognition. So long as this is the case, 

 science will not be seriously taught at the public schools, 

 and there will be a dearth of adequate candidates for 

 science scholarships. The justification of the colleges 

 amounts simply to this— that by their system they have 

 discountenanced the teaching of science in schools, so 

 that the schools cannot send them candidates fit to hold 



