456 REPORT — 1901. 



nothing to think, to feel, to say. And who, as as a rule, are these un- 

 fortunates ? They are the boys who have been specialised in that 

 modern phrontisterion which prepares them to win scholarshijss in special 

 subjects.' And these subjects, it must be confessed even here, are generally 

 mathematics and natural science. If time permitted I might extend 

 my quotations from Dr. Butler's criticism, a criticism which cuts in 

 various directions, like a two-edged sword ; but I must be content to 

 note his practical conclusion : ' It seems to me tolerably certain,' he says, 

 * that we must ere long reconsider our methods, and, if the phrase may 

 be permitted, redistribute our bribes.' 



My observations on the topics already dealt with have run to such 

 length that I must not tax your patience farther. I therefore limit what 

 I have to suggest on the influence exercised by our universities through 

 the training of teachers to a few brief concluding words. 



As a rule the authorities of secondary schools prefer to employ univer- 

 sity graduates in all brandies of school education, and it is most desirable 

 that this preference should be encouraged and assisted by every possible 

 means ; for there is no better service which the universities can do to the 

 nation than that of training and sending out highly qualified teachers. 



And yet till quite recently no attention has been given to this aspect 

 of their work apart from the general courses of study which are provided 

 equally for men who are looking forward to other professions or to no 

 profession at all. 



It may possibly be argued that it is not the busines.« of the university 

 to give predagogic any more than medical, or legal, or industrial, or com- 

 mercial, or any other form of technological training. 



This, however, is only pai^tially true, seeing that in the first place a 

 university cannot properly fulfil its function as a teacher of its own 

 students so long as it continues to give no training in the art of teaching, 

 and in the next place the relationship in which the universities stand to 

 school education is entirely different from their relationship to the various 

 professions and occupations of later years. 



Thus we may fairly argue that it is high time for our ancient univer- 

 sities to give more special attention to educational methods, and more 

 encouragement than has hitherto been given to the selection of such 

 courses of study and such combinations of subjects as will form the best 

 equipment for that large body of students who year by year go out direct 

 from the universities to the work of teachers in secondary schools. 



I plead for these various reforms on the ground that, whilst pouring 

 a stream of fresh life and interest into many of our secondary schools, 

 they would involve no interference with any of the higher functions of 

 our universities, no undue dissipation of energy, no lessening or lowering 

 of their work as homes of learning and research. Such changes would, 

 on the other hand, bring an extension and deepening of their influence in 

 the general life of the people, making them more truly and more fully the 

 universities of the nation, instinct with larger and more vigorous 

 activities, and bringing them nearer than ever before in our day to the 

 realisation of that ideal which a great English writer saw in his dreams 

 when he said : 



' A university is a place of concourse to which a thousand schools 

 make contributions. She draws the world to her like ancient Athens, 

 and sends out her literature, her preachers, her missionaries into the 

 ■world. 



