794 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 



The University teacher will also differ from the school teacher in his methods, 

 for it will be his business not so much to teach history as to teach his pupil so 

 to learn and study history as though it were his purpose to become an historian ; 

 in so doing he will have opportunities to explain his own views and to contrast 

 them with those of other authorities, and so to express his individuality as a 

 University teacher should. 



One might choose any other subject as an illustration. In science there should 

 l>e all the difference between the school exercises, on the one hand, which teach 

 the pupil the methods of experiment, illustrate the principles laid down in his 

 text-books, and exercise his mind in scientific reasoning, and, on the other hand, 

 the University training, which sets him on a course involving the methods of 

 the classical researches of great investigators and a study of the original papers 

 in which they are contained, illuminated by the views of his own teacher. He 

 also should awaken to the necessity of modern languages. A boy who, on leaving 

 school, passes not to the scientific laboratories of a University, but to a scientific 

 assistantship in a business or Government department, will very soon find it 

 necessary to go to the original sources and acquire a working knowledge of 

 foreign languages. It is regrettable that under existing conditions a scientific 

 student sometimes passes through his University without acquiring even this 

 necessary equipment. I believe this to be largely due to the fact that he is com- 

 pelled to spend so much of his time in preparatory work of a school character 

 during the early stages of his University career. 



In the literary subjects, and especially in classics, there is, of course, not the 

 same scope for the spirit of investigation which it is so easy to encourage in 

 experimental science. Here the only new advances and discoveries which can 

 appeal to the imagination in quite the same way are those which are being made 

 every year in the field of archajology, and it is therefore not surprising that this 

 subject attracts many of the most ardent students : the methods of the archae- 

 ologist are more akin to those of the scientific investigator, and his work is 

 accompanied by the same enthralling excitement of possible discovery. For the 

 more able pupils and those who had a natural taste for language and literature 

 no subjects have been more thoroughly anil systematically taught for very many 

 years at school, as well as at the University, than the classics; but for the less 

 intellectual children or tho.se who had no natural taste for such studies no methods 

 could well be more unsuitable than those which used to prevail at schools. The 

 grammatical rules and exceptions, the unintelligent and uncouth translation, the 

 dry comparison of parallel passages, the mechanical construction of Greek and 

 Latin verse, produced in many minds nothing but distaste for the finest literature 

 that exists. 



With the improved methods now in use Greek and Latin may be, and are, 

 presented to the ordinary boy and girl as living literature and history, and 

 school training in them may be made as interesting as anything else in the 

 curriculum. Upon such a foundation the University should surely be able to 

 build a course devoted to literary, philosophical, historical, or philological learn- 

 ing even for the average student, provided that the University teacher undertakes 

 the task of helping his pupils to learn for themselves, and to pursue their studies 

 with a purpose, not merely as a preparation. 



The spirit of inquiry which drives the literary student to find for himself the 

 meaning of an author by study and by comparison of the views of others is 

 really the same spirit of inquiry which drives the scientific student to interpret 

 an experiment, or the mathematical student to solve a problem. Only by kindling 

 the spirit of inquiry can teaching of a real University character be carried on. 

 Give it what name you will, and exercise it in whatever manner you desire, 

 there is no subject of study to which it cannot be applied, and there are no 

 intelligent minds in which it cannot be excited. 



The first question which a University teacher should ask himself is, 'Am I 

 rousing a spirit of inquiry in my pupils?' And if this cannot be answered in 

 the affirmative it is a confession that the University ideal is not being realised. 



Some assert that this principle should also guide school education, and that 

 it should be the first aim of the school teacher to stimulate the spirit of inquiry. 

 My own view is that with young children this should be less necessary ; they all 

 possess it, and are by nature inquisitive. It should rather be the object of 



