796 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 



for an elementary teacher is some education in method, so a necessary qualification 

 for a University teacher should be some education in research. Anyone desirous 

 of qualifying for University teaching should be compelled to devote a certain 

 portion of his student career to research, and the funds of a University 

 cannot be better applied than to the retention of the better students at the 

 University for the distinct purpose of enabling them to pursue investigation 

 under the professor for a period of one year after they have completed their 

 degree course, if they have not been able to do so during their undergraduate 

 period. It is not, however, too much to hope that the majority of those who are 

 endeavouring to qualify for the higher educational posts will be assisted to obtain 

 this special experience during their degree course. Under the present system at 

 most Universities, unless the student has been fortunate enough to come in contact 

 with a teacher imbued with the spirit of research who is carrying on his own 

 investigations, it rarely happens that he has the time or the means which would 

 enable him to obtain any insight into the meaning of investigation before he 

 leaves to take up teaching work. The need of post-graduate scholarships for this 

 purpose is very widely felt, and is now frequently expressed. To insist upon 

 such qualifications for all University students is, of course, under present con- 

 ditions, impossible ; but there should be no insuperable difficulty in insisting upon 

 them for those who are to be allowed to enter a University as teachers. 



Researchers are born, not made, and it is not by any means desirable that all 

 University students should be cast adrift to make new researches and seek dis- 

 coveries even under the direction of experienced teachers and investigators. This 

 must depend to some extent upon the character of the pupil as well as of the 

 teacher. 



The mere publication of papers may mean nothing, and much that is dignified 

 with the name of research is of no account. To turn a lad on to research, unless 

 it be in the right spirit, may be only to set him a new exercise instead of an old 

 one; to leave him to prosecute an investigation for himself may be to condemn 

 him to disappointment and failure. On the other hand, to carry on any piece 

 of work, whether it be new or old, in the zealous spirit of inquiry, with faith 

 in a purpose, is to insure the intellectual interest of the student; and I cannot 

 see why this spirit should not animate all University education, whether it be 

 accompanied by original research or not. The essential condition is that the chief 

 University teachers should themselves create an atmosphere of investigation. 



So deep-seated is the belief that nothing must be undertaken without a pre- 

 paratory course of training that even the best and most brilliant students are 

 frequently discouraged from undertaking a new study until they have been 

 subjected to the mental discipline of an elementary course in it. 



I cannot refrain from quoting an example which came within my own 

 experience, although I have already alluded to it in another address delivered 

 last year. 



When I was at Oxford a young Frenchman of exceptional ability, whose 

 training had been almost exclusively literary and philosophical, and who was at 

 the time engaged on a theological inquiry, expressed to me his regret that he had 

 never learnt to understand by practical experience the meaning of scientific work. 

 And when I assured him that nothing was easier than to acquire practical 

 experience by taking up a piece of actual investigation under the direction of a 

 scientific worker, he explained to me that when he had applied for admission to 

 scientific laboratories he had been told that it was useless to do so until by 

 preparatory courses he had acquired an adequate knowledge of mathematics, 

 physics, and chemistry. I offered to make the trial with him, and began 

 with a problem that happened to interest me and that required a new method of 

 simple experimental research. I soon found that a well-trained mind, able to 

 grasp the meaning of the problem and eager to investigate it, could begin without 

 delay upon the experiments, and in the desire to interpret them could find a 

 pleasure and a purpose in seeking the necessary chemical and physical knowledge ; 

 whereas to have begun by acquiring this in a preparatory course, with no definite 

 object in view, would have been to set back a mature mind to school methods of 

 training and very possibly to have stifled instead of kindling any real scientific 

 interest. 



This is, again, an illustration of my contention that the most special study, if 



