TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 597 
Section L.—_EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE. 
PresipENT oF THE Secrion-—Sir Ricuarp C. Jess, O.M., Litt.D., 
D.C.L., M.P. 
CAPE TOWN. 
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16. 
The President delivered the following Address :— 
University Education and National Life. 
Every country has educational problems of its own, intimately dependent on 
its social and economic conditions. ‘The progressive study of education tends, 
indeed, towards a certain amount of general agreement on principles. But the 
crucial difficulties in framing and administering educational measures are very 
largely difficulties of detail; since an educational system, if it is to be workable, 
must be more or less accurately adjusted to all the complex circumstances of a 
given community. As one of those who are now visiting South Africa for the 
first time, I feel that what I bring with me from England is an interest in educa- 
tion, and some acquaintance with certain phases of it in the United Kingdom; but 
with regard to the inner nature of the educational questions which are now before 
this country, I am here to learn from those who can speak with knowledge. In 
this respect the British Association is doing for me very much what a famous 
bequest does for those young men whom it sends to Oxford; I am, iu fact, a sort 
of Rhodes scholar from the other end—not subject, happily, to an age-limit—who 
will find here a delightful and instructive opportunity of enlarging his outlook ott 
the world, and more particularly on the field of education. 
As usage prescribes that the work of this Section, as of others, should be 
opened by an Address from the Chair, I have ventured to take a subject suggested 
by one of the most striking phenomena of our time—the growing importance of 
that part which Universities seem destined to play in the life of nations. 
Among the developments of British intellectual life which marked the 
Victorian age, none was more remarkable, and none is more important to-day, 
than the rapid extension of a demand for University education, and the great 
increase in the number of institutions which supply it. In the year 1832 Oxford 
and Cambridge were the only Universities south of the Tweed, and their position 
was then far from satisfactory. Their range of studies was too narrow; their 
social operation was too limited. Then, by successive reforms, the quality of their 
teaching was improved, and its scope greatly enlarged; their doors were opened 
to classes of the community against which they had formerly been closed. But 
meanwhile the growing desire for higher education—a result of the gradual im- 
provement in elementary and secondary training—was creating new institutions 
of various kinds. The earliest of these arose while access to Oxford and Cam- 
bridge was still restricted. The Universiyy of Durham was established in 1838. 
