664 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K. 
as it must have known, my rough translation fails to convey the sober grace of 
the original, I think that I shall not be alone in pleading guilty to that charge. 
Nor perhaps will my fellow-snecialists resent an attempt to trace the origin 
of our lack of literary grace. This defect is in part inevitable and in part 
remediable. Inevitable because of the increasingly engrossing nature of scientific 
investigation, because of the relatively small natural gift of expression which 
nature has vouchsafed to the English race, and because, as science becomes more 
complex, its followers think more and more in symbols, and those who think in 
symbols are apt to write in shorthand. The defect is remediable because it is 
traceable in some measure to the training to which we submit our youth. That 
training neglects too much the literary side of education. 
As it seems to me, there is a fundamental error in our mode of training men 
of science. The error consists in this: that students who come to English 
Universities are treated in intellectual matters not as youths but as men of 
mature minds. The professorial potter takes the clay as he finds it, and, no 
matter what its state, fires it forthwith, and lo! in course of time it is converted 
into earthenware. Were the assumption on which he acts well-founded, the 
method might be justified. If our undergraduates were, as we assume they are, 
well found in general culture, trained already in scientific method, familiar with 
the language of our fathers, and apt also to read and speak and write some other 
tongue, then let us take them straightway and bake them in the oven of 
specialisation. . 
But I at all events have never met those students, and, outside the ranks of 
genius—which training toucheth not—I believe they do not exist. The error, 
as I conceive it, lies in our failure to anply, in drafting schemes of training, the 
biological law that as society grows older its young men grow younger. Under- 
eraduates call themselves men. not solely from a sense of pride, but also in 
obedience to tradition. Centuries ago they went up to the University as men 
of fifteen or sixteen; now they go up as youths of eighteen or nineteen. With 
respect to moral discipline we are not unforgetful of their youth, but with 
respect to intellectual education we treat them as though they were grown up. 
Even the saving second subject has, I am told, been discarded from the final 
honours course. Tet me give an example in illustration of our methods. It is 
found that a student in his second or third vear knows no German, and we 
advise him,to learn it. But in what a way, with our tacit approval, does he set 
about the task! So that he may tear the meaning from a scientific text as 
John Ridd clutched the arm of Carver Doone and tore the muscle out of it as 
the string comes out of an orange! 
This barbarism we nermit, because we know that it is no barbarism but 
expediency for a trained workman to take up any tool he needs and to use it as 
he wills. In the elegant language of modern literature ‘and what he thought 
he most required he went and took the same as we.’ 
Yet, unless we hold that mental training is a scholastic fiction and that the 
teachers’ sole business is to supply carefully selected and copious provender for 
the stuffing of students like Surrey fowls, it must be our care to encourage 
general as well as special culture in our students. 
A further criticism which I have to make upon our University methods will 
seem to some far-fetched. We are prone to forget that the twin gifts of youth 
are enthusiasm and idleness. The former we encourage, but the latter, falling 
within the category of morals. we visit with our displeasure. There is, however. 
an idleness which is not laziness, but a resting period of the organism tired 
with the trouble of growing up. J could wish that our English Universities 
understood intellectual liberty as well as German Universities understand it. 
We are art to mind our sheep too much, and to overrate the virtue of docility. 
I would plead for more breadth and less svecial knowledge, for more licensed 
freedom, a lesser uniformity, a wider search for gifts. and a slighter regard 
for specialist attainments. It is never too Jate for a well-trained mind to 
master a new subiect, but he who neglects the substance of education for the 
shadow of mere knowledge robs himself of half the pleasure of his work and 
of every chance of greatness. 
Tn attempting thus to diagnose a complaint which some may think is non- 
existent I have laid myself open to attack at every point; yet I have a flickering 
