605 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 
seem curious coming from a person who has always railed at London University 
as a mere examining board. I still say that it was never a University at all in 
the past. But a man reading hard by himself, perhaps far away from a college, 
could have a severe test applied to his acquiremernts which encouraged him in 
his studies when he had no other encouragement, and the test was very rightly 
a severe test. ‘To do away with its outside examinations altogether, as I believe 
is the intention of the authorities, will be exceedingly harmful. It would be 
impertinent in me to make a suggestion as to the distinction which might be 
made between a degree conferred by his own professors upon a man who has 
attended regularly a college of repute, and a degree conferred by a mere examin- 
ing body upon an outside student. For the first, the examination test may be 
easy. The Oxford and Cambridge pass degree examinations are quite easy, and 
rightly so, for the real qualification is that an undergraduate shall have lived for 
three years in the intellectual and cultured life of an Oxford or Cambridge col- 
lege. In the other case the mere examination is the only test, and it is rightly very 
severe. The two kinds of degree differ altogether in quality. In a new country 
of great distances I can imagine many good secondary schools to be established 
having neither sufficient funds nor sufficient pupils to be qualified as Universities. 
Yet it may be of enormous importance that a few of the older pupils at such 
schools should as external students be examined for degrees by distant Universi- 
ties, which, in such a case, are merely outside examining bodies. J can see the 
gradual increase in importance of such secondary schools leading to the estab- 
lishment of something higher—namely, colleges of University rank—and I can 
see such affiliated colleges becoming Universities themselves perhaps after a period 
in which two or more of them federated themselves as Universities. But I say 
that there ought always to be some examination machinery by which a student 
who is too poor or who through any other circumstance is unable to attend a 
University college may be encouraged to study by himself, by having his 
attainments tested. 
In this Address I have said nothing about the education of women. I have 
always advocated higher education for girls, but it is surely wicked to teach 
girls as if they were boys. Men are concentrative, and they specialise ; 
women observe more and more about many things, and they really have more 
capacity for acquiring mental power. Until quite recently girls were saved 
from stupidity, but the high schools are now giving a crammed knowledge of 
facts and of the opinions of the tribe, so that girls and women are ceasing to 
think for themselves. The education of men is in a bad way, but that of women 
is becoming much worse. 
I think that in this Address I have put forward no idea that I have not 
already published time after time in the last thirty-five years. I put these views 
forward again because, after much thought and much experience, I still think 
them to be correct, and I feel sure that they must prevail. But I must confess 
that it is only a very hopeful man who can peg away at a thankless task as 
Dr. Armstrong and I have been doing so long. 
MELBOURNE. 
FRIDAY, AUGUST 14. 
Professor H. E. Armstrone, F.R.S., Vice-President, delivered the following 
Address :— 
The Place of Wisdom (Science) in the State and in Education. 
‘So soon as men get to discuss the importance of a thing, they do infallibly 
set about arranging it, facilitating it, forwarding it and rest not till in some 
approximate degree they have accomplished it.’-—Cartyte. 
Tuts, doubtless, is a true statement; the difficulty is, however, to persuade men 
of the importance of a thing. We come to persuade you. As an Association 
we are now eighty-four years old: our main purpose has been to obtain a 
