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Rncient and modern civilisations, learning and languages. And if an inquirer, 

 young or old, should ask whether, if he went there, the great Universities 

 could tell him all about the things of wonder or of beauty that he is conscious 

 of, or about the reminiscences of paet generations that he finds around him 

 as he travels through life, he could only be told that in consequence of the 

 perverse malignity of external circumstances they had no money to devote 

 to his enlightenment. The capacity would be there in abundance but not the 

 means. In three years they would put him in a position to pursue intelli- 

 gently for himself if he pleased any of the subjects in which his interest had 

 been excited but the facilities for education would extend only to the point 

 where his interest began. 



So I wrote a little pamphlet on the ' Lack of Science in Education with 

 Some Hints of What Might Be,' and when I was invited to occupy this Chair 

 I thought I might be of some service to Education if I pressed the subject 

 further and endeavoured to show how, in spite of the goodwill of nearly every- 

 body concerned, the peculiar constitution of our chief Universities was really 

 standing in the way of the lofty ideal of higher education which must find 

 expression if the education which we all want is really to come to pass in 

 this country. 



Circumstances have already vastly changed. Committees have sat upon 

 the Teaching of Science and the Teaching of INIodern Languages. A great 

 Education Act has been passed and the poverty of the Universities has over- 

 stepped thfl limits of starvation, and a Commission of Inquiry is promised. 

 So we are now on the high road to making presidential addresses matters of 

 quite subordinate interest. Still, you may be interested to hear what I 

 wrote, two years and a half ago, in explanation of the pectdiar difficulties of 

 onr educational system, so here it is. It makes a good deal of play of a 

 certain scene in ' The Merchant of Venice,' which I shall beg you to regard, 

 for a few minutes only, as a satire upon the state of the Universities in the 

 spacious times of Queen Elizabeth, after a period of magnificent activity 

 on the part of founders and benefactors and after a succession of statutes 

 for the Universities made by successive monarchs for the governance of those 

 institutions which were then recognised as of the highest importance in the 

 State. Such a period of reconstruction seems to have come again in our time, 

 and the satire, if it be one, is in some important respects as true to-day as it 

 was three centuries ago. 



I was arrested by the curious sentiment ' If to do were as easy as to know 

 what were good to do chapels ha-d been churches and poor men's cottages 

 princes' palaces.' I wondered whether Shakespeare intended this passage to 

 convey to the subtle reader an idea of Portia's youth and inexperience, or 

 perhaps to indicate that Portia was in fact intended to personify a liberal 

 education. For other subjects of human activity her statement is palpably 

 absurd. All the experience of the British race indicates to ns that the acute 

 divisions between people arise in discussions as to what were good to do ; the 

 actual doing is easy if the preliminary question ' what were good to do ' is 

 really decided. Can any one doubt that after our experience of the war? 

 For the most part it is only ingenuous youth that finds it easy to know what 

 were good to do, and perhaps there is also a note of the ingenuousness and 

 inexperience of youth in the sweeping desire for the conversion of chapels 

 into churches and poor men's cottages into princes' palaces. 



But if it were education that Shakespeare was thinking about, chapels and 

 churches, poor men's cottages and princes' palaces are not inappropriate in 

 that connection ; the sentiment stimulates the imagination. Certainly in educa- 

 tion to know what were good to do does seem in practice to be infinitely easier 

 than to do. 



From time to time the newspapers are full of reports of conferences, 

 meetings, congresses, and assemblies; all fully assui-ed that they know what 

 were good to do. Men of science justly claim to be humanists and recognise 

 the helpfulness of literary studies in their purpose ; classicists recognise the 

 need of a knowledge of science ; everybody is agreed that many things ought 

 to be done and yet very little happens : our scheme of education is still 

 unsatisfying ; why ? 



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