PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 347 



seem to many of you far-fetched, and perhaps unseemly jesting, if I did not 

 believe that this fantastic view of the lottery of the caskets contains the sug- 

 gestion of an element in the governance of our highest educational institutions 

 which deserves your gravest and most serious consideration. What I have in 

 mind at the moment is the unforeseen and undesired reeult of the competition 

 of the Colleges within the University itself as quasi-independent educational 

 institutions. It is this small matter, from some points of view of quite minor 

 importance, which, so far as I can see, prevents our gi'eat Universities from 

 taking the leading part which they might take in exemplifying the ideals of a 

 co-ordinated national system of education, and makes the success or failure of 

 those great institutions something of the nature of a lottery. They may offer 

 ten thousand different avenues from matriculation to a degree, and yet the 

 student may find himself imperfectly educated in the end. 



One may, indeed one must, picture to oneself the idea of the Colleges as a 

 number of educational inetitiitions co-operating in an avowed and transparent 

 common purpose of the University to display the highest educational ideals. 

 So I think if they were v/illing they might be, without any sacrifice of their 

 individuality or of those magnificent traditions which have fulfilled the high 

 purpose of their pious founders and benefactors. Let us keep that picture 

 for a while in mind. 



I have taken out from the Cambridge University Calendar for 1918 a list 

 of subjects selected for teaching in the University and Colleges with the 

 number of Professors, Readers, Lecturers or Teachers assigned to the several 

 subjects. The numbers are given in an Appendix. 



If any of my hearers has ever attempted a similar task he will agree with 

 me that the compilation of the list from the information given for the 

 Universities and Colleges is not by any means an easy matter, because the 

 specification in so many instances is indefinite in various ways ; but I am not 

 dess qualified than the average inquirer, not actually resident in the University, 

 to understand what the information means, and it is for the average inquirer 

 presumably that the Calendar is published. 1 am, however, not intending to 

 refer to small details, so I hope that the inevitable imperfections, even in so 

 imperfect a year as 1918. will not seriously affect what I have to say. 



I find that there are 175 University teachers (professors, readers, lecturers, 

 etc.) and 176 College lecturers. These two classes are certainly not 

 mutually exclusive. In the natural sciences particularly the same names 

 appear in both lists, but, be that as it may, I find that the 175 University 

 teachers between them deal with 73 subjects, an average of 2^ per subject, 

 and are distributed between subjects in the following manner : — 



Number of University teachers assigned for a subject 



987654321 



Number of subjects which have the number of teachers specified in the 

 upper line 



2 3 1 4 1 3 8 10 42. 

 The 176 College lecturers deal with only 23 subjects, an average of 7^ per- 

 subject. They are distributed as follows : — 



Number of College lecturers assigned for a subject 



33 30 23 18 17 10 5 3 2 1 ? 



Number of subjects that have the number of teachers specified in the 

 upper line 



11111131396 



Here we see at once a great difference between the educational systems. 

 The University is obviously striving to meet as far as possible its higher 

 educational responsibilities. There is great differentiation of duty ; 42 teachers 

 are responsible each for a single subject ; there are only two cases in which 

 a subject has so many as nine teachers. Whereas in the Colleges the tendency 

 is for the same subject to have a great nimiber of exponents. The favoured 

 subjects are classics 33, mathematics and natural philosophy 30, history and 

 economics 23, natural sciences 18, divinity 17. All those subjects are 

 provided for, to some extent at least, in the programme of the University. 



