Nov. 6, 1879] 



NATURE 



13 



Honan within the last three or four years, and, in a less severe 

 form, in one or two of the adjoining provinces. Shansi is still 

 suffering. And now the south-east of the province of Kansah 

 has been visited by a destructive earthquake. The Peking Gazette 

 of the 22nd of August states that a memorial has been received 

 from Tso Tsung-t'ang, Governor-General of Shensi and Kansun, 

 reporting that on June 29 a slight trembling was felt at 

 Chieh CAenv, and at other sub-prefectures and districts within the 

 province of Kansuh. This trembling, which occurred at first on 

 alternate days and afterwards continued for several successive 

 days, did not entirely cease until July 11. The earth- 

 quake would appear to have reached its height on the third day ; 

 for Governor-General Tso reports that on July 1 there was 

 a violent shaking accompanied by a noise. A temple, several 

 official residences, and many dwelling-houses were completely 

 destroyed, and many persons were killed and injured. 



In the Imperial edict Tso Tsung-t'ang is directed to send 

 officers to the scene of the calamity to hold an investigation into 

 the matter and afford relief to the sufferers. A. H. 



Canton, September 13 



Vertical Shafts in the Chalk in Kent 



In the current number of Good Words there is a pleasant, 

 gossiping paper by the Rev. J. G. Wood, giving an account of 

 the curious well-like shafts found in the chalk about Erith. 

 They are 40 feet to 100 feet in depth. Mr. Wood states that 

 the sides show traces of having been wrought « ith picks made 

 of deer antlers. He appears to accept the theory of local 

 archaeologists that the shafts were executed in "prehistoric" 

 times, in the quest for flints for weapons or for some less obvious 

 purpose. 



Under any circumstances I should be loth to dispute the view 

 of so competent an authority, and in this instance I have no 

 local knowledge to guide me ; but I should be grateful if some 

 of your readers would satisfy me on the following point : — Is 

 there any instance of similar excavations which have been conclu- 

 sively proved to be the work of savages ancient or modern ? I 

 know of none within my own personal experience. 



Burrows on the "adit" or "gallery" principle, i.e., more or 

 less horizontal, can be carried surprisingly far, so long as the 

 roof does not fall in. We see this in the abodes of certain 

 quadrupeds. But, to carry down a vertical shaft a few feet in 

 diameter to a depth of 40 feet to 100 feet from the surface, even 

 in a soil as favourable as chalk, appears to me to involve recourse 

 to mechanical appliances not yet observed in u.-e among primitive 

 races. If I am wrong in this matter, the mode of excavation 

 pursued by these rude shaft-sinkers certainly affords interesting 

 matter for study. H. M. C. 



London, November 1 



THE FUNCTIONS OF UNIVERSITIES 

 "XX/E reproduce with pleasure the following extract 

 * V from an article on this subject from the Times of 

 Friday last, in connection with Prof. Max Miiller's 

 address at the Birmingham Midland Institute : — 



It would doubtless be unjust, as Prof Miiller points out 

 in his address, to attribute the lack of spontaneity, the 

 tendency to mechanical uniformity in academical studies, 

 exclusively to the influence of an elaborate system of 

 examinations. Examinations are clearly necessary, as 

 he justly contends, even though they are no better than a 

 necessary evil; but they are rather means than ends, and 

 they clearly become mischievous when they corrode and 

 destroy the true spirit of academical life. Prof. Miiller, a 

 German professor in an English university, whose opinion 

 is on that account entitled to peculiar weight, draws a 

 favourable contrast between English and foreign uni- 

 versities ; the former, he says, are free and self-governed, 

 and that gives them an unrivalled position in spite of all 

 their faults. The remark is true and appropriate, espe- 

 cially as a rejoinder to the hasty and ill-considered 

 criticisms of Prof. Helmholtz in his rectorial address at 

 Berlin, delivered some time ago. But the corporate 

 freedom of the English universities, is, unhappily, not 

 inconsistent with a good deal of personal bondage. Let 



us contrast, for instance, the career of a graduate of 

 a German university with that of an English Fellow 

 of a college. The former, as soon as he has 

 passed the necessary examinations for his degree, is 

 perfectly free to follow his own bent. Even in taking 

 his degree he is entitled to claim it, partly at least, on the 

 ground of some dissertation which he has written con- 

 taining the results of his own independent study and 

 research. If he elects to follow an academical career, he 

 becomes at first a Privat-docent, and has to attract pupils, 

 not by his power of preparing them for a particular 

 examination, but by his command of all the available 

 knowledge in a special branch of study, and by his 

 capacity for enlarging its bounds. If he is called to be a 

 professor, it is because he is known to be master of his 

 subject, and to be keeping himself on a level with the 

 march of knowledge in relation to it. The English 

 graduade may have all the aspiration to follow this career 

 of true academical freedom ; but his pupils for the most 

 part have no higher object than to pass an examination, 

 and it is his business to prepare them for it. Any know- 

 ledge that he posseses beyond the range required for that 

 purpose becomes a useless burden to him. The results of 

 fresh research necessarily find their way but slowly into 

 examination papers, and consequently the teacher at an 

 English university, if he studies at all, is bound to study, 

 not for himself, but for his pupils. He must learn all that 

 they want to know, and he must put his knowledge into 

 the form which will be most readily available for their 

 purposes. Hence, if he has time to write at all, he 

 writes summaries of history, essays in philosophy, 

 or prepares a handy edition of a portion of a classic 

 commonly read in the schools. A learned and scholarly 

 edition of an author unrecognised in our somewhat 

 narrow classical curriculum, a history like Grote's 

 or Gibbon's, a philosophical work like the " Essay 

 on the Human Understanding," or the " Critique of Pure 

 Reason," are works hardly now to be looked for from a 

 resident English graduate. Professorial work, of course, 

 is different ; it is beginning now to be recognised that it is 

 the business of a professor to study widely and deeply and 

 to advance the bounds of knowledge. But if the coming 

 generation of teachers, the professoriate of the future, is 

 to be confined to the range of a rigid and cramping sys- 

 tem of examinations, narrow in their content, but all- 

 embracing in their extent, what hope is there for that 

 academic freedom, for that bracing spirit of living know- 

 ledge, of active thought, of ever-advancing study which, 

 as Prof. Miiller tells us, it is the true function of a uni- 

 versity to foster and keep alive ? 



The truth is, perhaps, that our universities are a little 

 too careful of the functions they so admirably discharge 

 of finishing schools, a little too unmindful of those higher 

 duties to which Prof. Miiller's address forcibly calls 

 attention. All that they do is done well, but there is still 

 one thing needful. " That is the true academic stage in 

 every man's life when he learns to work, not to please 

 others, be they schoolmasters or examiners, but to please 

 himself; when he works for sheer love of work in and for 

 the highest of all purposes — conquest of truth." How 

 many of our English University students ever reach this 

 stage at all ? That they learn much and learn it well 

 cannot be doubted , that they are examined much and 

 are examined well is equally indisputable. But we should 

 be ery sorry to see the Universities complacently resign 

 the function of making scholars in favour of that of test- 

 ing the attainments of schoolboys. We are very far from 

 arguing that examinations can be dispensed with alto- 

 gether. They have their purpose, and it is a very neces- 

 sary purpose to fulfil. It is their indirect results in 

 stereotyping academical effort, in extinguishing academi- 

 cal freedom, in discouraging wide study, in checking 

 individuality, and in repressing spontaneity, rather than 

 their direct results, that we have to fear The evil is no 



