Jantjart 21, 18«7.] 



SCIEJSrCE. 



63 



work made upon roe. The sturdy intelligence of 

 the pitmen, their determined earnestness, the ap- 

 preciative and responsive way in which they 

 listened, the downright straightforwardness of 

 their speech, — all these it is impossible fully to 

 express. I am persuaded that in the Northum- 

 berland and Durham districts the pitmen are ripe 

 for a scheme that will bring higher education and 

 culture within their reach." The northern popu- 

 lation is eager for knowledge, and travels long 

 distances to seek it, in all kinds of weather, over 

 the roughest of roads. Some persons here walked 

 regularly six miles to hear the lectures. At New- 

 castle some travelled as much as ten miles to hear 

 the lectures. Two pitmen, brothers, attended a 

 course regularly from a distance of five miles : 

 they went there by train, but were compelled to 

 walk home. This they did for three months on 

 dark nights, over wretchedly bad roads, and in 

 all kinds of weather. One miner writes in grati- 

 tude, "I deeply deplore the last thirty-four years 

 of my life. Being buried in the mines since I was 

 nine years of age, and taught to look jealously on 

 science as being antagonistic to religion, I little 

 thought what pleasures of thought and contem- 

 plation I lost ; I have, however, broken loose from 

 my fetters, and am proceeding onwards." It is 

 sad to think that this energy and hunger for 

 learning should be cramped by inability to pay 

 for it. Working-men can seldom afford more 

 than one shilling or one shilling sixpence for a 

 course, yet at two shiUings a ticket it would take 

 an attendance of seven hundred to make the lec- 

 tures pay. Besides, the cost of the ticket is not 

 the only tax on the artisan. Text-books must be 

 bought, weekly papers posted to the lecturer, while 

 vsrages are lost by attendance at the evening 

 classes. The whole system requires a solid pecun- 

 iary basis to make it permanent ; and that, up 

 to the present moment, has not been forthcoming. 

 Although much has been done, we may hope for 

 much larger developments in the future. A staff 

 of thoroughly trained lecturers should grow up, 

 who will make this occupation the work of their 

 lives. The courses of instruction will be more 

 systematic, and will be spread regularly over a 

 number of years. In some cases the lectures will 

 crystallize, as they have already done, into local 

 colleges or small universities ; in others they will 

 remain in a more fluid state. Whatever may be 

 the result of the movement, there is no doubt that 

 the problem has been solved of bringing the high- 

 est university education within the reach of the 

 lowest classes who are capable of receiving it. 

 Such a movement may be less necessary in coun- 

 tries where education is more democratic, and 

 where no class has been left out ; but in England, 



where the higher education, like every thing else, 

 is organized mainly for the privileged classes, such 

 an enterprise is an incalculable boon. 



Some few years ago, on a summer afternoon, a 

 body of artisans were watching our Cambridge 

 undergraduates amusing themselves on the river 

 which flows by the backs of the colleges. Their 

 conversation was overheard by a passer-by, and it 

 was discovered that they were under the impres- 

 sion that all Cambridge undergraduates were sons 

 of noblemen, and that no one could live at the 

 university under a thousand pounds a year. 

 This was the exaggeration of ignorance, but let 

 us hope that the extension movement will in 

 another generation render all such misunderstand- 

 ings impossible. Oscar Browning. 



THE TRAINING OF THE FACULTIES OF 

 JUDGMENT AND REASONING.^ 



I AM going to endeavor to show, as far as I 

 have the power to do so, how the psychological 

 and logical principles which relate to judgment 

 and reasoning may be applied to the treatment of 

 our ordinary school subjects, — what our methods 

 of teaching should be, if we desire those methods 

 to be framed in accordance with the laws and 

 suggestions of mental science. I must refer you 

 to Mr. Sully's indispensable ' Teachers handbook 

 of psychology,' for the discussion and full exposi- 

 tion of the psychological principles. But also, I 

 shall begin by running over the chief points which 

 require our attention, before I attempt to sketch 

 my lessons, so that you may have the principles 

 on which I work freshly in your minds. My 

 desire, as you know, \§ not to upset or change this 

 or that method of teaching this or that subject, 

 but to bring the precepts and laws of psychology 

 to bear directly on the actual practice of the class- 

 room. In what I have got to say on the logical 

 side of the matter, I am largely indebted to Mr. 

 Jevons, to whose excellent and suggestive little 

 book, ' Elementary lessons in logic,' I must refer 

 you. And let me say here that I think every 

 teacher ought to own the book, and to make a 

 point of mastering especially the last ten lessons. 

 To judge is to connect two notions, two repre- 

 sentations or mental images of what has been 

 perceived ; and the outward expression of this 

 act is a statement in words, or a proposition. 

 Thus, if we have acquired the general notions or 

 concepts, say, of hardness and heaviness, we may 

 connect either or both with any particular thing 

 or class of things, or with any other notion. We 

 may say, ' This ground is hard,' or, ' This table is 



1 From the Journal of education, a paper read before 

 the Education society, Oct. 25, 1886. 



