170 REVIEWS — THE COURSE OF COLLEGIATE EDUCATION. 



doctor of medicine : who when he meddles with heresies, does so 

 rather in the san-benito, than in the Cowl of the Franciscan. And 

 as for our modern Philosophers, Chemists, Civil Engineers, Geologists, 

 Astronomers, Naturalists, and Litterateurs of all sorts : the old 

 Trivium and Qadrivium of medieval Universities 'would have shut 

 them out altogether from the mystic perfections which their seven 

 arts symbolised. Hence, without condemning ancient university 

 systems we can have no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that a 

 very different system is demanded for these modern days of ours > 

 On this subject the new principal of McGill College remarks : 



" It is a gi-eat and common error to suppose that collegiate education has 

 reached a poiut where it may safely remain stationary, — that its course has been 

 unalterably fixed by authority aud precedent. It is an equally serious and pre- 

 valent error, to take it for granted that it has attained its full extent of develop- 

 ment -when its benefits are confined to a few professional men, or persons of 

 wealth and leisure. Such views eanuot in the present state of the world lead to 

 the highest prosperity of collegiate institutions, nor cause their humanising and 

 elevating influences to be extensively felt on the mass of society. Happily in 

 our day wider views are becoming prevalent, and no subject has been more 

 extensively agitated in educational circles than University Reform. This re- 

 forming spirit has not only stamped its impress on all the newer colleges, but 

 has made a powerful impression on the oldest universities on both sides of the 

 AtlaJnc: ana us tendency is to make the carefully elaborated learning of all 

 the great academic centres become mure fully than it has yet been, the principal 

 moving power in the progress of practical science, of useful art, and of popular 

 education. As illustrations I need only refer to the reforms now in progress in 

 the great English Universities, to the recent establishment of a Technological 

 Chair at Edinburgh, to the Scientific Schools of Harvard aud Yale, to the special 

 courses of practical science in the new London Colleges, aud in the Queen's 

 Colleges of Ireland, and to the similar improvements in Brown University, in Am- 

 herst College, aud in the University of Toronto." 



On this subject, however, there can be no need to generalise or en- 

 large. We are not sure that the danger does not, in part at least, 

 lie rather in this reforming direction. The Chancellor of Michigan, 

 and most other American university reformers, are abundant in 

 their denunciation of English Universities, not always aparently with 

 the very best knowledge of what they are holding up to condemna- 

 tion. Witness, for example, the following comparison by Dr. Tap- 

 pan between the English University system and the German or 

 Prussian one, — which is greatly more the subject of American praise 

 than of imitation : 



" Compare now the state of popular education in England with that in Ger- 

 many. In England the university system has not reached a proper develop- 

 ment. Here the teachers are only the fellows — an elect and exclusive class, 

 while the graduates at large instead of feeling the obligation of becoming 



