goo LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xviii 



is infinitely greater than the ascertained, and that the chief busi- 

 ness of the teacher is not so much to make scholars as to train 

 pioneers. 



From this point of view, the University occupies a position 

 altogether independent of that of the coping-stone of schools 

 for general education, combined with technical schools of The- 

 ology, Law, and Medicine. It is not primarily an institution for 

 testing the work of schoolmasters, or for ascertaining the fit- 

 ness of young men to be curates, lawyers, or doctors. 



It is an institution in which a man who claims to devote 

 himself to Science or Art, should be able to find some one who 

 can teach him what is already known, and train him in the 

 methods of knowing more. 



I include under Art, — Literature, the pictorial and plastic 

 art with Architecture, and Music; and under Science, — Logic, 

 Philosophy, Philology, Mathematics, and the Physical Sciences. 



The question of the connection of the High Schools for 

 general education, and of the technical schools of Theology, 

 Law, Medicine, Engineering, Art, Music, and so on, with the 

 University is a matter of practical detail. Probably the teach- 

 ing of the subjects which stand in the relation of preliminaries 

 to technical teaching and final studies in higher general educa- 

 tion in the.University would be utilised by the colleges and tech- 

 nical schools. 



All that I have to say on this subject is, that I see no reason 

 why the existing University of London should not be completed 

 in the sense I have defined by grafting upon it a professoriate 

 with the appropriate means and appliances, which would supply 

 London with the analogue of the Ecole des hautes Etudes and 

 the College de France in Paris, and of the Laboratories with 

 the Professor Extraordinarius and Privat Docenten in the Ger- 

 man Universities. 



A new Commission was promised to look into the whole 

 question of the London University. This is referred to in 

 a letter to Sir J. Donnelly of March 30, 1892 : — 



Unless you want to kill Foster, don't suggest him for the 

 Commission. He is on one already. 



The whole affair is a perfect muddle of competing crude 

 projects and vested interests, and is likely to end in a worse 

 muddle, as anything but a patch up is, I believe, outside prac- 

 tical politics at present. 



If I had carte blanche, I should cut away the technical 



