i88i.J 
Analyses of Booh, 491 
evidence, to any inherent defeCts in the British and Irish mind. 
The causes, which are very complex, include the want of unity 
of design in our national institutions. We set two or three dis- 
tinct bodies to do work which should be committed to one alone. 
He quotes from Dr. Weise the very just remark that with us 
“ public instruction in general does not show a progress towards 
objects clearly recognised and defined. An extraordinary amount 
of power, time, and money is still wasted, from a want of plan 
and unity.” 
Another evil lies in our defective patent law, which renders it 
almost impossible for a poor man to secure a right of property 
in his ideas. We venture to say that the patent laws of the 
United States are in themselves a most powerful agency for the 
technical education of the American people. 
Another cause of our deficiencies lies in our excessive attach- 
ment to literature as compared with physical science. We love 
words and dreams rather than things. We honour the orator, 
the novelist, the historian, the lawyer, the popular preacher, and 
the political agitator, far more than the inventor or the discoverer. 
And as men, of whatever mental calibre, cannot dispense with 
food, shelter, and clothing, it follows that a majority of our best 
minds gravitate towards the pursuits which are most honoured 
and best remunerated. Even in the present day, when efforts 
are being made to supply better facilities for scientific culture, 
the friends of literature, not yet satisfied with the lion’s share of 
time, funds, and honours which they already possess, cry out for 
more. It seems that a college which shall confine itself to 
Science must not exist in England. 
But if Prof. Galloway somewhat overlooks the exclusively lite- 
rary tendencies of the average Englishman, he is the more 
explicit and satisfactory on the defects of our method of teaching. 
Our cardinal sin is the almost exclusive cultivation of verbal 
memory. This, again, is a necessary result of the system of 
prizes, certificates, and of competitive examination in all its 
phases. The teacher is, direCtly or indirectly, paid by “ results.” 
The more of his pupils “ pass ” such and such an examination 
the more will his reputation and his emoluments rise. Hence 
this “ passing ” becomes a primary objeCt. As our author puts 
it, he seledts those of his pupils who have a good verbal memory,, 
joined, we may add, with glibness of speech and a considerable- 
share of assurance, and to these he pays his almost exclusive 
attention. These seleCt few he trains up not in a thorough 
knowledge of the subject, but in the art of answering questions 
upon it. What those questions are likely to be he ascertains 
approximately by collating the examination papers of former 
years, and by carefully studying the whims and the predilections 
of the examiner. He knows what theories the latter believes in, 
and whose text-books he prefers. 
It is plain that by this process a kind of unnatural selection is 
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