1883*] On 'Technical Education . 40^ 
members in each group of substances, and so throughout the 
entire analytical course. But my plan possesses other im- 
portant advantages over every other which has yet been 
proposed. It exhibits a like progression to the mind ; it 
begins with a few subjects, and successively adds to them 
until the entire analytical course is reached ; it proceeds, in 
short, from the simple to the complex. 
Those who seek to reform and improve any established 
system like the one under discussion have generally to deal 
with two classes of obstructives : the more formidable class 
consists of those who are pecuniarily interested in preventing 
any change ; the other class consists of those who are only 
superficially acquainted with the subject : those composing 
the latter class generally cite authority in support of their 
views, and they are not unfrequently made use of under 
this veil of authority by the former class in opposing all 
real reform. Now as written examinations form the chief, 
if not the sole, tests for estimating the students’ attain- 
ments in the Inductive Sciences at our different Universities, 
these apparently high authorities in all educational matters 
may be adduced in opposition to my views of the subject : 
it may be well therefore to inform the second class of oppo- 
nents that only such branches of study were examined upon 
whose written examinations were first established at our 
Universities. As the examinee could do or put in practice 
at the examination just as he would in any future employ- 
ment in the a< 5 tual business of life, what were termed mere 
information subjects — which do not, like the former, admit 
of direct measurement — were excluded, and it was long before 
they were admitted as examination subjects. Pen, ink, and 
paper are the instruments, in addition to books, which stu- 
dents of languages and the Deductive Sciences require for 
the prosecution of their studies in these subjects ; but pen, 
ink, and paper, as well as books, are only subsidiary instru- 
ments in the cultivation of the Inductive Sciences : to 
acquire a knowledge of these sciences the student must not 
only know what has been done by others, but he must him- 
self study the productions and operations of Nature in the 
laboratory or in the field ; and it is there only he can be 
efficiently examined, for it is there only that it can be ascer- 
tained whether he has acquired a knowledge of things or 
only the names of things. This examination system, even 
at our Universities, is destructive of good teaching; the 
Professor is apt to depend more for obtaining a class by 
getting his subject to be one examined upon than attracting 
them by good teaching, and the students, I was informed 
