TEACHERS AND THEIR PUPILS 5°09 
you will find the majority of students engaged in exercises in which 
they feel no responsibility whatever. In my opinion this indicates that 
for them the spirit of true university education has never been awak- 
ened. It is, after all, very largely a question of attitude of mind. Any 
subject of study, whether it be a scientific experiment or an historical 
event, or the significance of a text, is a matter of interpretation, and to 
approach it in the university spirit is to approach it with the question, 
“Ts this the right interpretation?” Upon that question can be hung a 
whole philosophy of the subject, and from it can proceed a whole series 
of investigations: it embodies the true spirit of research and it opens 
the door to true learning. 
In discussing university education I have not, of course, forgotten 
that many persons have taught themselves up to a university standard 
entirely without the aid of professors; indeed, the University of Lon- 
don long ago provided an avenue to a university degree which has been 
successfully followed by many such persons with the best possible re- 
sults. But I have endeavored to remind you that at the university as 
at school for most students the personal influence of the teacher is the 
important thing; that at the university as at school success in teaching 
depends mainly on the extent to which the interest of the student is 
aroused; and that at the university this is only to be done by providing 
him with a purpose and a responsibility in his work in order that he 
may understand to what conclusions it is leading him. Until this is 
done we shall still have university students complaining that they do 
not see the object of what they are learning or understand what it all 
means. This complaint, which I have often heard from past and pres- 
ent students of different universities, suggested to me that I should on 
the present occasion deal with this defect in our customary methods. 
In the hope that the attention of university teachers may be turned 
more fully to this aspect of their work I have ventured to make it the 
subject of my address. 
