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			 SCIENCE & EDUCATION

ESSAYS

BY

THOMAS H. HUXLEY

PREFACE

The apology offered in the Preface to the first volume of this seriesfor the occurrence of repetitions, is even more needful here I amafraid. But it could hardly be otherwise with speeches and essays, onthe same topic, addressed at intervals, during more than thirty years, to widely distant and different hearers and readers. The oldest piece, that "On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences, "contains some crudities, which I repudiated when the lecture was firstreprinted, more than twenty years ago; but it will be seen that much ofwhat I have had to say, later on in life, is merely a development ofthe propositions enunciated in this early and sadly-imperfect piece ofwork. 

In view of the recent attempt to disturb the compromise about theteaching of dogmatic theology, solemnly agreed to by the first SchoolBoard for London, the fifteenth Essay; and, more particularly, the noten. 3, may be found interesting. 

T. H. H. 

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, _September 4th, 1893_. 

CONTENTS

I JOSEPH PRIESTLEY [1874](An Address delivered on the occasion of the presentation of a statueof Priestley to the town of Birmingham)

II ON THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES [1854](An Address delivered in S. Martin's Hall)

III EMANCIPATION--BLACK AND WHITE [1865]

IV A LIBERAL EDUCATION; AND WHERE TO FIND IT [1868](An Address to the South London Working Men's College)

V SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION: NOTES OF AN AFTER-DINNER SPEECH [1869](Liverpool Philomathic Society)

VI SCIENCE AND CULTURE [1880](An Address delivered at the opening of Sir Josiah Mason's ScienceCollege, Birmingham)

VII ON SCIENCE AND ART IN RELATION TO EDUCATION [1882](An Address to the members of the Liverpool Institution)

VIII UNIVERSITIES: ACTUAL AND IDEAL [1874](Rectorial Address, Aberdeen)

IX ADDRESS ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION [1876](Delivered at the opening of the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore)

X ON THE STUDY OF BIOLOGY [1876](A Lecture in connection with the Loan Collection of ScientificApparatus, South Kensington Museum)

XI ON ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY [1877]

XII ON MEDICAL EDUCATION [1870](An Address to the students of the Faculty of Medicine in UniversityCollege, London)

XIII THE STATE AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION [1884]

XIV THE CONNECTION OF THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES WITH MEDICINE [1881](An Address to the International Medical Congress)

XV THE SCHOOL BOARDS: WHAT THEY CAN DO, AND WHAT THEY MAY DO [1870]

XVI TECHNICAL EDUCATION [1877]

XVII ADDRESS ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE PROMOTION OFTECHNICAL EDUCATION [1887]

COLLECTED ESSAYS

VOLUME III

I

JOSEPH PRIESTLEY

[1874]

If the man to perpetuate whose memory we have this day raised a statuehad been asked on what part of his busy life's work he set the highestvalue, he would undoubtedly have pointed to his voluminouscontributions to theology. In season and out of season, he was thesteadfast champion of that hypothesis respecting the Divine naturewhich is termed Unitarianism by its friends and Socinianism by itsfoes. Regardless of odds, he was ready to do battle with all comers inthat cause; and if no adversaries entered the lists, he would sallyforth to seek them. 

To this, his highest ideal of duty, Joseph Priestley sacrificed thevulgar prizes of life, which, assuredly, were within easy reach of aman of his singular energy and varied abilities. For this object he putaside, as of secondary importance, those scientific investigationswhich he loved so well, and in which he showed himself so competent toenlarge the boundaries of natural knowledge and to win fame. In thiscause he not only cheerfully suffered obloquy from the bigoted and theunthinking, and came within sight of martyrdom; but bore with thatwhich is much harder to be borne than all these, the unfeignedastonishment and hardly disguised contempt of a brilliant society, composed of men whose sympathy and esteem must have been most dear tohim, and to whom it was simply incomprehensible that a philosophershould seriously occupy himself with any form of Christianity. 

It appears to me that the man who, setting before himself such an idealof life, acted up to it consistently, is worthy of the deepest respect, whatever opinion may be entertained as to the real value of the tenetswhich he so zealously propagated and defended. 

But I am sure that I speak not only for myself, but for all thisassemblage, when I say that our purpose to-day is to do honour, not toPriestley, the Unitarian divine, but to Priestley, the fearlessdefender of rational freedom in thought and in action: to Priestley, the philosophic thinker; to that Priestley who held a foremost placeamong "the swift runners who hand over the lamp of life, " [1] andtransmit from one generation to another the fire kindled, in the childhood of the world, at the Promethean altar of Science. 

The main incidents of Priestley's life are so well known that I needdwell upon them at no great length. 

Born in 1733, at Fieldhead, near Leeds, and brought up among Calvinistsof the straitest orthodoxy, the boy's striking natural ability led tohis being devoted to the profession of a minister of religion; and, in1752, he was sent to the Dissenting Academy at Daventry--an institutionwhich authority left undisturbed, though its existence contravened thelaw. The teachers under whose instruction and influence the young mancame at Daventry, carried out to the letter the injunction to "try allthings: hold fast that which is good, " and encouraged the discussion ofevery imaginable proposition with complete freedom, the leadingprofessors taking opposite sides; a discipline which, admirable as itmay be from a purely scientific point of view, would seem to becalculated to make acute, rather than sound, divines. Priestley tellsus, in his "Autobiography, " that he generally found himself on theunorthodox side: and, as he grew older, and his faculties attainedtheir maturity, this native tendency towards heterodoxy grew with hisgrowth and strengthened with his strength. He passed from Calvinism toArianism; and finally, in middle life, landed in that very broad formof Unitarianism by which his craving after a credible and consistenttheory of things was satisfied. 

On leaving Daventry Priestley became minister of a congregation, firstat Needham Market, and secondly at Nantwich; but whether on account ofhis heterodox opinions, or of the stuttering which impeded hisexpression of them in the pulpit, little success attended his effortsin this capacity. In 1761, a career much more suited to his abilitiesbecame open to him. He was appointed "tutor in the languages" in theDissenting Academy at Warrington, in which capacity, besides givingthree courses of lectures, he taught Latin, Greek, French, and Italian, and read lectures on the theory of language and universal grammar, onoratory, philosophical criticism, and civil law. And it is interestingto observe that, as a teacher, he encouraged and cherished in thosewhom he instructed the freedom which he had enjoyed, in his own studentdays, at Daventry. One of his pupils tells us that, "At the conclusion of his lecture, he always encouraged his students to express their sentiments relative to the subject of it, and to urge any objections to what he had delivered, without reserve. It pleased him when any one commenced such a conversation. In order to excite the freest discussion, he occasionally invited the students to drink tea with him, in order to canvass the subjects of his lectures. I do not recollect that he ever showed the least displeasure at the strongest objections that were made to what he delivered, but I distinctly remember the smile of approbation with which he usually received them: nor did he fail to point out, in a very encouraging manner, the ingenuity or force of any remarks that were made, when they merited these characters. His object, as well as Dr. Aikin's, was to engage the students to examine and decide for themselves, uninfluenced by the sentiments of any other persons. " [2]

It would be difficult to give a better description of a model teacherthan that conveyed in these words. 

From his earliest days, Priestley had shown a strong bent towards thestudy of nature; and his brother Timothy tells us that the boy putspiders into bottles, to see how long they would live in the sameair--a curious anticipation of the investigations of his later years. At Nantwich, where he set up a school, Priestley informs us that hebought an air pump, an electrical machine, and other instruments, inthe use of which he instructed his scholars. But he does not seem tohave devoted himself seriously to physical science until 1766, when hehad the great good fortune to meet Benjamin Franklin, whose friendshiphe ever afterwards enjoyed. Encouraged by Franklin, he wrote a "Historyof Electricity, " which was published in 1767, and appears to have metwith considerable success. 

In the same year, Priestley left Warrington to become the minister of acongregation at Leeds; and, here, happening to live next door to apublic brewery, as he says, "I, at first, amused myself with making experiments on the fixed air which I found ready-made in the process of fermentation. When I removed from that house I was under the necessity of making fixed air for myself; and one experiment leading to another, as I have distinctly and faithfully noted in my various publications on the subject, I by degrees contrived a convenient apparatus for the purpose, but of the cheapest kind. 

 "When I began these experiments I knew very little of _chemistry_, and had, in a manner, no idea on the subject before I attended a course of chemical lectures, delivered in the Academy at Warrington, by Dr. Turner of Liverpool. But I have often thought that, upon the whole, this circumstance was no disadvantage to me; as, in this situation, I was led to devise an apparatus and processes of my own, adapted to my peculiar views; whereas, if I had been previously accustomed to the usual chemical processes, I should not have so easily thought of any other, and without new modes of operation, I should hardly have discovered anything materially new. " [3]

The first outcome of Priestley's chemical work, published in 1772, wasof a very practical character. He discovered the way of impregnatingwater with an excess of "fixed air, " or carbonic acid, and therebyproducing what we now know as "soda water"--a service to naturally, andstill more to artificially, thirsty souls, which those whose parchedthroats and hot heads are cooled by morning draughts of that beverage, cannot too gratefully acknowledge. In the same year, Priestleycommunicated the extensive series of observations which his industryand ingenuity had accumulated, in the course of four years, to theRoyal Society, under the title of "Observations on Different Kinds ofAir"--a memoir which was justly regarded of so much merit andimportance, that the Society at once conferred upon the author thehighest distinction in their power, by awarding him the Copley Medal. 

In 1771 a proposal was made to Priestley to accompany Captain Cook inhis second voyage to the South Seas. He accepted it, and hiscongregation agreed to pay an assistant to supply his place during hisabsence. But the appointment lay in the hands of the Board ofLongitude, of which certain clergymen were members; and whether theseworthy ecclesiastics feared that Priestley's presence among the ship'scompany might expose His Majesty's sloop _Resolution_ to the fatewhich aforetime befell a certain ship that went from Joppa to Tarshish;or whether they were alarmed lest a Socinian should undermine thatpiety which, in the days of Commodore Trunnion, so strikinglycharacterised sailors, does not appear; but, at any rate, they objectedto Priestley "on account of his religious principles, " and appointedthe two Forsters, whose "religious principles, " if they had been knownto these well-meaning but not far-sighted persons, would probably havesurprised them. 

In 1772 another proposal was made to Priestley. Lord Shelburne, desiring a "literary companion, " had been brought into communicationwith Priestley by the good offices of a friend of both, Dr. Price; andoffered him the nominal post of librarian, with a good house andappointments, and an annuity in case of the termination of theengagement. Priestley accepted the offer, and remained with LordShelburne for seven years, sometimes residing at Calne, sometimestravelling abroad with the Earl. 

Why the connection terminated has never been exactly known; but it iscertain that Lord Shelburne behaved with the utmost consideration andkindness towards Priestley; that he fulfilled his engagements to theletter; and that, at a later period, he expressed a desire thatPriestley should return to his old footing in his house. Probablyenough, the politician, aspiring to the highest offices in the State, may have found the position of the protector of a man who was beingdenounced all over the country as an infidel and an atheist somewhatembarrassing. In fact, a passage in Priestley's "Autobiography" on theoccasion of the publication of his "Disquisitions relating to Matterand Spirit, " which took place in 1777, indicates pretty clearly thestate of the case:--

 "(126) It being probable that this publication would be unpopular, and might be the means of bringing odium on my patron, several attempts were made by his friends, though none by himself, to dissuade me from persisting in it. But being, as I thought, engaged in the cause of important truth, I proceeded without regard to any consequences, assuring them that this publication should not be injurious to his lordship. "

It is not unreasonable to suppose that his lordship, as a keen, practical man of the world, did not derive much satisfaction from thisassurance. The "evident marks of dissatisfaction" which Priestley sayshe first perceived in his patron in 1778, may well have arisen from thepeer's not unnatural uneasiness as to what his domesticated, but nottamed, philosopher might write next, and what storm might thereby hebrought down on his own head; and it speaks very highly for LordShelburne's delicacy that, in the midst of such perplexities, he madenot the least attempt to interfere with Priestley's freedom of action. In 1780, however, he intimated to Dr. Price that he should be glad toestablish Priestley on his Irish estates: the suggestion wasinterpreted, as Lord Shelburne probably intended it should be, andPriestley left him, the annuity of £150 a year, which had been promisedin view of such a contingency, being punctually paid. 

After leaving Calne, Priestley spent some little time in London, andthen, having settled in Birmingham at the desire of his brother-in-law, he was soon invited to become the minister of a large congregation. This settlement Priestley considered, at the time, to be "the happiestevent of his life. " And well he might think so; for it gave himcompetence and leisure; placed him within reach of the best makers ofapparatus of the day; made him a member of that remarkable "LunarSociety, " at whose meetings he could exchange thoughts with such men asWatt, Wedgwood, Darwin, and Boulton; and threw open to him the pleasanthouse of the Galtons of Barr, where these men, and others of less note, formed a society of exceptional charm and intelligence. [4]

But these halcyon days were ended by a bitter storm. The FrenchRevolution broke out. An electric shock ran through the nations;whatever there was of corrupt and retrograde, and, at the same time, agreat deal of what there was of best and noblest, in European societyshuddered at the outburst of long-pent-up social fires. Men's feelingswere excited in a way that we, in this generation, can hardlycomprehend. Party wrath and virulence were expressed in a mannerunparalleled, and it is to be hoped impossible, in our times; andPriestley and his friends were held up to public scorn, even inParliament, as fomenters of sedition. A "Church-and-King" cry wasraised against the Liberal Dissenters; and, in Birmingham, it wasintensified and specially directed towards Priestley by a localcontroversy, in which he had engaged with his usual vigour. In 1791, the celebration of the second anniversary of the taking of the Bastilleby a public dinner, with which Priestley had nothing whatever to do, gave the signal to the loyal and pious mob, who, unchecked, and indeedto some extent encouraged, by those who were responsible for order, hadthe town at their mercy for three days. The chapels and houses of theleading Dissenters were wrecked, and Priestley and his family had tofly for their lives, leaving library, apparatus, papers, and all theirpossessions, a prey to the flames. 

Priestley never returned to Birmingham. He bore the outrages and lossesinflicted upon him with extreme patience and sweetness, [5] and betookhimself to London. But even his scientific colleagues gave him a coldshoulder; and though he was elected minister of a congregation atHackney, he felt his position to be insecure, and finally determined onemigrating to the United States. He landed in America in 1794; livedquietly with his sons at Northumberland, in Pennsylvania, where hisposterity still flourish; and, clear-headed and busy to the last, diedon the 6th of February 1804. 

Such were the conditions under which Joseph Priestley did the workwhich lay before him, and then, as the Norse Sagas say, went out of thestory. The work itself was of the most varied kind. No human interestwas without its attraction for Priestley, and few men have ever had somany irons in the fire at once; but, though he may have burned hisfingers a little, very few who have tried that operation have burnedtheir fingers so little. He made admirable discoveries in science; hisphilosophical treatises are still well worth reading; his politicalworks are full of insight and replete with the spirit of freedom; andwhile all these sparks flew off from his anvil, the controversialhammer rained a hail of blows on orthodox priest and bishop. While thusengaged, the kindly, cheerful doctor felt no more wrath oruncharitableness towards his opponents than a smith does towards hisiron. But if the iron could only speak!--and the priests and bishopstook the point of view of the iron. 

No doubt what Priestley's friends repeatedly urged upon him--that hewould have escaped the heavier trials of his life and done more for theadvancement of knowledge, if he had confined himself to his scientificpursuits and let his fellow-men go their way--was true. But it seems tohave been Priestley's feeling that he was a man and a citizen before hewas a philosopher, and that the duties of the two former positions areat least as imperative as those of the latter. Moreover, there are men(and I think Priestley was one of them) to whom the satisfaction ofthrowing down a triumphant fallacy is as great as that which attendsthe discovery of a new truth; who feel better satisfied with thegovernment of the world, when they have been helping Providence byknocking an imposture on the head; and who care even more for freedomof thought than for mere advance of knowledge. These men are theCarnots who organise victory for truth, and they are, at least, asimportant as the generals who visibly fight her battles in the field. 

Priestley's reputation as a man of science rests upon his numerous andimportant contributions to the chemistry of gaseous bodies; and to forma just estimate of the value of his work--of the extent to which itadvanced the knowledge of fact and the development of sound theoreticalviews--we must reflect what chemistry was in the first half of theeighteenth century. 

The vast science which now passes under that name had no existence. Air, water, and fire were still counted among the elemental bodies; andthough Van Helmont, a century before, had distinguished differentkinds of air as _gas ventosum_ and _gas sylvestre_, and Boyle and Haleshad experimentally defined the physical properties of air, anddiscriminated some of the various kinds of aëriform bodies, no onesuspected the existence of the numerous totally distinct gaseouselements which are now known, or dreamed that the air we breathe andthe water we drink are compounds of gaseous elements. 

But, in 1754, a young Scotch physician, Dr. Black, made the firstclearing in this tangled backwood of knowledge. And it gives one awonderful impression of the juvenility of scientific chemistry to thinkthat Lord Brougham, whom so many of us recollect, attended Black'slectures when he was a student in Edinburgh. Black's researches gavethe world the novel and startling conception of a gas that was apermanently elastic fluid like air, but that differed from common airin being much heavier, very poisonous, and in having the properties ofan acid, capable of neutralising the strongest alkalies; and it tookthe world some time to become accustomed to the notion. 

A dozen years later, one of the most sagacious and accurateinvestigators who has adorned this, or any other, country, HenryCavendish, published a memoir in the "Philosophical Transactions, " inwhich he deals not only with the "fixed air" (now called carbonic acidor carbonic anhydride) of Black, but with "inflammable air, " or what wenow term hydrogen. 

By the rigorous application of weight and measure to all his processes, Cavendish implied the belief subsequently formulated by Lavoisier, that, in chemical processes, matter is neither created nor destroyed, and indicated the path along which all future explorers must travel. Nor did he himself halt until this path led him, in 1784, to thebrilliant and fundamental discovery that water is composed of two gasesunited in fixed and constant proportions. 

It is a trying ordeal for any man to be compared with Black andCavendish, and Priestley cannot be said to stand on their level. Nevertheless his achievements are not only great in themselves, buttruly wonderful, if we consider the disadvantages under which helaboured. Without the careful scientific training of Black, without theleisure and appliances secured by the wealth of Cavendish, he scaledthe walls of science as so many Englishmen have done before and sincehis day; and trusting to mother wit to supply the place of training, and to ingenuity to create apparatus out of washing tubs, he discoveredmore new gases than all his predecessors put together had done. He laidthe foundations of gas analysis; he discovered the complementaryactions of animal and vegetable life upon the constituents of theatmosphere; and, finally, he crowned his work, this day one hundredyears ago, by the discovery of that "pure dephlogisticated air" towhich the French chemists subsequently gave the name of oxygen. Itsimportance, as the constituent of the atmosphere which disappears inthe processes of respiration and combustion, and is restored by greenplants growing in sunshine, was proved somewhat later. For thesebrilliant discoveries, the Royal Society elected Priestley a fellow andgave him their medal, while the Academies of Paris and St. Petersburgconferred their membership upon him. Edinburgh had made him an honorarydoctor of laws at an early period of his career; but, I need hardlyadd, that a man of Priestley's opinions received no recognition fromthe universities of his own country. 

That Priestley's contributions to the knowledge of chemical fact wereof the greatest importance, and that they richly deserve all the praisethat has been awarded to them, is unquestionable; but it must, at thesame time, be admitted that he had no comprehension of the deepersignificance of his work; and, so far from contributing anything to thetheory of the facts which he discovered, or assisting in their rationalexplanation, his influence to the end of his life was warmly exerted infavour of error. From first to last, he was a stiff adherent of thephlogiston doctrine which was prevalent when his studies commenced;and, by a curious irony of fate, the man who by the discovery of whathe called "dephlogisticated air" furnished the essential datum for thetrue theory of combustion, of respiration, and of the composition ofwater, to the end of his days fought against the inevitable corollariesfrom his own labours. His last scientific work, published in 1800, bears the title, "The Doctrine of Phlogiston established, and that ofthe Composition of Water refuted. "

When Priestley commenced his studies, the current belief was, thatatmospheric air, freed from accidental impurities, is a simpleelementary substance, indestructible and unalterable, as water wassupposed to be. When a combustible burned, or when an animal breathedin air, it was supposed that a substance, "phlogiston, " the matter ofheat and light, passed from the burning or breathing body into it, anddestroyed its powers of supporting life and combustion. Thus, aircontained in a vessel in which a lighted candle had gone out, or aliving animal had breathed until it could breathe no longer, was called"phlogisticated. " The same result was supposed to be brought about bythe addition of what Priestley called "nitrous gas" to common air. 

In the course of his researches, Priestley found that the quantity ofcommon air which can thus become "phlogisticated, " amounts to aboutone-fifth the volume of the whole quantity submitted to experiment. Hence it appeared that common air consists, to the extent offour-fifths of its volume, of air which is already "phlogisticated";while the other fifth is free from phlogiston, or "dephlogisticated. "On the other hand, Priestley found that air "phlogisticated" bycombustion or respiration could be "dephlogisticated, " or have theproperties of pure common air restored to it, by the action of greenplants in sunshine. The question, therefore, would naturally arise--ascommon air can be wholly phlogisticated by combustion, and convertedinto a substance which will no longer support combustion, is itpossible to get air that shall be less phlogisticated than common air, and consequently support combustion better than common air does?

Now, Priestley says that, in 1774, the possibility of obtaining airless phlogisticated than common air had not occurred to him. [6] But inpursuing his experiments on the evolution of air from various bodies bymeans of heat, it happened that, on the 1st of August 1774, he threwthe heat of the sun, by means of a large burning glass which he hadrecently obtained, upon a substance which was then called _mercuriuscalcinatus per se_, and which is commonly known as red precipitate. 

 "I presently found that, by means of this lens, air was expelled from it very readily. Having got about three or four times as much as the bulk of my materials, I admitted water to it, and found that it was not imbibed by it. But what surprised me more than I can well express, was that a candle burned in this air with a remarkably vigorous flame, very much like that enlarged flame with which a candle burns in nitrous air, exposed to iron or lime of sulphur; but as I had got nothing like this remarkable appearance from any kind of air besides this particular modification of nitrous air, and I knew no nitrous acid was used in the preparation of _mercurius calcinatus_, I was utterly at a loss how to account for it. 

 "In this case also, though I did not give sufficient attention to the circumstance at that time, the flame of the candle, besides being larger, burned with more splendour and heat than in that species of nitrous air; and a piece of red-hot wood sparkled in it, exactly like paper dipped in a solution of nitre, and it consumed very fast--an experiment which I had never thought of trying with nitrous air. " [7]

Priestley obtained the same sort of air from red lead, but, as he sayshimself, he remained in ignorance of the properties of this new kind ofair for seven months, or until March 1775, when he found that the newair behaved with "nitrous gas" in the same way as the dephlogisticatedpart of common air does; [8] but that, instead of being diminished tofour-fifths, it almost completely vanished, and, therefore, showeditself to be "between five and six times as good as the best common airI have ever met with. " [9] As this new air thus appeared to becompletely free from phlogiston, Priestley called it "dephlogisticatedair. "

What was the nature of this air? Priestley found that the same kind ofair was to be obtained by moistening with the spirit of nitre (which heterms nitrous acid) any kind of earth that is free from phlogiston, andapplying heat; and consequently he says: "There remained no doubt on mymind but that the atmospherical air, or the thing that we breathe, consists of the nitrous acid and earth, with so much phlogiston as isnecessary to its elasticity, and likewise so much more as is requiredto bring it from its state of perfect purity to the mean condition inwhich we find it. " [10]

Priestley's view, in fact, is that atmospheric air is a kind ofsaltpetre, in which the potash is replaced by some unknown earth. And in speculating on the manner in which saltpetre is formed, he enunciates the hypothesis, "that nitre is, formed by a real_decomposition of the air itself_, the _bases_ that are presented toit having, in such circumstances, a nearer affinity with the spiritof nitre than that kind of earth with which it is united in theatmosphere. " [11]

It would have been hard for the most ingenious person to have wanderedfarther from the truth than Priestley does in this hypothesis; and, though Lavoisier undoubtedly treated Priestley very ill, and pretendedto have discovered dephlogisticated air, or oxygen, as he called it, independently, we can almost forgive him when we reflect how differentwere the ideas which the great French chemist attached to the bodywhich Priestley discovered. 

They are like two navigators of whom the first sees a new country, buttakes clouds for mountains and mirage for lowlands; while the seconddetermines its length and breadth, and lays down on a chart its exactplace, so that, thenceforth, it serves as a guide to his successors, and becomes a secure outpost whence new explorations may be pushed. 

Nevertheless, as Priestley himself somewhere remarks, the first objectof physical science is to ascertain facts, and the service which herendered to chemistry by the definite establishment of a large numberof new and fundamentally important facts, is such as to entitle him toa very high place among the fathers of chemical science. 

It is difficult to say whether Priestley's philosophical, political, or theological views were most responsible for the bitter hatred whichwas borne to him by a large body of his country-men, [12] and whichfound its expression in the malignant insinuations in which Burke, tohis everlasting shame, indulged in the House of Commons. 

Without containing much that will be new to the readers of Hobbs, Spinoza, Collins, Hume, and Hartley, and, indeed, while making nopretensions to originality, Priestley's "Disquisitions relating toMatter and Spirit, " and his "Doctrine of Philosophical NecessityIllustrated, " are among the most powerful, clear, and unflinchingexpositions of materialism and necessarianism which exist in theEnglish language, and are still well worth reading. 

Priestley denied the freedom of the will in the sense of itsself-determination; he denied the existence of a soul distinct from thebody; and as a natural consequence, he denied the natural immortalityof man. 

In relation to these matters English opinion, a century ago, was verymuch what it is now. 

A man may be a necessarian without incurring graver reproach than thatimplied in being called a gloomy fanatic, necessarianism, though veryshocking, having a note of Calvanistic orthodoxy; but, if a man is amaterialist; or, if good authorities say he is and must be so, in spiteof his assertion to the contrary; or, if he acknowledge himself unableto see good reasons for believing in the natural immortality of man, respectable folks look upon him as an unsafe neighbour of a cash-box, as an actual or potential sensualist, the more virtuous in outwardseeming, the more certainly loaded with secret "grave personal sins. "

Nevertheless, it is as certain as anything can be, that JosephPriestley was no gloomy fanatic, but as cheerful and kindly a soul asever breathed, the idol of children; a man who was hated only by thosewho did not know him, and who charmed away the bitterest prejudices inpersonal intercourse; a man who never lost a friend, and the besttestimony to whose worth is the generous and tender warmth with whichhis many friends vied with one another in rendering him substantialhelp, in all the crises of his career. 

The unspotted purity of Priestley's life, the strictness of hisperformance of every duty, his transparent sincerity, theunostentatious and deep-seated piety which breathes through all hiscorrespondence, are in themselves a sufficient refutation of thehypothesis, invented by bigots to cover uncharitableness, that suchopinions as his must arise from moral defects. And his statue will doas good service as the brazen image that was set upon a pole before theIsraelites, if those who have been bitten by the fiery serpents ofsectarian hatred, which still haunt this wilderness of a world, aremade whole by looking upon the image of a heretic who was yet a saint. 

Though Priestley did not believe in the natural immortality of man, heheld with an almost naïve realism that man would be raised from thedead by a direct exertion of the power of God, and thenceforward beimmortal. And it may be as well for those who may be shocked by thisdoctrine to know that views, substantially identical with Priestley's, have been advocated, since his time, by two prelates of the AnglicanChurch: by Dr. Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, in his well-known"Essays"; [13] and by Dr. Courtenay, Bishop of Kingston in Jamaica, the first edition of whose remarkable book "On the Future States, "dedicated to Archbishop Whately, was published in 1843 and the secondin 1857. According to Bishop Courtenay, "The death of the body will cause a cessation of all the activity of the mind by way of natural consequence; to continue for ever UNLESS the Creator should interfere. "

And again:--

 "The natural end of human existence is the 'first death, the dreamless slumber of the grave, wherein man lies spell-bound, soul and body, under the dominion of sin and death--that whatever modes of conscious existence, whatever future states of 'life' or of 'torment' beyond Hades are reserved for man, are results of our blessed Lord's victory over sin and death; that the resurrection of the dead must be preliminary to their entrance into either of the future states, and that the nature and even existence of these states, and even the mere fact that there is a futurity of consciousness, can be known _only_ through God's revelation of Himself in the Person and the Gospel of His Son. "--P. 389. 

And now hear Priestley:--

 "Man, according to this system (of materialism), is no more than we now see of him. His being commences at the time of his conception, or perhaps at an earlier period. The corporeal and mental faculties, in being in the same substance, grow, ripen, and decay together; and whenever the system is dissolved it continues in a state of dissolution till it shall please that Almighty Being who called it into existence to restore it to life again. "--"Matter and Spirit, " p. 49. 

And again:--

 "The doctrine of the Scripture is, that God made man of the dust of the ground, and by simply animating this organised matter, made man that living percipient and intelligent being that he is. According to Revelation, _death_ is a state of rest and insensibility, and our only though sure hope of a future life is founded on the doctrine of the resurrection of the whole man at some distant period; this assurance being sufficiently confirmed to us both by the evident tokens of a Divine commission attending the persons who delivered the doctrine, and especially by the actual resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is more authentically attested than any other fact in history. "--_Ibid_. , p. 247. 

We all know that "a saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn;" but it isnot yet admitted that the views which are consistent with suchsaintliness in lawn, become diabolical when held by a mere dissenter. [14]

I am not here either to defend or to attack Priestley's philosophicalviews, and I cannot say that I am personally disposed to attach muchvalue to episcopal authority in philosophical questions; but it seemsright to call attention to the fact, that those of Priestley's opinionswhich have brought most odium upon him have been openly promulgated, without challenge, by persons occupying the highest positions in theState Church. 

I must confess that what interests me most about Priestley'smaterialism, is the evidence that he saw dimly the seed of destructionwhich such materialism carries within its own bosom. In the course ofhis reading for his "History of Discoveries relating to Vision, Light, and Colours, " he had come upon the speculations of Boscovich andMichell, and had been led to admit the sufficiently obvious truth thatour knowledge of matter is a knowledge of its properties; and that ofits substance--if it have a substance--we know nothing. And this led tothe further admission that, so far as we can know, there may be nodifference between the substance of matter and the substance of spirit("Disquisitions, " p. 16). A step farther would have shown Priestleythat his materialism was, essentially, very little different from theIdealism of his contemporary, the Bishop of Cloyne. 

As Priestley's philosophy is mainly a clear statement of the views ofthe deeper thinkers of his day, so are his political conceptions basedupon those of Locke. Locke's aphorism that "the end of government isthe good of mankind, " is thus expanded by Priestley:--

 "It must necessarily be understood, therefore, whether it be expressed or not, that all people live in society for their mutual advantage; so that the good and happiness of the members, that is, of the majority of the members, of any state, is the great standard by which everything relating to that state must finally be determined. " [15]

The little sentence here interpolated, "that is, of the majority of themembers of any state, " appears to be that passage which suggested toBentham, according to his own acknowledgment, the famous "greatesthappiness" formula, which by substituting "happiness" for "good, " hasconverted a noble into an ignoble principle. But I do not call to mindthat there is any utterance in Locke quite so outspoken as thefollowing passage in the "Essay on the First Principles ofGovernment. " After laying down as "a fundamental maxim in allGovernments, " the proposition that "kings, senators, and nobles" are"the servants of the public, " Priestley goes on to say:--

 "But in the largest states, if the abuses of the government should at any time be great and manifest; if the servants of the people, forgetting their masters and their masters' interest, should pursue a separate one of their own; if, instead of considering that they are made for the people, they should consider the people as made for them; if the oppressions and violation of right should be great, flagrant, and universally resented; if the tyrannical governors should have no friends but a few sycophants, who had long preyed upon the vitals of their fellow-citizens, and who might be expected to desert a government whenever their interests should be detached from it: if, in consequence of these circumstances, it should become manifest that the risk which would be run in attempting a revolution would be trifling, and the evils which might be apprehended from it were far less than those which were actually suffered and which were daily increasing; in the name of God, I ask, what principles are those which ought to restrain an injured and insulted people from asserting their natural rights, and from changing or even punishing their governors--that is, their servants--who had abused their trust, or from altering the whole form of their government, if it appeared to be of a structure so liable to abuse?"

As a Dissenter, subject to the operation of the Corporation and TestActs, and as a Unitarian excluded from the benefit of the TolerationAct, it is not surprising to find that Priestley had very definiteopinions about Ecclesiastical Establishments; the only wonder is thatthese opinions were so moderate as the following passages show them tohave been:--

 "Ecclesiastical authority may have been necessary in the infant state of society, and, for the same reason, it may perhaps continue to be, in some degree, necessary as long as society is imperfect; and therefore may not be entirely abolished till civil governments have arrived at a much greater degree of perfection. If, therefore, I were asked whether I should approve of the immediate dissolution of all the ecclesiastical establishments in Europe, I should answer, No.... Let experiment be first made of _alterations_, or, which is the same thing, of _better establishments_ than the present. Let them be reformed in many essential articles, and then not thrown aside entirely till it be found by experience that no good can be made of them. "

Priestley goes on to suggest four such reforms of a capital nature:--

 "1. Let the Articles of Faith to be subscribed by candidates for the ministry be greatly reduced. In the formulary of the Church of England, might not thirty-eight out of the thirty-nine be very well spared? It is a reproach to any Christian establishment if every man cannot claim the benefit of it who can say that he believes in the religion of Jesus Christ as it is set forth in the New Testament. You say the terms are so general that even Deists would quibble and insinuate themselves. I answer that all the articles which are subscribed at present by no means exclude Deists who will prevaricate; and upon this scheme you would at least exclude fewer honest men. " [16]

The second reform suggested is the equalisation, in proportion to workdone, of the stipends of the clergy; the third, the exclusion of theBishops from Parliament; and the fourth, complete toleration, so thatevery man may enjoy the rights of a citizen, and be qualified to servehis country, whether he belong to the Established Church or not. 

Opinions such as those I have quoted, respecting the duties and theresponsibilities of governors, are the commonplaces of modernLiberalism; and Priestley's views on Ecclesiastical Establishmentswould, I fear, meet with but a cool reception, as altogether tooconservative, from a large proportion of the lineal descendants of thepeople who taught their children to cry "Damn Priestley;" and with thatlove for the practical application of science which is the source ofthe greatness of Birmingham, tried to set fire to the doctor's housewith sparks from his own electrical machine; thereby giving the manthey called an incendiary and raiser of sedition against Church andKing, an appropriately experimental illustration of the nature of arsonand riot. 

If I have succeeded in putting before you the main features ofPriestley's work, its value will become apparent when we compare thecondition of the English nation, as he knew it, with its present state. 

The fact that France has been for eighty-five years trying, withoutmuch success, to right herself after the great storm of the Revolution, is not unfrequently cited among us as an indication of some inherentincapacity for self-government among the French people. I think, however, that Englishmen who argue thus, forget that, from the meetingof the Long Parliament in 1640, to the last Stuart rebellion in 1745, is a hundred and five years, and that, in the middle of the lastcentury, we had but just safely freed ourselves from our Bourbons andall that they represented. The corruption of our state was as bad asthat of the Second Empire. Bribery was the instrument of government, and peculation its reward. Four-fifths of the seats in the House ofCommons were more or less openly dealt with as property. A minister hadto consider the state of the vote market, and the sovereign secured asufficiency of "king's friends" by payments allotted with retail, rather than royal, sagacity. 

Barefaced and brutal immorality and intemperance pervaded the land, from the highest to the lowest classes of society. The EstablishedChurch was torpid, as far as it was not a scandal; but those whodissented from it came within the meshes of the Act of Uniformity, theTest Act, and the Corporation Act. By law, such a man as Priestley, being a Unitarian, could neither teach nor preach, and was liable toruinous fines and long imprisonment. [17] In those days the guns thatwere pointed by the Church against the Dissenters were shotted. The lawwas a cesspool of iniquity and cruelty. Adam Smith was a new prophetwhom few regarded, and commerce was hampered by idiotic impediments, and ruined by still more absurd help, on the part of government. 

Birmingham, though already the centre of a considerable industry, was amere village as compared with its present extent. People who travelledwent about armed, by reason of the abundance of highwaymen and thepaucity and inefficiency of the police. Stage coaches had not reachedBirmingham, and it took three days to get to London. Even canals were arecent and much opposed invention. 

Newton had laid the foundation of a mechanical conception of thephysical universe: Hartley, putting a modern face upon ancientmaterialism, had extended that mechanical conception to psychology;Linnaeus and Haller were beginning to introduce method and order intothe chaotic accumulation of biological facts. But those parts ofphysical science which deal with heat, electricity, and magnetism, andabove all, chemistry, in the modern sense, can hardly be said to havehad an existence. No one knew that two of the old elemental bodies, airand water, are compounds, and that a third, fire, is not a substancebut a motion. The great industries that have grown out of theapplications of modern scientific discoveries had no existence, and theman who should have foretold their coming into being in the days of hisson, would have been regarded as a mad enthusiast. 

In common with many other excellent persons, Priestley believed thatman is capable of reaching, and will eventually attain, perfection. Ifthe temperature of space presented no obstacle, I should be glad toentertain the same idea; but judging from the past progress of ourspecies, I am afraid that the globe will have cooled down so far, before the advent of this natural millennium, that we shall be, atbest, perfected Esquimaux. For all practical purposes, however, it isenough that man may visibly improve his condition in the course of acentury or so. And, if the picture of the state of things inPriestley's time, which I have just drawn, have any pretence toaccuracy, I think it must be admitted that there has been aconsiderable change for the better. 

I need not advert to the well-worn topic of material advancement, in aplace in which the very stones testify to that progress--in the town ofWatt and of Boulton. I will only remark, in passing, that materialadvancement has its share in moral and intellectual progress. BeckySharp's acute remark that it is not difficult to be virtuous on tenthousand a year, has its application to nations; and it is futile toexpect a hungry and squalid population to be anything but violent andgross. But as regards other than material welfare, although perfectionis not yet in sight--even from the mast-head--it is surely true thatthings are much better than they were. 

Take the upper and middle classes as a whole, and it may be said thatopen immorality and gross intemperance have vanished. Four and sixbottle men are as extinct as the dodo. Women of good repute do notgamble, and talk modelled upon Dean Swift's "Art of PoliteConversation" would be tolerated in no decent kitchen. 

Members of the legislature are not to be bought; and constituents areawakening to the fact that votes must not be sold--even for suchtrifles as rabbits and tea and cake. Political power has passed intothe hands of the masses of the people. Those whom Priestley calls theirservants have recognised their position, and have requested the masterto be so good as to go to school and fit himself for the administrationof his property. In ordinary life, no civil disability attaches to anyone on theological grounds, and high offices of the state are open toPapist, Jew, and Secularist. 

Whatever men's opinions as to the policy of Establishment, no one canhesitate to admit that the clergy of the Church are men of pure lifeand conversation, zealous in the discharge of their duties; and atpresent, apparently, more bent on prosecuting one another than onmeddling with Dissenters. Theology itself has broadened so much, thatAnglican divines put forward doctrines more liberal than those ofPriestley; and, in our state-supported churches, one listener may heara sermon to which Bossuet might have given his approbation, whileanother may hear a discourse in which Socrates would find nothing new. 

But great as these changes may be, they sink into insignificance besidethe progress of physical science, whether we consider the improvementof methods of investigation, or the increase in bulk of solidknowledge. Consider that the labours of Laplace, of Young, of Davy, andof Faraday; of Cuvier, of Lamarck, and of Robert Brown; of Von Baer, and of Schwann; of Smith and of Hutton, have all been carried on sincePriestley discovered oxygen; and consider that they are now things ofthe past, concealed by the industry of those who have built upon them, as the first founders of a coral reef are hidden beneath the life'swork of their successors; consider that the methods of physical scienceare slowly spreading into all investigations, and that proofs as validas those required by her canons of investigation are being demanded ofall doctrines which ask for men's assent; and you will have a faintimage of the astounding difference in this respect between thenineteenth century and the eighteenth. 

If we ask what is the deeper meaning of all these vast changes, I thinkthere can be but one reply. They mean that reason has asserted andexercised her primacy over all provinces of human activity: thatecclesiastical authority has been relegated to its proper place; thatthe good of the governed has been finally recognised as the end ofgovernment, and the complete responsibility of governors to the peopleas its means; and that the dependence of natural phenomena in generalon the laws of action of what we call matter has become an axiom. 

But it was to bring these things about, and to enforce the recognitionof these truths, that Joseph Priestley laboured. If the nineteenthcentury is other and better than the eighteenth, it is, in greatmeasure, to him, and to such men as he, that we owe the change. If thetwentieth century is to be better than the nineteenth, it will bebecause there are among us men who walk in Priestley's footsteps. 

Such men are not those whom their own generation delights to honour;such men, in fact, rarely trouble themselves about honour, but ask, inanother spirit than Falstaff's, "What is honour? Who hath it? He thatdied o' Wednesday. " But whether Priestley's lot be theirs, and a futuregeneration, in justice and in gratitude, set up their statues; orwhether their names and fame are blotted out from remembrance, theirwork will live as long as time endures. To all eternity, the sum oftruth and right will have been increased by their means; to alleternity, falsehood and injustice will be the weaker because they havelived. 

 * * * * *

Footnotes:

[1] "Quasi cursores, vitai lampada tradunt. "--LUCR. _De Rerum Nat_. Ii. 78. 

[2] _Life and Correspondence of Dr. Priestley_, by J. T. Rutt. Vol. I. P. 50. 

[3] _Autobiography_, §§ 100, 101. 

[4] See _The Life of Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck_. Mrs. Schimmelpenninck (_née_ Galton) remembered Priestley very well, and her description of him is worth quotation:--"A man of admirablesimplicity, gentleness and kindness of heart, united with greatacuteness of intellect. I can never forget the impression produced onme by the serene expression of his countenance. He, indeed, seemedpresent with God by recollection, and with man by cheerfulness. Iremember that, in the assembly of these distinguished men, amongst whomMr. Boulton, by his noble manner, his fine countenance (which muchresembled that of Louis XIV. ), and princely munificence, stoodpre-eminently as the great Mecaenas; even as a child, I used to feel, when Dr. Priestley entered after him, that the glory of the one wasterrestrial, that of the other celestial; and utterly far as I amremoved from a belief in the sufficiency of Dr. Priestley's theologicalcreed, I cannot but here record this evidence of the eternal power ofany portion of the truth held in its vitality. "

[5] Even Mrs. Priestley, who might be forgiven for regarding thedestroyers of her household gods with some asperity, contents herself, in writing to Mrs. Barbauld, with the sarcasm that the Birminghampeople "will scarcely find so many respectable characters, a secondtime, to make a bonfire of. "

[6] _Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air_, vol. Ii. P. 31. 

[7] _Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air_, vol. Ii. Pp. 34, 35. 

[8] _Ibid_. Vol. I. P. 40. 

[9] _Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air_, vol. Ii. P. 48. 

[10] _Ibid_. P. 55. 

[11] _Ibid_. P. 60. The italics are Priestley's own. 

[12] "In all the newspapers and most of the periodical publications Iwas represented as an unbeliever in Revelation, and no better than anatheist. "--_Autobiography_, Rutt, vol i. P. 124. "On the walls ofhouses, etc. , and especially where I usually went, were to be seen, inlarge characters, 'MADAN FOR EVER; DAMN PRIESTLEY; NO PRESBYTERIANISM;DAMN THE PRESBYTERIANS, ' etc. , etc. ; and, at one time, I was followedby a number of boys, who left their play, repeating what they had seenon the walls, and shouting out, '_Damn Priestley; damn him, damnhim, for ever, for ever, _' etc. , etc. This was no doubt a lessonwhich they had been taught by their parents, and what they, I fear, hadlearned from their superiors. "--_Appeal to the Public on the Subjectof the Riots at Birmingham_. 

[13] First Series. _On Some of the Peculiarities of the ChristianReligion_. Essay I. "Revelation of a Future State. "

[14] Not only is Priestley at one with Bishop Courtenay in this matter, but with Hartley and Bonnet, both of them stout champions ofChristianity. Moreover, Archbishop Whately's essay is little betterthan an expansion of the first paragraph of Hume's famous essay on theImmortality of the Soul:--"By the mere light of reason it seemsdifficult to prove the immortality of the soul; the arguments for itare commonly derived either from metaphysical topics, or moral, orphysical. But it is in reality the Gospel, and the Gospel alone, thathas brought _life and immortality to light_. " It is impossible toimagine that a man of Whately's tastes and acquirements had not readHume or Hartley, though he refers to neither. 

[15] _Essay on the First Principles of Government_, Second edition, 1771. 

[16] "Utility of Establishments, " in _Essay on First Principles ofGovernment_, 1771. 

[17] In 1732 Doddridge was cited for teaching without the Bishop'sleave, at Northampton. 

II

ON THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES

[1854]

The subject to which I have to beg your attention during the ensuinghour is "The Relation of Physiological Science to other branches ofKnowledge. "

Had circumstances permitted of the delivery, in their strict logicalorder, of that series of discourses of which the present lecture is amember, I should have preceded my friend and colleague Mr. Henfrey, whoaddressed you on Monday last; but while, for the sake of that order, Imust beg you to suppose that this discussion of the Educationalbearings of Biology in general _does_ precede that of SpecialZoology and Botany, I am rejoiced to be able to take advantageof the light thus already thrown upon the tendency and methods ofPhysiological Science. 

Regarding Physiological Science, then, in its widest sense--as theequivalent of _Biology_--the Science of Individual Life--we have toconsider in succession:

1. Its position and scope as a branch of knowledge. 

2. Its value as a means of mental discipline. 

3. Its worth as practical information. 

And lastly, 4. At what period it may best be made a branch of Education. 

Our conclusions on the first of these heads must depend, of course, upon the nature of the subject-matter of Biology; and I think a fewpreliminary considerations will place before you in a clear light thevast difference which exists between the living bodies with whichPhysiological science is concerned, and the remainder of theuniverse;--between the phaenomena of Number and Space, of Physical andof Chemical force, on the one hand, and those of Life on the other. 

The mathematician, the physicist, and the chemist contemplate things ina condition of rest; they look upon a state of equilibrium as that towhich all bodies normally tend. 

The mathematician does not suppose that a quantity will alter, or thata given point in space will change its direction with regard to anotherpoint, spontaneously. And it is the same with the physicist. WhenNewton saw the apple fall, he concluded at once that the act of fallingwas not the result of any power inherent in the apple, but that it wasthe result of the action of something else on the apple. In a similarmanner, all physical force is regarded as the disturbance of anequilibrium to which things tended before its exertion, --to which theywill tend again after its cessation. 

The chemist equally regards chemical change in a body as the effect ofthe action of something external to the body changed. A chemicalcompound once formed would persist for ever, if no alteration tookplace in surrounding conditions. 

But to the student of Life the aspect of Nature is reversed. Here, incessant, and, so far as we know, spontaneous change is the rule, restthe exception--the anomaly to be accounted for. Living things have noinertia, and tend to no equilibrium. 

Permit me, however, to give more force and clearness to these somewhatabstract considerations by an illustration or two. 

Imagine a vessel full of water, at the ordinary temperature, in anatmosphere saturated with vapour. The _quantity_ and the _figure_ of thatwater will not change, so far as we know, for ever. 

Suppose a lump of gold be thrown into the vessel--motion anddisturbance of figure exactly proportional to the momentum of the goldwill take place. But after a time the effects of this disturbance willsubside--equilibrium will be restored, and the water will return to itspassive state. 

Expose the water to cold--it will solidify--and in so doing itsparticles will arrange themselves in definite crystalline shapes. Butonce formed, these crystals change no further. 

Again, substitute for the lump of gold some substance capable ofentering into chemical relations with the water:--say, a mass of thatsubstance which is called "protein"--the substance of flesh:--a veryconsiderable disturbance of equilibrium will take place--all sorts ofchemical compositions and decompositions will occur; but in the end, asbefore, the result will be the resumption of a condition of rest. 

Instead of such a mass of _dead_ protein, however, take a particle of_living_ protein--one of those minute microscopic living things whichthrong our pools, and are known as Infusoria--such a creature, forinstance, as an Euglena, and place it in our vessel of water. It isa round mass provided with a long filament, and except in thispeculiarity of shape, presents no appreciable physical or chemicaldifference whereby it might be distinguished from the particle of deadprotein. 

But the difference in the phaenomena to which it will give rise isimmense: in the first place it will develop a vast quantity of physicalforce--cleaving the water in all directions with considerable rapidityby means of the vibrations of the long filament or cilium. 

Nor is the amount of chemical energy which the little creaturepossesses less striking. It is a perfect laboratory in itself, and itwill act and react upon the water and the matters contained therein;converting them into new compounds resembling its own substance, and atthe same time giving up portions of its own substance which have becomeeffete. 

Furthermore, the Euglena will increase in size; but this increase is byno means unlimited, as the increase of a crystal might be. After it hasgrown to a certain extent it divides, and each portion assumes the formof the original, and proceeds to repeat the process of growth anddivision. 

Nor is this all. For after a series of such divisions and subdivisions, these minute points assume a totally new form, lose their longtails--round themselves, and secrete a sort of envelope or box, inwhich they remain shut up for a time, eventually to resume, directly orindirectly, their primitive mode of existence. 

Now, so far as we know, there is no natural limit to the existence ofthe Euglena, or of any other living germ. A living species oncelaunched into existence tends to live for ever. 

Consider how widely different this living particle is from the deadatoms with which the physicist and chemist have to do!

The particle of gold falls to the bottom and rests--the particle ofdead protein decomposes and disappears--it also rests: but the_living_ protein mass neither tends to exhaustion of its forces norto any permanency of form, but is essentially distinguished as adisturber of equilibrium so far as force is concerned, --as undergoingcontinual metamorphosis and change, in point of form. 

Tendency to equilibrium of force and to permanency of form, then, arethe characters of that portion of the universe which does not live--thedomain of the chemist and physicist. 

Tendency to disturb existing equilibrium--to take on forms whichsucceed one another in definite cycles--is the character of the livingworld. 

What is the cause of this wonderful difference between the deadparticle and the living particle of matter appearing in other respectsidentical? that difference to which we give the name of Life?

I, for one, cannot tell you. It may be that, by and by, philosopherswill discover some higher laws of which the facts of life areparticular cases--very possibly they will find out some bond betweenphysico-chemical phaenomena on the one hand, and vital phaenomena onthe other. At present, however, we assuredly know of none; and I thinkwe shall exercise a wise humility in confessing that, for us at least, this successive assumption of different states--(external conditionsremaining the same)--this _spontaneity of action_--if I may use a termwhich implies more than I would be answerable for--which constitutesso vast and plain a practical distinction between living bodies andthose which do not live, is an ultimate fact; indicating as such, theexistence of a broad line of demarcation between the subject-matterof Biological and that of all other sciences. 

For I would have it understood that this simple Euglena is the type of_all_ living things, so far as the distinction between these andinert matter is concerned. That cycle of changes, which is constitutedby perhaps not more than two or three steps in the Euglena, is asclearly manifested in the multitudinous stages through which the germof an oak or of a man passes. Whatever forms the Living Being may takeon, whether simple or complex, _production, growth, reproduction, _ arethe phaenomena which distinguish it from that which does not live. 

If this be true, it is clear that the student, in passing from thephysico-chemical to the physiological sciences, enters upon a totallynew order of facts; and it will next be for us to consider how farthese new facts involve _new_ methods, or require a modification ofthose with which he is already acquainted. Now a great deal is saidabout the peculiarity of the scientific method in general, and of thedifferent methods which are pursued in the different sciences. TheMathematics are said to have one special method; Physics another, Biology a third, and so forth. For my own part, I must confess that Ido not understand this phraseology. 

So far as I can arrive at any clear comprehension of the matter, Science is not, as many would seem to suppose, a modification of theblack art, suited to the tastes of the nineteenth century, andflourishing mainly in consequence of the decay of the Inquisition. 

Science is, I believe, nothing but _trained and organised commonsense_, differing from the latter only as a veteran may differ froma raw recruit: and its methods differ from those of common sense onlyso far as the guardsman's cut and thrust differ from the manner inwhich a savage wields his club. The primary power is the same in eachcase, and perhaps the untutored savage has the more brawny arm ofthe two. The _real_ advantage lies in the point and polish of theswordsman's weapon; in the trained eye quick to spy out the weakness ofthe adversary; in the ready hand prompt to follow it on the instant. But, after all, the sword exercise is only the hewing and poking of theclubman developed and perfected. 

So, the vast results obtained by Science are won by no mysticalfaculties, by no mental processes, other than those which are practisedby every one of us, in the humblest and meanest affairs of life. Adetective policeman discovers a burglar from the marks made by hisshoe, by a mental process identical with that by which Cuvier restoredthe extinct animals of Montmartre from fragments of their bones. Nordoes that process of induction and deduction by which a lady, finding astain of a peculiar kind upon her dress, concludes that somebody hasupset the inkstand thereon, differ in any way, in kind, from that bywhich Adams and Leverrier discovered a new planet. 

The man of science, in fact, simply uses with scrupulous exactness themethods which we all, habitually and at every moment, use carelessly;and the man of business must as much avail himself of the scientificmethod--must be as truly a man of science--as the veriest bookworm ofus all; though I have no doubt that the man of business will findhimself out to be a philosopher with as much surprise as M. Jourdainexhibited vhen he discovered that he had been all his life talkingprose. If, however, there be no real difference between the methods ofscience and those of common life, it would seem, on the face of thematter, highly improbable that there should be any difference betweenthe methods of the different sciences; nevertheless, it is constantlytaken for granted that there is a very wide difference between thePhysiological and other sciences in point of method. 

In the first place it is said--and I take this point first, because theimputation is too frequently admitted by Physiologists themselves--thatBiology differs from the Physico-chemical and Mathematical sciences inbeing "inexact. "

Now, this phrase "inexact" must refer either to the _methods_ or tothe _results_ of Physiological science. 

It cannot be correct to apply it to the methods; for, as I hope to showyou by and by, these are identical in all sciences, and whatever istrue of Physiological method is true of Physical and Mathematicalmethod. 

Is it then the _results_ of Biological science which are "inexact"?I think not. If I say that respiration is performed by thelungs; that digestion is effected in the stomach; that the eye is theorgan of sight; that the jaws of a vertebrated animal never opensideways, but always up and down; while those of an annulose animalalways open sideways, and never up and down--I am enumeratingpropositions which are as exact as anything in Euclid. How then hasthis notion of the inexactness of Biological science come about? Ibelieve from two causes: first, because in consequence of the greatcomplexity of the science and the multitude of interfering conditions, we are very often only enabled to predict approximately what will occurunder given circumstances; and secondly, because, on account of thecomparative youth of the Physiological sciences, a great many of theirlaws are still imperfectly worked out. But, in an educational point ofview, it is most important to distinguish between the essence of ascience and the accidents which surround it; and essentially, themethods and results of Physiology are as exact as those of Physics orMathematics. 

It is said that the Physiological method is especially _comparative_;[1] and this dictum also finds favour in the eyes of many. I should be sorry to suggest that the speculators on scientificclassification have been misled by the accident of the name of oneleading branch of Biology--_Comparative Anatomy_; but I would askwhether _comparison_, and that classification which is the result ofcomparison, are not the essence of every science whatsoever? How is itpossible to discover a relation of cause and effect of _any_ kindwithout comparing a series of cases together in which the supposedcause and effect occur singly, or combined? So far from comparisonbeing in any way peculiar to Biological science, it is, I think, theessence of every science. 

A speculative philosopher again tells us that the Biologicalsciences are distinguished by being sciences of observation and notof experiment! [2] Of all the strange assertions into which speculationwithout practical acquaintance with a subject may lead even an ableman, I think this is the very strangest. Physiology not an experimentalscience? Why, there is not a function of a single organ in the bodywhich has not been determined wholly and solely by experiment? How didHarvey determine the nature of the circulation, except by experiment?How did Sir Charles Bell determine the functions of the roots of thespinal nerves, save by experiment? How do we know the use of a nerve atall, except by experiment? Nay, how do you know even that your eye isyour seeing apparatus, unless you make the experiment of shutting it;or that your ear is your hearing apparatus, unless you close it up andthereby discover that you become deaf?

It would really be much more true to say that Physiology is _the_experimental science _par excellence_ of all sciences; that in whichthere is least to be learnt by mere observation, and that whichaffords the greatest field for the exercise of those faculties whichcharacterise the experimental philosopher. I confess, if any one wereto ask me for a model application of the logic of experiment, I shouldknow no better work to put into his hands than Bernard's lateResearches on the Functions of the Liver. [3]

Not to give this lecture a too controversial tone, however, I mustonly advert to one more doctrine, held by a thinker of our own ageand country, whose opinions are worthy of all respect. It is, thatthe Biological sciences differ from all others, inasmuch as in _them_classification takes place by type and not by definition. [4]

It is said, in short, that a natural-history class is not capable ofbeing defined--that the class Rosaceae, for instance, or the class ofFishes, is not accurately and absolutely definable, inasmuch as itsmembers will present exceptions to every possible definition; and thatthe members of the class are united together only by the circumstancethat they are all more like some imaginary average rose or averagefish, than they resemble anything else. 

But here, as before, I think the distinction has arisen entirely fromconfusing a transitory imperfection with an essential character. Solong as our information concerning them is imperfect, we class allobjects together according to resemblances which we _feel_, butcannot _define_; we group them round _types_, in short. Thusif you ask an ordinary person what kinds of animals there are, he willprobably say, beasts, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, &c. Ask him todefine a beast from a reptile, and he cannot do it; but he says, thingslike a cow or a horse are beasts, and things like a frog or a lizardare reptiles. You see _he does_ class by type, and not by definition. But how does this classification differ from that of thescientific Zoologist? How does the meaning of the scientific class-nameof "Mammalia" differ from the unscientific of "Beasts"?

Why, exactly because the former depends on a definition, the latter ona type. The class Mammalia is scientifically defined as "all animalswhich have a vertebrated skeleton and suckle their young. " Here is noreference to type, but a definition rigorous enough for a geometrician. And such is the character which every scientific naturalist recognisesas that to which his classes must aspire--knowing, as he does, thatclassification by type is simply an acknowledgment of ignorance and atemporary device. 

So much in the way of negative argument as against the reputeddifferences between Biological and other methods. No such differences, I believe, really exist. The subject-matter of Biological science isdifferent from that of other sciences, but the methods of all areidentical; and these methods are--

1. _Observation_ of facts--including under this head that _artificialobservation_ which is called _experiment_. 

2. That process of tying up similar facts into bundles, ticketed andready for use, which is called _Comparison_ and _Classification_, --theresults of the process, the ticketed bundles, being named _Generalpropositions_. 

3. _Deduction_, which takes us from the general proposition to factsagain--teaches us, if I may so say, to anticipate from the ticketwhat is inside the bundle. And finally--

4. _Verification_, which is the process of ascertaining whether, inpoint of fact, our anticipation is a correct one. 

Such are the methods of all science whatsoever; but perhaps you willpermit me to give you an illustration of their employment in thescience of Life; and I will take as a special case the establishment ofthe doctrine of the _Circulation of the Blood_. 

In this case, _simple observation_ yields us a knowledge of theexistence of the blood from some accidental haemorrhage, we will say;we may even grant that it informs us of the localisation of this bloodin particular vessels, the heart, &c. , from some accidental cut or thelike. It teaches also the existence of a pulse in various parts of thebody, and acquaints us with the structure of the heart and vessels. 

Here, however, _simple observation_ stops, and we must have recourseto _experiment_. 

You tie a vein, and you find that the blood accumulates on the side ofthe ligature opposite the heart. You tie an artery, and you find thatthe blood accumulates on the side near the heart. Open the chest, andyou see the heart contracting with great force. Make openings into itsprincipal cavities, and you will find that all the blood flows out, andno more pressure is exerted on either side of the arterial or venousligature. 

Now all these facts, taken together, constitute the evidence that theblood is propelled by the heart through the arteries, and returns bythe veins--that, in short, the blood circulates. 

Suppose our experiments and observations have been made on horses, thenwe group and ticket them into a general proposition, thus:--_allhorses have a circulation of their blood_. 

Henceforward a horse is a sort of indication or label, telling us wherewe shall find a peculiar series of phaenomena called the circulation ofthe blood. 

Here is our _general proposition_, then. 

How, and when, are we justified in making our next step--a _deduction_from it?

Suppose our physiologist, whose experience is limited to horses, meetswith a zebra for the first time, --will he suppose that thisgeneralisation holds good for zebras also?

That depends very much on his turn of mind. But we will suppose him tobe a bold man. He will say, "The zebra is certainly not a horse, but itis very like one, --so like, that it must be the 'ticket' or mark of ablood-circulation also; and, I conclude that the zebra has acirculation. "

That is a deduction, a very fair deduction, but by no means to beconsidered scientifically secure. This last quality in fact can only begiven by _verification_--that is, by making a zebra the subject ofall the experiments performed on the horse. Of course, in the presentcase, the _deduction_ would be _confirmed_ by this process ofverification, and the result would be, not merely a positive wideningof knowledge, but a fair increase of confidence in the truth of one'sgeneralisations in other cases. 

Thus, having settled the point in the zebra and horse, our philosopherwould have great confidence in the existence of a circulation in theass. Nay, I fancy most persons would excuse him, if in this case he didnot take the trouble to go through the process of verification at all;and it would not be without a parallel in the history of the humanmind, if our imaginary physiologist now maintained that he wasacquainted with asinine circulation _à priori_. 

However, if I might impress any caution upon your minds, it is, theutterly conditional nature of all our knowledge, --the danger ofneglecting the process of verification under any circumstances; and thefilm upon which we rest, the moment our deductions carry us beyond thereach of this great process of verification. There is no betterinstance of this than is afforded by the history of our knowledge ofthe circulation of the blood in the animal kingdom until the year 1824. In every animal possessing a circulation at all, which had beenobserved up to that time, the current of the blood was known to takeone definite and invariable direction. Now, there is a class of animalscalled _Ascidians_, which possess a heart and a circulation, andup to the period of which I speak, no one would have dreamt ofquestioning the propriety of the deduction, that these creatures have acirculation in one direction; nor would any one have thought it worthwhile to verify the point. But, in that year, M. Von Hasselt, happeningto examine a transparent animal of this class, found, to his infinitesurprise, that after the heart had beat a certain number of times, itstopped, and then began beating the opposite way--so as to reverse thecourse of the current, which returned by and by to its originaldirection. 

I have myself timed the heart of these little animals. I found it asregular as possible in its periods of reversal: and I know no spectaclein the animal kingdom more wonderful than that which it presents--allthe more wonderful that to this day it remains an unique fact, peculiarto this class among the whole animated world. At the same time I knowof no more striking case of the necessity of the _verification_ ofeven those deductions which seem founded on the widest and safestinductions. 

Such are the methods of Biology--methods which are obviously identicalwith those of all other sciences, and therefore wholly incompetent toform the ground of any distinction between it and them. [5]

But I shall be asked at once, Do you mean to say that there is nodifference between the habit of mind of a mathematician and that of anaturalist? Do you imagine that Laplace might have been put into theJardin des Plantes, and Cuvier into the Observatory, with equaladvantage to the progress of the sciences they professed?

To which I would reply, that nothing could be further from my thoughts. But different habits and various special tendencies of two sciences donot imply different methods. The mountaineer and the man of the plainshave very different habits of progression, and each would be at a lossin the other's place; but the method of progression, by putting one legbefore the other, is the same in each case. Every step of each is acombination of a lift and a push; but the mountaineer lifts more andthe lowlander pushes more. And I think the case of two sciencesresembles this. 

I do not question for a moment, that while the Mathematician is busywith deductions _from_ general propositions, the Biologist is moreespecially occupied with observation, comparison, and those processeswhich lead _to_ general propositions. All I wish to insist uponis, that this difference depends not on any fundamental distinction inthe sciences themselves, but on the accidents of their subject-matter, of their relative complexity, and consequent relative perfection. 

The Mathematician deals with two properties of objects only, number andextension, and all the inductions he wants have been formed andfinished ages ago. He is occupied now with nothing but deduction andverification. 

The Biologist deals with a vast number of properties of objects, andhis inductions will not be completed, I fear, for ages to come; butwhen they are, his science will be as deductive and as exact as theMathematics themselves. 

Such is the relation of Biology to those sciences which deal withobjects having fewer properties than itself. But as the student, inreaching Biology, looks back upon sciences of a less complex andtherefore more perfect nature; so, on the other hand, does he lookforward to other more complex and less perfect branches of knowledge. Biology deals only with living beings as isolated things--treats onlyof the life of the individual: but there is a higher division ofscience still, which considers living beings as aggregates--which dealswith the relation of living beings one to another--the science which_observes_ men--whose _experiments_ are made by nations oneupon another, in battlefields--whose _general propositions_ areembodied in history, morality, and religion--whose _deductions_lead to our happiness or our misery--and whose _verifications_ sooften come too late, and serve only

 "To point a moral, or adorn a tale"--

I mean the science of Society or _Sociology_. 

I think it is one of the grandest features of Biology, that it occupiesthis central position in human knowledge. There is no side of the humanmind which physiological study leaves uncultivated. Connected byinnumerable ties with abstract science, Physiology is yet in the mostintimate relation with humanity; and by teaching us that law and order, and a definite scheme of development, regulate even the strangest andwildest manifestations of individual life, she prepares the student tolook for a goal even amidst the erratic wanderings of mankind, and tobelieve that history offers something more than an entertainingchaos--a journal of a toilsome, tragi-comic march no-whither. 

The preceding considerations have, I hope, served to indicate thereplies which befit the first two of the questions which I set beforeyou at starting, viz. What is the range and position of PhysiologicalScience as a branch of knowledge, and what is its value as a means ofmental discipline?

Its _subject-matter_ is a large moiety of the universe--its_position_ is midway between the physico-chemical and the socialsciences. Its _value_ as a branch of discipline is partly thatwhich it has in common with all sciences--the training andstrengthening of common sense; partly that which is more peculiar toitself--the great exercise which it affords to the faculties ofobservation and comparison; and, I may add, the _exactness_ ofknowledge which it requires on the part of those among its votaries whodesire to extend its boundaries. 

If what has been said as to the position and scope of Biology becorrect, our third question--What is the practical value ofphysiological instruction?--might, one would think, be left to answeritself. 

On other grounds even, were mankind deserving of the title "rational, "which they arrogate to themselves, there can be no question that theywould consider, as the most necessary of all branches of instructionfor themselves and for their children, that which professes to acquaintthem with the conditions of the existence they prize so highly--whichteaches them how to avoid disease and to cherish health, in themselvesand those who are dear to them. 

I am addressing, I imagine, an audience of educated persons; and yet Idare venture to assert that, with the exception of those of my hearerswho may chance to have received a medical education, there is not onewho could tell me what is the meaning and use of an act which heperforms a score of times every minute, and whose suspension wouldinvolve his immediate death;--I mean the act of breathing--or who couldstate in precise terms why it is that a confined atmosphere isinjurious to health. 

The _practical value_ of Physiological knowledge! Why is it thateducated men can be found to maintain that a slaughter-house in themidst of a great city is rather a good thing than otherwise?--thatmothers persist in exposing the largest possible amount of surface oftheir children to the cold, by the absurd style of dress they adopt, and then marvel at the peculiar dispensation of Providence, whichremoves their infants by bronchitis and gastric fever? Why is it thatquackery rides rampant over the land; and that not long ago, one of thelargest public rooms in this great city could be filled by an audiencegravely listening to the reverend expositor of the doctrine--that thesimple physiological phaenomena known as spirit-rapping, table-turning, phreno-magnetism, and I know not what other absurd and inappropriatenames, are due to the direct and personal agency of Satan?

Why is all this, except from the utter ignorance as to the simplestlaws of their own animal life, which prevails among even the mosthighly educated persons in this country?

But there are other branches of Biological Science, besides Physiologyproper, whose practical influence, though less obvious, is not, as Ibelieve, less certain. I have heard educated men speak with anill-disguised contempt of the studies of the naturalist, and ask, notwithout a shrug, "What is the use of knowing all about these miserableanimals--what bearing has it on human life?"

I will endeavour to answer that question. I take it that all will admitthere is definite Government of this universe--that its pleasures andpains are not scattered at random, but are distributed in accordancewith orderly and fixed laws, and that it is only in accordance with allwe know of the rest of the world, that there should be an agreementbetween one portion of the sensitive creation and another in thesematters. 

Surely then it interests us to know the lot of other animalcreatures--however far below us, they are still the sole created thingswhich share with us the capability of pleasure and the susceptibilityto pain. 

I cannot but think that he who finds a certain proportion of pain andevil inseparably woven up in the life of the very worms, will bear hisown share with more courage and submission; and will, at any rate, viewwith suspicion those weakly amiable theories of the Divine government, which would have us believe pain to be an oversight and a mistake, --tobe corrected by and by. On the other hand, the predominance ofhappiness among living things--their lavish beauty--the secret andwonderful harmony which pervades them all, from the highest to thelowest, are equally striking refutations of that modern Manicheandoctrine, which exhibits the world as a slave-mill, worked with manytears, for mere utilitarian ends. 

There is yet another way in which natural history may, I am convinced, take a profound hold upon practical life, --and that is, by itsinfluence over our finer feelings, as the greatest of all sources ofthat pleasure which is derivable from beauty. I do not pretend thatnatural-history knowledge, as such, can increase our sense of thebeautiful in natural objects. I do not suppose that the dead soul ofPeter Bell, of whom the great poet of nature says, --

 A primrose by the river's brim, A yellow primrose was to him, -- And it was nothing more, --

would have been a whit roused from its apathy by the information thatthe primrose is a Dicotyledonous Exogen, with a monopetalous corollaand central placentation. But I advocate natural-history knowledge fromthis point of view, because it would lead us to _seek_ thebeauties of natural objects, instead of trusting to chance to forcethem on our attention. To a person uninstructed in natural history, hiscountry or sea-side stroll is a walk through a gallery filled withwonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned tothe wall. Teach him something of natural history, and you place in hishands a catalogue of those which are worth turning round. Surely ourinnocent pleasures are not so abundant in this life, that we can affordto despise this or any other source of them. We should fear beingbanished for our neglect to that limbo, where the great Florentinetells us are those who, during this life, "wept when they might bejoyful. "

But I shall be trespassing unwarrantably on your kindness, if I do notproceed at once to my last point--the time at which PhysiologicalScience should first form a part of the Curriculum of Education. 

The distinction between the teaching of the facts of a science asinstruction, and the teaching it systematically as knowledge, hasalready been placed before you in a previous lecture: and it appears tome that, as with other sciences, the _common facts_ of Biology--theuses of parts of the body--the names and habits of the livingcreatures which surround us--may be taught with advantage to theyoungest child. Indeed, the avidity of children for this kind ofknowledge, and the comparative ease with which they retain it, issomething quite marvellous. I doubt whether any toy would be soacceptable to young children as a vivarium of the same kind as, but ofcourse on a smaller scale than, those admirable devices in theZoological Gardens. 

On the other hand, systematic teaching in Biology cannot be attemptedwith success until the student has attained to a certain knowledge ofphysics and chemistry: for though the phaenomena of life are dependentneither on physical nor on chemical, but on vital forces, yet theyresult in all sorts of physical and chemical changes, which can only bejudged by their own laws. 

And now to sum up in a few words the conclusions to which I hope yousee reason to follow me. 

Biology needs no apologist when she demands a place--and a prominentplace--in any scheme of education worthy of the name. Leave out thePhysiological sciences from your curriculum, and you launch the studentinto the world, undisciplined in that science whose subject-matterwould best develop his powers of observation; ignorant of facts of thedeepest importance for his own and others' welfare; blind to therichest sources of beauty in God's creation; and unprovided with thatbelief in a living law, and an order manifesting itself in and throughendless change and variety, which might serve to check and moderatethat phase of despair through which, if he take an earnest interest insocial problems, he will assuredly sooner or later pass. 

Finally, one word for myself. I have not hesitated to speak stronglywhere I have felt strongly; and I am but too conscious that theindicative and imperative moods have too often taken the place of themore becoming subjunctive and conditional. I feel, therefore, hownecessary it is to beg you to forget the personality of him who hasthus ventured to address you, and to consider only the truth or errorin what has been said. 

 * * * * *

Footnotes:

[1] "In the third place, we have to review the method of Comparison, which is so specially adapted to the study of living bodies, and bywhich, above all others, that study must be advanced. In Astronomy, this method is necessarily inapplicable; and it is not till we arriveat Chemistry that this third means of investigation can be used, andthen only in subordination to the two others. It is in the study, bothstatical and dynamical, of living bodies that it first acquires itsfull development; and its use elsewhere can be only through itsapplication here. "--COMTE'S _Positive Philosophy_, translated byMiss Martineau. Vol. I. P. 372. 

By what method does M. Comte suppose that the equality or inequalityof forces and quantities and the dissimilarity or similarity offorms--points of some slight importance not only in Astronomy andPhysics, but even in Mathematics--are ascertained, if not byComparison?

[2] "Proceeding to the second class of means, --Experiment cannot but beless and less decisive, in proportion to the complexity of thephaenomena to be explored; and therefore we saw this resource to beless effectual in chemistry than in physics: and we now find that it iseminently useful in chemistry in comparison with physiology. _Infact, the nature of the phenomena seems to offer almost insurmountableimpediments to any extensive and prolific application of such aprocedure in biology. _"--COMTE, vol. I. P. 367. 

M. Comte, as his manner is, contradicts himself two pages further on, but that will hardly relieve him from the responsibility of such aparagraph as the above. 

[3] _Nouvelle Fonction du Foie considéré comme organe producteur dematière sucrée chez l'Homme et les Animaux, par_ M. Claude Bernard. 

[4] "_Natural Groups given by Type, not by Definition_.... Theclass is steadily fixed, though not precisely limited; it is given, though not circumscribed; it is determined, not by a boundary-linewithout, but by a central point within; not by what it strictlyexcludes, but what it eminently includes; by an example, not by aprecept; in short, instead of Definition we have a _Type_ for ourdirector. A type is an example of any class, for instance, a species ofa genus, which is considered as eminently possessing the characters ofthe class. All the species which have a greater affinity with thistype-species than with any others, form the genus, and are ranged aboutabout it, deviating from it in various directions and differentdegrees. "--WHEWELL, _The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences_, vol. I. Pp. 476, 477. 

[5] Save for the pleasure of doing so, I need hardly point put myobligations to Mr. J. S. Mill's _System of Logic_, in this view ofscientific method. 

III

EMANCIPATION--BLACK AND WHITE

[1865. ]

Quashie's plaintive inquiry, "Am I not a man and a brother?" seems atlast to have received its final reply--the recent decision of thefierce trial by battle on the other side of the Atlantic fullyconcurring with that long since delivered here in a more peaceful way. 

The question is settled; but even those who are most thoroughlyconvinced that the doom is just, must see good grounds for repudiatinghalf the arguments which have been employed by the winning side; andfor doubting whether its ultimate results will embody the hopes of thevictors, though they may more than realise the fears of the vanquished. It may be quite true that some negroes are better than some white men;but no rational man, cognisant of the facts, believes that the averagenegro is the equal, still less the superior, of the average white man. And, if this be true, it is simply incredible that, when all hisdisabilities are removed, and our prognathous relative has a fair fieldand no favour, as well as no oppressor, he will be able to competesuccessfully with his bigger-brained and smaller-jawed rival, in acontest which is to be carried on by thoughts and not by bites. Thehighest places in the hierarchy of civilisation will assuredly not bewithin the reach of our dusky cousins, though it is by no meansnecessary that they should be restricted to the lowest. But whateverthe position of stable equilibrium into which the laws of socialgravitation may bring the negro, all responsibility for the result willhenceforward lie between Nature and him. The white man may wash hishands of it, and the Caucasian conscience be void of reproach forevermore. And this, if we look to the bottom of the matter, is the realjustification for the abolition policy. 

The doctrine of equal natural rights may be an illogical delusion;emancipation may convert the slave from a well-fed animal into apauperised man; mankind may even have to do without cotton shirts; butall these evils must be faced if the moral law, that no human being canarbitrarily dominate over another without grievous damage to his ownnature, be, as many think, as readily demonstrable by experiment as anyphysical truth. If this be true, no slavery can be abolished without adouble emancipation, and the master will benefit by freedom more thanthe freed-man. 

The like considerations apply to all the other questions ofemancipation which are at present stirring the world--the multifariousdemands that classes of mankind shall be relieved from restrictionsimposed by the artifice of man, and not by the necessities of Nature. One of the most important, if not the most important, of all these, isthat which daily threatens to become the "irrepressible" womanquestion. What social and political rights have women? What ought theyto be allowed, or not allowed, to do, be, and suffer? And, as involvedin, and underlying all these questions, how ought they to be educated?

There are philogynists as fanatical as any "misogynists" who, reversingour antiquated notions, bid the man look upon the woman as the highertype of humanity; who ask us to regard the female intellect as theclearer and the quicker, if not the stronger; who desire us to look upto the feminine moral sense as the purer and the nobler; and bid manabdicate his usurped sovereignty over Nature in favour of the femaleline. On the other hand, there are persons not to be outdone in allloyalty and just respect for womankind, but by nature hard of head andhaters of delusion, however charming, who not only repudiate the newwoman-worship which so many sentimentalists and some philosophers aredesirous of setting up, but, carrying their audacity further, deny eventhe natural equality of the sexes. They assert, on the contrary, thatin every excellent character, whether mental or physical, the averagewoman is inferior to the average man, in the sense of having thatcharacter less in quantity and lower in quality. Tell these persons ofthe rapid perceptions and the instinctive intellectual insight ofwomen, and they reply that the feminine mental peculiarities, whichpass under these names, are merely the outcome of a greaterimpressibility to the superficial aspects of things, and of the absenceof that restraint upon expression which, in men, is imposed byreflection and a sense of responsibility. Talk of the passive enduranceof the weaker sex, and opponents of this kind remind you that Job was aman, and that, until quite recent times, patience and long-sufferingwere not counted among the specially feminine virtues. Claim passionatetenderness as especially feminine, and the inquiry is made whether allthe best love-poetry in existence (except, perhaps, the "Sonnets fromthe Portuguese ") has not been written by men; whether the song whichembodies the ideal of pure and tender passion--"Adelaida "--waswritten by _Frau_ Beethoven; whether it was the Fornarina, orRaphael, who painted the Sistine Madonna. Nay, we have known one suchheretic go so far as to lay his hands upon the ark itself, so to speak, and to defend the startling paradox that, even in physical beauty, manis the superior. He admitted, indeed, that there was a brief period ofearly youth when it might be hard to say whether the prize should beawarded to the graceful undulations of the female figure, or theperfect balance and supple vigour of the male frame. But while our newParis might hesitate between the youthful Bacchus and the Venusemerging from the foam, he averred that, when Venus and Bacchus hadreached thirty, the point no longer admitted of a doubt; the male formhaving then attained its greatest nobility, while the female is fargone in decadence; and that, at this epoch, womanly beauty, so far asit is independent of grace or expression, is a question of drapery andaccessories. 

Supposing, however, that all these arguments have a certain foundation;admitting, for a moment, that they are comparable to those by which theinferiority of the negro to the white man may be demonstrated, are theyof any value as against woman-emancipation? Do they afford us thesmallest ground for refusing to educate women as well as men--to givewomen the same civil and political rights as men? No mistake is socommonly made by clever people as that of assuming a cause to be badbecause the arguments of its supporters are, to a great extent, non-sensical. And we conceive that those who may laugh at the argumentsof the extreme philogynists, may yet feel bound to work heart and soultowards the attainment of their practical ends. 

As regards education, for example. Granting the alleged defects ofwomen, is it not somewhat absurd to sanction and maintain a system ofeducation which would seem to have been specially contrived toexaggerate all these defects?

Naturally not so firmly strung, nor so well balanced as boys, girls arein great measure debarred from the sports and physical exercises whichare justly thought absolutely necessary for the full development of thevigour of the more favoured sex. Women are, by nature, more excitablethan men--prone to be swept by tides of emotion, proceeding from hiddenand inward, as well as from obvious and external causes; and femaleeducation does its best to weaken every physical counterpoise to thisnervous mobility--tends in all ways to stimulate the emotional part ofthe mind and stunt the rest. We find girls naturally timid, inclined todependence, born conservatives; and we teach them that independence isunladylike; that blind faith is the right frame of mind; and thatwhatever we may be permitted, and indeed encouraged, to do to ourbrother, our sister is to be left to the tyranny of authority andtradition. With few insignificant exceptions, girls have been educatedeither to be drudges, or toys, beneath man; or a sort of angels abovehim; the highest ideal aimed at oscillating between Clärchen andBeatrice. The possibility that the ideal of womanhood lies neither inthe fair saint, nor in the fair sinner; that the female type ofcharacter is neither better nor worse than the male, but only weaker;that women are meant neither to be men's guides nor their play-things, but their comrades, their fellows, and their equals, so far as Natureputs no bar to that equality, does not seem to have entered into theminds of those who have had the conduct of the education of girls. 

If the present system of female education stands self-condemned, asinherently absurd; and if that which we have just indicated is the trueposition of woman, what is the first step towards a better state ofthings? We reply, emancipate girls. Recognise the fact that they sharethe senses, perceptions, feelings, reasoning powers, emotions, of boys, and that the mind of the average girl is less different from that ofthe average boy, than the mind of one boy is from that of another; sothat whatever argument justifies a given education for all boys, justifies its application to girls as well. So far from imposingartificial restrictions upon the acquirement of knowledge by women, throw every facility in their way. Let our Faustinas, if they will, toil through the whole round of

 "Juristerei und Medizin, Und leider! auch Philosophie. "

Let us have "sweet girl graduates" by all means. They will be none theless sweet for a little wisdom; and the "golden hair" will not curlless gracefully outside the head by reason of there being brainswithin. Nay, if obvious practical difficulties can be overcome, letthose women who feel inclined to do so descend into the gladiatorialarena of life, not merely in the guise of _retiariae_, asheretofore, but as bold _sicariae_, breasting the open fray. Letthem, if they so please, become merchants, barristers, politicians. Letthem have a fair field, but let them understand, as the necessarycorrelative, that they are to have no favour. Let Nature alone sit highabove the lists, "rain influence and judge the prize. "

And the result? For our parts, though loth to prophesy, we believe itwill be that of other emancipations. Women will find their place, andit will neither be that in which they have been held, nor that to whichsome of them aspire. Nature's old salique law will not be repealed, andno change of dynasty will be effected. The big chests, the massivebrains, the vigorous muscles and stout frames of the best men willcarry the day, whenever it is worth their while to contest the prizesof life with the best women. And the hardship of it is, that the veryimprovement of the women will lessen their chances. Better mothers willbring forth better sons, and the impetus gained by the one sex will betransmitted, in the next generation, to the other. The most Darwinianof theorists will not venture to propound the doctrine, that thephysical disabilities under which women have hitherto laboured in thestruggle for existence with men are likely to be removed by even themost skilfully conducted process of educational selection. 

We are, indeed, fully prepared to believe that the bearing of childrenmay, and ought, to become as free from danger and long disability tothe civilised woman as it is to the savage; nor is it improbable that, as society advances towards its right organisation, motherhood willoccupy a less space of woman's life than it has hitherto done. Butstill, unless the human species is to come to an end altogether--aconsummation which can hardly be desired by even the most ardentadvocate of "women's rights"--somebody must be good enough to take thetrouble and responsibility of annually adding to the world exactly asmany people as die out of it. In consequence of some domesticdifficulties, Sydney Smith is said to have suggested that it would havebeen good for the human race had the model offered by the hive beenfollowed, and had all the working part of the female community beenneuters. Failing any thorough-going reform of this kind, we see nothingfor it but the old division of humanity into men potentially, oractually, fathers, and women potentially, if not actually, mothers. Andwe fear that so long as this potential motherhood is her lot, womanwill be found to be fearfully weighted in the race of life. 

The duty of man is to see that not a grain is piled upon that loadbeyond what Nature imposes; that injustice is not added to inequality. 

IV

A LIBERAL EDUCATION; AND WHERE TO FIND IT

[1868. ]

The business which the South London Working Men's College hasundertaken is a great work; indeed, I might say, that Education, withwhich that college proposes to grapple, is the greatest work of allthose which lie ready to a man's hand just at present. 

And, at length, this fact is becoming generally recognised. You cannotgo anywhere without hearing a buzz of more or less confused andcontradictory talk on this subject--nor can you fail to notice that, inone point at any rate, there is a very decided advance upon likediscussions in former days. Nobody outside the agricultural interestnow dares to say that education is a bad thing. If any representativeof the once large and powerful party, which, in former days, proclaimedthis opinion, still exists in a semi-fossil state, he keeps histhoughts to himself. In fact, there is a chorus of voices, almostdistressing in their harmony, raised in favour of the doctrine thateducation is the great panacea for human troubles, and that, if thecountry is not shortly to go to the dogs, everybody must be educated. 

The politicians tells us, "You must educate the masses because they aregoing to be masters. " The clergy join in the cry for education, forthey affirm that the people are drifting away from church and chapelinto the broadest infidelity. The manufacturers and the capitalistsswell the chorus lustily. They declare that ignorance makes badworkmen; that England will soon be unable to turn out cotton goods, orsteam engines, cheaper than other people; and then, Ichabod! Ichabod!the glory will be departed from us. And a few voices are lifted up infavour of the doctrine that the masses should be educated because theyare men and women with unlimited capacities of being, doing, andsuffering, and that it is as true now, as ever it was, that the peopleperish for lack of knowledge. 

These members of the minority, with whom I confess I have a good dealof sympathy, are doubtful whether any of the other reasons urged infavour of the education of the people are of much value--whether, indeed, some of them are based upon either wise or noble grounds ofaction. They question if it be wise to tell people that you will do forthem, out of fear of their power, what you have left undone, so long asyour only motive was compassion for their weakness and their sorrows. And, if ignorance of everything which it is needful a ruler should knowis likely to do so much harm in the governing classes of the future, why is it, they ask reasonably enough, that such ignorance in thegoverning classes of the past has not been viewed with equal horror?

Compare the average artisan and the average country squire, and it maybe doubted if you will find a pin to choose between the two in point ofignorance, class feeling, or prejudice. It is true that the ignoranceis of a different sort--that the class feeling is in favour of adifferent class--and that the prejudice has a distinct savour ofwrong-headedness in each case--but it is questionable if the one iseither a bit better, or a bit worse, than the other. The oldprotectionist theory is the doctrine of trades unions as applied by thesquires, and the modern trades unionism is the doctrine of the squiresapplied by the artisans. Why should we be worse off under one _régime_than under the other?

Again, this sceptical minority asks the clergy to think whether it isreally want of education which keeps the masses away from theirministrations--whether the most completely educated men are not as opento reproach on this score as the workmen; and whether, perchance, thismay not indicate that it is not education which lies at the bottom ofthe matter?

Once more, these people, whom there is no pleasing, venture to doubtwhether the glory, which rests upon being able to undersell all therest of the world, is a very safe kind of glory--whether we may notpurchase it too dear; especially if we allow education, which ought tobe directed to the making of men, to be diverted into a process ofmanufacturing human tools, wonderfully adroit in the exercise of sometechnical industry, but good for nothing else. 

And, finally, these people inquire whether it is the masses alone whoneed a reformed and improved education. They ask whether the richest ofour public schools might not well be made to supply knowledge, as wellas gentlemanly habits, a strong class feeling, and eminent proficiencyin cricket. They seem to think that the noble foundations of our olduniversities are hardly fulfilling their functions in their presentposture of half-clerical seminaries, half racecourses, where men aretrained to win a senior wranglership, or a double-first, as horsesare trained to win a cup, with as little reference to the needs ofafter-life in the case of the man as in that of the racer. And, whileas zealous for education as the rest, they affirm that, if theeducation of the richer classes were such as to fit them to be theleaders and the governors of the poorer; and, if the education of thepoorer classes were such as to enable them to appreciate really wiseguidance and good governance, the politicians need not fear mob-law, nor the clergy lament their want of flocks, nor the capitalistsprognosticate the annihilation of the prosperity of the country. 

Such is the diversity of opinion upon the why and the wherefore ofeducation. And my hearers will be prepared to expect that the practicalrecommendations which are put forward are not less discordant. There isa loud cry for compulsory education. We English, in spite of constantexperience to the contrary, preserve a touching faith in the efficacyof acts of Parliament; and I believe we should have compulsoryeducation in the course of next session, if there were the leastprobability that half a dozen leading statesmen of different partieswould agree what that education should be. 

Some hold that education without theology is worse than none. Othersmaintain, quite as strongly, that education with theology is in thesame predicament. But this is certain, that those who hold the firstopinion can by no means agree what theology should be taught; and thatthose who maintain the second are in a small minority. 

At any rate "make people learn to read, write, and cipher, " say a greatmany; and the advice is undoubtedly sensible as far as it goes. But, ashas happened to me in former days, those who, in despair of gettinganything better, advocate this measure, are met with the objection thatit is very like making a child practise the use of a knife, fork, andspoon, without giving it a particle of meat. I really don't know whatreply is to be made to such an objection. 

But it would be unprofitable to spend more time in disentangling, orrather in showing up the knots in, the ravelled skeins of ourneighbours. Much more to the purpose is it to ask if we possess anyclue of our own which may guide us among these entanglements. And byway of a beginning, let us ask ourselves--What is education? Above allthings, what is our ideal of a thoroughly liberal education?--of thateducation which, if we could begin life again, we would giveourselves--of that education which, if we could mould the fates to ourown will, we would give our children? Well, I know not what may be yourconceptions upon this matter, but I will tell you mine, and I hope Ishall find that our views are not very discrepant. 

 * * * * *

Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of everyone of us would, one day or other, depend upon his winning or losing agame at chess. Don't you think that we should all consider it to be aprimary duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the pieces;to have a notion of a gambit, and a keen eye for all the means ofgiving and getting out of check? Do you not think that we should lookwith a disapprobation amounting to scorn, upon the father who allowedhis son, or the state which allowed its members, to grow up withoutknowing a pawn from a knight?

Yet it is a very plain and elementary truth, that the life, thefortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, ofthose who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing somethingof the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated thanchess. It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every manand woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or herown. The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of theuniverse, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his playis always fair, just and patient. But also we know, to our cost, thathe never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance forignorance. To the man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid, withthat sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delightin strength. And one who plays ill is checkmated--without haste, butwithout remorse. 

My metaphor will remind some of you of the famous picture in whichRetzsch has depicted Satan playing at chess with man for his soul. Substitute for the mocking fiend in that picture a calm, strong angelwho is playing for love, as we say, and would rather lose than win--andI should accept it us an image of human life. 

Well, what I mean by Education is learning the rules of this mightygame. In other words, education is the instruction of the intellect inthe laws of Nature, under which name I include not merely things andtheir forces, but men and their ways; and the fashioning of theaffections and of the will into an earnest and loving desire to move inharmony with those laws. For me, education means neither more nor lessthan this. Anything which professes to call itself education must betried by this standard, and if it fails to stand the test, I will notcall it education, whatever may be the force of authority, or ofnumbers, upon the other side. 

It is important to remember that, in strictness, there is no such thingas an uneducated man. Take an extreme case. Suppose that an adult man, in the full vigour of his faculties, could be suddenly placed in theworld, as Adam is said to have been, and then left to do as he bestmight. How long would he be left uneducated? Not five minutes. Naturewould begin to teach him, through the eye, the ear, the touch, theproperties of objects. Pain and pleasure would be at his elbow tellinghim to do this and avoid that; and by slow degrees the man wouldreceive an education which, if narrow, would be thorough, real, andadequate to his circumstances, though there would be no extras and veryfew accomplishments. 

And if to this solitary man entered a second Adam, or, better still, anEve, a new and greater world, that of social and moral phenomena, wouldbe revealed. Joys and woes, compared with which all others might seembut faint shadows, would spring from the new relations. Happiness andsorrow would take the place of the coarser monitors, pleasure and pain;but conduct would still be shaped by the observation of the naturalconsequences of actions; or, in other words, by the laws of the natureof man. 

To every one of us the world was once as fresh and new as to Adam. Andthen, long before we were susceptible of any other mode of instruction, Nature took us in hand, and every minute of waking life brought itseducational influence, shaping our actions into rough accordance withNature's laws, so that we might not be ended untimely by too grossdisobedience. Nor should I speak of this process of education as pastfor any one, be he as old as he may. For every man the world is asfresh as it was at the first day, and as full of untold novelties forhim who has the eyes to see them. And Nature is still continuing herpatient education of us in that great university, the universe, ofwhich we are all members--Nature having no Test-Acts. 

Those who take honours in Nature's university, who learn the laws whichgovern men and things and obey them, are the really great andsuccessful men in this world. The great mass of mankind are the"Poll, " who pick up just enough to get through without much discredit. Those who won't learn at all are plucked; and then you can't come upagain. Nature's pluck means extermination. 

Thus the question of compulsory education is settled so far as Natureis concerned. Her bill on that question was framed and passed long ago. But, like all compulsory legislation, that of Nature is harsh andwasteful in its operation. Ignorance is visited as sharply as wilfuldisobedience--incapacity meets with the same punishment as crime. Nature's discipline is not even a word and a blow, and the blow first;but the blow without the word. It is left to you to find out why yourears are boxed. 

The object of what we commonly call education--that education inwhich man intervenes and which I shall distinguish as artificialeducation--is to make good these defects in Nature's methods; toprepare the child to receive Nature's education, neither incapably norignorantly, nor with wilful disobedience; and to understand thepreliminary symptoms of her pleasure, without waiting for the box onthe ear. In short, all artificial education ought to be an anticipationof natural education. And a liberal education is an artificial educationwhich has not only prepared a man to escape the great evilsof disobedience to natural laws, but has trained him to appreciate andto seize upon the rewards, which Nature scatters with as free a hand asher penalties. 

That man, I think, has had a liberal education who has been so trainedin youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, and does withease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of;whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts ofequal strength, and in smooth working order; ready, like a steamengine, to be turned to any kind of work, and spin the gossamers aswell as forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind is stored with aknowledge of the great and fundamental truths of Nature and of the lawsof her operations; one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life andfire, but whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorouswill, the servant of a tender conscience; who has learned to love allbeauty, whether of Nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and torespect others as himself. 

Such an one and no other, I conceive, has had a liberal education; forhe is, as completely as a man can be, in harmony with Nature. He willmake the best of her, and she of him. They will get on together rarely:she as his ever beneficent mother; he as her mouthpiece, her consciousself, her minister and interpreter. 

Where is such an education as this to be had? Where is there anyapproximation to it? Has any one tried to found such an education?Looking over the length and breadth of these islands, I am afraid thatall these questions must receive a negative answer. Consider ourprimary schools and what is taught in them. A child learns:--

1. To read, write, and cipher, more or less well; but in a very largeproportion of cases not so well as to take pleasure in reading, or tobe able to write the commonest letter properly. 

2. A quantity of dogmatic theology, of which the child, nine times outof ten, understands next to nothing. 

3. Mixed up with this, so as to seem to stand or fall with it, a few ofthe broadest and simplest principles of morality. This, to my mind, ismuch as if a man of science should make the story of the fall of theapple in Newton's garden an integral part of the doctrine ofgravitation, and teach it as of equal authority with the law of theinverse squares. 

4. A good deal of Jewish history and Syrian geography, and perhaps alittle something about English history and the geography of the child'sown country. But I doubt if there is a primary school in England inwhich hangs a map of the hundred in which the village lies, so that thechildren may be practically taught by it what a map means. 

5. A certain amount of regularity, attentive obedience, respect forothers: obtained by fear, if the master be incompetent or foolish; bylove and reverence, if he be wise. 

So far as this school course embraces a training in the theory andpractice of obedience to the moral laws of Nature, I gladly admit, notonly that it contains a valuable educational element, but that, so far, it deals with the most valuable and important part of all education. Yet, contrast what is done in this direction with what might be done;with the time given to matters of comparatively no importance; with theabsence of any attention to things of the highest moment; and one istempted to think of Falstaff's bill and "the halfpenny worth of breadto all that quantity of sack. "

Let us consider what a child thus "educated" knows, and what it doesnot know. Begin with the most important topic of all--morality, as theguide of conduct. The child knows well enough that some acts meet withapprobation and some with disapprobation. But it has never heard thatthere lies in the nature of things a reason for every moral law, ascogent and as well defined as that which underlies every physical law;that stealing and lying are just as certain to be followed by evilconsequences, as putting your hand in the fire, or jumping out of agarret window. Again, though the scholar may have been made acquainted, in dogmatic fashion, with the broad laws of morality, he has had notraining in the application of those laws to the difficult problemswhich result from the complex conditions of modern civilisation. Wouldit not be very hard to expect any one to solve a problem in conicsections who had merely been taught the axioms and definitions ofmathematical science?

A workman has to bear hard labour, and perhaps privation, while he seesothers rolling in wealth, and feeding their dogs with what would keephis children from starvation. Would it not be well to have helped thatman to calm the natural promptings of discontent by showing him, in hisyouth, the necessary connection of the moral law which prohibitsstealing with the stability of society--by proving to him, once forall, that it is better for his own people, better for himself, betterfor future generations, that he should starve than steal? If you haveno foundation of knowledge, or habit of thought, to work upon, whatchance have you of persuading a hungry man that a capitalist is not athief "with a circumbendibus?" And if he honestly believes that, ofwhat avail is it to quote the commandment against stealing, when heproposes to make the capitalist disgorge?

Again, the child learns absolutely nothing of the history or thepolitical organisation of his own country. His general impression is, that everything of much importance happened a very long while ago; andthat the Queen and the gentlefolks govern the country much after thefashion of King David and the elders and nobles of Israel--his solemodels. Will you give a man with this much information a vote? In easytimes he sells it for a pot of beer. Why should he not? It is of aboutas much use to him as a chignon, and he knows as much what to do withit, for any other purpose. In bad times, on the contrary, he applieshis simple theory of government, and believes that his rulers are thecause of his sufferings--a belief which sometimes bears remarkablepractical fruits. 

Least of all, does the child gather from this primary "education" ofours a conception of the laws of the physical world, or of therelations of cause and effect therein. And this is the more to belamented, as the poor are especially exposed to physical evils, and aremore interested in removing them than any other class of the community. If any one is concerned in knowing the ordinary laws of mechanics onewould think it is the hand-labourer, whose daily toil lies among leversand pulleys; or among the other implements of artisan work. And if anyone is interested in the laws of health, it is the poor workman, whosestrength is wasted by ill-prepared food, whose health is sapped by badventilation and bad drainage, and half whose children are massacred bydisorders which might be prevented. Not only does our present primaryeducation carefully abstain from hinting to the workman that some ofhis greatest evils are traceable to mere physical agencies, which couldbe removed by energy, patience, and frugality; but it does worse--itrenders him, so far as it can, deaf to those who could help him, andtries to substitute an Oriental submission to what is falsely declaredto be the will of God, for his natural tendency to strive after abetter condition. 

What wonder, then, if very recently an appeal has been made tostatistics for the profoundly foolish purpose of showing that educationis of no good--that it diminishes neither misery nor crime among themasses of mankind? I reply, why should the thing which has been callededucation do either the one or the other? If I am a knave or a fool, teaching me to read and write won't make me less of either one or theother--unless somebody shows me how to put my reading and writing towise and good purposes. 

Suppose any one were to argue that medicine is of no use, because itcould be proved statistically, that the percentage of deaths was justthe same among people who had been taught how to open a medicine chest, and among those who did not so much as know the key by sight. Theargument is absurd; but it is not more preposterous than that againstwhich I am contending. The only medicine for suffering, crime, and allthe other woes of mankind, is wisdom. Teach a man to read and write, and you have put into his hands the great keys of the wisdom box. Butit is quite another matter whether he ever opens the box or not. And heis as likely to poison as to cure himself, if, without guidance, heswallows the first drug that comes to hand. In these times a man may aswell be purblind, as unable to read--lame, as unable to write. But Iprotest that, if I thought the alternative were a necessary one, Iwould rather that the children of the poor should grow up ignorant ofboth these mighty arts, than that they should remain ignorant of thatknowledge to which these arts are means. 

 * * * * *

It may be said that all these animadversions may apply to primaryschools, but that the higher schools, at any rate, must be allowed togive a liberal education. In fact they professedly sacrifice everythingelse to this object. 

Let us inquire into this matter. What do the higher schools, those towhich the great middle class of the country sends its children, teach, over and above the instruction given in the primary schools? There is alittle more reading and writing of English. But, for all that, everyone knows that it is a rare thing to find a boy of the middle or upperclasses who can read aloud decently, or who can put his thoughts onpaper in clear and grammatical (to say nothing of good or elegant)language. The "ciphering" of the lower schools expands into elementarymathematics in the higher; into arithmetic, with a little algebra, alittle Euclid. But I doubt if one boy in five hundred has ever heardthe explanation of a rule of arithmetic, or knows his Euclid otherwisethan by rote. 

Of theology, the middle class schoolboy gets rather less than poorerchildren, less absolutely and less relatively, because there are somany other claims upon his attention. I venture to say that, in thegreat majority of cases, his ideas on this subject when he leavesschool are of the most shadowy and vague description, and associatedwith painful impressions of the weary hours spent in learning collectsand catechism by heart. 

Modern geography, modern history, modern literature; the Englishlanguage as a language; the whole circle of the sciences, physical, moral and social, are even more completely ignored in the higher thanin the lower schools. Up till within a few years back, a boy might havepassed through any one of the great public schools with the greatestdistinction and credit, and might never so much as have heard of one ofthe subjects I have just mentioned. He might never have heard that theearth goes round the sun; that England underwent a great revolution in1688, and France another in 1789; that there once lived certain notablemen called Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Voltaire, Goethe, Schiller. The first might be a German and the last an Englishman for anything hecould tell you to the contrary. And as for Science, the only idea theword would suggest to his mind would be dexterity in boxing. 

I have said that this was the state of things a few years back, for thesake of the few righteous who are to be found among the educationalcities of the plain. But I would not have you too sanguine about theresult, if you sound the minds of the existing generation of publicschoolboys, on such topics as those I have mentioned. 

Now let us pause to consider this wonderful state of affairs; for thetime will come when Englishmen will quote it as the stock example ofthe stolid stupidity of their ancestors in the nineteenth century. Themost thoroughly commercial people, the greatest voluntary wanderers andcolonists the world has ever seen, are precisely the middle classes ofthis country. If there be a people which has been busy making historyon the great scale for the last three hundred years--and the mostprofoundly interesting history--history which, if it happened to bethat of Greece or Rome, we should study with avidity--it is theEnglish. If there be a people which, during the same period, hasdeveloped a remarkable literature, it is our own. If there be a nationwhose prosperity depends absolutely and wholly upon their mastery overthe forces of Nature, upon their intelligent apprehension of, andobedience to the laws of the creation and distribution of wealth, andof the stable equilibrium of the forces of society, it is preciselythis nation. And yet this is what these wonderful people tell theirsons:--"At the cost of from one to two thousand pounds of ourhard-earned money, we devote twelve of the most precious years of yourlives to school. There you shall toil, or be supposed to toil; butthere you shall not learn one single thing of all those you will mostwant to know directly you leave school and enter upon the practicalbusiness of life. You will in all probability go into business, but youshall not know where, or how, any article of commerce is produced, orthe difference between an export or an import, or the meaning of theword "capital. " You will very likely settle in a colony, but you shallnot know whether Tasmania is part of New South Wales, or _vice versâ_. 

"Very probably you may become a manufacturer, but you shall not beprovided with the means of understanding the working of one of your ownsteam-engines, or the nature of the raw products you employ; and, whenyou are asked to buy a patent, you shall not have the slightest meansof judging whether the inventor is an impostor who is contravening theelementary principles of science, or a man who will make you as rich asCroesus. 

"You will very likely get into the House of Commons. You will have totake your share in making laws which may prove a blessing or a curse tomillions of men. But you shall not hear one word respecting thepolitical organisation of your country; the meaning of the controversybetween free-traders and protectionists shall never have been mentionedto you; you shall not so much as know that there are such things aseconomical laws. 

"The mental power which will be of most importance in your daily lifewill be the power of seeing things as they are without regard toauthority; and of drawing accurate general conclusions from particularfacts. But at school and at college you shall know of no source oftruth but authority; nor exercise your reasoning faculty upon anythingbut deduction from that which is laid down by authority. 

"You will have to weary your soul with work, and many a time eat yourbread in sorrow and in bitterness, and you shall not have learned totake refuge in the great source of pleasure without alloy, the sereneresting-place for worn human nature, --the world of art. "

Said I not rightly that we are a wonderful people? I am quite preparedto allow, that education entirely devoted to these omitted subjectsmight not be a completely liberal education. But is an education whichignores them all a liberal education? Nay, is it too much to say thatthe education which should embrace these subjects and no others wouldbe a real education, though an incomplete one; while an education whichomits them is really not an education at all, but a more or less usefulcourse of intellectual gymnastics?

For what does the middle-class school put in the place of all thesethings which are left out? It substitutes what is usually comprisedunder the compendious title of the "classics"--that is to say, thelanguages, the literature, and the history of the ancient Greeks andRomans, and the geography of so much of the world as was known to thesetwo great nations of antiquity. Now, do not expect me to depreciate theearnest and enlightened pursuit of classical learning. I have not theleast desire to speak ill of such occupations, nor any sympathy withthose who run them down. On the contrary, if my opportunities had lainin that direction, there is no investigation into which I could havethrown myself with greater delight than that of antiquity. 

What science can present greater attractions than philology? How can alover of literary excellence fail to rejoice in the ancientmasterpieces? And with what consistency could I, whose business lies somuch in the attempt to decipher the past, and to build up intelligibleforms out of the scattered fragments of long-extinct beings, fail totake a sympathetic, though an unlearned, interest in the labours of aNiebuhr, a Gibbon, or a Grote? Classical history is a great section ofthe palaeontology of man; and I have the same double respect for it asfor other kinds of palaeontology--that is to say, a respect for thefacts which it establishes as for all facts, and a still greaterrespect for it as a preparation for the discovery of a law of progress. 

But if the classics were taught as they might be taught--if boys andgirls were instructed in Greek and Latin, not merely as languages, butas illustrations of philological science; if a vivid picture of life onthe shores of the Mediterranean two thousand years ago were imprintedon the minds of scholars; if ancient history were taught, not as aweary series of feuds and fights, but traced to its causes in such menplaced under such conditions; if, lastly, the study of the classicalbooks were followed in such a manner as to impress boys with theirbeauties, and with the grand simplicity of their statement of theeverlasting problems of human life, instead of with their verbal andgrammatical peculiarities; I still think it as little proper that theyshould form the basis of a liberal education for our contemporaries, asI should think it fitting to make that sort of palaeontology with whichI am familiar the back-bone of modern education. 

It is wonderful how close a parallel to classical training could bemade out of that palaeontology to which I refer. In the first place Icould get up an osteological primer so arid, so pedantic in itsterminology, so altogether distasteful to the youthful mind, as to beatthe recent famous production of the head-masters out of the field inall these excellences. Next, I could exercise my boys upon easyfossils, and bring out all their powers of memory and all theiringenuity in the application of my osteo-grammatical rules to theinterpretation, or construing, of those fragments. To those who hadreached the higher classes, I might supply odd bones to be built upinto animals, giving great honour and reward to him who succeeded infabricating monsters most entirely in accordance with the rules. Thatwould answer to verse-making and essay-writing in the dead languages. 

To be sure, if a great comparative anatomist were to look at thesefabrications he might shake his head, or laugh. But what then? Wouldsuch a catastrophe destroy the parallel? What, think you, would Cicero, or Horace, say to the production of the best sixth form going? Andwould not Terence stop his ears and run out if he could be present atan English performance of his own plays? Would _Hamlet_, in themouths of a set of French actors, who should insist on pronouncingEnglish after the fashion of their own tongue, be more hideouslyridiculous?

But it will be said that I am forgetting the beauty, and the humaninterest, which appertain to classical studies. To this I reply that itis only a very strong man who can appreciate the charms of a landscapeas he is toiling up a steep hill, along a had road. What withshort-windedness, stones, ruts, and a pervading sense of the wisdom ofrest and be thankful, most of us have little enough sense of thebeautiful under these circumstances. The ordinary schoolboy isprecisely in this case. He finds Parnassus uncommonly steep, and thereis no chance of his having much time or inclination to look about himtill he gets to the top. And nine times out of ten he does not get tothe top. 

But if this be a fair picture of the results of classical teaching atits best--and I gather from those who have authority to speak on suchmatters that it is so--what is to be said of classical teaching at itsworst, or in other words, of the classics of our ordinary middle-classschools? [1] I will tell you. It means getting up endless forms andrules by heart. It means turning Latin and Greek into English, for themere sake of being able to do it, and without the smallest regard tothe worth, or worthlessness, of the author read. It means the learningof innumerable, not always decent, fables in such a shape that themeaning they once had is dried up into utter trash; and the onlyimpression left upon a boy's mind is, that the people who believed suchthings must have been the greatest idiots the world ever saw. And itmeans, finally, that after a dozen years spent at this kind of work, the sufferer shall be incompetent to interpret a passage in an authorhe has not already got up; that he shall loathe the sight of a Greek orLatin book; and that he shall never open, or think of, a classicalwriter again, until, wonderful to relate, he insists upon submittinghis sons to the same process. 

These be your gods, O Israel! For the sake of this net result (andrespectability) the British father denies his children all theknowledge they might turn to account in life, not merely for theachievement of vulgar success, but for guidance in the great crises ofhuman existence. This is the stone he offers to those whom he is boundby the strongest and tenderest ties to feed with bread. 

 * * * * *

If primary and secondary education are in this unsatisfactory state, what is to be said to the universities? This is an awful subject, andone I almost fear to touch with my unhallowed hands; but I can tell youwhat those say who have authority to speak. 

The Rector of Lincoln College, in his lately published valuable"Suggestions for Academical Organisation with especial reference toOxford, " tells us (p. 127):--

"The colleges were, in their origin, endowments, not for the elementsof a general liberal education, but for the prolonged study of specialand professional faculties by men of riper age. The universitiesembraced both these objects. The colleges, while they incidentallyaided in elementary education, were specially devoted to the highestlearning.... 

"This was the theory of the middle-age university and the design ofcollegiate foundations in their origin. Time and circumstances havebrought about a total change. The colleges no longer promote theresearches of science, or direct professional study. Here and therecollege walls may shelter an occasional student, but not in largerproportions than may be found in private life. Elementary teaching ofyouths under twenty is now the only function performed by theuniversity, and almost the only object of college endowments. Collegeswere homes for the life-study of the highest and most abstruse parts ofknowledge. They have become boarding schools in which the elements ofthe learned languages are taught to youths. "

If Mr. Pattison's high position, and his obvious love and respect forhis university, be insufficient to convince the outside world thatlanguage so severe is yet no more than just, the authority of theCommissioners who reported on the University of Oxford in 1850 is opento no challenge. Yet they write:--

"It is generally acknowledged that both Oxford and the country at largesuffer greatly from the absence of a body of learned men devoting theirlives to the cultivation of science, and to the direction of academicaleducation. 

"The fact that so few books of profound research emanate from theUniversity of Oxford, materially impairs its character as a seat oflearning, and consequently its hold on the respect of the nation. "

Cambridge can claim no exemption from the reproaches addressed toOxford. And thus there seems no escape from the admission that what wefondly call our great seats of learning are simply "boarding schools"for bigger boys; that learned men are not more numerous in them thanout of them; that the advancement of knowledge is not the object offellows of colleges; that, in the philosophic calm and meditativestillness of their greenswarded courts, philosophy does not thrive, andmeditation bears few fruits. 

It is my great good fortune to reckon amongst my friends residentmembers of both universities, who are men of learning and research, zealous cultivators of science, keeping before their minds a nobleideal of a university, and doing their best to make that ideal areality; and, to me, they would necessarily typify the universities, did not the authoritative statements I have quoted compel me to believethat they are exceptional, and not representative men. Indeed, uponcalm consideration, several circumstances lead me to think that theRector of Lincoln College and the Commissioners cannot be far wrong. 

I believe there can be no doubt that the foreigner who should wish tobecome acquainted with the scientific, or the literary, activity ofmodern England, would simply lose his time and his pains if he visitedour universities with that object. 

And, as for works of profound research on any subject, and, above all, in that classical lore for which the universities profess to sacrificealmost everything else, why, a third-rate, poverty-stricken Germanuniversity turns out more produce of that kind in one year, than ourvast and wealthy foundations elaborate in ten. 

Ask the man who is investigating any question, profoundly andthoroughly--be it historical, philosophical, philological, physical, literary, or theological; who is trying to make himself master of anyabstract subject (except, perhaps, political economy and geology, bothof which are intensely Anglican sciences), whether he is not compelledto read half a dozen times as many German as English books? Andwhether, of these English books, more than one in ten is the work of afellow of a college, or a professor of an English university?

Is this from any lack of power in the English as compared with theGerman mind? The countrymen of Grote and of Mill, of Faraday, of RobertBrown, of Lyell, and of Darwin, to go no further back than thecontemporaries of men of middle age, can afford to smile at such asuggestion. England can show now, as she has been able to show in everygeneration since civilisation spread over the West, individual men whohold their own against the world, and keep alive the old tradition ofher intellectual eminence. 

But, in the majority of cases, these men are what they are in virtue oftheir native intellectual force, and of a strength of character whichwill not recognise impediments. They are not trained in the courts ofthe Temple of Science, but storm the walls of that edifice in all sortsof irregular ways, and with much loss of time and power, in order toobtain their legitimate positions. 

Our universities not only do not encourage such men; do not offer thempositions, in which it should be their highest duty to do, thoroughly, that which they are most capable of doing; but, as far as possible, university training shuts out of the minds of those among them, who aresubjected to it, the prospect that there is anything in the world forwhich they are specially fitted. Imagine the success of the attempt tostill the intellectual hunger of any of the men I have mentioned, byputting before him, as the object of existence, the successful mimicryof the measure of a Greek song, or the roll of Ciceronian prose!Imagine how much success would be likely to attend the attempt topersuade such men that the education which leads to perfection in suchelegances is alone to be called culture; while the facts of history, the process of thought, the conditions of moral and social existence, and the laws of physical nature are left to be dealt with as they mayby outside barbarians!

It is not thus that the German universities, from being beneath noticea century ago, have become what they are now--the most intenselycultivated and the most productive intellectual corporations the worldhas ever seen. 

The student who repairs to them sees in the list of classes and ofprofessors a fair picture of the world of knowledge. Whatever he needsto know there is some one ready to teach him, some one competent todiscipline him in the way of learning; whatever his special bent, lethim but be able and diligent, and in due time he shall find distinctionand a career. Among his professors, he sees men whose names are knownand revered throughout the civilised world; and their living exampleinfects him with a noble ambition, and a love for the spirit of work. 

The Germans dominate the intellectual world by virtue of the samesimple secret as that which made Napoleon the master of old Europe. They have declared _la carrière ouverte aux talents_, and everyBursch marches with a professor's gown in his knapsack. Let him becomea great scholar, or man of science, and ministers will compete for hisservices. In Germany, they do not leave the chance of his holding theoffice he would render illustrious to the tender mercies of a hotcanvass, and the final wisdom of a mob of country parsons. 

In short, in Germany, the universities are exactly what the Rector ofLincoln and the Commissioners tell us the English universities are not;that is to say, corporations "of learned men devoting their lives tothe cultivation of science, and the direction of academicaleducation. " They are not "boarding schools for youths, " nor clericalseminaries; but institutions for the higher culture of men, in whichthe theological faculty is of no more importance, or prominence, thanthe rest; and which are truly "universities, " since they strive torepresent and embody the totality of human knowledge, and to find roomfor all forms of intellectual activity. 

May zealous and clear-headed reformers like Mr. Pattison succeed intheir noble endeavours to shape our universities towards some suchideal as this, without losing what is valuable and distinctive in theirsocial tone! But until they have succeeded, a liberal education will beno more obtainable in our Oxford and Cambridge Universities than in ourpublic schools. 

If I am justified in my conception of the ideal of a liberal education;and if what I have said about the existing educational institutions ofthe country is also true, it is clear that the two have no sort ofrelation to one another; that the best of our schools and the mostcomplete of our university trainings give but a narrow, one-sided, andessentially illiberal education--while the worst give what is reallynext to no education at all. The South London Working-Men's Collegecould not copy any of these institutions if it would; I am bold enoughto express the conviction that it ought not if it could. 

For what is wanted is the reality and not the mere name of a liberaleducation; and this College must steadily set before itself theambition to be able to give that education sooner or later. At presentwe are but beginning, sharpening our educational tools, as it were, and, except a modicum of physical science, we are not able to offermuch more than is to be found in an ordinary school. 

Moral and social science--one of the greatest and most fruitful of ourfuture classes, I hope--at present lacks only one thing in ourprogramme, and that is a teacher. A considerable want, no doubt; but itmust be recollected that it is much better to want a teacher than towant the desire to learn. 

Further, we need what, for want of a better name, I must callPhysical Geography. What I mean is that which the Germans call"_Erdkunde_. " It is a description of the earth, of its place andrelation to other bodies; of its general structure, and of its greatfeatures--winds, tides, mountains, plains: of the chief forms of thevegetable and animal worlds, of the varieties of man. It is the pegupon which the greatest quantity of useful and entertaining scientificinformation can be suspended. 

Literature is not upon the College programme; but I hope some day tosee it there. For literature is the greatest of all sources of refinedpleasure, and one of the great uses of a liberal education is to enableus to enjoy that pleasure. There is scope enough for the purposes ofliberal education in the study of the rich treasures of our ownlanguage alone. All that is needed is direction, and the cultivation ofa refined taste by attention to sound criticism. But there is no reasonwhy French and German should not be mastered sufficiently to read whatis worth reading in those languages with pleasure and with profit. 

And finally, by and by, we must have History; treated not as asuccession of battles and dynasties; not as a series of biographies;not as evidence that Providence has always been on the side of eitherWhigs or Tories; but as the development of man in times past, and inother conditions than our own. 

But, as it is one of the principles of our College to beself-supporting, the public must lead, and we must follow, in thesematters. If my hearers take to heart what I have said about liberaleducation, they will desire these things, and I doubt not we shall beable to supply them. But we must wait till the demand is made. 

 * * * * *

Footnotes:

[1] For a justification of what is here said about theseschools, see that valuable book, _Essays on a Liberal Education, passim_. 

V

SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION: NOTES OF AN AFTER-DINNER SPEECH

[1869]

 [Mr. Thackeray, talking of after-dinner speeches, has lamented that "one never can recollect the fine things one thought of in the cab, " in going to the place of entertainment. I am not aware that there are any "fine things" in the following pages, but such as there are stand to a speech which really did get itself spoken, at the hospitable table of the Liverpool Philomathic Society, more or less in the position of what "one thought of in the cab. "]

The introduction of scientific training into the general education ofthe country is a topic upon which I could not have spoken, without somemore or less apologetic introduction, a few years ago. But upon this, as upon other matters, public opinion has of late undergone a rapidmodification. Committees of both Houses of the Legislature have agreedthat something must be done in this direction, and have even thrown outtimid and faltering suggestions as to what should be done; while at theopposite pole of society, committees of working men have expressedtheir conviction that scientific training is the one thing needful fortheir advancement, whether as men, or as workmen. Only the other day, it was my duty to take part in the reception of a deputation of Londonworking men, who desired to learn from Sir Roderick Murchison, theDirector of the Royal School of Mines, whether the organisation of theInstitution in Jermyn Street could be made available for the supply ofthat scientific instruction the need of which could not have beenapprehended, or stated, more clearly than it was by them. 

The heads of colleges in our great universities (who have not thereputation of being the most mobile of persons) have, in several cases, thought it well that, out of the great number of honours and rewards attheir disposal, a few should hereafter be given to the cultivators ofthe physical sciences. Nay, I hear that some colleges have even gone sofar as to appoint one, or, maybe, two special tutors for the purpose ofputting the facts and principles of physical science before theundergraduate mind. And I say it with gratitude and great respect forthose eminent persons, that the head masters of our public schools, Eton, Harrow, Winchester, have addressed themselves to the problem ofintroducing instruction in physical science among the studies of thosegreat educational bodies, with much honesty of purpose andenlightenment of understanding; and I live in hope that, before long, important changes in this direction will be carried into effect inthose strongholds of ancient prescription. In fact, such changes havealready been made, and physical science, even now, constitutes arecognised element of the school curriculum in Harrow and Rugby, whilstI understand that ample preparations for such studies are being made atEton and elsewhere. 

Looking at these facts, I might perhaps spare myself the trouble ofgiving any reasons for the introduction of physical science intoelementary education; yet I cannot but think that it may be well if Iplace before you some considerations which, perhaps, have hardlyreceived full attention. 

At other times, and in other places, I have endeavoured to state thehigher and more abstract arguments, by which the study of physicalscience may be shown to be indispensable to the complete training ofthe human mind; but I do not wish it to be supposed that, because Ihappen to be devoted to more or less abstract and "unpractical"pursuits, I am insensible to the weight which ought to be attachedto that which has been said to be the English conception ofParadise--namely, "getting on. " I look upon it, that "getting on" is avery important matter indeed. I do not mean merely for the sake of thecoarse and tangible results of success, but because humanity is soconstituted that a vast number of us would never be impelled to thosestretches of exertion which make, us wiser and more capable men, if itwere not for the absolute necessity of putting on our faculties all thestrain they will bear, for the purpose of "getting on" in the mostpractical sense. 

Now the value of a knowledge of physical science as a means of gettingon is indubitable. There are hardly any of our trades, except themerely huckstering ones, in which some knowledge of science may not bedirectly profitable to the pursuer of that occupation. As industryattains higher stages of its development, as its processes become morecomplicated and refined, and competition more keen, the sciences aredragged in, one by one, to take their share in the fray; and he who canbest avail himself of their help is the man who will come out uppermostin that struggle for existence, which goes on as fiercely beneath thesmooth surface of modern society, as among the wild inhabitants of thewoods. 

But in addition to the bearing of science on ordinary practical life, let me direct your attention to its immense influence on several of theprofessions. I ask any one who has adopted the calling of an engineer, how much time he lost when he left school, because he had to devotehimself to pursuits which were absolutely novel and strange, and ofwhich he had not obtained the remotest conception from his instructors?He had to familiarise himself with ideas of the course and powers ofNature, to which his attention had never been directed during hisschool-life, and to learn, for the first time, that a world of factslies outside and beyond the world of words. I appeal to those who knowwhat engineering is, to say how far I am right in respect to thatprofession; but with regard to another, of no less importance, I shallventure to speak of my own knowledge. There is no one of us who may notat any moment be thrown, bound hand and foot by physical incapacity, into the hands of a medical practitioner. The chances of life and deathfor all and each of us may, at any moment, depend on the skill withwhich that practitioner is able to make out what is wrong in our bodilyframes, and on his ability to apply the proper remedy to the defect. 

The necessities of modern life are such, and the class from which themedical profession is chiefly recruited is so situated, that fewmedical men can hope to spend more than three or four, or it may befive, years in the pursuit of those studies which are immediatelygermane to physic. How is that all too brief period spent at present? Ispeak as an old examiner, having served some eleven or twelve years inthat capacity in the University of London, and therefore having apractical acquaintance with the subject; but I might fortify myself bythe authority of the President of the College of Surgeons, Mr. Quain, whom I heard the other day in an admirable address (the HunterianOration) deal fully and wisely with this very topic. [1]

A young man commencing the study of medicine is at once required toendeavour to make an acquaintance with a number of sciences, such asPhysics, as Chemistry, as Botany, as Physiology, which are absolutelyand entirely strange to him, however excellent his so-called educationat school may have been. Not only is he devoid of all apprehension ofscientific conceptions, not only does he fail to attach any meaning tothe words "matter, " "force, " or "law" in their scientific senses, but, worse still, he has no notion of what it is to come into contact withNature, or to lay his mind alongside of a physical fact, and try toconquer it, in the way our great naval hero told his captains to mastertheir enemies. His whole mind has been given to books, and I am hardlyexaggerating if I say that they are more real to him than Nature. Heimagines that all knowledge can be got out of books, and rests upon theauthority of some master or other; nor does he entertain any misgivingthat the method of learning which led to proficiency in the rules ofgrammar will suffice to lead him to a mastery of the laws of Nature. The youngster, thus unprepared for serious study, is turned loose amonghis medical studies, with the result, in nine cases out of ten, thatthe first year of his curriculum is spent in learning how to learn. Indeed, he is lucky if, at the end of the first year, by the exertionsof his teachers and his own industry, he has acquired even that art ofarts. After which there remain not more than three, or perhaps four, years for the profitable study of such vast sciences as Anatomy, Physiology, Therapeutics, Medicine, Surgery, Obstetrics, and the like, upon his knowledge or ignorance of which it depends whether thepractitioner shall diminish, or increase, the bills of mortality. Nowwhat is it but the preposterous condition of ordinary school educationwhich prevents a young man of seventeen, destined for the practice ofmedicine, from being fully prepared for the study of Nature; and fromcoming to the medical school, equipped with that preliminary knowledgeof the principles of Physics, of Chemistry and of Biology, upon whichhe has now to waste one of the precious years, every moment of whichought to be given to those studies which bear directly upon theknowledge of his profession?

There is another profession, to the members of which, I think, acertain preliminary knowledge of physical science might be quite asvaluable as to the medical man. The practitioner of medicine setsbefore himself the noble object of taking care of man's bodily welfare;but the members of this other profession undertake to "minister tominds diseased, " and, so far as may be, to diminish sin and softensorrow. Like the medical profession, the clerical, of which I nowspeak, rests its power to heal upon its knowledge of the order of theuniverse--upon certain theories of man's relation to that which liesoutside him. It is not my business to express any opinion about thesetheories. I merely wish to point out that, like all other theories, they are professedly based upon matters of fact. Thus the clericalprofession has to deal with the facts of Nature from a certain point ofview; and hence it comes into contact with that of the man of science, who has to treat the same facts from another point of view. You knowhow often that contact is to be described as collision, or violentfriction; and how great the heat, how little the light, which commonlyresults from it. 

In the interests of fair play, to say nothing of those of mankind, Iask, Why do not the clergy as a body acquire, as a part of theirpreliminary education, some such tincture of physical science as willput them in a position to understand the difficulties in the way ofaccepting their theories, which are forced upon the mind of everythoughtful and intelligent man, who has taken the trouble to instructhimself in the elements of natural knowledge?

Some time ago I attended a large meeting of the clergy, for the purposeof delivering an address which I had been invited to give. I spoke ofsome of the most elementary facts in physical science, and of themanner in which they directly contradict certain of the ordinaryteachings of the clergy. The result was, that, after I had finished, one section of the assembled ecclesiastics attacked me with all theintemperance of pious zeal, for stating facts and conclusions which nocompetent judge doubts; while, after the first speakers had subsided, amidst the cheers of the great majority of their colleagues, the morerational minority rose to tell me that I had taken wholly superfluouspains, that they already knew all about what I had told them, andperfectly agreed with me. A hard-headed friend of mine, who waspresent, put the not unnatural question, "Then why don't you say so inyour pulpits?" to which inquiry I heard no reply. 

In fact the clergy are at present divisible into three sections: animmense body who are ignorant and speak out; a small proportion whoknow and are silent; and a minute minority who know and speak accordingto their knowledge. By the clergy, I mean especially the Protestantclergy. Our great antagonist--I speak as a man of science--the RomanCatholic Church, the one great spiritual organisation which is able toresist, and must, as a matter of life and death, resist, the progressof science and modern civilisation, manages her affairs much better. 

It was my fortune some time ago to pay a visit to one of the mostimportant of the institutions in which the clergy of the Roman CatholicChurch in these islands are trained; and it seemed to me that thedifference between these men and the comfortable champions ofAnglicanism and of Dissent, was comparable to the difference betweenour gallant Volunteers and the trained veterans of Napoleon's OldGuard. 

The Catholic priest is trained to know his business, and do iteffectually. The professors of the college in question, learned, zealous, and determined men, permitted me to speak frankly with them. We talked like outposts of opposed armies during a truce--as friendlyenemies; and when I ventured to point out the difficulties theirstudents would have to encounter from scientific thought, they replied:"Our Church has lasted many ages, and has passed safely through manystorms. The present is but a new gust of the old tempest, and we do notturn out our young men less fitted to weather it, than they have been, in former times, to cope with the difficulties of those times. Theheresies of the day are explained to them by their professors ofphilosophy and science, and they are taught how those heresies are tobe met. "

I heartily respect an organisation which faces its enemies in this way;and I wish that all ecclesiastical organisations were in as effective acondition. I think it would be better, not only for them, but for us. The army of liberal thought is, at present, in very loose order; andmany a spirited free-thinker makes use of his freedom mainly to ventnonsense. We should be the better for a vigorous and watchful enemy tohammer us into cohesion and discipline; and I, for one, lament that thebench of Bishops cannot show a man of the calibre of Butler of the"Analogy, " who, if he were alive, would make short work of much of thecurrent _à priori_ "infidelity. "

I hope you will consider that the arguments I have now stated, even ifthere were no better ones, constitute a sufficient apology for urgingthe introduction of science into schools. The next question to which Ihave to address myself is, What sciences ought to be thus taught? Andthis is one of the most important of questions, because my side (I amafraid I am a terribly candid friend) sometimes spoils its cause bygoing in for too much. There are other forms of culture beside physicalscience; and I should be profoundly sorry to see the fact forgotten, oreven to observe a tendency to starve, or cripple, literary, oraesthetic, culture for the sake of science. Such a narrow view of thenature of education has nothing to do with my firm conviction that acomplete and thorough scientific culture ought to be introduced intoall schools. By this, however, I do not mean that every schoolboyshould be taught everything in science. That would be a very absurdthing to conceive, and a very mischievous thing to attempt. What I meanis, that no boy nor girl should leave school without possessing a graspof the general character of science, and without having beendisciplined, more or less, in the methods of all sciences; so that, when turned into the world to make their own way, they shall beprepared to face scientific problems, not by knowing at once theconditions of every problem, or by being able at once to solve it; butby being familiar with the general current of scientific thought, andby being able to apply the methods of science in the proper way, whenthey have acquainted themselves with the conditions of the specialproblem. 

That is what I understand by scientific education. To furnish a boywith such an education, it is by no means necessary that he shoulddevote his whole school existence to physical science: in fact, no onewould lament so one-sided a proceeding more than I. Nay more, it is notnecessary for him to give up more than a moderate share of his time tosuch studies, if they be properly selected and arranged, and if he betrained in them in a fitting manner. 

I conceive the proper course to be somewhat as follows. To begin with, let every child be instructed in those general views of the phaenomenaof Nature for which we have no exact English name. The nearestapproximation to a name for what I mean, which we possess, is "physicalgeography. " The Germans have a better, "Erdkunde" ("earth knowledge" or"geology" in its etymological sense), that is to say, a generalknowledge of the earth, and what is on it, in it, and about it. If anyone who has had experience of the ways of young children will call tomind their questions, he will find that so far as they can be put intoany scientific category, they come under this head of "Erdkunde. " Thechild asks, "What is the moon, and why does it shine?" "What is thiswater, and where does it run?" "What is the wind?" "What makes thiswaves in the sea?" "Where does this animal live, and what is the use ofthat plant?" And if not snubbed and stunted by being told not to askfoolish questions, there is no limit to the intellectual craving of ayoung child; nor any bounds to the slow, but solid, accretion ofknowledge and development of the thinking faculty in this way. To allsuch questions, answers which are necessarily incomplete, though trueas far as they go, may be given by any teacher whose ideas representreal knowledge and not mere book learning; and a panoramic view ofNature, accompanied by a strong infusion of the scientific habit ofmind, may thus be placed within the reach of every child of nine orten. 

After this preliminary opening of the eyes to the great spectacleof the daily progress of Nature, as the reasoning faculties of thechild grow, and he becomes familiar with the use of the tools ofknowledge--reading, writing, and elementary mathematics--he should passon to what is, in the more strict sense, physical science. Now thereare two kinds of physical science: the one regards form and therelation of forms to one another; the other deals with causes andeffects. In many of what we term sciences, these two kinds are mixed uptogether; but systematic botany is a pure example of the former kind, and physics of the latter kind, of science. Every educational advantagewhich training in physical science can give is obtainable from theproper study of these two; and I should be contented, for the present, if they, added to our "Erdkunde, " furnished the whole of the scientificcurriculum of school. Indeed, I conceive it would be one of thegreatest boons which could be conferred upon England, if henceforwardevery child in the country were instructed in the general knowledge ofthe things about it, in the elements of physics, and of botany. But Ishould be still better pleased if there could be added somewhat ofchemistry, and an elementary acquaintance with human physiology. 

So far as school education is concerned, I want to go no further justnow; and I believe that such instruction would make an excellentintroduction to that preparatory scientific training which, as I haveindicated, is so essential for the successful pursuit of our mostimportant professions. But this modicum of instruction must be so givenas to ensure real knowledge and practical discipline. If scientificeducation is to be dealt with as mere bookwork, it will be better notto attempt it, but to stick to the Latin Grammar which makes nopretence to be anything but bookwork. 

If the great benefits of scientific training are sought, it isessential that such training should be real: that is to say, that themind of the scholar should be brought into direct relation with fact, that he should not merely be told a thing, but made to see by the useof his own intellect and ability that the thing is so and no otherwise. The great peculiarity of scientific training, that in virtue of whichit cannot be replaced by any other discipline whatsoever, is thisbringing of the mind directly into contact with fact, and practisingthe intellect in the completest form of induction; that is to say, indrawing conclusions from particular facts made known by immediateobservation of Nature. 

The other studies which enter into ordinary education do not disciplinethe mind in this way. Mathematical training is almost purely deductive. The mathematician starts with a few simple propositions, the proof ofwhich is so obvious that they are called self-evident, and the rest ofhis work consists of subtle deductions from them. The teaching oflanguages, at any rate as ordinarily practised, is of the same generalnature, --authority and tradition furnish the data, and the mentaloperations of the scholar are deductive. 

Again: if history be the subject of study, the facts are still takenupon the evidence of tradition and authority. You cannot make a boy seethe battle of Thermopylae for himself, or know, of his own knowledge, that Cromwell once ruled England. There is no getting into directcontact with natural fact by this road; there is no dispensing withauthority, but rather a resting upon it. 

In all these respects, science differs from other educationaldiscipline, and prepares the scholar for common life. What have we todo in every-day life? Most of the business which demands our attentionis matter of fact, which needs, in the first place, to be accuratelyobserved or apprehended; in the second, to be interpreted by inductiveand deductive reasonings, which are altogether similar in their natureto those employed in science. In the one case, as in the other, whatever is taken for granted is so taken at one's own peril; fact andreason are the ultimate arbiters, and patience and honesty are thegreat helpers out of difficulty. 

But if scientific training is to yield its most eminent results, itmust, I repeat, be made practical. That is to say, in explaining to achild the general phaenomena of Nature, you must, as far as possible, give reality to your teaching by object-lessons; in teaching himbotany, he must handle the plants and dissect the flowers for himself;in teaching him physics and chemistry, you must not be solicitous tofill him with information, but you must be careful that what he learnshe knows of his own knowledge. Don't be satisfied with telling him thata magnet attracts iron. Let him see that it does; let him feel the pullof the one upon the other for himself. And, especially, tell him thatit is his duty to doubt until he is compelled, by the absoluteauthority of Nature, to believe that which is written in books. Pursuethis discipline carefully and conscientiously, and you may make surethat, however scanty may be the measure of information which you havepoured into the boy's mind, you have created an intellectual habit ofpriceless value in practical life. 

One is constantly asked, When should this scientific education becommenced? I should say with the dawn of intelligence. As I havealready said, a child seeks for information about matters of physicalscience as soon as it begins to talk. The first teaching it wants is anobject-lesson of one sort or another; and as soon as it is fit forsystematic instruction of any kind, it is fit for a modicum of science. 

People talk of the difficulty of teaching young children such matters, and in the same breath insist upon their learning their Catechism, which contains propositions far harder to comprehend than anything inthe educational course I have proposed. Again: I am incessantly toldthat we, who advocate the introduction of science in schools, make noallowance for the stupidity of the average boy or girl; but, in mybelief, that stupidity, in nine cases out of ten, "_fit, nonnascitur_, " and is developed by a long process of parental andpedagogic repression of the natural intellectual appetites, accompanied by a persistent attempt to create artificial ones for foodwhich is not only tasteless, but essentially indigestible. 

Those who urge the difficulty of instructing young people inscience are apt to forget another very important condition ofsuccess--important in all kinds of teaching, but most essential, I amdisposed to think, when the scholars are very young. This condition is, that the teacher should himself really and practically know hissubject. If he does, he will be able to speak of it in the easylanguage, and with the completeness of conviction, with which he talksof any ordinary every-day matter. If he does not, he will be afraid towander beyond the limits of the technical phraseology which he has gotup; and a dead dogmatism, which oppresses, or raises opposition, willtake the place of the lively confidence, born of personal conviction, which cheers and encourages the eminently sympathetic mind ofchildhood. 

I have already hinted that such scientific training as we seek for maybe given without making any extravagant claim upon the time now devotedto education. We ask only for "a most favoured nation" clause in ourtreaty with the schoolmaster; we demand no more than that science shallhave as much time given to it as any other single subject--say fourhours a week in each class of an ordinary school. 

For the present, I think men of science would be well content with suchan arrangement as this: but speaking for myself, I do not pretend tobelieve that such an arrangement can be, or will be, permanent. Inthese times the educational tree seems to me to have its roots in theair, its leaves and flowers in the ground; and, I confess, I shouldvery much like to turn it upside down, so that its roots might besolidly embedded among the facts of Nature, and draw thence a soundnutriment for the foliage and fruit of literature and of art. Noeducational system can have a claim to permanence, unless it recognisesthe truth that education has two great ends to which everything elsemust be subordinated. The one of these is to increase knowledge; theother is to develop the love of right and the hatred of wrong. 

With wisdom and uprightness a nation can make its way worthily, andbeauty will follow in the footsteps of the two, even if she be notspecially invited; while there is perhaps no sight in the whole worldmore saddening and revolting than is offered by men sunk in ignoranceof everything but what other men have written; seemingly devoid ofmoral belief or guidance; but with the sense of beauty so keen, and thepower of expression so cultivated, that their sensual caterwauling maybe almost mistaken for the music of the spheres. 

At present, education is almost entirely devoted to the cultivation ofthe power of expression, and of the sense of literary beauty. Thematter of having anything to say, beyond a hash of other people'sopinions, or of possessing any criterion of beauty, so that we maydistinguish between the Godlike and the devilish, is left aside as ofno moment. I think I do not err in saying that if science were made afoundation of education, instead of being, at most, stuck on as corniceto the edifice, this state of things could not exist. 

In advocating the introduction of physical science as a leading elementin education, I by no means refer only to the higher schools. On thecontrary, I believe that such a change is even more imperatively calledfor in those primary schools, in which the children of the poor areexpected to turn to the best account the little time they can devote tothe acquisition of knowledge. A great step in this direction hasalready been made by the establishment of science-classes under theDepartment of Science and Art, --a measure which came into existenceunnoticed, but which will, I believe, turn out to be of more importanceto the welfare of the people than many political changes over which thenoise of battle has rent the air. 

Under the regulations to which I refer, a schoolmaster can set up aclass in one or more branches of science; his pupils will be examined, and the State will pay him, at a certain rate, for all who succeed inpassing. I have acted as an examiner under this system from thebeginning of its establishment, and this year I expect to have notfewer than a couple of thousand sets of answers to questions inPhysiology, mainly from young people of the artisan class, who havebeen taught in the schools which are now scattered all over greatBritain and Ireland. Some of my colleagues, who have to deal withsubjects such as Geometry, for which the present teaching power isbetter organised, I understand are likely to have three or four timesas many papers. So far as my own subjects are concerned, I canundertake to say that a great deal of the teaching, the results ofwhich are before me in these examinations, is very sound and good; andI think it is in the power of the examiners, not only to keep up thepresent standard, but to cause an almost unlimited improvement. Nowwhat does this mean? It means that by holding out a very moderateinducement, the masters of primary schools in many parts of the countryhave been led to convert them into little foci of scientificinstruction; and that they and their pupils have contrived to find, orto make, time enough to carry out this object with a very considerabledegree of efficiency. That efficiency will, I doubt not, be very muchincreased as the system becomes known and perfected, even with the verylimited leisure left to masters and teachers on week-days. And thisleads me to ask, Why should scientific teaching be limited toweek-days?

Ecclesiastically-minded persons are in the habit of calling things theydo not like by very hard names, and I should not wonder if they brandthe proposition I am about to make as blasphemous, and worse. But, notminding this, I venture to ask, Would there really be anything wrong inusing part of Sunday for the purpose of instructing those who have noother leisure, in a knowledge of the phaenomena of Nature, and of man'srelation to Nature?

I should like to see a scientific Sunday-school in every parish, notfor the purpose of superseding any existing means of teaching thepeople the things that are for their good, but side by side with them. I cannot but think that there is room for all of us to work in helpingto bridge over the great abyss of ignorance which lies at our feet. 

And if any of the ecclesiastical persons to whom I have referred, object that they find it derogatory to the honour of the God whom theyworship, to awaken the minds of the young to the infinite wonder andmajesty of the works which they proclaim His, and to teach them thoselaws which must needs be His laws, and therefore of all things needfulfor man to know--I can only recommend them to be let blood and put onlow diet. There must be something very wrong going on in the instrumentof logic if it turns out such conclusions from such premises. 

 * * * * *

Footnotes:

[1] Mr. Quam's words (_Medical Times and Gazette_, February 20)are:--"A few words as to our special Medical course of instructionand the influence upon it of such changes in the elementary schools asI have mentioned. The student now enters at once upon severalsciences--physics, chemistry, anatomy, physiology, botany, pharmacy, therapeutics--all these, the facts and the language and the laws ofeach, to be mastered in eighteen months. Up to the beginning of theMedical course many have learned little. We cannot claim anythingbetter than the Examiner of the University of London and the CambridgeLecturer have reported for their Universities. Supposing that at schoolyoung people had acquired some exact elementary knowledge in physics, chemistry, and a branch of natural history--say botany--with thephysiology connected with it, they would then have gained necessaryknowledge, with some practice in inductive reasoning. The whole studiesare processes of observation and induction--the best discipline of themind for the purposes of life--for our purposes not less than any. 'Bysuch study (says Dr. Whewell) of one or more departments of inductivescience the mind may escape from the thraldom of mere words. ' By thatplan the burden of the early Medical course would be much lightened, and more time devoted to practical studies, including Sir ThomasWatson's 'final and supreme stage' of the knowledge of Medicine. "

VI

SCIENCE AND CULTURE

[1880]

Six years ago, as some of my present hearers may remember, I had theprivilege of addressing a large assemblage of the inhabitants of thiscity, who had gathered together to do honour to the memory of theirfamous townsman, Joseph Priestley; [1] and, if any satisfactionattaches to posthumous glory, we may hope that the manes of theburnt-out philosopher were then finally appeased. 

No man, however, who is endowed with a fair share of common sense, andnot more than a fair share of vanity, will identify either contemporaryor posthumous fame with the highest good; and Priestley's life leavesno doubt that he, at any rate, set a much higher value upon theadvancement of knowledge, and the promotion of that freedom of thoughtwhich is at once the cause and the consequence of intellectualprogress. 

Hence I am disposed to think that, if Priestley could be amongst usto-day, the occasion of our meeting would afford him even greaterpleasure than the proceedings which celebrated the centenary of hischief discovery. The kindly heart would be moved, the high sense ofsocial duty would be satisfied, by the spectacle of well-earned wealth, neither squandered in tawdry luxury and vainglorious show, norscattered with the careless charity which blesses neither him thatgives nor him that takes, but expended in the execution of awell-considered plan for the aid of present and future generations ofthose who are willing to help themselves. 

We shall all be of one mind thus far. But it is needful to sharePriestley's keen interest in physical science; and to have learned, ashe had learned, the value of scientific training in fields of inquiryapparently far remote from physical science; in order to appreciate, ashe would have appreciated, the value of the noble gift which Sir JosiahMason has bestowed upon the inhabitants of the Midland district. 

For us children of the nineteenth century, however, the establishmentof a college under the conditions of Sir Josiah Mason's Trust, has asignificance apart from any which it could have possessed a hundredyears ago. It appears to be an indication that we are reaching thecrisis of the battle, or rather of the long series of battles, whichhave been fought over education in a campaign which began long beforePriestley's time, and will probably not be finished just yet. 

In the last century, the combatants were the champions of ancientliterature on the one side, and those of modern literature on theother; but, some thirty years [2] ago, the contest became complicatedby the appearance of a third army, ranged round the banner of PhysicalScience. 

I am not aware that any one has authority to speak in the name of thisnew host. For it must be admitted to be somewhat of a guerilla force, composed largely of irregulars, each of whom fights pretty much for hisown hand. But the impressions of a full private, who has seen a gooddeal of service in the ranks, respecting the present position ofaffairs and the conditions of a permanent peace, may not be devoid ofinterest; and I do not know that I could make a better use of thepresent opportunity than by laying them before you. 

 * * * * *

From the time that the first suggestion to introduce physical scienceinto ordinary education was timidly whispered, until now, the advocatesof scientific education have met with opposition of two kinds. On theone hand, they have been pooh-poohed by the men of business who pridethemselves on being the representatives of practicality; while, on theother hand, they have been excommunicated by the classical scholars, intheir capacity of Levites in charge of the ark of culture andmonopolists of liberal education. 

The practical men believed that the idol whom they worship--rule ofthumb--has been the source of the past prosperity, and will suffice forthe future welfare of the arts and manufactures. They were of opinionthat science is speculative rubbish; that theory and practice havenothing to do with one another; and that the scientific habit of mindis an impediment, rather than an aid, in the conduct of ordinaryaffairs. 

I have used the past tense in speaking of the practical men--foralthough they were very formidable thirty years ago, I am not sure thatthe pure species has not been extirpated. In fact, so far as mereargument goes, they have been subjected to such a _feu d'enfer_that it is a miracle if any have escaped. But I have remarked that yourtypical practical man has an unexpected resemblance to one of Milton'sangels. His spiritual wounds, such as are inflicted by logical weapons, may be as deep as a well and as wide as a church door, but beyondshedding a few drops of ichor, celestial or otherwise, he is no whitthe worse. So, if any of these opponents be left, I will not waste timein vain repetition of the demonstrative evidence of the practical valueof science; but knowing that a parable will sometimes penetrate wheresyllogisms fail to effect an entrance, I will offer a story for theirconsideration. 

Once upon a time, a boy, with nothing to depend upon but his ownvigorous nature, was thrown into the thick of the struggle forexistence in the midst of a great manufacturing population. He seems tohave had a hard fight, inasmuch as, by the time he was thirty years ofage, his total disposable funds amounted to twenty pounds. Nevertheless, middle life found him giving proof of his comprehensionof the practical problems he had been roughly called upon to solve, bya career of remarkable prosperity. 

Finally, having reached old age with its well-earned surroundings of"honour, troops of friends, " the hero of my story bethought himself ofthose who were making a like start in life, and how he could stretchout a helping hand to them. 

After long and anxious reflection this successful practical man ofbusiness could devise nothing better than to provide them with themeans of obtaining "sound, extensive, and practical scientificknowledge. " And he devoted a large part of his wealth and five years ofincessant work to this end. 

I need not point the moral of a tale which, as the solid and spaciousfabric of the Scientific College assures us, is no fable, nor cananything which I could say intensify the force of this practical answerto practical objections. 

 * * * * *

We may take it for granted then, that, in the opinion of those bestqualified to judge, the diffusion of thorough scientific education isan absolutely essential condition of industrial progress; and that theCollege which has been opened to-day will confer an inestimable boonupon those whose livelihood is to be gained by the practise of the artsand manufactures of the district. 

The only question worth discussion is, whether the conditions, underwhich the work of the College is to be carried out, are such as to giveit the best possible chance of achieving permanent success. 

Sir Josiah Mason, without doubt most wisely, has left very largefreedom of action to the trustees, to whom he proposes ultimately tocommit the administration of the College, so that they may be able toadjust its arrangements in accordance with the changing conditions ofthe future. But, with respect to three points, he has laid mostexplicit injunctions upon both administrators and teachers. 

Party politics are forbidden to enter into the minds of either, so faras the work of the College is concerned; theology is as stonilybanished from its precincts; and finally, it is especially declaredthat the College shall make no provision for "mere literary instructionand education. "

It does not concern me at present to dwell upon the first twoinjunctions any longer than may be needful to express my fullconviction of their wisdom. But the third prohibition brings us face toface with those other opponents of scientific education, who are by nomeans in the moribund condition of the practical man, but alive, alert, and formidable. 

It is not impossible that we shall hear this express exclusion of"literary instruction and education" from a College which, nevertheless, professes to give a high and efficient education, sharplycriticised. Certainly the time was that the Levites of culture wouldhave sounded their trumpets against its walls as against an educationalJericho. 

How often have we not been told that the study of physical science isincompetent to confer culture; that it touches none of the higherproblems of life; and, what is worse, that the continual devotion toscientific studies tends to generate a narrow and bigoted belief in theapplicability of scientific methods to the search after truth of allkinds? How frequently one has reason to observe that no reply to atroublesome argument tells so well as calling its author a "merescientific specialist. " And, as I am afraid it is not permissible tospeak of this form of opposition to scientific education in the pasttense; may we not expect to be told that this, not only omission, butprohibition, of "mere literary instruction and education" is a patentexample of scientific narrow-mindedness?

I am not acquainted with Sir Josiah Mason's reasons for the actionwhich he has taken; but if, as I apprehend is the case, he refers tothe ordinary classical course of our schools and universities by thename of "mere literary instruction and education, " I venture to offersundry reasons of my own in support of that action. 

For I hold very strongly by two convictions--The first is, that neitherthe discipline nor the subject-matter of classical education is of suchdirect value to the student of physical science as to justify theexpenditure of valuable time upon either; and the second is, that forthe purpose of attaining real culture, an exclusively scientificeducation is at least as effectual as an exclusively literaryeducation. 

I need hardly point out to you that these opinions, especially thelatter, are diametrically opposed to those of the great majority ofeducated Englishmen, influenced as they are by school and universitytraditions. In their belief, culture is obtainable only by a liberaleducation; and a liberal education is synonymous, not merely witheducation and instruction in literature, but in one particular form ofliterature, namely, that of Greek and Roman antiquity. They hold thatthe man who has learned Latin and Greek, however little, is educated;while he who is versed in other branches of knowledge, however deeply, is a more or less respectable specialist, not admissible into thecultured caste. The stamp of the educated man, the University degree, is not for him. 

I am too well acquainted with the generous catholicity of spirit, thetrue sympathy with scientific thought, which pervades the writings ofour chief apostle of culture to identify him with these opinions; andyet one may cull from one and another of those epistles to thePhilistines, which so much delight all who do not answer to that name, sentences which lend them some support. 

Mr. Arnold tells us that the meaning of culture is "to know the bestthat has been thought and said in the world. " It is the criticism oflife contained in literature. That criticism regards "Europe as being, for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great confederation, boundto a joint action and working to a common result; and whose membershave, for their common outfit, a knowledge of Greek, Roman, and Easternantiquity, and of one another. Special, local, and temporary advantagesbeing put out of account, that modern nation will in the intellectualand spiritual sphere make most progress, which most thoroughly carriesout this programme. And what is that but saying that we too, all of us, as individuals, the more thoroughly we carry it out, shall make themore progress?" [3]

We have here to deal with two distinct propositions. The first, that acriticism of life is the essence of culture; the second, thatliterature contains the materials which suffice for the construction ofsuch a criticism. 

I think that we must all assent to the first proposition. For culturecertainly means something quite different from learning or technicalskill. It implies the possession of an ideal, and the habit ofcritically estimating the value of things by comparison with atheoretic standard. Perfect culture should supply a complete theory oflife, based upon a clear knowledge alike of its possibilities and ofits limitations. 

But we may agree to all this, and yet strongly dissent from theassumption that literature alone is competent to supply this knowledge. After having learnt all that Greek, Roman, and Eastern antiquity havethought and said, and all that modern literatures have to tell us, itis not self-evident that we have laid a sufficiently broad and deepfoundation for that criticism of life, which constitutes culture. 

Indeed, to any one acquainted with the scope of physical science, it isnot at all evident. Considering progress only in the "intellectual andspiritual sphere, " I find myself wholly unable to admit that eithernations or individuals will really advance, if their common outfitdraws nothing from the stores of physical science. I should say that anarmy, without weapons of precision and with no particular base ofoperations, might more hopefully enter upon a campaign on the Rhine, than a man, devoid of a knowledge of what physical science has done inthe last century, upon a criticism of life. 

 * * * * *

When a biologist meets with an anomaly, he instinctively turns to thestudy of development to clear it up. The rationale of contradictoryopinions may with equal confidence be sought in history. 

It is, happily, no new thing that Englishmen should employ their wealthin building and endowing institutions for educational purposes. But, five or six hundred years ago, deeds of foundation expressed or impliedconditions as nearly as possible contrary to those which have beenthought expedient by Sir Josiah Mason. That is to say, physical sciencewas practically ignored, while a certain literary training was enjoinedas a means to the acquirement of knowledge which was essentiallytheological. 

The reason of this singular contradiction between the actions of menalike animated by a strong and disinterested desire to promote thewelfare of their fellows, is easily discovered. 

At that time, in fact, if any one desired knowledge beyond such ascould be obtained by his own observation, or by common conversation, his first necessity was to learn the Latin language, inasmuch as allthe higher knowledge of the western world was contained in workswritten in that language. Hence, Latin grammar, with logic andrhetoric, studied through Latin, were the fundamentals of education. With respect to the substance of the knowledge imparted through thischannel, the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, as interpreted andsupplemented by the Romish Church, were held to contain a complete andinfallibly true body of information. 

Theological dicta were, to the thinkers of those days, that which theaxioms and definitions of Euclid are to the geometers of these. Thebusiness of the philosophers of the middle ages was to deduce from thedata furnished by the theologians, conclusions in accordance withecclesiastical decrees. They were allowed the high privilege ofshowing, by logical process, how and why that which the Church said wastrue, must be true. And if their demonstrations fell short of orexceeded this limit, the Church was maternally ready to check theiraberrations; if need were by the help of the secular arm. 

Between the two, our ancestors were furnished with a compact andcomplete criticism of life. They were told how the world began and howit would end; they learned that all material existence was but a baseand insignificant blot upon the fair face of the spiritual world, andthat nature was, to all intents and purposes, the play-ground of thedevil; they learned that the earth is the centre of the visibleuniverse, and that man is the cynosure of things terrestrial; and moreespecially was it inculcated that the course of nature had no fixedorder, but that it could be, and constantly was, altered by the agencyof innumerable spiritual beings, good and bad, according as they weremoved by the deeds and prayers of men. The sum and substance of thewhole doctrine was to produce the conviction that the only thing reallyworth knowing in this world was how to secure that place in a betterwhich, under certain conditions, the Church promised. 

Our ancestors had a living belief in this theory of life, and actedupon it in their dealings with education, as in all other matters. Culture meant saintliness--after the fashion of the saints of thosedays; the education that led to it was, of necessity, theological; andthe way to theology lay through Latin. 

That the study of nature--further than was requisite for thesatisfaction of everyday wants--should have any bearing on human lifewas far from the thoughts of men thus trained. Indeed, as nature hadbeen cursed for man's sake, it was an obvious conclusion that those whomeddled with nature were likely to come into pretty close contact withSatan. And, if any born scientific investigator followed his instincts, he might safely reckon upon earning the reputation, and probably uponsuffering the fate, of a sorcerer. 

Had the western world been left to itself in Chinese isolation, thereis no saying how long this state of things might have endured. But, happily, it was not left to itself. Even earlier than the thirteenthcentury, the development of Moorish civilisation in Spain and the greatmovement of the Crusades had introduced the leaven which, from that dayto this, has never ceased to work. At first, through the intermediationof Arabic translations, afterwards by the study of the originals, thewestern nations of Europe became acquainted with the writings of theancient philosophers and poets, and, in time, with the whole of thevast literature of antiquity. 

Whatever there was of high intellectual aspiration or dominant capacityin Italy, France, Germany, and England, spent itself for centuries intaking possession of the rich inheritance left by the deadcivilisations of Greece and Rome. Marvellously aided by the inventionof printing, classical learning spread and flourished. Those whopossessed it prided themselves on having attained the highest culturethen within the reach of mankind. 

And justly. For, saving Dante on his solitary pinnacle, there was nofigure in modern literature at the time of the Renascence to comparewith the men of antiquity; there was no art to compete with theirsculpture; there was no physical science but that which Greece hadcreated. Above all, there was no other example of perfect intellectualfreedom--of the unhesitating acceptance of reason as the sole guide totruth and the supreme arbiter of conduct. 

The new learning necessarily soon exerted a profound influence uponeducation. The language of the monks and schoolmen seemed little betterthan gibberish to scholars fresh from Virgil and Cicero, and the studyof Latin was placed upon a new foundation. Moreover, Latin itselfceased to afford the sole key to knowledge. The student who sought thehighest thought of antiquity, found only a second-hand reflection of itin Roman literature, and turned his face to the full light of theGreeks. And after a battle, not altogether dissimilar to that which isat present being fought over the teaching of physical science, thestudy of Greek was recognised as an essential element of all highereducation. 

Thus the Humanists, as they were called, won the day; and the greatreform which they effected was of incalculable service to mankind. Butthe Nemesis of all reformers is finality; and the reformers ofeducation, like those of religion, fell into the profound, howevercommon, error of mistaking the beginning for the end of the work ofreformation. 

The representatives of the Humanists, in the nineteenth century, taketheir stand upon classical education as the sole avenue to culture, asfirmly us if we were still in the age of Renascence. Yet, surely, thepresent intellectual relations of the modern and the ancient worlds areprofoundly different from those which obtained three centuries ago. Leaving aside the existence of a great and characteristically modernliterature, of modern painting, and, especially, of modern music, thereis one feature of the present state of the civilised world whichseparates it more widely from the Renascence, than the Renascence wasseparated from the middle ages. 

This distinctive character of our own times lies in the vast andconstantly increasing part which is played by natural knowledge. Notonly is our daily life shaped by it, not only does the prosperity ofmillions of men depend upon it, but our whole theory of life has longbeen influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by the generalconceptions of the universe, which have been forced upon us by physicalscience. 

In fact, the most elementary acquaintance with the results ofscientific investigation shows us that they offer a broad and strikingcontradiction to the opinion so implicitly credited and taught in themiddle ages. 

The notions of the beginning and the end of the world entertained byour forefathers are no longer credible. It is very certain that theearth is not the chief body in the material universe, and that theworld is not subordinated to man's use. It is even more certain thatnature is the expression of a definite order with which nothinginterferes, and that the chief business of mankind is to learn thatorder and govern themselves accordingly. Moreover this scientific"criticism of life" presents itself to us with different credentialsfrom any other. It appeals not to authority, nor to what anybody mayhave thought or said, but to nature. It admits that all ourinterpretations of natural fact are more or less imperfect andsymbolic, and bids the learner seek for truth not among words but amongthings. It warns us that the assertion which outstrips evidence is notonly a blunder but a crime. 

The purely classical education advocated by the representatives of theHumanists in our day, gives no inkling of all this. A man may be abetter scholar than Erasmus, and know no more of the chief causes ofthe present intellectual fermentation than Erasmus did. Scholarly andpious persons, worthy of all respect, favour us with allocutions uponthe sadness of the antagonism of science to their mediaeval way ofthinking, which betray an ignorance of the first principles ofscientific investigation, an incapacity for understanding what a man ofscience means by veracity, and an unconsciousness of the weight ofestablished scientific truths, which is almost comical. 

There is no great force in the _tu quoque_ argument, or else theadvocates of scientific education might fairly enough retort upon themodern Humanists that they may be learned specialists, but that theypossess no such sound foundation for a criticism of life as deservesthe name of culture. And, indeed, if we were disposed to be cruel, wemight urge that the Humanists have brought this reproach uponthemselves, not because they are too full of the spirit of the ancientGreek, but because they lack it. 

The period of the Renascence is commonly called that of the "Revival ofLetters, " as if the influences then brought to bear upon the mind ofWestern Europe had been wholly exhausted in the field of literature. Ithink it is very commonly forgotten that the revival of science, effected by the same agency, although less conspicuous, was not lessmomentous. 

In fact, the few and scattered students of nature of that day picked upthe clue to her secrets exactly as it fell from the hands of the Greeksa thousand years before. The foundations of mathematics were so welllaid by them, that our children learn their geometry from a bookwritten for the schools of Alexandria two thousand years ago. Modernastronomy is the natural continuation and development of the work ofHipparchus and of Ptolemy; modern physics of that of Democritus and ofArchimedes; it was long before modern biological science outgrew theknowledge bequeathed to us by Aristotle, by Theophrastus, and by Galen. 

We cannot know all the best thoughts and sayings of the Greeks unlesswe know what they thought about natural phaenomena. We cannot fullyapprehend their criticism of life unless we understand the extent towhich that criticism was affected by scientific conceptions. We falselypretend to be the inheritors of their culture, unless we arepenetrated, as the best minds among them were, with an unhesitatingfaith that the free employment of reason, in accordance with scientificmethod, is the sole method of reaching truth. 

Thus I venture to think that the pretensions of our modern Humanists tothe possession of the monopoly of culture and to the exclusiveinheritance of the spirit of antiquity must be abated, if notabandoned. But I should be very sorry that anything I have said shouldbe taken to imply a desire on my part to depreciate the value ofclassical education, as it might be and as it sometimes is. The nativecapacities of mankind vary no less than their opportunities; and whileculture is one, the road by which one man may best reach it is widelydifferent from that which is most advantageous to another. Again, whilescientific education is yet inchoate and tentative, classical educationis thoroughly well organised upon the practical experience ofgenerations of teachers. So that, given ample time for learning anddestination for ordinary life, or for a literary career, I do not thinkthat a young Englishman in search of culture can do better than followthe course usually marked out for him, supplementing its deficienciesby his own efforts. 

But for those who mean to make science their serious occupation; or whointend to follow the profession of medicine; or who have to enter earlyupon the business of life; for all these, in my opinion, classicaleducation is a mistake; and it is for this reason that I am glad to see"mere literary education and instruction" shut out from the curriculumof Sir Josiah Mason's College, seeing that its inclusion would probablylead to the introduction of the ordinary smattering of Latin and Greek. 

Nevertheless, I am the last person to question the importance ofgenuine literary education, or to suppose that intellectual culture canbe complete without it. An exclusively scientific training will bringabout a mental twist as surely as an exclusively literary training. Thevalue of the cargo does not compensate for a ship's being out of trim;and I should be very sorry to think that the Scientific College wouldturn out none but lop-sided men. 

There is no need, however, that such a catastrophe should happen. Instruction in English, French, and German is provided, and thus thethree greatest literatures of the modern world are made accessible tothe student. 

French and German, and especially the latter language, are absolutelyindispensable to those who desire full knowledge in any department ofscience. But even supposing that the knowledge of these languagesacquired is not more than sufficient for purely scientific purposes, every Englishman has, in his native tongue, an almost perfectinstrument of literary expression; and, in his own literature, modelsof every kind of literary excellence. If an Englishman cannot getliterary culture out of his Bible, his Shakespeare, his Milton, neither, in my belief, will the profoundest study of Homer andSophocles, Virgil and Horace, give it to him. 

Thus, since the constitution of the College makes sufficient provisionfor literary as well as for scientific education, and since artisticinstruction is also contemplated, it seems to me that a fairly completeculture is offered to all who are willing to take advantage of it. 

But I am not sure that at this point the "practical" man, scotched butnot slain, may ask what all this talk about culture has to do with anInstitution, the object of which is defined to be "to promote theprosperity of the manufactures and the industry of the country. " He maysuggest that what is wanted for this end is not culture, nor even apurely scientific discipline, but simply a knowledge of appliedscience. 

I often wish that this phrase, "applied science, " had never beeninvented. For it suggests that there is a sort of scientific knowledgeof direct practical use, which can be studied apart from another sortof scientific knowledge, which is of no practical utility, and which istermed "pure science. " But there is no more complete fallacy than this. What people call applied science is nothing but the application of purescience to particular classes of problems. It consists of deductionsfrom those general principles, established by reasoning andobservation, which constitute pure science. No one can safely makethese deductions until he has a firm grasp of the principles; and hecan obtain that grasp only by personal experience of the operations ofobservation and of reasoning on which they are founded. 

Almost all the processes employed in the arts and manufactures fallwithin the range either of physics or of chemistry. In order to improvethem, one must thoroughly understand them; and no one has a chance ofreally understanding them, unless he has obtained that mastery ofprinciples and that habit of dealing with facts, which is given bylong-continued and well-directed purely scientific training in thephysical and the chemical laboratory. So that there really is noquestion as to the necessity of purely scientific discipline, even ifthe work of the College were limited by the narrowest interpretation ofits stated aims. 

And, as to the desirableness of a wider culture than that yielded byscience alone, it is to be recollected that the improvement ofmanufacturing processes is only one of the conditions which contributeto the prosperity of industry. Industry is a means and not an end; andmankind work only to get something which they want. What that somethingis depends partly on their innate, and partly on their acquired, desires. 

If the wealth resulting from prosperous industry is to be spent uponthe gratification of unworthy desires, if the increasing perfection ofmanufacturing processes is to be accompanied by an increasingdebasement of those who carry them on, I do not see the good ofindustry and prosperity. 

Now it is perfectly true that men's views of what is desirable dependupon their characters; and that the innate proclivities to which wegive that name are not touched by any amount of instruction. But itdoes not follow that even mere intellectual education may not, to anindefinite extent, modify the practical manifestation of the charactersof men in their actions, by supplying them with motives unknown to theignorant. A pleasure-loving character will have pleasure of some sort;but, if you give him the choice, he may prefer pleasures which do notdegrade him to those which do. And this choice is offered to every man, who possesses in literary or artistic culture a never-failing source ofpleasures, which are neither withered by age, nor staled by custom, norembittered in the recollection by the pangs of self-reproach. 

If the Institution opened to-day fulfils the intention of its founder, the picked intelligences among all classes of the population of thisdistrict will pass through it. No child born in Birmingham, henceforward, if he have the capacity to profit by the opportunitiesoffered to him, first in the primary and other schools, and afterwardsin the Scientific College, need fail to obtain, not merely theinstruction, but the culture most appropriate to the conditions of hislife. 

Within these walls, the future employer and the future artisan maysojourn together for a while, and carry, through all their lives, thestamp of the influences then brought to bear upon them. Hence, it isnot beside the mark to remind you, that the prosperity of industrydepends not merely upon the improvement of manufacturing processes, notmerely upon the ennobling of the individual character, but upon a thirdcondition, namely, a clear understanding of the conditions of sociallife, on the part of both the capitalist and the operative, and theiragreement upon common principles of social action. They must learn thatsocial phaenomena are as much the expression of natural laws as anyothers; that no social arrangements can be permanent unless theyharmonise with the requirements of social statics and dynamics; andthat, in the nature of things, there is an arbiter whose decisionsexecute themselves. 

But this knowledge is only to be obtained by the application of themethods of investigation adopted in physical researches to theinvestigation of the phaenomena of society. Hence, I confess, I shouldlike to see one addition made to the excellent scheme of educationpropounded for the College, in the shape of provision for the teachingof Sociology. For though we are all agreed that party politics are tohave no place in the instruction of the College; yet in this country, practically governed as it is now by universal suffrage, every man whodoes his duty must exercise political functions. And, if the evilswhich are inseparable from the good of political liberty are to bechecked, if the perpetual oscillation of nations between anarchy anddespotism is to be replaced by the steady march of self-restrainingfreedom; it will be because men will gradually bring themselves to dealwith political, as they now deal with scientific questions; to be asashamed of undue haste and partisan prejudice in the one case as in theother; and to believe that the machinery of society is at least asdelicate as that of a spinning-jenny, and as little likely to beimproved by the meddling of those who have not taken the trouble tomaster the principles of its action. 

In conclusion, I am sure that I make myself the mouthpiece of allpresent in offering to the venerable founder of the Institution, whichnow commences its beneficent career, our congratulations on thecompletion of his work; and in expressing the conviction, that theremotest posterity will point to it as a crucial instance of the wisdomwhich natural piety leads all men to ascribe to their ancestors. 

 * * * * *

Footnotes:

[1] See the first essay in this volume. 

[2] The advocacy of the introduction of physical science into generaleducation by George Combe and others commenced a good deal earlier; butthe movement had acquired hardly any practical force before the time towhich I refer. 

[3] _Essays in Criticism_, p. 37. 

VII

ON SCIENCE AND ART IN RELATION TO EDUCATION

[1882]

When a man is honoured by such a request as that which reached me fromthe authorities of your institution some time ago, I think the firstthing that occurs to him is that which occurred to those who werebidden to the feast in the Gospel--to begin to make an excuse; andprobably all the excuses suggested on that famous occasion crop up inhis mind one after the other, including his "having married a wife, " asreasons for not doing what he is asked to do. But, in my own case, andon this particular occasion, there were other difficulties of a sortpeculiar to the time, and more or less personal to myself; because Ifelt that, if I came amongst you, I should be expected, and, indeed, morally compelled, to speak upon the subject of Scientific Education. And then there arose in my mind the recollection of a fact, whichprobably no one here but myself remembers; namely, that some fourteenyears ago I was the guest of a citizen of yours, who bears the honouredname of Rathbone, at a very charming and pleasant dinner given by thePhilomathic Society; and I there and then, and in this very city, madea speech upon the topic of Scientific Education. Under thesecircumstances, you see, one runs two dangers--the first, of repeatingone's self, although I may fairly hope that everybody has forgotten thefact I have just now mentioned, except myself; and the second, and evengreater difficulty, is the danger of saying something different fromwhat one said before, because then, however forgotten your previousspeech may be, somebody finds out its existence, and there goes on thatprocess so hateful to members of Parliament, which may be denoted bythe term "Hansardisation. " Under these circumstances, I came to theconclusion that the best thing I could do was to take the bull by thehorns, and to "Hansardise" myself, --to put before you, in the briefestpossible way, the three or four propositions which I endeavoured tosupport on the occasion of the speech to which I have referred; andthen to ask myself, supposing you were asking me, whether I hadanything to retract, or to modify, in them, in virtue of the increasedexperience, and, let us charitably hope, the increased wisdom of anadded fourteen years. 

Now, the points to which I directed particular attention on thatoccasion were these: in the first place, that instruction in physicalscience supplies information of a character of especial value, both ina practical and a speculative point of view--information which cannotbe obtained otherwise; and, in the second place, that, as educationaldiscipline, it supplies, in a better form than any other study cansupply, exercise in a special form of logic, and a peculiar method oftesting the validity of our processes of inquiry. I said further, that, even at that time, a great and increasing attention was being paid tophysical science in our schools and colleges, and that, most assuredly, such attention must go on growing and increasing, until education inthese matters occupied a very much larger share of the time which isgiven to teaching and training, than had been the case heretofore. AndI threw all the strength of argumentation of which I was possessed intothe support of these propositions. But I venture to remind you, also, of some other words I used at that time, and which I ask permission toread to you. They were these:--"There are other forms of culturebesides physical science, and I should be profoundly sorry to see thefact forgotten, or even to observe a tendency to starve or crippleliterary or aesthetic culture for the sake of science. Such a narrowview of the nature of education has nothing to do with my firmconclusion that a complete and thorough scientific culture ought to beintroduced into all schools. "

I say I desire, in commenting upon these various points, and judgingthem as fairly as I can by the light of increased experience, toparticularly emphasise this last, because I am told, although Iassuredly do not know it of my own knowledge--though I think if thefact were so I ought to know it, being tolerably well acquainted withthat which goes on in the scientific world, and which has gone on therefor the last thirty years--that there is a kind of sect, or horde, ofscientific Goths and Vandals, who think it would be proper anddesirable to sweep away all other forms of culture and instruction, except those in physical science, and to make them the universal andexclusive, or, at any rate, the dominant training of the human mind ofthe future generation. This is not my view--I do not believe that it isanybody's view, --but it is attributed to those who, like myself, advocate scientific education. I therefore dwell strongly upon thepoint, and I beg you to believe that the words I have just now readwere by no means intended by me as a sop to the Cerberus of culture. Ihave not been in the habit of offering sops to any kind of Cerberus;but it was an expression of profound conviction on my own part--aconviction forced upon me not only by my mental constitution, but bythe lessons of what is now becoming a somewhat long experience ofvaried conditions of life. 

I am not about to trouble you with my autobiography; the omens arehardly favourable, at present, for work of that kind. But I should likeif I may do so without appearing, what I earnestly desire not to be, egotistical, --I should like to make it clear to you, that such notionsas these, which are sometimes attributed to me, are, as I have said, inconsistent with my mental constitution, and still more inconsistentwith the upshot of the teaching of my experience. For I can certainlyclaim for myself that sort of mental temperament which can say thatnothing human comes amiss to it. I have never yet met with any branchof human knowledge which I have found unattractive--which it would nothave been pleasant to me to follow, so far as I could go; and I haveyet to meet with any form of art in which it has not been possible forme to take as acute a pleasure as, I believe, it is possible for men totake. 

And with respect to the circumstances of life, it so happens that ithas been my fate to know many lands and many climates, and to befamiliar, by personal experience, with almost every form of society, from the uncivilised savage of Papua and Australia and the civilisedsavages of the slums and dens of the poverty-stricken parts ofgreat cities, to those who perhaps, are occasionally the somewhatover-civilised members of our upper ten thousand. And I have neverfound, in any of these conditions of life, a deficiency of somethingwhich was attractive. Savagery has its pleasures, I assure you, as wellas civilisation, and I may even venture to confess--if you will not leta whisper of the matter get back to London, where I am known--I am evenfain to confess, that sometimes in the din and throng of what is called"a brilliant reception" the vision crosses my mind of waking up fromthe soft plank which had afforded me satisfactory sleep during thehours of the night, in the bright dawn of a tropical morning, when mycomrades were yet asleep, when every sound was hushed, except thelittle lap-lap of the ripples against the sides of the boat, and thedistant twitter of the sea-bird on the reef. And when that visioncrosses my mind, I am free to confess I desire to be back in the boatagain. So that, if I share with those strange persons to whoseasserted, but still hypothetical existence I have referred, the want ofappreciation of forms of culture other than the pursuit of physicalscience, all I can say is, that it is, in spite of my constitution, andin spite of my experience, that such should be my fate. 

But now let me turn to another point, or rather to two other points, with which I propose to occupy myself. How far does the experience ofthe last fourteen years justify the estimate which I ventured to putforward of the value of scientific culture, and of the share--theincreasing share--which it must take in ordinary education? Happily, inrespect to that matter, you need not rely upon my testimony. In thelast half-dozen numbers of the "Journal of Education, " you will find aseries of very interesting and remarkable papers, by gentlemen who arepractically engaged in the business of education in our great publicand other schools, telling us what is doing in these schools, and whatis their experience of the results of scientific education there, sofar as it has gone. I am not going to trouble you with an abstract ofthose papers, which are well worth your study in their fulness andcompleteness, but I have copied out one remarkable passage, because itseems to me so entirely to bear out what I have formerly ventured tosay about the value of science, both as to its subject-matter and as tothe discipline which the learning of science involves. It is from apaper by Mr. Worthington--one of the masters at Clifton, the reputationof which school you know well, and at the head of which is an oldfriend of mine, the Rev. Mr. Wilson--to whom much credit is due forbeing one of the first, as I can say from my own knowledge, to take upthis question and work it into practical shape. What Mr. Worthingtonsays is this:--

 "It is not easy to exaggerate the importance of the information imparted by certain branches of science; it modifies the whole criticism of life made in maturer years. The study has often, on a mass of boys, a certain influence which, I think, was hardly anticipated, and to which a good deal of value must be attached--an influence as much moral as intellectual, which is shown in the increased and increasing respect for precision of statement, and for that form of veracity which consists in the acknowledgment of difficulties. It produces a real effect to find that Nature cannot be imposed upon, and the attention given to experimental lectures, at first superficial and curious only, soon becomes minute, serious, and practical. "

Ladies and gentlemen, I could not have chosen better words toexpress--in fact, I have, in other words, expressed the same convictionin former days--what the influence of scientific teaching, if properlycarried out, must be. 

But now comes the question of properly carrying it out, because, when Ihear the value of school teaching in physical science disputed, myfirst impulse is to ask the disputer, "What have you known about it?"and he generally tells me some lamentable case of failure. Then I ask, "What are the circumstances of the case, and how was the teachingcarried out?" I remember, some few years ago, hearing of the headmaster of a large school, who had expressed great dissatisfaction withthe adoption of the teaching of physical science--and that afterexperiment. But the experiment consisted in this--in asking one of thejunior masters in the school to get up science, in order to teach it;and the young gentleman went away for a year and got up science andtaught it. Well, I have no doubt that the result was as disappointingas the head-master said it was, and I have no doubt that it ought tohave been as disappointing, and far more disappointing too; for, ifthis kind of instruction is to be of any good at all, if it is not tobe less than no good, if it is to take the place of that which isalready of some good, then there are several points which must beattended to. 

And the first of these is the proper selection of topics, the second ispractical teaching, the third is practical teachers, and the fourth issufficiency of time. If these four points are not carefully attended toby anybody who undertakes the teaching of physical science in schools, my advice to him is, to let it alone. I will not dwell at any lengthupon the first point, because there is a general consensus of opinionas to the nature of the topics which should be chosen. The secondpoint--practical teaching--is one of great importance, because itrequires more capital to set it agoing, demands more time, and, last, but by no means least, it requires much more personal exertion andtrouble on the part of those professing to teach, than is the case withother kinds of instruction. 

When I accepted the invitation to be here this evening, your secretarywas good enough to send me the addresses which have been given bydistinguished persons who have previously occupied this chair. I don'tknow whether he had a malicious desire to alarm me; but, however thatmay be, I read the addresses, and derived the greatest pleasure andprofit from some of them, and from none more than from the one given bythe great historian, Mr. Freeman, which delighted me most of all; and, if I had not been ashamed of plagiarising, and if I had not been sureof being found out, I should have been glad to have copied very much ofwhat Mr. Freeman said, simply putting in the word science for history. There was one notable passage, --"The difference between good and badteaching mainly consists in this, whether the words used are reallyclothed with a meaning or not. " And Mr. Freeman gives a remarkableexample of this. He says, when a little girl was asked where Turkeywas, she answered that it was in the yard with the other fowls, andthat showed she had a definite idea connected with the word Turkey, andwas, so far, worthy of praise. I quite agree with that commendation;but what a curious thing it is that one should now find it necessary tourge that this is the be-all and end-all of scientific instruction--the_sine quâ non_, the absolutely necessary condition, --and yet thatit was insisted upon more than two hundred years ago by one of thegreatest men science ever possessed in this country, William Harvey. Harvey wrote, or at least published, only two small books, one of whichis the well-known treatise on the circulation of the blood. The other, the "Exercitationes de Generatione, " is less known, but not lessremarkable. And not the least valuable part of it is the preface, inwhich there occurs this passage: "Those who, reading the words ofauthors, do not form sensible images of the things referred to, obtainno true ideas, but conceive false imaginations and inane phantasms. "You see, William Harvey's words are just the same in substance as thoseof Mr. Freeman, only they happen to be rather more than two centuriesolder. So that what I am now saying has its application elsewhere thanin science; but assuredly in science the condition of knowing, of yourown knowledge, things which you talk about, is absolutely imperative. 

I remember, in my youth, there were detestable books which ought tohave been burned by the hands of the common hangman, for they containedquestions and answers to be learned by heart, of this sort, "What is ahorse? The horse is termed _Equus caballus_; belongs to the classMammalia; order, Pachydermata; family, Solidungula. " Was any humanbeing wiser for learning that magic formula? Was he not more foolish, inasmuch as he was deluded into taking words for knowledge? It is thatkind of teaching that one wants to get rid of, and banished out ofscience. Make it as little as you like, but, unless that which istaught is based on actual observation and familiarity with facts, it isbetter left alone. 

There are a great many people who imagine that elementary teachingmight be properly carried out by teachers provided with only elementaryknowledge. Let me assure you that that is the profoundest mistake inthe world. There is nothing so difficult to do as to write a goodelementary book, and there is nobody so hard to teach properly and wellas people who know nothing about a subject, and I will tell you why. IfI address an audience of persons who are occupied in the same line ofwork as myself, I can assume that they know a vast deal, and that theycan find out the blunders I make. If they don't, it is their fault andnot mine; but when I appear before a body of people who know nothingabout the matter, who take for gospel whatever I say, surely it becomesneedful that I consider what I say, make sure that it will bearexamination, and that I do not impose upon the credulity of those whohave faith in me. In the second place, it involves that difficultprocess of knowing what you know so well that you can talk about it asyou can talk about your ordinary business. A man can always talk abouthis own business. He can always make it plain; but, if his knowledge ishearsay, he is afraid to go beyond what he has recollected, and put itbefore those that are ignorant in such a shape that they shallcomprehend it. That is why, to be a good elementary teacher, to teachthe elements of any subject, requires most careful consideration, ifyou are a master of the subject; and, if you are not a master of it, itis needful you should familiarise yourself with so much as you arecalled upon to teach--soak yourself in it, so to speak--until you knowit as part of your daily life and daily knowledge, and then you will beable to teach anybody. That is what I mean by practical teachers, and, although the deficiency of such teachers is being remedied to a largeextent, I think it is one which has long existed, and which has existedfrom no fault of those who undertook to teach, but because, until thelast score of years, it absolutely was not possible for any one in agreat many branches of science, whatever his desire might be, to getinstruction which would enable him to be a good teacher of elementarythings. All that is being rapidly altered, and I hope it will soonbecome a thing of the past. 

The last point I have referred to is the question of the sufficiency oftime. And here comes the rub. The teaching of science needs time, asany other subject; but it needs more time proportionally than othersubjects, for the amount of work obviously done, if the teaching is tobe, as I have said, practical. Work done in a laboratory involves agood deal of expenditure of time without always an obvious result, because we do not see anything of that quiet process of soaking thefacts into the mind, which takes place through the organs of thesenses. On this ground there must be ample time given to scienceteaching. What that amount of time should be is a point which I neednot discuss now; in fact, it is a point which cannot be settled untilone has made up one's mind about various other questions. 

All, then, that I have to ask for, on behalf of the scientific people, if I may venture to speak for more than myself, is that you should putscientific teaching into what statesmen call the condition of "the mostfavoured nation"; that is to say, that it shall have as large a shareof the time given to education as any other principal subject. You maysay that that is a very vague statement, because the value of theallotment of time, under those circumstances, depends upon the numberof principal subjects. It is _x_ the time, and an unknown quantityof principal subjects dividing that, and science taking shares with therest. That shows that we cannot deal with this question fully until wehave made up our minds as to what the principal subjects of educationought to be. 

I know quite well that launching myself into this discussion is a verydangerous operation; that it is a very large subject, and one which isdifficult to deal with, however much I may trespass upon your patiencein the time allotted to me. But the discussion is so fundamental, it isso completely impossible to make up one's mind on these matters untilone has settled the question, that I will even venture to make theexperiment. A great lawyer-statesman and philosopher of a former age--Imean Francis Bacon--said that truth came out of error much more rapidlythan it came out of confusion. There is a wonderful truth in thatsaying. Next to being right in this world, the best of all things is tobe clearly and definitely wrong, because you will come out somewhere. If you go buzzing about between right and wrong, vibrating andfluctuating, you come out nowhere; but if you are absolutely andthoroughly and persistently wrong, you must, some of these days, havethe extreme good fortune of knocking your head against a fact, and thatsets you all straight again. So I will not trouble myself as to whetherI may be right or wrong in what I am about to say, but at any rate Ihope to be clear and definite; and then you will be able to judge foryourselves whether, in following out the train of thought I have tointroduce, you knock your heads against facts or not. 

I take it that the whole object of education is, in the first place, totrain the faculties of the young in such a manner as to give theirpossessors the best chance of being happy and useful in theirgeneration; and, in the second place, to furnish them with the mostimportant portions of that immense capitalised experience of the humanrace which we call knowledge of various kinds. I am using the termknowledge in its widest possible sense; and the question is, whatsubjects to select by training and discipline, in which the object Ihave just defined may be best attained. 

I must call your attention further to this fact, that all the subjectsof our thoughts--all feelings and propositions (leaving aside oursensations as the mere materials and occasions of thinking andfeeling), all our mental furniture--may be classified under one of twoheads--as either within the province of the intellect, something thatcan be put into propositions and affirmed or denied; or as within theprovince of feeling, or that which, before the name was defiled, wascalled the aesthetic side of our nature, and which can neither beproved nor disproved, but only felt and known. 

According to the classification which I have put before you, then, thesubjects of all knowledge are divisible into the two groups, matters ofscience and matters of art; for all things with which the reasoningfaculty alone is occupied, come under the province of science; and inthe broadest sense, and not in the narrow and technical sense in whichwe are now accustomed to use the word art, all things feelable, allthings which stir our emotions, come under the term of art, in thesense of the subject-matter of the aesthetic faculty. So that we areshut up to this--that the business of education is, in the first place, to provide the young with the means and the habit of observation; and, secondly, to supply the subject-matter of knowledge either in the shapeof science or of art, or of both combined. 

Now, it is a very remarkable fact--but it is true of most things inthis world--that there is hardly anything one-sided, or of one nature;and it is not immediately obvious what of the things that interest usmay be regarded as pure science, and what may be regarded as pure art. It may be that there are some peculiarly constituted persons who, before they have advanced far into the depths of geometry, findartistic beauty about it; but, taking the generality of mankind, Ithink it may be said that, when they begin to learn mathematics, theirwhole souls are absorbed in tracing the connection between thepremisses and the conclusion, and that to them geometry is purescience. So I think it may be said that mechanics and osteology arepure science. On the other hand, melody in music is pure art. Youcannot reason about it; there is no proposition involved in it. So, again, in the pictorial art, an arabesque, or a "harmony in grey, "touches none but the aesthetic faculty. But a great mathematician, andeven many persons who are not great mathematicians, will tell you thatthey derive immense pleasure from geometrical reasonings. Everybodyknows mathematicians speak of solutions and problems as "elegant, " andthey tell you that a certain mass of mystic symbols is "beautiful, quite lovely. " Well, you do not see it. They do see it, because theintellectual process, the process of comprehending the reasonssymbolised by these figures and these signs, confers upon them a sortof pleasure, such as an artist has in visual symmetry. Take a scienceof which I may speak with more confidence, and which is the mostattractive of those I am concerned with. It is what we call morphology, which consists in tracing out the unity in variety of the infinitelydiversified structures of animals and plants. I cannot give you anyexample of a thorough aesthetic pleasure more intensely real than apleasure of this kind--the pleasure which arises in one's mind when awhole mass of different structures run into one harmony as theexpression of a central law. That is where the province of art overlaysand embraces the province of intellect. And, if I may venture toexpress an opinion on such a subject, the great majority of forms ofart are not in the sense what I just now defined them to be--pure art;but they derive much of their quality from simultaneous and evenunconscious excitement of the intellect. 

When I was a boy, I was very fond of music, and I am so now; and it sohappened that I had the opportunity of hearing much good music. Amongother things, I had abundant opportunities of hearing that great oldmaster, Sebastian Bach. I remember perfectly well--though I knewnothing about music then, and, I may add, know nothing whatever aboutit now--the intense satisfaction and delight which I had in listening, by the hour together, to Bach's fugues. It is a pleasure which remainswith me, I am glad to think; but, of late years, I have tried to findout the why and wherefore, and it has often occurred to me that thepleasure derived from musical compositions of this kind is essentiallyof the same nature as that which is derived from pursuits which arecommonly regarded as purely intellectual. I mean, that the sourceof pleasure is exactly the same as in most of my problems inmorphology--that you have the theme in one of the old master's worksfollowed out in all its endless variations, always appearing and alwaysreminding you of unity in variety. So in painting; what is called"truth to nature" is the intellectual element coming in, and truth tonature depends entirely upon the intellectual culture of the person towhom art is addressed. If you are in Australia, you may get credit forbeing a good artist--I mean among the natives--if you can draw akangaroo after a fashion. But, among men of higher civilisation, theintellectual knowledge we possess brings its criticism into ourappreciation of works of art, and we are obliged to satisfy it, as wellas the mere sense of beauty in colour and in outline. And so, thehigher the culture and information of those whom art addresses, themore exact and precise must be what we call its "truth to nature. "

If we turn to literature, the same thing is true, and you find works ofliterature which may be said to be pure art. A little song ofShakespeare or of Goethe is pure art; it is exquisitely beautiful, although its intellectual content may be nothing. A series of picturesis made to pass before your mind by the meaning of words, and theeffect is a melody of ideas. Nevertheless, the great mass of theliterature we esteem is valued, not merely because of having artisticform, but because of its intellectual content; and the value is thehigher the more precise, distinct, and true is that intellectualcontent. And, if you will let me for a moment speak of the very highestforms of literature, do we not regard them as highest simply becausethe more we know the truer they seem, and the more competent we are toappreciate beauty the more beautiful they are? No man ever understandsShakespeare until he is old, though the youngest may admire him, thereason being that he satisfies the artistic instinct of the youngestand harmonises with the ripest and richest experience of the oldest. 

I have said this much to draw your attention to what, to my mind, liesat the root of all this matter, and at the understanding of one anotherby the men of science on the one hand, and the men of literature, andhistory, and art, on the other. It is not a question whether one orderof study or another should predominate. It is a question of what topicsof education you shall select which will combine all the needfulelements in such due proportion as to give the greatest amount of food, support, and encouragement to those faculties which enable us toappreciate truth, and to profit by those sources of innocent happinesswhich are open to us, and, at the same time, to avoid that which isbad, and coarse, and ugly, and keep clear of the multitude of pitfallsand dangers which beset those who break through the natural or morallaws. 

I address myself, in this spirit, to the consideration of the questionof the value of purely literary education. Is it good and sufficient, or is it insufficient and bad? Well, here I venture to say that thereare literary educations and literary educations. If I am to understandby that term the education that was current in the great majority ofmiddle-class schools, and upper schools too, in this country when I wasa boy, and which consisted absolutely and almost entirely in keepingboys for eight or ten years at learning the rules of Latin and Greekgrammar, construing certain Latin and Greek authors, and possiblymaking verses which, had they been English verses, would have beencondemned as abominable doggerel, --if that is what you mean by liberaleducation, then I say it is scandalously insufficient and almostworthless. My reason for saying so is not from the point of view ofscience at all, but from the point of view of literature. I say thething professes to be literary education that is not a literaryeducation at all. It was not literature at all that was taught, butscience in a very bad form. It is quite obvious that grammar is scienceand not literature. The analysis of a text by the help of the rules ofgrammar is just as much a scientific operation as the analysis of achemical compound by the help of the rules of chemical analysis. Thereis nothing that appeals to the aesthetic faculty in that operation; andI ask multitudes of men of my own age, who went through this process, whether they ever had a conception of art or literature until theyobtained it for themselves after leaving school? Then you may say, "Ifthat is so, if the education was scientific, why cannot you besatisfied with it?" I say, because although it is a scientifictraining, it is of the most inadequate and inappropriate kind. If thereis any good at all in scientific education it is that men should betrained, as I said before, to know things for themselves at first hand, and that they should understand every step of the reason of that whichthey do. 

I desire to speak with the utmost respect of that science--philology--ofwhich grammar is a part and parcel; yet everybody knows thatgrammar, as it is usually learned at school, affords no scientifictraining. It is taught just as you would teach the rules of chess ordraughts. On the other hand, if I am to understand by a literaryeducation the study of the literatures of either ancient or modernnations--but especially those of antiquity, and especially that ofancient Greece; if this literature is studied, not merely from thepoint of view of philological science, and its practical application tothe interpretation of texts, but as an exemplification of andcommentary upon the principles of art; if you look upon the literatureof a people as a chapter in the development of the human mind, if youwork out this in a broad spirit, and with such collateral references tomorals and politics, and physical geography, and the like as areneedful to make you comprehend what the meaning of ancient literatureand civilisation is, --then, assuredly, it affords a splendid and nobleeducation. But I still think it is susceptible of improvement, and thatno man will ever comprehend the real secret of the difference betweenthe ancient world and our present time, unless he has learned to seethe difference which the late development of physical science has madebetween the thought of this day and the thought of that, and he willnever see that difference, unless he has some practical insight intosome branches of physical science; and you must remember that aliterary education such as that which I have just referred to, is outof the reach of those whose school life is cut short at sixteen orseventeen. 

But, you will say, all this is fault-finding; let us hear what you havein the way of positive suggestion. Then I am bound to tell you that, ifI could make a clean sweep of everything--I am very glad I cannotbecause I might, and probably should, make mistakes, --but if I couldmake a clean sweep of everything and start afresh, I should, in thefirst place, secure that training of the young in reading and writing, and in the habit of attention and observation, both to that which istold them, and that which they see, which everybody agrees to. But inaddition to that, I should make it absolutely necessary for everybody, for a longer or shorter period, to learn to draw. Now, you may say, there are some people who cannot draw, however much they may be taught. I deny that _in toto_, because I never yet met with anybody whocould not learn to write. Writing is a form of drawing; therefore ifyou give the same attention and trouble to drawing as you do towriting, depend upon it, there is nobody who cannot be made to draw, more or less well. Do not misapprehend me. I do not say for one momentyou would make an artistic draughtsman. Artists are not made; theygrow. You may improve the natural faculty in that direction, but youcannot make it; but you can teach simple drawing, and you will find itan implement of learning of extreme value. I do not think its value canbe exaggerated, because it gives you the means of training the young inattention and accuracy, which are the two things in which all mankindare more deficient than in any other mental quality whatever. The wholeof my life has been spent in trying to give my proper attention tothings and to be accurate, and I have not succeeded as well as I couldwish; and other people, I am afraid, are not much more fortunate. Youcannot begin this habit too early, and I consider there is nothing ofso great a value as the habit of drawing, to secure those two desirableends. 

Then we come to the subject-matter, whether scientific or aesthetic, ofeducation, and I should naturally have no question at all aboutteaching the elements of physical science of the kind I have sketched, in a practical manner; but among scientific topics, using the wordscientific in the broadest sense, I would also include the elements ofthe theory of morals and of that of political and social life, which, strangely enough, it never seems to occur to anybody to teach a child. I would have the history of our own country, and of all the influenceswhich have been brought to bear upon it, with incidental geography, notas a mere chronicle of reigns and battles, but as a chapter in thedevelopment of the race, and the history of civilisation. 

Then with respect to aesthetic knowledge and discipline, we havehappily in the English language one of the most magnificent storehousesof artistic beauty and of models of literary excellence which exists inthe world at the present time. I have said before, and I repeat ithere, that if a man cannot get literary culture of the highest kind outof his Bible, and Chaucer, and Shakespeare, and Milton, and Hobbes, andBishop Berkeley, to mention only a few of our illustrious writers--Isay, if he cannot get it out of those writers, he cannot get it out ofanything; and I would assuredly devote a very large portion of the timeof every English child to the careful study of the models of Englishwriting of such varied and wonderful kind as we possess, and, what isstill more important and still more neglected, the habit of using thatlanguage with precision, with force, and with art. I fancy we arealmost the only nation in the world who seem to think that compositioncomes by nature. The French attend to their own language, the Germansstudy theirs; but Englishmen do not seem to think it is worth theirwhile. Nor would I fail to include, in the course of study I amsketching, translations of all the best works of antiquity, or of themodern world. It is a very desirable thing to read Homer in Greek; butif you don't happen to know Greek, the next best thing we can do is toread as good a translation of it as we have recently been furnishedwith in prose. You won't get all you would get from the original, butyou may get a great deal; and to refuse to know this great deal becauseyou cannot get all, seems to be as sensible as for a hungry man torefuse bread because he cannot get partridge. Finally, I would addinstruction in either music or painting, or, if the child should be sounhappy, as sometimes happens, as to have no faculty for either ofthose, and no possibility of doing anything in any artistic sense withthem, then I would see what could be done with literature alone; but Iwould provide, in the fullest sense, for the development of theaesthetic side of the mind. In my judgment, those are all theessentials of education for an English child. With that outfit, such asit might be made in the time given to education which is within thereach of nine-tenths of the population--with that outfit, anEnglishman, within the limits of English life, is fitted to goanywhere, to occupy the highest positions, to fill the highest officesof the State, and to become distinguished in practical pursuits, inscience, or in art. For, if he have the opportunity to learn all thosethings, and have his mind disciplined in the various directions theteaching of those topics would have necessitated, then, assuredly, hewill be able to pick up, on his road through life, all the rest of theintellectual baggage he wants. 

If the educational time at our disposition were sufficient, there areone or two things I would add to those I have just now called theessentials; and perhaps you will be surprised to hear, though I hopeyou will not, that I should add, not more science, but one, or, ifpossible, two languages. The knowledge of some other language thanone's own is, in fact, of singular intellectual value. Many of thefaults and mistakes of the ancient philosophers are traceable to thefact that they knew no language but their own, and were often led intoconfusing the symbol with the thought which it embodied. I think it isLocke who says that one-half of the mistakes of philosophers havearisen from questions about words; and one of the safest ways ofdelivering yourself from the bondage of words is, to know how ideaslook in words to which you are not accustomed. That is one reason forthe study of language; another reason is, that it opens new fields inart and in science. Another is the practical value of such knowledge;and yet another is this, that if your languages are properly chosen, from the time of learning the additional languages you will know yourown language better than ever you did. So, I say, if the time given toeducation permits, add Latin and German. Latin, because it is the keyto nearly one-half of English and to all the Romance languages; andGerman, because it is the key to almost all the remainder of English, and helps you to understand a race from whom most of us have sprung, and who have a character and a literature of a fateful force in thehistory of the world, such as probably has been allotted to those of noother people, except the Jews, the Greeks, and ourselves. Beyond these, the essential and the eminently desirable elements of all education, let each man take up his special line--the historian devote himself tohis history, the man of science to his science, the man of letters tohis culture of that kind, and the artist to his special pursuit. 

Bacon has prefaced some of his works with no more than this:_Franciscus Bacon sic cogitavit;_ let "sic cogitavi" be the epilogueto what I have ventured to address to you to-night. 

VIII

UNIVERSITIES: ACTUAL AND IDEAL

[1874]

Elected by the suffrages of your four Nations Rector of the ancientUniversity of which you are scholars, I take the earliest opportunitywhich has presented itself since my restoration to health, ofdelivering the Address which, by long custom, is expected of the holderof my office. 

My first duty in opening that Address, is to offer you my most heartythanks for the signal honour you have conferred upon me--an honour ofwhich, as a man unconnected with you by personal or by national ties, devoid of political distinction, and a plebeian who stands by hisorder, I could not have dreamed. And it was the more surprising tome, as the five-and-twenty years which have passed over my headsince I reached intellectual manhood, have been largely spent in nohalf-hearted advocacy of doctrines which have not yet found favour inthe eyes of Academic respectability; so that, when the proposal tonominate me for your Rector came, I was almost as much astonished aswas Hal o' the Wynd, "who fought for his own hand, " by the BlackDouglas's proffer of knighthood. And I fear that my acceptance must betaken as evidence that, less wise than the Armourer of Perth, I havenot yet done with soldiering. 

In fact, if, for a moment, I imagined that your intention was simply, in the kindness of your hearts, to do me honour; and that the Rector ofyour University, like that of some other Universities was one of thosehappy beings who sit in glory for three years, with nothing to do forit save the making of a speech, a conversation with my distinguishedpredecessor soon dispelled the dream. I found that, by the constitutionof the University of Aberdeen, the incumbent of the Rectorate is, ifnot a power, at any rate a potential energy; and that, whatever may behis chances of success or failure, it is his duty to convert thatpotential energy into a living force, directed towards such ends as mayseem to him conducive to the welfare of the corporation of which he isthe theoretical head. 

I need not tell you that your late Lord Rector took this view of hisposition, and acted upon it with the comprehensive, far-seeing insightinto the actual condition and tendencies, not merely of his own, but ofother countries, which is his honourable characteristic amongstatesmen. I have already done my best, and, as long as I hold myoffice, I shall continue my endeavours, to follow in the path which hetrod; to do what in me lies, to bring this University nearer tothe ideal--alas, that I should be obliged to say ideal--of allUniversities; which, as I conceive, should be places in which thoughtis free from all fetters; and in which all sources of knowledge, andall aids to learning, should be accessible to all comers, withoutdistinction of creed or country, riches or poverty. 

Do not suppose, however, that I am sanguine enough to expect much tocome of any poor efforts of mine. If your annals take any notice of myincumbency, I shall probably go down to posterity as the Rector who wasalways beaten. But if they add, as I think they will, that my defeatsbecame victories in the hands of my successors, I shall be wellcontent. 

 * * * * *

The scenes are shifting in the great theatre of the world. The actwhich commenced with the Protestant Reformation is nearly played out, and a wider and deeper change than that effected three centuries ago--areformation, or rather a revolution of thought, the extremes of whichare represented by the intellectual heirs of John of Leyden and ofIgnatius Loyola, rather than by those of Luther and of Leo--is waitingto come on, nay, visible behind the scenes to those who have good eyes. Men are beginning, once more, to awake to the fact that matters ofbelief and of speculation are of absolutely infinite practicalimportance; and are drawing off from that sunny country "where it isalways afternoon"--the sleepy hollow of broad indifferentism--to rangethemselves under their natural banners. Change is in the air. It iswhirling feather-heads into all sorts of eccentric orbits, and fillingthe steadiest with a sense of insecurity. It insists on reopening allquestions and asking all institutions, however venerable, by what rightthey exist, and whether they are, or are not, in harmony with the realor supposed wants of mankind. And it is remarkable that these searchinginquiries are not so much forced on institutions from without, asdeveloped from within. Consummate scholars question the value oflearning; priests contemn dogma; and women turn their backs upon man'sideal of perfect womanhood, and seek satisfaction in apocalypticvisions of some, as yet, unrealised epicene reality. 

If there be a type of stability in this world, one would be inclined tolook for it in the old Universities of England. But it has been mybusiness of late to hear a good deal about what is going on in thesefamous corporations; and I have been filled with astonishment by theevidences of internal fermentation which they exhibit. If Gibbon couldrevisit the ancient seat of learning of which he has written socavalierly, assuredly he would no longer speak of "the monks of Oxfordsunk in prejudice and port. " There, as elsewhere, port has gone out offashion, and so has prejudice--at least that particular fine, old, crusted sort of prejudice to which the great historian alludes. 

Indeed, things are moving so fast in Oxford and Cambridge, that, for mypart, I rejoiced when the Royal Commission, of which I am a member, hadfinished and presented the Report which related to these Universities;for we should have looked like mere plagiarists, if, in consequence ofa little longer delay in issuing it, all the measures of reform weproposed had been anticipated by the spontaneous action of theUniversities themselves. 

A month ago I should have gone on to say that one might speedily expectchanges of another kind in Oxford and Cambridge. A Commission has beeninquiring into the revenues of the many wealthy societies, in more orless direct connection with the Universities, resident in those towns. It is said that the Commission has reported, and that, for the firsttime in recorded history, the nation, and perhaps the Collegesthemselves, will know what they are worth. And it was announced that astatesman, who, whatever his other merits or defects, has aims abovethe level of mere party fighting, and a clear vision into the mostcomplex practical problems, meant to deal with these revenues. 

But, _Bos locutus est_. That mysterious independent variable ofpolitical calculation, Public Opinion--which some whisper is, in thepresent case, very much the same thing as publican's opinion--haswilled otherwise. The Heads may return to their wonted slumbers--at anyrate for a space. 

Is the spirit of change, which is working thus vigorously in the South, likely to affect the Northern Universities, and if so, to what extent?The violence of fermentation depends, not so much on the quantity ofthe yeast, as on the composition of the wort, and its richness infermentable material; and, as a preliminary to the discussion of thisquestion, I venture to call to your minds the essential and fundamentaldifferences between the Scottish and the English type of University. 

Do not charge me with anything worse than official egotism, if I saythat these differences appear to be largely symbolised by my ownexistence. There is no Rector in an English University. Now, theorganisation of the members of a University into Nations, with theirelective Rector, is the last relic of the primitive constitution ofUniversities. The Rectorate was the most important of all offices inthat University of Paris, upon the model of which the University ofAberdeen was fashioned; and which was certainly a great and flourishinginstitution in the twelfth century. 

Enthusiasts for the antiquity of one of the two acknowledged parents ofall Universities, indeed, do not hesitate to trace the origin of the"Studium Parisiense" up to that wonderful king of the Franks andLombards, Karl, surnamed the Great, whom we all called Charlemagne, andbelieved to be a Frenchman, until a learned historian, by beneficentiteration, taught us better. Karl is said not to have been much of ascholar himself, but he had the wisdom of which knowledge is only theservitor. And that wisdom enabled him to see that ignorance is one ofthe roots of all evil. 

In the Capitulary which enjoins the foundation of monasterial andcathedral schools, he says: "Right action is better than knowledge; butin order to do what is right, we must know what is right. " [1] Anirrefragable truth, I fancy. Acting upon it, the king took pretty fullcompulsory powers, and carried into effect a really considerable andeffectual scheme of elementary education through the length and breadthof his dominions. 

No doubt the idolaters out by the Elbe, in what is now part of Prussia, objected to the Frankish king's measures; no doubt the priests, who hadnever hesitated about sacrificing all unbelievers in their fantasticdeities and futile conjurations, were the loudest in chanting thevirtues of toleration; no doubt they denounced as a cruel persecutorthe man who would not allow them, however sincere they might be, to goon spreading delusions which debased the intellect, as much as theydeadened the moral sense, and undermined the bonds of civil allegiance;no doubt, if they had lived in these times, they would have been ableto show, with ease, that the king's proceedings were totally contraryto the best liberal principles. But it may be said, in justification ofthe Teutonic ruler, first, that he was born before those principles, and did not suspect that the best way of getting disorder into orderwas to let it alone; and, secondly, that his rough and questionableproceedings did, more or less, bring about the end he had in view. For, in a couple of centuries, the schools he sowed broadcast produced theircrop of men, thirsting for knowledge and craving for culture. Such mengravitating towards Paris, as a light amidst the darkness of evil days, from Germany, from Spain, from Britain, and from Scandinavia, cametogether by natural affinity. By degrees they banded themselves into asociety, which, as its end was the knowledge of all things knowable, called itself a "_Studium Generale_;" and when it had grown into arecognised corporation, acquired the name of "_Universitas StudiiGeneralis_, " which, mark you, means not a "Useful KnowledgeSociety, " but a "Knowledge-of-things-in-general Society. "

And thus the first "University, " at any rate on this side of the Alps, came into being. Originally it had but one Faculty, that of Arts. Itsaim was to be a centre of knowledge and culture; not to be, in anysense, a technical school. 

The scholars seem to have studied Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric;Arithmetic and Geometry; Astronomy; Theology; and Music. Thus, theirwork, however imperfect and faulty, judged by modern lights, it mayhave been, brought them face to face with all the leading aspects ofthe many-sided mind of man. For these studies did really contain, atany rate in embryo--sometimes, it may be, in caricature--what we nowcall Philosophy, Mathematical and Physical Science, and Art. And Idoubt if the curriculum of any modern University shows so clear andgenerous a comprehension of what is meant by culture, as this oldTrivium and Quadrivium does. 

The students who had passed through the University course, and hadproved themselves competent to teach, became masters and teachers oftheir younger brethren. Whence the distinction of Masters and Regentson the one hand, and Scholars on the other. 

Rapid growth necessitated organisation. The Masters and Scholars ofvarious tongues and countries grouped themselves into four Nations; andthe Nations, by their own votes at first, and subsequently by those oftheir Procurators, or representatives, elected their supreme head andgovernor, the Rector--at that time the sole representative of theUniversity, and a very real power, who could defy Provosts interferingfrom without; or could inflict even corporal punishment on disobedientmembers within the University. 

Such was the primitive constitution of the University of Paris. It isin reference to this original state of things that I have spoken of theRectorate, and all that appertains to it, as the sole relic of thatconstitution. 

But this original organisation did not last long. Society was not then, any more than it is now, patient of culture, as such. It says toeverything, "Be useful to me, or away with you. " And to the learned, the unlearned man said then, as he does now, "What is the use of allyour learning, unless you can tell me what I want to know? I am hereblindly groping about, and constantly damaging myself by collision withthree mighty powers, the power of the invisible God, the power of myfellow Man, and the power of brute Nature. Let your learning be turnedto the study of these powers, that I may know how I am to comportmyself with regard to them. " In answer to this demand, some of theMasters of the Faculty of Arts devoted themselves to the study ofTheology, some to that of Law, and some to that of Medicine; and theybecame Doctors--men learned in those technical, or, as we now callthem, professional, branches of knowledge. Like cleaving to like, theDoctors formed schools, or Faculties, of Theology, Law, and Medicine, which sometimes assumed airs of superiority over their parent, theFaculty of Arts, though the latter always asserted and maintained itsfundamental supremacy. 

The Faculties arose by process of natural differentiation out of theprimitive University. Other constituents, foreign to its nature, werespeedily grafted upon it. One of these extraneous elements was forcedinto it by the Roman Church, which in those days asserted with effect, that which it now asserts, happily without any effect in these realms, its right of censorship and control over all teaching. The localhabitation of the University lay partly in the lands attached to themonastery of S. Geneviève, partly in the diocese of the Bishop ofParis; and he who would teach must have the licence of the Abbot, or ofthe Bishop, as the nearest representative of the Pope, so to do, whichlicence was granted by the Chancellors of these Ecclesiastics. 

Thus, if I am what archaeologists call a "survival" of the primitivehead and ruler of the University, your Chancellor stands in the samerelation to the Papacy; and, with all respect for his Grace, I think Imay say that we both look terribly shrunken when compared with ourgreat originals. 

Not so is it with a second foreign element, which silently dropped intothe soil of Universities, like the grain of mustard-seed in theparable; and, like that grain, grew into a tree, in whose branches awhole aviary of fowls took shelter. That element is the element ofEndowment. It differed from the preceding, in its original design toserve as a prop to the young plant, not to be a parasite upon it. Thecharitable and the humane, blessed with wealth, were very earlypenetrated by the misery of the poor student. And the wise saw thatintellectual ability is not so common or so unimportant a gift that itshould be allowed to run to waste upon mere handicrafts and chares. Theman who was a blessing to his contemporaries, but who so often has beenconverted into a curse, by the blind adherence of his posterity to theletter, rather than to the spirit, of his wishes--I mean the "piousfounder"--gave money and lands, that the student, who was rich in brainand poor in all else, might be taken from the plough or from thestithy, and enabled to devote himself to the higher service of mankind;and built colleges and halls in which he might be not only housed andfed, but taught. 

The Colleges were very generally placed in strict subordination to theUniversity by their founders; but, in many cases, their endowment, consisting of land, has undergone an "unearned increment, " which hasgiven these societies a continually increasing weight and importance asagainst the unendowed, or fixedly endowed, University. In Pharaoh'sdream, the seven lean kine eat up the seven fat ones. In the reality ofhistorical fact, the fat Colleges have eaten up the lean Universities. 

Even here in Aberdeen, though the causes at work may have been somewhatdifferent, the effects have been similar; and you see how much moresubstantial an entity is the Very Reverend the Principal, analogue, ifnot homologue, of the Principals of King's College, than the Rector, lineal representative of the ancient monarchs of the University, thoughnow, little more than a "king of shreds and patches. "

Do not suppose that, in thus briefly tracing the process of Universitymetamorphosis, I have had any intention of quarrelling with itsresults. Practically, it seems to me that the broad changes effected in1858 have given the Scottish Universities a very liberal constitution, with as much real approximation to the primitive state of things as isat all desirable. If your fat kine have eaten the lean, they have notlain down to chew the cud ever since. The Scottish Universities, likethe English, have diverged widely enough from their primitive model;but I cannot help thinking that the northern form has remained morefaithful to its original, not only in constitution, but, what is moreto the purpose, in view of the cry for change, in the practicalapplication of the endowments connected with it. 

In Aberdeen, these endowments are numerous, but so small that, takenaltogether, they are not equal to the revenue of a single third-rateEnglish college. They are scholarships, not fellowships; aids to dowork--not rewards for such work as it lies within the reach of anordinary, or even an extraordinary, young man to do. You do not thinkthat passing a respectable examination is a fair equivalent for anincome, such as many a grey-headed veteran, or clergyman would envy;and which is larger than the endowment of many Regius chairs. You donot care to make your University a school of manners for the rich; ofsports for the athletic; or a hot-bed of high-fed, hypercriticalrefinement, more destructive to vigour and originality than arestarvation and oppression. No; your little Bursaries of ten and twenty(I believe even fifty) pounds a year, enabled any boy who has shownability in the course of his education in those remarkable primaryschools, which have made Scotland the power she is, to obtain thehighest culture the country can give him; and when he is armed andequipped, his Spartan Alma Mater tells him that, so far, he has had hiswages for his work, and that he may go and earn the rest. 

When I think of the host of pleasant, moneyed, well-bred younggentlemen, who do a little learning and much boating by Cam and Isis, the vision is a pleasant one; and, as a patriot, I rejoice that theyouth of the upper and richer classes of the nation receive a wholesomeand a manly training, however small may be the modicum of knowledgethey gather, in the intervals of this, their serious business. I admit, to the full, the social and political value of that training. But, whenI proceed to consider that these young men may be said to represent thegreat bulk of what the Colleges have to show for their enormous wealth, plus, at least, a hundred and fifty pounds a year apiece which eachundergraduate costs his parents or guardians, I feel inclined to ask, whether the rate-in-aid of the education of the wealthy andprofessional classes, thus levied on the resources of the community, isnot, after all, a little heavy? And, still further, I am tempted toinquire what has become of the indigent scholars, the sons of themasses of the people whose daily labour just suffices to meet theirdaily wants, for whose benefit these rich foundations were largely, ifnot mainly, instituted? It seems as if Pharaoh's dream had beenrigorously carried out, and that even the fat scholar has eaten thelean one. And when I turn from this picture to the no less real visionof many a brave and frugal Scotch boy, spending his summer in hardmanual labour, that he may have the privilege of wending his way inautumn to this University, with a bag of oatmeal, ten pounds in hispocket, and his own stout heart to depend upon through the northernwinter; not bent on seeking

 "The bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth, "

but determined to wring knowledge from the hard hands of penury; when Isee him win through all such outward obstacles to positions of wideusefulness and well-earned fame; I cannot but think that, in essence, Aberdeen has departed but little from the primitive intention of thefounders of Universities, and that the spirit of reform has so much todo on the other side of the Border, that it may be long before he hasleisure to look this way. 

As compared with other actual Universities, then, Aberdeen, may, perhaps, be well satisfied with itself. But do not think me animpracticable dreamer, if I ask you not to rest and be thankful in thisstate of satisfaction; if I ask you to consider awhile, how this actualgood stands related to that ideal better, towards which both men andinstitutions must progress, if they would not retrograde. 

In an ideal University, as I conceive it, a man should be able toobtain instruction in all forms of knowledge, and discipline in the useof all the methods by which knowledge is obtained. In such aUniversity, the force of living example should fire the student with anoble ambition to emulate the learning of learned men, and to follow inthe footsteps of the explorers of new fields of knowledge. And the veryair he breathes should be charged with that enthusiasm for truth, thatfanaticism of veracity, which is a greater possession than muchlearning; a nobler gift than the power of increasing knowledge; by somuch greater and nobler than these, as the moral nature of man isgreater than the intellectual; for veracity is the heart of morality. 

But the man who is all morality and intellect, although he may be goodand even great, is, after all, only half a man. There is beauty in themoral world and in the intellectual world; but there is also a beautywhich is neither moral nor intellectual--the beauty of the world ofArt. There are men who are devoid of the power of seeing it, as thereare men who are born deaf and blind, and the loss of those, as ofthese, is simply infinite. There are others in whom it is anoverpowering passion; happy men, born with the productive, or atlowest, the appreciative, genius of the Artist. But, in the mass ofmankind, the Aesthetic faculty, like the reasoning power and the moralsense, needs to be roused, directed, and cultivated; and I know not whythe development of that side of his nature, through which man hasaccess to a perennial spring of ennobling pleasure, should be omittedfrom any comprehensive scheme of University education. 

All Universities recognise Literature in the sense of the old Rhetoric, which is art incarnate in words. Some, to their credit, recognise Artin its narrower sense, to a certain extent, and confer degrees forproficiency in some of its branches. If there are Doctors of Music, whyshould there be no Masters of painting, of Sculpture, of Architecture?I should like to see Professors of the Fine Arts in every University;and instruction in some branch of their work made a part of the Artscurriculum. 

I just now expressed the opinion that, in our ideal University, a manshould be able to obtain instruction in all forms of knowledge. Now, by"forms of knowledge" I mean the great classes of things knowable; ofwhich the first, in logical, though not in natural, order is knowledgerelating to the scope and limits of the mental faculties of man, a formof knowledge which, in its positive aspect, answers pretty much toLogic and part of Psychology, while, on its negative and critical side, it corresponds with Metaphysics. 

A second class comprehends all that knowledge which relates to man'swelfare, so far as it is determined by his own acts, or what we callhis conduct. It answers to Moral and Religious philosophy. Practically, it is the most directly valuable of all forms of knowledge, butspeculatively, it is limited and criticised by that which precedes andby that which follows it in my order of enumeration. 

A third class embraces knowledge of the phaenomena of the Universe, asthat which lies about the individual man; and of the rules which thosephaenomena are observed to follow in the order of their occurrence, which we term the laws of Nature. 

This is what ought to be called Natural Science, or Physiology, thoughthose terms are hopelessly diverted from such a meaning; and itincludes all exact knowledge of natural fact, whether Mathematical, Physical, Biological, or Social. 

Kant has said that the ultimate object of all knowledge is to givereplies to these three questions: What can I do? What ought I to do?What may I hope for? The forms of knowledge which I have enumerated, should furnish such replies as are within human reach, to the first andsecond of these questions. While to the third, perhaps the wisestanswer is, "Do what you can to do what you ought, and leave hoping andfearing alone. "

If this be a just and an exhaustive classification of the forms ofknowledge, no question as to their relative importance, or as to thesuperiority of one to the other, can be seriously raised. 

On the face of the matter, it is absurd to ask whether it is moreimportant to know the limits of one's powers; or the ends for whichthey ought to be exerted; or the conditions under which they must beexerted. One may as well inquire which of the terms of a Rule of Threesum one ought to know, in order to get a trustworthy result. Practicallife is such a sum, in which your duty multiplied into your capacity, and divided by your circumstances, gives you the fourth term in theproportion, which is your deserts, with great accuracy. All agree, Itake it, that men ought to have these three kinds of knowledge. Theso-called "conflict of studies" turns upon the question of how they maybest be obtained. 

The founders of Universities held the theory that the Scriptures andAristotle taken together, the latter being limited by the former, contained all knowledge worth having, and that the business ofphilosophy was to interpret and co-ordinate these two. I imagine thatin the twelfth century this was a very fair conclusion from knownfacts. Nowhere in the world, in those days, was there such anencyclopaedia of knowledge of all three classes, as is to be found inthose writings. The scholastic philosophy is a wonderful monument ofthe patience and ingenuity with which the human mind toiled to build upa logically consistent theory of the Universe, out of such materials. And that philosophy is by no means dead and buried, as many vainlysuppose. On the contrary, numbers of men of no mean learning andaccomplishment, and sometimes of rare power and subtlety of thought, hold by it as the best theory of things which has yet been stated. And, what is still more remarkable, men who speak the language of modernphilosophy, nevertheless think the thoughts of the schoolmen. "Thevoice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau. "Every day I hear "Cause, " "Law, " "Force, " "Vitality, " spoken of asentities, by people who can enjoy Swift's joke about the meat-roastingquality of the smoke-jack, and comfort themselves with the reflectionthat they are not even as those benighted schoolmen. 

Well, this great system had its day, and then it was sapped and minedby two influences. The first was the study of classical literature, which familiarised men with methods of philosophising; with conceptionsof the highest Good; with ideas of the order of Nature; with notions ofLiterary and Historical Criticism; and, above all, with visions of Art, of a kind which not only would not fit into the scholastic scheme, butshowed them a pre-Christian, and indeed altogether un-Christian world, of such grandeur and beauty that they ceased to think of any other. They were as men who had kissed the Fairy Queen, and wandering with herin the dim loveliness of the under-world, cared not to return to thefamiliar ways of home and fatherland, though they lay, at arm's length, overhead. Cardinals were more familiar with Virgil than with Isaiah;and Popes laboured, with great success, to re-paganise Rome. 

The second influence was the slow, but sure, growth of the physicalsciences. It was discovered that some results of speculative thought, of immense practical and theoretical importance, can be verified byobservation; and are always true, however severely they may be tested. Here, at any rate, was knowledge, to the certainty of which noauthority could add, or take away, one jot or tittle, and to which thetradition of a thousand years was as insignificant as the hearsay ofyesterday. To the scholastic system, the study of classical literaturemight be inconvenient and distracting, but it was possible to hope thatit could be kept within bounds. Physical science, on the other hand, was an irreconcilable enemy, to be excluded at all hazards. The Collegeof Cardinals has not distinguished itself in Physics or Physiology; andno Pope has, as yet, set up public laboratories in the Vatican. 

People do not always formulate the beliefs on which they act. Theinstinct of fear and dislike is quicker than the reasoning process; andI suspect that, taken in conjunction with some other causes, suchinstinctive aversion is at the bottom of the long exclusion of anyserious discipline in the physical sciences from the general curriculumof Universities; while, on the other hand, classical literature hasbeen gradually made the backbone of the Arts course. 

I am ashamed to repeat here what I have said elsewhere, in season andout of season, respecting the value of Science as knowledge anddiscipline. But the other day I met with some passages in the Addressto another Scottish University, of a great thinker, recently lost tous, which express so fully and yet so tersely, the truth in this matterthat I am fain to quote them:--

"To question all things;--never to turn away from any difficulty; toaccept no doctrine either from ourselves or from other people without arigid scrutiny by negative criticism; letting no fallacy, orincoherence, or confusion of thought, step by unperceived; above all, to insist upon having the meaning of a word clearly understood beforeusing it, and the meaning of a proposition before assenting toit;--these are the lessons we learn" from workers in Science. "With allthis vigorous management of the negative element, they inspire noscepticism about the reality of truth or indifference to its pursuit. The noblest enthusiasm, both for the search after truth and forapplying it to its highest uses, pervades those writers. " "Incultivating, therefore, " science as an essential ingredient ineducation, "we are all the while laying an admirable foundation forethical and philosophical culture. " [2]

The passages I have quoted were uttered by John Stuart Mill; but youcannot hear inverted commas, and it is therefore right that I shouldadd, without delay, that I have taken the liberty of substituting"workers in science" for "ancient dialecticians, " and "Science as anessential ingredient in education" for "the ancient languages as ourbest literary education. " Mill did, in fact, deliver a noble panegyricupon classical studies. I do not doubt its justice, nor presume toquestion its wisdom. But I venture to maintain that no wise or justjudge, who has a knowledge of the facts, will hesitate to say that itapplies with equal force to scientific training. 

But it is only fair to the Scottish Universities to point out that theyhave long understood the value of Science as a branch of generaleducation. I observe, with the greatest satisfaction, that candidatesfor the degree of Master of Arts in this University are required tohave a knowledge, not only of Mental and Moral Philosophy, and ofMathematics and Natural Philosophy, but of Natural History, in additionto the ordinary Latin and Greek course; and that a candidate may takehonours in these subjects and in Chemistry. 

I do not know what the requirements of your examiners may be, but Isincerely trust they are not satisfied with a mere book knowledge ofthese matters. For my own part I would not raise a finger, if I couldthereby introduce mere book work in science into every Arts curriculumin the country. Let those who want to study books devote themselves toLiterature, in which we have the perfection of books, both as tosubstance and as to form. If I may paraphrase Hobbes's well-knownaphorism, I would say that "books are the money of Literature, but onlythe counters of Science, " Science (in the sense in which I now use theterm) being the knowledge of fact, of which every verbal description isbut an incomplete and symbolic expression. And be assured that noteaching of science is worth anything, as a mental discipline, which isnot based upon direct perception of the facts, and practical exerciseof the observing and logical faculties upon them. Even in such a simplematter as the mere comprehension of form, ask the most practised andwidely informed anatomist what is the difference between his knowledgeof a structure which he has read about, and his knowledge of the samestructure when he has seen it for himself; and he will tell you thatthe two things are not comparable--the difference is infinite. Thus Iam very strongly inclined to agree with some learned schoolmasters whosay that, in their experience, the teaching of science is all wastetime. As they teach it, I have no doubt it is. But to teach itotherwise requires an amount of personal labour and a development ofmeans and appliances, which must strike horror and dismay into a manaccustomed to mere book work; and who has been in the habit of teachinga class of fifty without much strain upon his energies. And this is oneof the real difficulties in the way of the introduction of physicalscience into the ordinary University course, to which I have alluded. It is a difficulty which will not be overcome, until years of patientstudy have organised scientific teaching as well as, or I hope betterthan, classical teaching has been organised hitherto. 

A little while ago, I ventured to hint a doubt as to the perfection ofsome of the arrangements in the ancient Universities of England; but, in their provision for giving instruction in Science as such, andwithout direct reference to any of its practical applications, theyhave set a brilliant example. Within the last twenty years, Oxfordalone has sunk more than a hundred and twenty thousand pounds inbuilding and furnishing Physical, Chemical, and PhysiologicalLaboratories, and a magnificent Museum, arranged with an almostluxurious regard for the needs of the student. Cambridge, less rich, but aided by the munificence of her Chancellor, is taking the samecourse; and in a few years, it will be for no lack of the means andappliances of sound teaching, if the mass of English University menremain in their present state of barbarous ignorance of even therudiments of scientific culture. 

Yet another step needs to be made before Science can be said to havetaken its proper place in the Universities. That is its recognition asa Faculty, or branch of study demanding recognition and specialorganisation, on account of its bearing on the wants of mankind. TheFaculties of Theology, Law, and Medicine, are technical schools, intended to equip men who have received general culture, with thespecial knowledge which is needed for the proper performance of theduties of clergymen, lawyers, and medical practitioners. 

When the material well-being of the country depended upon rude pastureand agriculture, and still ruder mining; in the days when all theinnumerable applications of the principles of physical science topractical purposes were non-existent even as dreams; days which menliving may have heard their fathers speak of; what little physicalscience could be seen to bear directly upon human life, lay within theprovince of Medicine. Medicine was the foster-mother of Chemistry, because it has to do with the preparation of drugs and the detection ofpoisons; of Botany, because it enabled the physician to recognisemedicinal herbs; of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, because the manwho studied Human Anatomy and Physiology for purely medical purposeswas led to extend his studies to the rest of the animal world. 

Within my recollection, the only way in which a student could obtainanything like a training in Physical Science, was by attending thelectures of the Professors of Physical and Natural Science attached tothe Medical Schools. But, in the course of the last thirty years, bothfoster-mother and child have grown so big, that they threaten not onlyto crush one another, but to press the very life out of the unhappystudent who enters the nursery; to the great detriment of all three. 

I speak in the presence of those who know practically what medicaleducation is; for I may assume that a large proportion of my hearersare more or less advanced students of medicine. I appeal to the mostindustrious and conscientious among you, to those who are most deeplypenetrated with a sense of the extremely serious responsibilities whichattach to the calling of a medical practitioner, when I ask whether, out of the four years which you devote to your studies, you ought tospare even so much as an hour for any work which does not tend directlyto fit you for your duties?

Consider what that work is. Its foundation is a sound and practicalacquaintance with the structure of the human organism, and with themodes and conditions of its action in health. I say a sound andpractical acquaintance, to guard against the supposition that myintention is to suggest that you ought all to be minute anatomists andaccomplished physiologists. The devotion of your whole four years toAnatomy and Physiology alone, would be totally insufficient to attainthat end. What I mean is, the sort of practical, familiar, finger-endknowledge which a watchmaker has of a watch, and which you expect thatcraftsman, as an honest man, to have, when you entrust a watch thatgoes badly, to him. It is a kind of knowledge which is to be acquired, not in the lecture-room, nor in the library, but in the dissecting-roomand the laboratory. It is to be had not by sharing your attentionbetween these and sundry other subjects, but by concentrating yourminds, week after week, and month after month, six or seven hours aday, upon all the complexities of organ and function, until each of thegreater truths of anatomy and physiology has become an organic part ofyour minds--until you would know them if you were roused and questionedin the middle of the night, as a man knows the geography of his nativeplace and the daily life of his home. That is the sort of knowledgewhich, once obtained, is a life-long possession. Other occupations mayfill your minds--it may grow dim, and seem to be forgotten--but thereit is, like the inscription on a battered and defaced coin, which comesout when you warm it. 

If I had the power to remodel Medical Education, the first two years ofthe medical curriculum should be devoted to nothing but such thoroughstudy of Anatomy and Physiology, with Physiological Chemistry andPhysics; the student should then pass a real, practical examination inthese subjects; and, having gone through that ordeal satisfactorily, heshould be troubled no more with them. His whole mind should then begiven with equal intentness to Therapeutics, in its broadest sense, toPractical Medicine and to Surgery, with instruction in Hygiene and inMedical Jurisprudence; and of these subjects only--surely there areenough of them--should he be required to show a knowledge in his finalexamination. 

I cannot claim any special property in this theory of what the medicalcurriculum should be, for I find that views, more or less closelyapproximating these, are held by all who have seriously considered thevery grave and pressing question of Medical Reform; and have, indeed, been carried into practice, to some extent, by the most enlightenedExamining Boards. I have heard but two kinds of objections to them. There is first, the objection of vested interests, which I will notdeal with here, because I want to make myself as pleasant as I can, andno discussions are so unpleasant as those which turn on such points. And there is, secondly, the much more respectable objection, whichtakes the general form of the reproach that, in thus limiting thecurriculum, we are seeking to narrow it. We are told that the medicalman ought to be a person of good education and general information, ifhis profession is to hold its own among other professions; that heought to know Botany, or else, if he goes abroad, he will not be ableto tell poisonous fruits from edible ones; that he ought to know drugs, as a druggist knows them, or he will not be able to tell sham barkand senna from the real articles; that he ought to know Zoology, because--well, I really have never been able to learn exactly why he isto be expected to know zoology. There is, indeed, a popularsuperstition, that doctors know all about things that are queer ornasty to the general mind, and may, therefore, be reasonably expectedto know the "barbarous binomials" applicable to snakes, snails, andslugs; an amount of information with which the general mind is usuallycompletely satisfied. And there is a scientific superstition thatPhysiology is largely aided by Comparative Anatomy--a superstitionwhich, like most superstitions, once had a grain of truth at bottom;but the grain has become homoeopathic, since Physiology took its modernexperimental development, and became what it is now, the application ofthe principles of Physics and Chemistry to the elucidation of thephaenomena of life. 

I hold as strongly as any one can do, that the medical practitionerought to be a person of education and good general culture; but I alsohold by the old theory of a Faculty, that a man should have his generalculture before he devotes himself to the special studies of thatFaculty; and I venture to maintain, that, if the general cultureobtained in the Faculty of Arts were what it ought to be, the studentwould have quite as much knowledge of the fundamental principles ofPhysics, of Chemistry, and of Biology, as he needs, before he commencedhis special medical studies. 

Moreover, I would urge, that a thorough study of Human Physiology is, in itself, an education broader and more comprehensive than much thatpasses under that name. There is no side of the intellect which it doesnot call into play, no region of human knowledge into which either itsroots, or its branches, do not extend; like the Atlantic between theOld and the New Worlds, its waves wash the shores of the two worlds ofmatter and of mind; its tributary streams flow from both; through itswaters, as yet unfurrowed by the keel of any Columbus, lies the road, if such there be, from the one to the other; far away from thatNorth-west Passage of mere speculation, in which so many brave soulshave been hopelessly frozen up. 

But whether I am right or wrong about all this, the patent fact of thelimitation of time remains. As the song runs:--

 "If a man could be sure That his life would endure For the space of a thousand long years------"

he might do a number of things not practicable under presentconditions. Methuselah might, with much propriety, have taken half acentury to get his doctor's degree; and might, very fairly, have beenrequired to pass a practical examination upon the contents of theBritish Museum, before commencing practice as a promising young fellowof two hundred, or thereabouts. But you have four years to do your workin, and are turned loose, to save or slay, at two or three and twenty. 

Now, I put it to you, whether you think that, when you come down to therealities of life--when you stand by the sick-bed, racking you brainsfor the principles which shall furnish you with the means ofinterpreting symptoms, and forming a rational theory of the conditionof your patient, it will be satisfactory for you to find that thoseprinciples are not there--although, to use the examination slang whichis unfortunately too familiar to me, you can quite easily "give anaccount of the leading peculiarities of the _Marsupialia_, " or"enumerate the chief characters of the _Compositae_, " or "statethe class and order of the animal from which Castoreum is obtained. "

I really do not think that state of things will be satisfactory toyou; I am very sure it will not be so to your patient. Indeed, Iam so narrow-minded myself, that if I had to choose between twophysicians--one who did not know whether a whale is a fish or not, andcould not tell gentian from ginger, but did understand the applicationsof the institutes of medicine to his art; while the other, likeTalleyrand's doctor, "knew everything, even a little physic"--with allmy love for breadth of culture, I should assuredly consult the former. 

It is not pleasant to incur the suspicion of an inclination to injureor depreciate particular branches of knowledge. But the fact that oneof those which I should have no hesitation in excluding from themedical curriculum, is that to which my own life has been speciallydevoted, should, at any rate, defend me from the suspicion of beingurged to this course by any but the very gravest considerations of thepublic welfare. 

And I should like, further, to call your attention to the importantcircumstance that, in thus proposing the exclusion of the study of suchbranches of knowledge as Zoology and Botany, from those compulsory uponthe medical student, I am not, for a moment, suggesting their exclusionfrom the University. I think that sound and practical instruction inthe elementary facts and broad principles of Biology should form partof the Arts Curriculum: and here, happily, my theory is in entireaccordance with your practice. Moreover, as I have already said, I haveno sort of doubt that, in view of the relation of Physical Science tothe practical life of the present day, it has the same right asTheology, Law, and Medicine, to a Faculty of its own in which men shallbe trained to be professional men of science. It may be doubted whetherUniversities are the places for technical schools of Engineering orapplied Chemistry, or Agriculture. But there can surely be littlequestion, that instruction in the branches of Science which lie at thefoundation of these Arts, of a far more advanced and special characterthan could, with any propriety, be included in the ordinary ArtsCurriculum, ought to be obtainable by means of a duly organised Facultyof Science in every University. 

The establishment of such a Faculty would have the additional advantageof providing, in some measure, for one of the greatest wants of ourtime and country. I mean the proper support and encouragement oforiginal research. 

The other day, an emphatic friend of mine committed himself to theopinion that, in England, it is better for a man's worldly prospects tobe a drunkard, than to be smitten with the divine dipsomania of theoriginal investigator. I am inclined to think he was not far wrong. And, be it observed, that the question is not, whether such a man shallbe able to make as much out of his abilities as his brother, of likeability, who goes into Law, or Engineering, or Commerce; it is not aquestion of "maintaining a due number of saddle horses, " as GeorgeEliot somewhere puts it--it is a question of living or starving. 

If a student of my own subject shows power and originality, I dare notadvise him to adopt a scientific career; for, supposing he is able tomaintain himself until he has attained distinction, I cannot give himthe assurance that any amount of proficiency in the Biological Scienceswill be convertible into, even the most modest, bread and cheese. And Ibelieve that the case is as bad, or perhaps worse, with other branchesof Science. In this respect Britain, whose immense wealth andprosperity hang upon the thread of Applied Science, is far behindFrance, and infinitely behind Germany. 

And the worst of it is, that it is very difficult to see one's way toany immediate remedy for this state of affairs which shall be free froma tendency to become worse than the disease. 

Great schemes for the Endowment of Research have been proposed. It hasbeen suggested, that Laboratories for all branches of Physical Science, provided with every apparatus needed by the investigator, shall beestablished by the State: and shall be accessible, under due conditionsand regulations, to all properly qualified persons. I see no objectionto the principle of such a proposal. If it be legitimate to spend greatsums of money on public Libraries and public collections of Paintingand Sculpture, in aid of the Man of Letters, or the Artist, or for themere sake of affording pleasure to the general public. I apprehend thatit cannot be illegitimate to do as much for the promotion of scientificinvestigation. To take the lowest ground, as a mere investment ofmoney, the latter is likely to be much more immediately profitable. Tomy mind, the difficulty in the way of such schemes is not theoretical, but practical. Given the laboratories, how are the investigators to bemaintained? What career is open to those who have been thus encouragedto leave bread-winning pursuits? If they are to be provided for byendowment, we come back to the College Fellowship system, the resultsof which, for Literature, have not been so brilliant that one wouldwish to see it extended to Science; unless some much better securitiesthan at present exist can be taken that it will foster real work. Youknow that among the Bees, it depends on the kind of cell in which theegg is deposited, and the quantity and quality of food which issupplied to the grub, whether it shall turn out a busy little worker ora big idle queen. And, in the human hive, the cells of the endowedlarvae are always tending to enlarge, and their food to improve, untilwe get queens, beautiful to behold, but which gather no honey and buildno comb. 

I do not say that these difficulties may not be overcome, but theirgravity is not to be lightly estimated. 

In the meanwhile, there is one step in the direction of the endowmentof research which is free from such objections. It is possible to placethe scientific enquirer in a position in which he shall have ampleleisure and opportunity for original work, and yet shall give a fairand tangible equivalent for those privileges. The establishment of aFaculty of Science in every University, implies that of a correspondingnumber of Professorial chairs, the incumbents of which need not be soburdened with teaching as to deprive them of ample leisure for originalwork. I do not think that it is any impediment to an originalinvestigator to have to devote a moderate portion of his time tolecturing, or superintending practical instruction. On the contrary, Ithink it may be, and often is, a benefit to be obliged to take acomprehensive survey of your subject; or to bring your results to apoint, and give them, as it were, a tangible objective existence. Thebesetting sins of the investigator are two: the one is the desire toput aside a subject, the general bearings of which he has masteredhimself, and pass on to something which has the attraction of novelty;and the other, the desire for too much perfection, which leads him to

 "Add and alter many times, Till all be ripe and rotten;"

to spend the energies which should be reserved for action in whiteningthe decks and polishing the guns. 

The obligation to produce results for the instruction of others, seemsto me to be a more effectual check on these tendencies than even thelove of usefulness or the ambition for fame. 

But supposing the Professorial forces of our University to be dulyorganised, there remains an important question, relating to theteaching power, to be considered. Is the Professorial system--thesystem, I mean, of teaching in the lecture-room alone, andleaving the student to find his own way when he is outside thelecture-room--adequate to the wants of learners? In answering thisquestion, I confine myself to my own province, and I venture to replyfor Physical Science, assuredly and undoubtedly, No. As I havealready intimated, practical work in the Laboratory is absolutelyindispensable, and that practical work must be guided and superintendedby a sufficient staff of Demonstrators, who are for Science what Tutorsare for other branches of study. And there must be a good supply ofsuch Demonstrators. I doubt if the practical work of more than twentystudents can be properly superintended by one Demonstrator. If wetake the working day at six hours, that is less than twenty minutesapiece--not a very large allowance of time for helping a dull man, forcorrecting an inaccurate one, or even for making an intelligent studentclearly apprehend what he is about. And, no doubt, the supplying of aproper amount of this tutorial, practical teaching, is a difficulty inthe way of giving proper instruction in Physical Science in suchUniversities as that of Aberdeen, which are devoid of endowments; and, unlike the English Universities, have no moral claim on the funds ofrichly endowed bodies to supply their wants. 

Examination--thorough, searching examination--is an indispensableaccompaniment of teaching; but I am almost inclined to commit myself tothe very heterodox proposition that it is a necessary evil. I am a veryold Examiner, having, for some twenty years past, been occupied withexaminations on a considerable scale, of all sorts and conditions ofmen, and women too, --from the boys and girls of elementary schools tothe candidates for Honours and Fellowships in the Universities. I willnot say that, in this case as in so many others, the adage, thatfamiliarity breeds contempt, holds good; but my admiration for theexisting system of examination and its products, does not wax warmer asI see more of it. Examination, like fire, is a good servant, but a badmaster; and there seems to me to be some danger of its becoming ourmaster. I by no means stand alone in this opinion. Experienced friendsof mine do not hesitate to say that students whose career they watch, appear to them to become deteriorated by the constant effort to passthis or that examination, just as we hear of men's brains becomingaffected by the daily necessity of catching a train. They work to pass, not to know; and outraged Science takes her revenge. They do pass, andthey don't know. I have passed sundry examinations in my time, notwithout credit, and I confess I am ashamed to think how very littlereal knowledge underlay the torrent of stuff which I was able to pourout on paper. In fact, that which examination, as ordinarily conducted, tests, is simply a man's power of work under stimulus, and his capacityfor rapidly and clearly producing that which, for the time, he has gotinto his mind. Now, these faculties are by no means to be despised. They are of great value in practical life, and are the making of manyan advocate, and of many a so-called statesman. But in the pursuit oftruth, scientific or other, they count for very little, unless they aresupplemented by that long-continued, patient "intending of the mind, "as Newton phrased it, which makes very little show in Examinations. Iimagine that an Examiner who knows his students personally, must notunfrequently have found himself in the position of finding A's paperbetter than B's, though his own judgment tells him, quite clearly, thatB is the man who has the larger share of genuine capacity. 

Again, there is a fallacy about Examiners. It is commonly supposed thatany one who knows a subject is competent to teach it; and no one seemsto doubt that any one who knows a subject is competent to examine init. I believe both these opinions to be serious mistakes: the latter, perhaps, the more serious of the two. In the first place, I do notbelieve that any one who is not, or has not been, a teacher is reallyqualified to examine advanced students. And in the second place, Examination is an Art, and a difficult one, which has to be learnedlike all other arts. 

Beginners always set too difficult questions--partly because they areafraid of being suspected of ignorance if they set easy ones, andpartly from not understanding their business. Suppose that you want totest the relative physical strength of a score of young men. You do notput a hundredweight down before them, and tell each to swing it round. If you do, half of them won't be able to lift it at all, and only oneor two will be able to perform the task. You must give them half ahundredweight, and see how they manoeuvre that, if you want to form anyestimate of the muscular strength of each. So, a practised Examinerwill seek for information respecting the mental vigour and training ofcandidates from the way in which they deal with questions easy enoughto let reason, memory, and method have free play. 

No doubt, a great deal is to be done by the careful selection ofExaminers, and by the copious introduction of practical work, to removethe evils inseparable from examination; but, under the best ofcircumstances, I believe that examination will remain but an imperfecttest of knowledge, and a still more imperfect test of capacity, whileit tells next to nothing about a man's power as an investigator. 

There is much to be said in favour of restricting the highest degreesin each Faculty, to those who have shown evidence of such originalpower, by prosecuting a research under the eye of the Professor inwhose province it lies; or, at any rate, under conditions which shallafford satisfactory proof that the work is theirs. The notion may soundrevolutionary, but it is really very old; for, I take it, that it liesat the bottom of that presentation of a thesis by the candidate for adoctorate, which has now, too often, become little better than a matterof form. 

 * * * * *

Thus far, I have endeavoured to lay before you, in a too brief andimperfect manner, my views respecting the teaching half--the Magistriand Regentes--of the University of the Future. Now let me turn to thelearning half--the Scholares. 

If the Universities are to be the sanctuaries of the highest culture ofthe country, those who would enter that sanctuary must not come withunwashed hands. If the good seed is to yield its hundredfold harvest, it must not be scattered amidst the stones of ignorance, or the taresof undisciplined indolence and wantonness. On the contrary, the soilmust have been carefully prepared, and the Professor should find thatthe operations of clod-crushing, draining, and weeding, and even a gooddeal of planting, have been done by the Schoolmaster. 

That is exactly what the Professor does not find in any University inthe three Kingdoms that I can hear of--the reason of which state ofthings lies in the extremely faulty organisation of the majority ofsecondary schools. Students come to the Universities ill-prepared inclassics and mathematics, not at all prepared in anything else; andhalf their time is spent in learning that which they ought to haveknown when they came. 

I sometimes hear it said that the Scottish Universities differ from theEnglish, in being to a much greater extent places of comparativelyelementary education for a younger class of students. But it would seemdoubtful if any great difference of this kind really exists; for a highauthority, himself Head of an English College, has solemnly affirmedthat: "Elementary teaching of youths under twenty is now the onlyfunction performed by the University;" and that Colleges are "boardingschools in which the elements of the learned languages are taught toyouths. " [3]

This is not the first time that I have quoted those remarkableassertions. I should like to engrave them in public view, for they havenot been refuted; and I am convinced that if their import is onceclearly apprehended, they will play no mean part when the question ofUniversity reorganisation, with a view to practical measures, comes onfor discussion. You are not responsible for this anomalous state ofaffairs now; but, as you pass into active life and acquire thepolitical influence to which your education and your position shouldentitle you, you will become responsible for it, unless each in hissphere does his best to alter it, by insisting on the improvement ofsecondary schools. 

Your present responsibility is of another, though not less serious, kind. Institutions do not make men, any more than organisation makeslife; and even the ideal University we have been dreaming about will bebut a superior piece of mechanism, unless each student strive after theideal of the Scholar. And that ideal, it seems to me, has never beenbetter embodied than by the great Poet, who, though lapped in luxury, the favourite of a Court, and the idol of his countrymen, remainedthrough all the length of his honoured years a Scholar in Art, inScience, and in Life. 

 "Wouldst shape a noble life! Then cast No backward glances towards the past: And though somewhat be lost and gone, Yet do thou act as one new-born. What each day needs, that shalt thou ask; Each day will set its proper task. Give others' work just share of praise; Not of thine own the merits raise. Beware no fellow man thou hate: And so in God's hands leave thy fate. " [4]

 * * * * *

Footnotes:

[1] "Quamvis enim melius sit bene facere quam nosse, prius tamen estnosse quam facere. "--"Karoli Magni Regis Constitutio de Scholis persingula Episcopia et Monasteria instituendis, " addressed to the Abbotof Fulda. Baluzius, _Capitularia Regum Francorum_, T. I. , p. 202. 

[2] Inaugural Address delivered to the University of St. Andrew, February 1, 1867, by J. S. Mill, Rector of the University (pp. 32, 33). 

[3] _Suggestions for Academical Organisation, with Especial Referenceto Oxford_. By the Rector of Lincoln. 

[4] Goethe, _Zahme Xenien, Vierte Abtheilung_. I should be glad totake credit for the close and vigorous English version; but it is mywife's, and not mine. 

IX

ADDRESS ON UNIVERSITY EDUCATION [1]

[1876]

The actual work of the University founded in this city by thewell-considered munificence of Johns Hopkins commences to-morrow, andamong the many marks of confidence and good-will which have beenbestowed upon me in the United States, there is none which I value morehighly than that conferred by the authorities of the University whenthey invited me to deliver an address on such an occasion. 

For the event which has brought us together is, in many respects, unique. A vast property is handed over to an administrative body, hampered by no conditions save these:--That the principal shall not beemployed in building: that the funds shall be appropriated, in equalproportions, to the promotion of natural knowledge and to thealleviation of the bodily sufferings of mankind; and, finally, thatneither political nor ecclesiastical sectarianism shall be permitted todisturb the impartial distribution of the testator's benefactions. 

In my experience of life a truth which sounds very much like a paradoxhas often asserted itself: namely, that a man's worst difficultiesbegin when he is able to do as he likes. So long as a man is strugglingwith obstacles he has an excuse for failure or shortcoming; but whenfortune removes them all and gives him the power of doing as he thinksbest, then comes the time of trial. There is but one right, and thepossibilities of wrong are infinite. I doubt not that the trustees ofthe Johns Hopkins University felt the full force of this truth whenthey entered on the administration of their trust a year and a halfago; and I can but admire the activity and resolution which haveenabled them, aided by the able president whom they have selected, tolay down the great outlines of their plan, and carry it thus far intoexecution. It is impossible to study that plan without perceiving thatgreat care, forethought, and sagacity, have been bestowed upon it, andthat it demands the most respectful consideration. I have beenendeavouring to ascertain how far the principles which underlie it arein accordance with those which have been established in my own mind bymuch and long-continued thought upon educational questions. Permit meto place before you the result of my reflections. 

Under one aspect a university is a particular kind of educationalinstitution, and the views which we may take of the proper nature of auniversity are corollaries from those which we hold respectingeducation in general. I think it must be admitted that the schoolshould prepare for the university, and that the university should crownthe edifice, the foundations of which are laid in the school. University education should not be something distinct from elementaryeducation, but should be the natural outgrowth and development of thelatter. Now I have a very clear conviction as to what elementaryeducation ought to be; what it really may be, when properly organised;and what I think it will be, before many years have passed over ourheads, in England and in America. Such education should enable anaverage boy of fifteen or sixteen to read and write his own languagewith ease and accuracy, and with a sense of literary excellence derivedfrom the study of our classic writers: to have a general acquaintancewith the history of his own country and with the great laws of socialexistence; to have acquired the rudiments of the physical andpsychological sciences, and a fair knowledge of elementary arithmeticand geometry. He should have obtained an acquaintance with logic ratherby example than by precept; while the acquirement of the elements ofmusic and drawing should have been pleasure rather than work. 

It may sound strange to many ears if I venture to maintain theproposition that a young person, educated thus far, has had a liberal, though perhaps not a full, education. But it seems to me that suchtraining as that to which I have referred may be termed liberal, inboth the senses in which that word is employed, with perfect accuracy. In the first place, it is liberal in breadth. It extends over the wholeground of things to be known and of faculties to be trained, and itgives equal importance to the two great sides of human activity--artand science. In the second place, it is liberal in the sense of beingan education fitted for free men; for men to whom every career is open, and from whom their country may demand that they should be fitted toperform the duties of any career. I cannot too strongly impress uponyou the fact that, with such a primary education as this, and with nomore than is to be obtained by building strictly upon its lines, a manof ability may become a great writer or speaker, a statesman, a lawyer, a man of science, painter, sculptor, architect, or musician. That evendevelopment of all a man's faculties, which is what properlyconstitutes culture, may be effected by such an education, while itopens the way for the indefinite strengthening of any specialcapabilities with which he may be gifted. 

In a country like this, where most men have to carve out their ownfortunes and devote themselves early to the practical affairs of life, comparatively few can hope to pursue their studies up to, still lessbeyond, the age of manhood. But it is of vital importance to thewelfare of the community that those who are relieved from the need ofmaking a livelihood, and still more, those who are stirred by thedivine impulses of intellectual thirst or artistic genius, should beenabled to devote themselves to the higher service of their kind, ascentres of intelligence, interpreters of Nature, or creators of newforms of beauty. And it is the function of a university to furnish suchmen with the means of becoming that which it is their privilege andduty to be. To this end the university need cover no ground foreign tothat occupied by the elementary school. Indeed it cannot; for theelementary instruction which I have referred to embraces all the kindsof real knowledge and mental activity possible to man. The universitycan add no new departments of knowledge, can offer no new fields ofmental activity; but what it can do is to intensify and specialise theinstruction in each department. Thus literature and philology, represented in the elementary school by English alone, in theuniversity will extend over the ancient and modern languages. History, which, like charity, best begins at home, but, like charity, should notend there, will ramify into anthropology, archaeology, politicalhistory, and geography, with the history of the growth of the humanmind and of its products in the shape of philosophy, science, and art. And the university will present to the student libraries, museums ofantiquities, collections of coins, and the like, which will efficientlysubserve these studies. Instruction in the elements of social economy, a most essential, but hitherto sadly-neglected part of elementaryeducation, will develop in the university into political economy, sociology, and law. Physical science will have its great divisions ofphysical geography, with geology and astronomy; physics; chemistry andbiology; represented not merely by professors and their lectures, butby laboratories, in which the students, under guidance ofdemonstrators, will work out facts for themselves and come into thatdirect contact with reality which constitutes the fundamentaldistinction of scientific education. Mathematics will soar into itshighest regions; while the high peaks of philosophy may be scaled bythose whose aptitude for abstract thought has been awakened byelementary logic. Finally, schools of pictorial and plastic art, ofarchitecture, and of music, will offer a thorough discipline in theprinciples and practice of art to those in whom lies nascent the rarefaculty of aesthetic representation, or the still rarer powers ofcreative genius. 

The primary school and the university are the alpha and omega ofeducation. Whether institutions intermediate between these (so-calledsecondary schools) should exist, appears to me to be a question ofpractical convenience. If such schools are established, the importantthing is that they should be true intermediaries between the primaryschool and the university, keeping on the wide track of generalculture, and not sacrificing one branch of knowledge for another. 

Such appear to me to be the broad outlines of the relations which theuniversity, regarded as a place of education, ought to bear to theschool, but a number of points of detail require some consideration, however briefly and imperfectly I can deal with them. In the firstplace, there is the important question of the limitations which shouldbe fixed to the entrance into the university; or, what qualificationsshould be required of those who propose to take advantage of the highertraining offered by the university. On the one hand, it is obviouslydesirable that the time and opportunities of the university should notbe wasted in conferring such elementary instruction as can be obtainedelsewhere; while, on the other hand, it is no less desirable that thehigher instruction of the university should be made accessible to everyone who can take advantage of it, although he may not have been able togo through any very extended course of education. My own feeling isdistinctly against any absolute and defined preliminary examination, the passing of which shall be an essential condition of admission tothe university. I would admit to the university any one who could bereasonably expected to profit by the instruction offered to him; and Ishould be inclined, on the whole, to test the fitness of the student, not by examination before he enters the university, but at the end ofhis first term of study. If, on examination in the branches ofknowledge to which he has devoted himself, he show himself deficient inindustry or in capacity, it will be best for the university and bestfor himself, to prevent him from pursuing a vocation for which he isobviously unfit. And I hardly know of any other method than this bywhich his fitness or unfitness can be safely ascertained, though nodoubt a good deal may be done, not by formal cut and dried examination, but by judicious questioning, at the outset of his career. 

Another very important and difficult practical question is, whether adefinite course of study shall be laid down for those who enter theuniversity; whether a curriculum shall be prescribed; or whether thestudent shall be allowed to range at will among the subjects which areopen to him. And this question is inseparably connected with another, namely, the conferring of degrees. It is obviously impossible that anystudent should pass through the whole of the series of courses ofinstruction offered by a university. If a degree is to be conferred asa mark of proficiency in knowledge, it must be given on the ground thatthe candidate is proficient in a certain fraction of those studies; andthen will arise the necessity of insuring an equivalency of degrees, sothat the course by which a degree is obtained shall mark approximatelyan equal amount of labour and of acquirements, in all cases. But thisequivalency can hardly be secured in any other way than by prescribinga series of definite lines of study. This is a matter which willrequire grave consideration. The important points to bear in mind, Ithink, are that there should not be too many subjects in thecurriculum, and that the aim should be the attainment of thorough andsound knowledge of each. 

One half of the Johns Hopkins bequest is devoted to the establishmentof a hospital, and it was the desire of the testator that theuniversity and the hospital should co-operate in the promotion ofmedical education. The trustees will unquestionably take the bestadvice that is to be had as to the construction and administration ofthe hospital. In respect to the former point, they will doubtlessremember that a hospital may be so arranged as to kill more than itcures; and, in regard to the latter, that a hospital may spread thespirit of pauperism among the well-to-do, as well as relieve thesufferings of the destitute. It is not for me to speak on thesetopics--rather let me confine myself to the one matter on which myexperience as a student of medicine, and an examiner of long standing, who has taken a great interest in the subject of medical education, mayentitle me to a hearing. I mean the nature of medical education itself, and the co-operation of the university in its promotion. 

What is the object of medical education? It is to enable thepractitioner, on the one hand, to prevent disease by his knowledge ofhygiene; on the other hand, to divine its nature, and to alleviate orcure it, by his knowledge of pathology, therapeutics, and practicalmedicine. That is his business in life, and if he has not a thoroughand practical knowledge of the conditions of health, of the causeswhich tend to the establishment of disease, of the meaning of symptoms, and of the uses of medicines and operative appliances, he isincompetent, even if he were the best anatomist, or physiologist, orchemist, that ever took a gold medal or won a prize certificate. Thisis one great truth respecting medical education. Another is, that allpractice in medicine is based upon theory of some sort or other; andtherefore, that it is desirable to have such theory in the closestpossible accordance with fact. The veriest empiric who gives a drug inone case because he has seen it do good in another of apparently thesame sort, acts upon the theory that similarity of superficial symptomsmeans similarity of lesions; which, by the way, is perhaps as wild anhypothesis as could be invented. To understand the nature of disease wemust understand health, and the understanding of the healthy body meansthe having a knowledge of its structure and of the way in which itsmanifold actions are performed, which is what is technically termedhuman anatomy and human physiology. The physiologist again must needspossess an acquaintance with physics and chemistry, inasmuch asphysiology is, to a great extent, applied physics and chemistry. Forordinary purposes a limited amount of such knowledge is all that isneedful; but for the pursuit of the higher branches of physiology noknowledge of these branches of science can be too extensive, or tooprofound. Again, what we call therapeutics, which has to do with theaction of drugs and medicines on the living organism, is, strictlyspeaking, a branch of experimental physiology, and is daily receiving agreater and greater experimental development. 

The third great fact which is to be taken into consideration in dealingwith medical education, is that the practical necessities of life donot, as a rule, allow aspirants to medical practice to give more thanthree, or it may be four years to their studies. Let us put it at fouryears, and then reflect that, in the course of this time, a young manfresh from school has to acquaint himself with medicine, surgery, obstetrics, therapeutics, pathology, hygiene, as well as with theanatomy and the physiology of the human body; and that his knowledgeshould be of such a character that it can be relied upon in anyemergency, and always ready for practical application. Consider, inaddition, that the medical practitioner may be called upon, at anymoment, to give evidence in a court of justice in a criminal case; andthat it is therefore well that he should know something of the laws ofevidence, and of what we call medical jurisprudence. On a medicalcertificate, a man may be taken from his home and from his business andconfined in a lunatic asylum; surely, therefore, it is desirable thatthe medical practitioner should have some rational and clearconceptions as to the nature and symptoms of mental disease. Bearing inmind all these requirements of medical education, you will admit thatthe burden on the young aspirant for the medical profession is somewhatof the heaviest, and that it needs some care to prevent hisintellectual back from being broken. 

Those who are acquainted with the existing systems of medical educationwill observe that, long as is the catalogue of studies which I haveenumerated, I have omitted to mention several that enter into the usualmedical curriculum of the present day. I have said not a word aboutzoology, comparative anatomy, botany, or materia medica. Assuredly thisis from no light estimate of the value or importance of such studies inthemselves. It may be taken for granted that I should be the lastperson in the world to object to the teaching of zoology, orcomparative anatomy, in themselves; but I have the strongest feelingthat, considering the number and the gravity of those studies throughwhich a medical man must pass, if he is to be competent to dischargethe serious duties which devolve upon him, subjects which lie so remoteas these do from his practical pursuits should be rigorously excluded. The young man, who has enough to do in order to acquire suchfamiliarity with the structure of the human body as will enable him toperform the operations of surgery, ought not, in my judgment, to beoccupied with investigations into the anatomy of crabs and starfishes. Undoubtedly the doctor should know the common poisonous plants of hisown country when he sees them; but that knowledge may be obtained by afew hours devoted to the examination of specimens of such plants, andthe desirableness of such knowledge is no justification, to my mind, for spending three months over the study of systematic botany. Again, materia medica, so far as it is a knowledge of drugs, is the businessof the druggist. In all other callings the necessity of the division oflabour is fully recognised, and it is absurd to require of the medicalman that he should not avail himself of the special knowledge of thosewhose business it is to deal in the drugs which he uses. It is all verywell that the physician should know that castor oil comes from a plant, and castoreum from an animal, and how they are to be prepared; but forall the practical purposes of his profession that knowledge is not ofone whit more value, has no more relevancy, than the knowledge of howthe steel of his scalpel is made. 

All knowledge is good. It is impossible to say that any fragment ofknowledge, however insignificant or remote from one's ordinarypursuits, may not some day be turned to account. But in medicaleducation, above all things, it is to be recollected that, in order toknow a little well, one must be content to be ignorant of a great deal. 

Let it not be supposed that I am proposing to narrow medical education, or, as the cry is, to lower the standard of the profession. Depend uponit there is only one way of really ennobling any calling, and that isto make those who pursue it real masters of their craft, men who cantruly do that which they profess to be able to do, and which they arecredited with being able to do by the public. And there is no positionso ignoble as that of the so-called "liberally-educated practitioner, "who may be able to read Galen in the original; who knows all theplants, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop upon the wall; but whofinds himself, with the issues of life and death in his hands, ignorant, blundering, and bewildered, because of his ignorance of theessential and fundamental truths upon which practice must be based. Moreover, I venture to say, that any man who has seriously studied allthe essential branches of medical knowledge; who has the needfulacquaintance with the elements of physical science; who has beenbrought by medical jurisprudence into contact with law; whose study ofinsanity has taken him into the fields of psychology; has _ipso facto_received a liberal education. 

Having lightened the medical curriculum by culling out of it everythingwhich is unessential, we may next consider whether something may not bedone to aid the medical student toward the acquirement of realknowledge by modifying the system of examination. In England, within myrecollection, it was the practice to require of the medical studentattendance on lectures upon the most diverse topics during three years;so that it often happened that he would have to listen, in the courseof a day, to four or five lectures upon totally different subjects, inaddition to the hours given to dissection and to hospital practice: andhe was required to keep all the knowledge he could pick up, in thisdistracting fashion, at examination point, until, at the end of threeyears, he was set down to a table and questioned pell-mell upon all thedifferent matters with which he had been striving to make acquaintance. A worse system and one more calculated to obstruct the acquisition ofsound knowledge and to give full play to the "crammer" and the"grinder" could hardly have been devised by human ingenuity. Of lateyears great reforms have taken place. Examinations have been divided soas to diminish the number of subjects among which the attention has tobe distributed. Practical examination has been largely introduced; butthere still remains, even under the present system, too much of the oldevil inseparable from the contemporaneous pursuit of a multiplicity ofdiverse studies. 

Proposals have recently been made to get rid of general examinationsaltogether, to permit the student to be examined in each subject at theend of his attendance on the class; and then, in case of the resultbeing satisfactory, to allow him to have done with it; and I may saythat this method has been pursued for many years in the Royal School ofMines in London, and has been found to work very well. It allows thestudent to concentrate his mind upon what he is about for the timebeing, and then to dismiss it. Those who are occupied in intellectualwork, will, I think, agree with me that it is important, not so much toknow a thing, as to have known it, and known it thoroughly. If you haveonce known a thing in this way it is easy to renew your knowledge whenyou have forgotten it; and when you begin to take the subject up again, it slides back upon the familiar grooves with great facility. 

Lastly comes the question as to how the university may co-operate inadvancing medical education. A medical school is strictly a technicalschool--a school in which a practical profession is taught--while auniversity ought to be a place in which knowledge is obtained withoutdirect reference to professional purposes. It is clear, therefore, thata university and its antecedent, the school, may best co-operate withthe medical school by making due provision for the study of thosebranches of knowledge which lie at the foundation of medicine. 

At present, young men come to the medical schools without a conceptionof even the elements of physical science; they learn, for the firsttime, that there are such sciences as physics, chemistry, andphysiology, and are introduced to anatomy as a new thing. It may besafely said that, with a large proportion of medical students, much ofthe first session is wasted in learning how to learn--in familiarisingthemselves with utterly strange conceptions, and in awakening theirdormant and wholly untrained powers of observation and of manipulation. It is difficult to over-estimate the magnitude of the obstacles whichare thrown in the way of scientific training by the existing system ofschool education. Not only are men trained in mere book-work, ignorantof what observation means, but the habit of learning from books alonebegets a disgust of observation. The book-learned student will rathertrust to what he sees in a book than to the witness of his own eyes. 

There is not the least reason why this should be so, and, in fact, whenelementary education becomes that which I have assumed it ought to be, this state of things will no longer exist. There is not the slightestdifficulty in giving sound elementary instruction in physics, inchemistry, and in the elements of human physiology, in ordinaryschools. In other words, there is no reason why the student should notcome to the medical school, provided with as much knowledge of theseseveral sciences as he ordinarily picks up in the course of his firstyear of attendance at the medical school. 

I am not saying this without full practical justification for thestatement. For the last eighteen years we have had in England a systemof elementary science teaching carried out under the auspices of theScience and Art Department, by which elementary scientific instructionis made readily accessible to the scholars of all the elementaryschools in the country. Commencing with small beginnings, carefullydeveloped and improved, that system now brings up for examination asmany as seven thousand scholars in the subject of human physiologyalone. I can say that, out of that number, a large proportion haveacquired a fair amount of substantial knowledge; and that noinconsiderable percentage show as good an acquaintance with humanphysiology as used to be exhibited by the average candidates formedical degrees in the University of London, when I was first anexaminer there twenty years ago; and quite as much knowledge as ispossessed by the ordinary student of medicine at the present day. I amjustified, therefore, in looking forward to the time when the studentwho proposes to devote himself to medicine will come, not absolutelyraw and inexperienced as he is at present, but in a certain state ofpreparation for further study; and I look to the university to help himstill further forward in that stage of preparation, through theorganisation of its biological department. Here the student will findmeans of acquainting himself with the phenomena of life in theirbroadest acceptation. He will study not botany and zoology, which, as Ihave said, would take him too far away from his ultimate goal; but, byduly arranged instruction, combined with work in the laboratory uponthe leading types of animal and vegetable life, he will lay a broad, and at the same time solid, foundation of biological knowledge; he willcome to his medical studies with a comprehension of the great truths ofmorphology and of physiology, with his hands trained to dissect and hiseyes taught to see. I have no hesitation in saying that suchpreparation is worth a full year added on to the medical curriculum. Inother words, it will set free that much time for attention to thosestudies which bear directly upon the student's most grave and seriousduties as a medical practitioner. 

Up to this point I have considered only the teaching aspect of yourgreat foundation, that function of the university in virtue of which itplays the part of a reservoir of ascertained truth, so far as oursymbols can ever interpret nature. All can learn; all can drink of thislake. It is given to few to add to the store of knowledge, to strikenew springs of thought, or to shape new forms of beauty. But so sure asit is that men live not by bread, but by ideas, so sure is it that thefuture of the world lies in the hands of those who are able to carrythe interpretation of nature a step further than their predecessors; socertain is it that the highest function of a university is to seek outthose men, cherish them, and give their ability to serve their kindfull play. 

I rejoice to observe that the encouragement of research occupies soprominent a place in your official documents, and in the wise andliberal inaugural address of your president. This subject of theencouragement, or, as it is sometimes called, the endowment ofresearch, has of late years greatly exercised the minds of men inEngland. It was one of the main topics of discussion by the members ofthe Royal Commission of whom I was one, and who not long since issuedtheir report, after five years' labour. Many seem to think that thisquestion is mainly one of money; that you can go into the market andbuy research, and that supply will follow demand, as in the ordinarycourse of commerce. This view does not commend itself to my mind. Iknow of no more difficult practical problem than the discovery of amethod of encouraging and supporting the original investigator withoutopening the door to nepotism and jobbery. My own conviction isadmirably summed up in the passage of your president's address, "thatthe best investigators are usually those who have also theresponsibilities of instruction, gaining thus the incitement ofcolleagues, the encouragement of pupils, and the observation of thepublic. "

At the commencement of this address I ventured to assume that I might, if I thought fit, criticise the arrangements which have been made bythe board of trustees, but I confess that I have little to do but toapplaud them. Most wise and sagacious seems to me the determination notto build for the present. It has been my fate to see great educationalfunds fossilise into mere bricks and mortar, in the petrifying springsof architecture, with nothing left to work the institution they wereintended to support. A great warrior is said to have made a desert andcalled it peace. Administrators of educational funds have sometimesmade a palace and called it a university. If I may venture to giveadvice in a matter which lies out of my proper competency, I would saythat whenever you do build, get an honest bricklayer, and make himbuild you just such rooms as you really want, leaving ample space forexpansion. And a century hence, when the Baltimore and Ohio shares areat one thousand premium, and you have endowed all the professors youneed, and built all the laboratories that are wanted, and have the bestmuseum and the finest library that can be imagined; then, if you have afew hundred thousand dollars you don't know what to do with, send foran architect and tell him to put up a façade. If American is similar toEnglish experience, any other course will probably lead you into havingsome stately structure, good for your architect's fame, but not in theleast what you want. 

It appears to me that what I have ventured to lay down as theprinciples which should govern the relations of a university toeducation in general, are entirely in accordance with the measures youhave adopted. You have set no restrictions upon access to theinstruction you propose to give; you have provided that suchinstruction, either as given by the university or by associatedinstitutions, should cover the field of human intellectual activity. You have recognised the importance of encouraging research. You proposeto provide means by which young men, who may be full of zeal for aliterary or for a scientific career, but who also may have mistakenaspiration for inspiration, may bring their capacities to a test, andgive their powers a fair trial. If such a one fail, his endowmentterminates, and there is no harm done. If he succeed, you may givepower of flight to the genius of a Davy or a Faraday, a Carlyle or aLocke, whose influence on the future of his fellow-men shall beabsolutely incalculable. 

You have enunciated the principle that "the glory of the universityshould rest upon the character of the teachers and scholars, and notupon their numbers or buildings constructed for their use. " And I lookupon it as an essential and most important feature of your plan thatthe income of the professors and teachers shall be independent of thenumber of students whom they can attract. In this way you provideagainst the danger, patent elsewhere, of finding attempts atimprovement obstructed by vested interests; and, in the department ofmedical education especially, you are free of the temptation to setloose upon the world men utterly incompetent to perform the serious andresponsible duties of their profession. 

It is a delicate matter for a stranger to the practical working of yourinstitutions, like myself, to pretend to give an opinion as to theorganisation of your governing power. I can conceive nothing betterthan that it should remain as it is, if you can secure a succession ofwise, liberal, honest, and conscientious men to fill the vacancies thatoccur among you. I do not greatly believe in the efficacy of any kindof machinery for securing such a result; but I would venture to suggestthat the exclusive adoption of the method of co-optation for fillingthe vacancies which must occur in your body, appears to me to besomewhat like a tempting of Providence. Doubtless there are gravepractical objections to the appointment of persons outside of your bodyand not directly interested in the welfare of the university; but mightit not be well if there were an understanding that your academic staffshould be officially represented on the board, perhaps even the headsof one or two independent learned bodies, so that academic opinion andthe views of the outside world might have a certain influence in thatmost important matter, the appointment of your professors? I throw outthese suggestions, as I have said, in ignorance of the practicaldifficulties that may lie in the way of carrying them into effect, onthe general ground that personal and local influences are very subtle, and often unconscious, while the future greatness and efficiency of thenoble institution which now commences its work must largely depend uponits freedom from them. 

 * * * * *

I constantly hear Americans speak of the charm which our old mothercountry has for them, of the delight with which they wander through thestreets of ancient towns, or climb the battlements of mediaevalstrongholds, the names of which are indissolubly associated with thegreat epochs of that noble literature which is our common inheritance;or with the blood-stained steps of that secular progress, by which thedescendants of the savage Britons and of the wild pirates of the NorthSea have become converted into warriors of order and champions ofpeaceful freedom, exhausting what still remains of the old Berserkspirit in subduing nature, and turning the wilderness into a garden. But anticipation has no less charm than retrospect, and to anEnglishman landing upon your shores for the first time, travelling forhundreds of miles through strings of great and well-ordered cities, seeing your enormous actual, and almost infinite potential, wealth inall commodities, and in the energy and ability which turn wealth toaccount, there is something sublime in the vista of the future. Do notsuppose that I am pandering to what is commonly understood by nationalpride. I cannot say that I am in the slightest degree impressed by yourbigness, or your material resources, as such. Size is not grandeur, andterritory does not make a nation. The great issue, about which hangs atrue sublimity, and the terror of overhanging fate, is what are yougoing to do with all these things? What is to be the end to which theseare to be the means? You are making a novel experiment in politics onthe greatest scale which the world has yet seen. Forty millions atyour first centenary, it is reasonably to be expected that, at thesecond, these states will be occupied by two hundred millions ofEnglish-speaking people, spread over an area as large as that ofEurope, and with climates and interests as diverse as those of Spainand Scandinavia, England and Russia. You and your descendants have toascertain whether this great mass will hold together under the forms ofa republic, and the despotic reality of universal suffrage; whetherstate rights will hold out against centralisation, without separation;whether centralisation will get the better, without actual or disguisedmonarchy; whether shifting corruption is better than a permanentbureaucracy; and as population thickens in your great cities, and thepressure of want is felt, the gaunt spectre of pauperism will stalkamong you, and communism and socialism will claim to be heard. TrulyAmerica has a great future before her; great in toil, in care, and inresponsibility; great in true glory if she be guided in wisdom andrighteousness; great in shame if she fail. I cannot understand whyother nations should envy you, or be blind to the fact that it is forthe highest interest of mankind that you should succeed; but the onecondition of success, your sole safeguard, is the moral worth andintellectual clearness of the individual citizen. Education cannot givethese, but it may cherish them and bring them to the front in whateverstation of society they are to be found; and the universities ought tobe, and may be, the fortresses of the higher life of the nation. 

May the university which commences its practical activity to-morrowabundantly fulfil its high purpose; may its renown as a seat of truelearning, a centre of free inquiry, a focus of intellectual light, increase year by year, until men wander hither from all parts of theearth, as of old they sought Bologna, or Paris, or Oxford. 

And it is pleasant to me to fancy that, among the English students whoare drawn to you at that time, there may linger a dim tradition thata countryman of theirs was permitted to address you as he has doneto-day, and to feel as if your hopes were his hopes and your successhis joy. 

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Footnotes:

[1] Delivered at the formal opening of the Johns Hopkins University atBaltimore, U. S. , September 12. The total amount bequeathed by JohnsHopkins is more than 7, 000, 000 dollars. The sum of 3, 500, 000 dollars isappropriated to a university, a like sum to a hospital, and the rest tolocal institutions of education and charity. 

X

ON THE STUDY OF BIOLOGY

[1876]

It is my duty to-night to speak about the study of Biology, and whileit may be that there are many of my audience who are quite familiarwith that study, yet as a lecturer of some standing, it would, I knowby experience, be very bad policy on my part to suppose such to beextensively the case. On the contrary, I must imagine that there aremany of you who would like to know what Biology is; that there areothers who have that amount of information, but would neverthelessgladly hear why it should be worth their while to study Biology; andyet others, again, to whom these two points are clear, but who desireto learn how they had best study it, and, finally, when they had beststudy it. 

I shall, therefore, address myself to the endeavour to give you someanswer to these four questions--what Biology is; why it should bestudied; how it should be studied; and when it should be studied. 

In the first place, in respect to what Biology is, there are, Ibelieve, some persons who imagine that the term "Biology" is simply anew-fangled denomination, a neologism in short, for what used to beknown under the title of "Natural History;" but I shall try to showyou, on the contrary, that the word is the expression of the growth ofscience during the last 200 years, and came into existence half acentury ago. 

At the revival of learning, knowledge was divided into two kinds--theknowledge of nature and the knowledge of man; for it was the currentidea then (and a great deal of that ancient conception still remains)that there was a sort of essential antithesis, not to say antagonism, between nature and man; and that the two had not very much to do withone another, except that the one was oftentimes exceedingly troublesometo the other. Though it is one of the salient merits of our greatphilosophers of the seventeenth century, that they recognised but onescientific method, applicable alike to man and to nature, we find thisnotion of the existence of a broad distinction between nature and manin the writings both of Bacon and of Hobbes of Malmesbury; and I havebrought with me that famous work which is now so little known, greatlyas it deserves to be studied, "The Leviathan, " in order that I may putto you in the wonderfully terse and clear language of Thomas Hobbes, what was his view of the matter. He says:--

"The register of knowledge of fact is called history. Whereof there betwo sorts, one called natural history; which is the history of suchfacts or effects of nature as have no dependence on man's will; such asare the histories of metals, plants, animals, regions, and the like. The other is civil history; which is the history of the voluntaryactions of men in commonwealths. "

So that all history of fact was divided into these two great groups ofnatural and of civil history. The Royal Society was in course offoundation about the time that Hobbes was writing this book, which waspublished in 1651; and that Society was termed a "Society for theImprovement of Natural Knowledge, " which was then nearly the same thingas a "Society for the Improvement of Natural History. " As time went on, and the various branches of human knowledge became more distinctlydeveloped and separated from one another, it was found that some weremuch more susceptible of precise mathematical treatment than others. The publication of the "Principia" of Newton, which probably gave agreater stimulus to physical science than any work ever publishedbefore, or which is likely to be published hereafter, showed thatprecise mathematical methods were applicable to those branches ofscience such as astronomy, and what we now call physics, which occupy avery large portion of the domain of what the older writers understoodby natural history. And inasmuch as the partly deductive and partlyexperimental methods of treatment to which Newton and others subjectedthese branches of human knowledge, showed that the phenomena of naturewhich belonged to them were susceptible of explanation, and therebycame within the reach of what was called "philosophy" in those days; somuch of this kind of knowledge as was not included under astronomy cameto be spoken of as "natural philosophy"--a term which Bacon hademployed in a much wider sense. Time went on, and yet other branches ofscience developed themselves. Chemistry took a definite shape; andsince all these sciences, such as astronomy, natural philosophy, andchemistry, were susceptible either of mathematical treatment or ofexperimental treatment, or of both, a broad distinction was drawnbetween the experimental branches of what had previously been callednatural history and the observational branches--those in whichexperiment was (or appeared to be) of doubtful use, and where, at thattime, mathematical methods were inapplicable. Under these circumstancesthe old name of "Natural History" stuck by the residuum, by thosephenomena which were not, at that time, susceptible of mathematical orexperimental treatment; that is to say, those phenomena of nature whichcome now under the general heads of physical geography, geology, mineralogy, the history of plants, and the history of animals. It wasin this sense that the term was understood by the great writers of themiddle of the last century--Buffon and Linnaeus--by Buffon in his greatwork, the "Histoire Naturelle Générale, " and by Linnaeus in hissplendid achievement, the "Systema Naturae. " The subjects they dealwith are spoken of as "Natural History, " and they called themselves andwere called "Naturalists. " But you will observe that this was not theoriginal meaning of these terms; but that they had, by this time, acquired a signification widely different from that which theypossessed primitively. 

The sense in which "Natural History" was used at the time I am nowspeaking of has, to a certain extent, endured to the present day. Thereare now in existence in some of our northern universities, chairs of"Civil and Natural History, " in which "Natural History" is used toindicate exactly what Hobbes and Bacon meant by that term. The unhappyincumbent of the chair of Natural History is, or was, supposed to coverthe whole ground of geology, mineralogy, and zoology, perhaps evenbotany, in his lectures. 

But as science made the marvellous progress which it did make at thelatter end of the last and the beginning of the present century, thinking men began to discern that under this title of "NaturalHistory" there were included very heterogeneous constituents--that, forexample, geology and mineralogy were, in many respects, widelydifferent from botany and zoology; that a man might obtain an extensiveknowledge of the structure and functions of plants and animals, withouthaving need to enter upon the study of geology or mineralogy, and_vice versâ_; and, further as knowledge advanced, it became clearthat there was a great analogy, a very close alliance, between thosetwo sciences, of botany and zoology which deal with human beings, whilethey are much more widely separated from all other studies. It is dueto Buffon to remark that he clearly recognised this great fact. Hesays: "Ces deux genres d'êtres organisés [les animaux et les végétaux]ont beaucoup plus de propriétés communes que de différences réelles. "Therefore, it is not wonderful that, at the beginning of the presentcentury, in two different countries, and so far as I know, without anyintercommunication, two famous men clearly conceived the notion ofuniting the sciences which deal with living matter into one whole, andof dealing with them as one discipline. In fact, I may say there werethree men to whom this idea occurred contemporaneously, although therewere but two who carried it into effect, and only one who worked it outcompletely. The persons to whom I refer were the eminent physiologistBichat, and the great naturalist Lamarck, in France; and adistinguished German, Treviranus. Bichat [1] assumed the existence of aspecial group of "physiological" sciences. Lamarck, in a work publishedin 1801, [2] for the first time made use of the name "Biologie, " fromthe two Greek words which signify a discourse upon life and livingthings. About the same time, it occurred to Treviranus, that all thosesciences which deal with living matter are essentially andfundamentally one, and ought to be treated as a whole; and, in the year1802, he published the first volume of what he also called "Biologie. "Treviranus's great merit lies in this, that he worked out his idea, andwrote the very remarkable book to which I refer. It consists of sixvolumes, and occupied its author for twenty years--from 1802 to 1822. 

That is the origin of the term "Biology"; and that is how it has comeabout that all clear thinkers and lovers of consistent nomenclaturehave substituted for the old confusing name of "Natural History, " whichhas conveyed so many meanings, the term "Biology" which denotes thewhole of the sciences which deal with living things, whether they beanimals or whether they be plants. Some little time ago--in the courseof this year, I think--I was favoured by a learned classic, Dr. Fieldof Norwich, with a disquisition, in which he endeavourved to provethat, from a philological point of view, neither Treviranus nor Lamarckhad any right to coin this new word "Biology" for their purpose; that, in fact, the Greek word "Bios" had relation only to human life andhuman affairs, and that a different word was employed by the Greekswhen they wished to speak of the life of animals and plants. So Dr. Field tells us we are all wrong in using the term biology, and that weought to employ another; only he is not sure about the propriety ofthat which he proposes as a substitute. It is a somewhat hardone--"zootocology. " I am sorry we are wrong, because we are likely tocontinue so. In these matters we must have some sort of "Statute ofLimitations. " When a name has been employed for half a century, personsof authority [3] have been using it, and its sense has become wellunderstood, I am afraid people will go on using it, whatever the weightof philological objection. 

Now that we have arrived at the origin of this word "Biology, " the nextpoint to consider is: What ground does it cover? I have said that inits strict technical sense, it denotes all the phenomena which areexhibited by living things, as distinguished from those which are notliving; but while that is all very well, so long as we confineourselves to the lower animals and to plants, it lands us inconsiderable difficulties when we reach the higher forms of livingthings. For whatever view we may entertain about the nature of man, onething is perfectly certain, that he is a living creature. Hence, if ourdefinition is to be interpreted strictly, we must include man and allhis ways and works under the head of Biology; in which case, we shouldfind that psychology, politics, and political economy would be absorbedinto the province of Biology. In fact, civil history would be merged innatural history. In strict logic it may be hard to object to thiscourse, because no one can doubt that the rudiments and outlines of ourown mental phenomena are traceable among the lower animals. They havetheir economy and their polity, and if, as is always admitted, thepolity of bees and the commonwealth of wolves fall within the purviewof the biologist proper, it becomes hard to say why we should notinclude therein human affairs, which, in so many cases, resemble thoseof the bees in zealous getting, and are not without a certain parity inthe proceedings of the wolves. The real fact is that we biologists area self-sacrificing people; and inasmuch as, on a moderate estimate, there are about a quarter of a million different species of animals andplants to know about already, we feel that we have more than sufficientterritory. There has been a sort of practical convention by which wegive up to a different branch of science what Bacon and Hobbes wouldhave called "Civil History. " That branch of science has constituteditself under the head of Sociology. I may use phraseology which, atpresent, will be well understood and say that we have allowed thatprovince of Biology to become autonomous; but I should like you torecollect that that is a sacrifice, and that you should not besurprised if it occasionally happens that you see a biologistapparently trespassing in the region of philosophy or politics; ormeddling with human education; because, after all, that is a part ofhis kingdom which he has only voluntarily forsaken. 

Having now defined the meaning of the word Biology, and havingindicated the general scope of Biological Science, I turn to my secondquestion, which is--Why should we study Biology? Possibly the time maycome when that will seem a very odd question. That we, livingcreatures, should not feel a certain amount of interest in what it isthat constitutes our life will eventually, under altered ideas of thefittest objects of human inquiry, appear to be a singular phenomenon;but at present, judging by the practice of teachers and educators, Biology would seem to be a topic that does not concern us at all. Ipropose to put before you a few considerations with which I dare saymany will be familiar already, but which will suffice to show--notfully, because to demonstrate this point fully would take a great manylectures--that there are some very good and substantial reasons why itmay be advisable that we should know something about this branch ofhuman learning. 

I myself entirely agree with another sentiment of the philosopher ofMalmesbury, "that the scope of all speculation is the performance ofsome action or thing to be done, " and I have not any very great respectfor, or interest in, mere knowing as such. I judge of the value ofhuman pursuits by their bearing upon human interests; in other words, by their utility; but I should like that we should quite clearlyunderstand what it is that we mean by this word "utility. " In anEnglishman's mouth it generally means that by which we get pudding orpraise, or both. I have no doubt that is one meaning of the wordutility, but it by no means includes all I mean by utility. I thinkthat knowledge of every kind is useful in proportion as it tends togive people right ideas, which are essential to the foundation of rightpractice, and to remove wrong ideas, which are the no less essentialfoundations and fertile mothers of every description of error inpractice. And inasmuch as, whatever practical people may say, thisworld is, after all, absolutely governed by ideas, and very often bythe wildest and most hypothetical ideas, it is a matter of the verygreatest importance that our theories of things, and even of thingsthat seem a long way apart from our daily lives, should be as far aspossible true, and as far as possible removed from error. It is notonly in the coarser, practical sense of the word "utility, " but in thishigher and broader sense, that I measure the value of the study ofbiology by its utility; and I shall try to point out to you that youwill feel the need of some knowledge of biology at a great many turnsof this present nineteenth century life of ours. For example, most ofus attach great importance to the conception which we entertain of theposition of man in this universe and his relation to the rest ofnature. We have almost all been told, and most of us hold by thetradition, that man occupies an isolated and peculiar position innature; that though he is in the world he is not of the world; that hisrelations to things about him are of a remote character; that hisorigin is recent, his duration likely to be short, and that he is thegreat central figure round which other things in this world revolve. But this is not what the biologist tells us. 

At the present moment you will be kind enough to separate me from them, because it is in no way essential to my present argument that I shouldadvocate their views. Don't suppose that I am saying this for thepurpose of escaping the responsibility of their beliefs; indeed, atother times and in other places, I do not think that point has beenleft doubtful; but I want clearly to point out to you that for mypresent argument they may all be wrong; and, nevertheless, my argumentwill hold good. The biologists tell us that all this is an entiremistake. They turn to the physical organisation of man. They examinehis whole structure, his bony frame and all that clothes it. Theyresolve him into the finest particles into which the microscope willenable them to break him up. They consider the performance of hisvarious functions and activities, and they look at the manner in whichhe occurs on the surface of the world. Then they turn to other animals, and taking the first handy domestic animal--say a dog--they profess tobe able to demonstrate that the analysis of the dog leads them, ingross, to precisely the same results as the analysis of the man; thatthey find almost identically the same bones, having the same relations;that they can name the muscles of the dog by the names of the musclesof the man, and the nerves of the dog by those of the nerves of theman, and that, such structures and organs of sense as we find in theman such also we find in the dog; they analyse the brain and spinalcord and they find that the nomenclature which fits, the one answersfor the other. They carry their microscopic inquiries in the case ofthe dog as far as they can, and they find that his body is resolvableinto the same elements as those of the man. Moreover, they trace backthe dog's and the man's development, and they find that, at a certainstage of their existence, the two creatures are not distinguishable theone from the other; they find that the dog and his kind have a certaindistribution over the surface of the world, comparable in its way tothe distribution of the human species. What is true of the dog theytell us is true of all the higher animals; and they assert that theycan lay down a common plan for the whole of these creatures, and regardthe man and the dog, the horse and the ox as minor modifications of onegreat fundamental unity. Moreover, the investigations of the lastthree-quarters of a century have proved, they tell us, that similarinquiries, carried out through all the different kinds of animals whichare met with in nature, will lead us, not in one straight series, butby many roads, step by step, gradation by gradation, from man, at thesummit, to specks of animated jelly at the bottom of the series. Sothat the idea of Leibnitz, and of Bonnet, that animals form a greatscale of being, in which there are a series of gradations from the mostcomplicated form to the lowest and simplest; that idea, though notexactly in the form in which it was propounded by those philosophers, turns out to be substantially correct. More than this, when biologistspursue their investigations into the vegetable world, they find thatthey can, in the same way, follow out the structure of the plant, fromthe most gigantic and complicated trees down through a similar seriesof gradations, until they arrive at specks of animated jelly, whichthey are puzzled to distinguish from those specks which they reached bythe animal road. 

Thus, biologists have arrived at the conclusion that a fundamentaluniformity of structure pervades the animal and vegetable worlds, andthat plants and animals differ from one another simply as diversemodifications of the same great general plan. 

Again, they tell us the same story in regard to the study of function. They admit the large and important interval which, at the present time, separates the manifestations of the mental faculties observable in thehigher forms of mankind, and even in the lower forms, such as we knowthem, from those exhibited by other animals; but, at the same time, they tell us that the foundations, or rudiments, of almost all thefaculties of man are to be met with in the lower animals; that there isa unity of mental faculty as well as of bodily structure, and that, here also, the difference is a difference of degree and not of kind. Isaid "almost all, " for a reason. Among the many distinctions which havebeen drawn between the lower creatures and ourselves, there is onewhich is hardly ever insisted on, [4] but which may be very fitlyspoken of in a place so largely devoted to Art as that in which we areassembled. It is this, that while, among various kinds of animals, itis possible to discover traces of all the other faculties of man, especially the faculty of mimicry, yet that particular form of mimicrywhich shows itself in the imitation of form, either by modelling or bydrawing, is not to be met with. As far as I know, there is no sculptureor modelling, and decidedly no painting or drawing, of animal origin. Imention the fact, in order that such comfort may be derived therefromas artists may feel inclined to take. 

If what the biologists tell us is true, it will be needful to get ridof our erroneous conceptions of man, and of his place in nature, and tosubstitute right ones for them. But it is impossible to form anyjudgment as to whether the biologists are right or wrong, unless we areable to appreciate the nature of the arguments which they have tooffer. 

One would almost think this to be a self-evident proposition. I wonderwhat a scholar would say to the man who should undertake to criticise adifficult passage in a Greek play, but who obviously had not acquaintedhimself with the rudiments of Greek grammar. And yet, before givingpositive opinions about these high questions of Biology, people notonly do not seem to think it necessary to be acquainted with thegrammar of the subject, but they have not even mastered the alphabet. You find criticism and denunciation showered about by persons who notonly have not attempted to go through the discipline necessary toenable them to be judges, but who have not even reached that stage ofemergence from ignorance in which the knowledge that such a disciplineis necessary dawns upon the mind. I have had to watch with someattention--in fact I have been favoured with a good deal of itmyself--the sort of criticism with which biologists and biologicalteachings are visited. I am told every now and then that there is a"brilliant article" [5] in so-and-so, in which we are all demolished. Iused to read these things once, but I am getting old now, and I haveceased to attend very much to this cry of "wolf. " When one does readany of these productions, what one finds generally, on the face of itis, that the brilliant critic is devoid of even the elements ofbiological knowledge, and that his brilliancy is like the light givenout by the crackling of thorns under a pot of which Solomon speaks. Sofar as I recollect, Solomon makes use of the image for purposes ofcomparison; but I will not proceed further into that matter. 

Two things must be obvious: in the first place, that every man who hasthe interests of truth at heart must earnestly desire that everywell-founded and just criticism that can be made should be made; butthat, in the second place, it is essential to anybody's being able tobenefit by criticism, that the critic should know what he is talkingabout, and be in a position to form a mental image of the factssymbolised by the words he uses. If not, it is as obvious in the caseof a biological argument, as it is in that of a historical orphilological discussion, that such criticism is a mere waste of time onthe part of its author, and wholly undeserving of attention on the partof those who are criticised. Take it then as an illustration of theimportance of biological study, that thereby alone are men able to formsomething like a rational conception of what constitutes valuablecriticism of the teachings of biologists. [6]

Next, I may mention another bearing of biological knowledge--a morepractical one in the ordinary sense of the word. Consider the theory ofinfectious disease. Surely that is of interest to all of us. Now thetheory of infectious disease is rapidly being elucidated by biologicalstudy. It is possible to produce, from among the lower animals, examples of devastating diseases which spread in the same manner as ourinfectious disorders, and which are certainly and unmistakably causedby living organisms. This fact renders it possible, at any rate, thatthat doctrine of the causation of infectious disease which is knownunder the name of "the germ theory" may be well-founded; and, if so, itmust needs lead to the most important practical measures in dealingwith those terrible visitations. It may be well that the general, aswell as the professional, public should have a sufficient knowledge ofbiological truths to be able to take a rational interest in thediscussion of such problems, and to see, what I think they may hope tosee, that, to those who possess a sufficient elementary knowledge ofBiology, they are not all quite open questions. 

Let me mention another important practical illustration of the value ofbiological study. Within the last forty years the theory of agriculturehas been revolutionised. The researches of Liebig, and those of our ownLawes and Gilbert, have had a bearing upon that branch of industry theimportance of which cannot be over-estimated; but the whole of thesenew views have grown out of the better explanation of certain processeswhich go on in plants; and which, of course, form a part of thesubject-matter of Biology. 

I might go on multiplying these examples, but I see that the clockwon't wait for me, and I must therefore pass to the third question towhich I referred:--Granted that Biology is something worth studying, what is the best way of studying it? Here I must point out that, sinceBiology is a physical science, the method of studying it must needs beanalogous to that which is followed in the other physical sciences. Ithas now long been recognised that, if a man wishes to be a chemist, itis not only necessary that he should read chemical books and attendchemical lectures, but that he should actually perform the fundamentalexperiments in the laboratory for himself, and thus learn exactly whatthe words which he finds in his books and hears from his teachers, mean. If he does not do so, he may read till the crack of doom, but hewill never know much about chemistry. That is what every chemist willtell you, and the physicist will do the same for his branch of science. The great changes and improvements in physical and chemical scientificeducation, which have taken place of late, have all resulted from thecombination of practical teaching with the reading of books and withthe hearing of lectures. The same thing is true in Biology. Nobodywill ever know anything about Biology except in a dilettante"paper-philosopher" way, who contents himself with reading books onbotany, zoology, and the like; and the reason of this is simple andeasy to understand. It is that all language is merely symbolical of thethings of which it treats; the more complicated the things, the morebare is the symbol, and the more its verbal definition requires to besupplemented by the information derived directly from the handling, andthe seeing, and the touching of the thing symbolised:--that is reallywhat is at the bottom of the whole matter. It is plain common sense, asall truth, in the long run, is only common sense clarified. If you wanta man to be a tea merchant, you don't tell him to read books aboutChina or about tea, but you put him into a tea-merchant's office wherehe has the handling, the smelling, and the tasting of tea. Without thesort of knowledge which can be gained only in this practical way, hisexploits as a tea merchant will soon come to a bankrupt termination. The "paper-philosophers" are under the delusion that physical sciencecan be mastered as literary accomplishments are acquired, butunfortunately it is not so. You may read any quantity of books, and youmay be almost as ignorant as you were at starting, if you don't have, at the back of your minds, the change for words in definite imageswhich can only be acquired through the operation of your observingfaculties on the phenomena of nature. 

It may be said:--"That is all very well, but you told us just now thatthere are probably something like a quarter of a million differentkinds of living and extinct animals and plants, and a human life couldnot suffice for the examination of one-fiftieth part of all these. "That is true, but then comes the great convenience of the way thingsare arranged; which is, that although there are these immense numbersof different kinds of living things in existence, yet they are builtup, after all, upon marvellously few plans. 

There are certainly more than 100, 000 species of insects, and yetanybody who knows one insect--if a properly chosen one--will be ableto have a very fair conception of the structure of the whole. I do notmean to say he will know that structure thoroughly, or as well as it isdesirable he should know it; but he will have enough real knowledge toenable him to understand what he reads, to have genuine images in hismind of those structures which become so variously modified in all theforms of insects he has not seen. In fact, there are such things astypes of form among animals and vegetables, and for the purpose ofgetting a definite knowledge of what constitutes the leadingmodifications of animal and plant life, it is not needful to examinemore than a comparatively small number of animals and plants. 

Let me tell you what we do in the biological laboratory which is lodgedin a building adjacent to this. There I lecture to a class of studentsdaily for about four-and-a-half months, and my class have, of course, their text-books; but the essential part of the whole teaching, andthat which I regard as really the most important part of it, is alaboratory for practical work, which is simply a room with all theappliances needed for ordinary dissection. We have tables properlyarranged in regard to light, microscopes, and dissecting instruments, and we work through the structure of a certain number of animals andplants. As, for example, among the plants, we take a yeast plant, a_Protococcus_, a common mould, a _Chara_, a fern, and someflowering plant; among animals we examine such things as an _Amoeba_, _a Vorticella_, and a fresh-water polype. We dissect a star-fish, an earth-worm, a snail, a squid, and a fresh-water mussel. Weexamine a lobster and a cray-fish, and a black beetle. We go on to acommon skate, a cod-fish, a frog, a tortoise, a pigeon, and a rabbit, and that takes us about all the time we have to give. The purpose ofthis course is not to make skilled dissectors, but to give everystudent a clear and definite conception, by means of sense-images, ofthe characteristic structure of each of the leading modifications ofthe animal kingdom; and that is perfectly possible, by going no furtherthan the length of that list of forms which I have enumerated. If a manknows the structure of the animals I have mentioned, he has a clear andexact, however limited, apprehension of the essential features of theorganisation of all those great divisions of the animal and vegetablekingdoms to which the forms I have mentioned severally belong. And itthen becomes possible for him to read with profit; because every timehe meets with the name of a structure, he has a definite image in hismind of what the name means in the particular creature he is readingabout, and therefore the reading is not mere reading. It is not mererepetition of words; but every term employed in the description, wewill say, of a horse, or of an elephant, will call up the image of thethings he had seen in the rabbit, and he is able to form a distinctconception of that which he has not seen, as a modification of thatwhich he has seen. 

I find this system to yield excellent results; and I have no hesitationwhatever in saying, that any one who has gone through such a course, attentively, is in a better position to form a conception of the greattruths of Biology, especially of morphology (which is what we chieflydeal with), than if he had merely read all the books on that topic puttogether. 

The connection of this discourse with the Loan Collection of ScientificApparatus arises out of the exhibition in that collection of certainaids to our laboratory work. Such of you as have visited that veryinteresting collection may have noticed a series of diagrams and ofpreparations illustrating the structure of a frog. Those diagrams andpreparations have been made for the use of the students in thebiological laboratory. Similar diagrams and preparations illustratingthe structure of all the other forms of life we examine, are eithermade or in course of preparation. Thus the student has before him, first, a picture of the structure he ought to see; secondly, thestructure itself worked out; and if with these aids, and such needfulexplanations and practical hints as a demonstrator can supply, hecannot make out the facts for himself in the materials supplied to him, he had better take to some other pursuit than that of biologicalscience. 

I should have been glad to have said a few words about the use ofmuseums in the study of Biology, but I see that my time is becomingshort, and I have yet another question to answer. Nevertheless, I must, at the risk of wearying you, say a word or two upon the importantsubject of museums. Without doubt there are no helps to the study ofBiology, or rather to some branches of it, which are, or may be, moreimportant than natural history museums; but, in order to take thisplace in regard to Biology, they must be museums of the future. Themuseums of the present do not, by any means, do so much for us as theymight do. I do not wish to particularise, but I dare say many of you, seeking knowledge, or in the laudable desire to employ a holidayusefully, have visited some great natural history museum. You havewalked through a quarter of a mile of animals, more or less wellstuffed, with their long names written out underneath them; and, unlessyour experience is very different from that of most people, the upshotof it all is that you leave that splendid pile with sore feet, a badheadache, and a general idea that the animal kingdom is a "mighty mazewithout a plan. " I do not think that a museum which brings about thisresult does all that may be reasonably expected from such aninstitution. What is needed in a collection of natural history is thatit should be made as accessible and as useful as possible, on the onehand to the general public, and on the other to scientific workers. That need is not met by constructing a sort of happy hunting-ground ofmiles of glass cases; and, under the pretence of exhibiting everythingputting the maximum amount of obstacle in the way of those who wishproperly to see anything. 

What the public want is easy and unhindered access to such a collectionas they can understand and appreciate; and what the men of science wantis similar access to the materials of science. To this end thevast mass of objects of natural history should be divided into twoparts--one open to the public, the other to men of science, every day. The former division should exemplify all the more important andinteresting forms of life. Explanatory tablets should be attached tothem, and catalogues containing clearly-written popular expositions ofthe general significance of the objects exhibited should be provided. The latter should contain, packed into a comparatively small space, inrooms adapted for working purposes, the objects of purely scientificinterest. For example, we will say I am an ornithologist. I go toexamine a collection of birds. It is a positive nuisance to have themstuffed. It is not only sheer waste, but I have to reckon with theideas of the bird-stuffer, while, if I have the skin and nobody hasinterfered with it, I can form my own judgment as to what the bird waslike. For ornithological purposes, what is needed is not glass casesfull of stuffed birds on perches, but convenient drawers into each ofwhich a great quantity of skins will go. They occupy no great space anddo not require any expenditure beyond their original cost. But for theedification of the public, who want to learn indeed, but do not seekfor minute and technical knowledge, the case is different. What one ofthe general public walking into a collection of birds desires to see isnot all the birds that can be got together. He does not want to comparea hundred species of the sparrow tribe side by side; but he wishes toknow what a bird is, and what are the great modifications of birdstructure, and to be able to get at that knowledge easily. What willbest serve his purpose is a comparatively small number of birdscarefully selected, and artistically, as well as accurately, set up;with their different ages, their nests, their young, their eggs, andtheir skeletons side by side; and in accordance with the admirable planwhich is pursued in this museum, a tablet, telling the spectatorin legible characters what they are and what they mean. For theinstruction and recreation of the public such a typical collectionwould be of far greater value than any many-acred imitation of Noah'sark. 

Lastly comes the question as to when biological study may best bepursued. I do not see any valid reason why it should not be made, toa certain extent, a part of ordinary school training. I have longadvocated this view, and I am perfectly certain that it can be carriedout with ease, and not only with ease, but with very considerableprofit to those who are taught; but then such instruction must beadapted to the minds and needs of the scholars. They used to have avery odd way of teaching the classical languages when I was a boy. Thefirst task set you was to learn the rules of the Latin grammar in theLatin language--that being the language you were going to learn! Ithought then that this was an odd way of learning a language, butdid not venture to rebel against the judgment of my superiors. Now, perhaps, I am not so modest as I was then, and I allow myself to thinkthat it was a very absurd fashion. But it would be no less absurd, ifwe were to set about teaching Biology by putting into the hands ofboys a series of definitions of the classes and orders of the animalkingdom, and making them repeat them by heart. That is so veryfavourite a method of teaching, that I sometimes fancy the spirit ofthe old classical system has entered into the new scientific system, inwhich case I would much rather that any pretence at scientific teachingwere abolished altogether. What really has to be done is to get intothe young mind some notion of what animal and vegetable life is. Inthis matter, you have to consider practical convenience as well asother things. There are difficulties in the way of a lot of boys makingmesses with slugs and snails; it might not work in practice. But thereis a very convenient and handy animal which everybody has at hand, andthat is himself; and it is a very easy and simple matter to obtaincommon plants. Hence the general truths of anatomy and physiology canbe taught to young people in a very real fashion by dealing with thebroad facts of human structure. Such viscera as they cannot very wellexamine in themselves, such as hearts, lungs, and livers, may beobtained from the nearest butcher's shop. In respect to teachingsomething about the biology of plants, there is no practicaldifficulty, because almost any of the common plants will do, and plantsdo not make a mess--at least they do not make an unpleasant mess; sothat, in my judgment, the best form of Biology for teaching to veryyoung people is elementary human physiology on the one hand, and theelements of botany on the other; beyond that I do not think it will befeasible to advance for some time to come. But then I see no reason, why, in secondary schools, and in the Science Classes which are underthe control of the Science and Art Department--and which I may say, inpassing, have in my judgment, done so very much for the diffusion of aknowledge of science over the country--we should not hope to seeinstruction in the elements of Biology carried out, not perhaps to thesame extent, but still upon somewhat the same principle as here. Thereis no difficulty, when you have to deal with students of the ages offifteen or sixteen, in practising a little dissection and in getting anotion of, at any rate, the four or five great modifications of theanimal form; and the like is true in regard to the higher anatomy ofplants. 

While, lastly, to all those who are studying biological science witha view to their own edification merely, or with the intention ofbecoming zoologists or botanists; to all those who intend to pursuephysiology--and especially to those who propose to employ the workingyears of their lives in the practice of medicine--I say that there isno training so fitted, or which may be of such important service tothem, as the discipline in practical biological work which I havesketched out as being pursued in the laboratory hard by. 

 * * * * *

I may add that, beyond all these different classes of persons who mayprofit by the study of Biology, there is yet one other. I remember, anumber of years ago, that a gentleman who was a vehement opponent ofMr. Darwin's views and had written some terrible articles against them, applied to me to know what was the best way in which he could acquainthimself with the strongest arguments in favour of evolution. I wroteback, in all good faith and simplicity, recommending him to go througha course of comparative anatomy and physiology, and then to studydevelopment. I am sorry to say he was very much displeased, as peopleoften are with good advice. Notwithstanding this discouraging result, Iventure, as a parting word, to repeat the suggestion, and to say to allthe more or less acute lay and clerical "paper-philosophers" [7] whoventure into the regions of biological controversy--Get a little sound, thorough, practical, elementary instruction in biology. 

 * * * * *

Footnotes:

[1] See the distinction between the "sciences physiques" and the"sciences physiologiques" in the _Anatomie Générale_, 1801. 

[2] _Hydrogéologie_, an. X. (1801). 

[3] "The term _Biology_, which means exactly what we wish toexpress, _the Science of Life_, has often been used, and has oflate become not uncommon, among good writers. "--Whewell, _Philosophyof the Inductive Sciences_, vol. I. P. 544 (edition of 1847). 

[4] I think that my friend, Professor Allman, was the first to drawattention to it. 

[5] Galileo was troubled by a sort of people whom he called "paperphilosophers, " because they fancied that the true reading of nature wasto be detected by the collation of texts. The race is not extinct, but, as of old, brings forth its "winds of doctrine" by which theweathercock heads among us are much exercised. 

[6] Some critics do not even take the trouble to read. I have recentlybeen adjured with much solemnity; to state publicly why I have "changedmy opinion" as to the value of the palaeontological evidence of theoccurrence of evolution. 

To this my reply is, Why should I, when that statement was made sevenyears ago? An address delivered from the Presidential Chair of theGeological Society, in 1870, may be said to be a public document, inasmuch as it not only appeared in the _Journal_ of that learnedbody, but was re-published, in 1873, in a volume of _Critiques andAddresses_, to which my name is attached. Therein will be found apretty full statement of my reasons for enunciating two propositions:(1) that "when we turn to the higher _Vertebrata_, the results ofrecent investigations, however we may sift and criticise them, seem tome to leave a clear balance in favour of the evolution of living formsone from another;" and (2) that the case of the horse is one which"will stand rigorous criticism. " Thus I do not see clearly in what wayI can be said to have changed my opinion, except in the way ofintensifying it, when in consequence of the accumulation of similarevidence since 1870, I recently spoke of the denial of evolution as notworth serious consideration. 

[7] Writers of this stamp are fond of talking about the Baconianmethod. I beg them therefore to lay to heart these two weighty sayingsof the herald of Modern Science:--

"Syllogismus ex propositionibus constat, propositiones ex verbis, verbanotionum tesserae sunt. Itaque si notiones ipsae (_id quod basis reiest_) confusae sint et temere a rebus abstractae, nihil in iis quaesuperstruuntur est firmitudinis. "--_Novum Organon_, ii. 14. 

"Huic autem vanitati nonnulli ex modernis summa levitate itaindulserunt, ut in primo capitulo Geneseos et in libro Job et aliisscripturis sacris, philosophiam naturalem fundare conati sint; _intervivos quaerentes mortua_. "--_Ibid_. 65. 

XI

ON ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PHYSIOLOGY

[1877]

The chief ground upon which I venture to recommend that the teaching ofelementary physiology should form an essential part of any organisedcourse of instruction in matters pertaining to domestic economy, is, that a knowledge of even the elements of this subject supplies thoseconceptions of the constitution and mode of action of the living body, and of the nature of health and disease, which prepare the mind toreceive instruction from sanitary science. 

It is, I think, eminently desirable that the hygienist and thephysician should find something in the public mind to which they canappeal; some little stock of universally acknowledged truths, which mayserve as a foundation for their warnings, and predispose towards anintelligent obedience to their recommendations. 

Listening to ordinary talk about health, disease, and death, one isoften led to entertain a doubt whether the speakers believe that thecourse of natural causation runs as smoothly in the human body aselsewhere. Indications are too often obvious of a strong, thoughperhaps an unavowed and half unconscious, under-current of opinion thatthe phenomena of life are not only widely different, in theirsuperficial characters and in their practical importance, from othernatural events, but that they do not follow in that definite orderwhich characterises the succession of all other occurrences, and thestatement of which we call a law of nature. 

Hence, I think, arises the want of heartiness of belief in the value ofknowledge respecting the laws of health and disease, and of theforesight and care to which knowledge is the essential preliminary, which is so often noticeable; and a corresponding laxity andcarelessness in practice, the results of which are too frequentlylamentable. 

It is said that among the many religious sects of Russia, there is onewhich holds that all disease is brought about by the direct and specialinterference of the Deity, and which, therefore, looks with repugnanceupon both preventive and curative measures as alike blasphemousinterferences with the will of God. Among ourselves, the "PeculiarPeople" are, I believe, the only persons who hold the like doctrine inits integrity, and carry it out with logical rigour. But many of us areold enough to recollect that the administration of chloroform inassuagement of the pangs of child-birth was, at its introduction, strenuously resisted upon similar grounds. 

I am not sure that the feeling, of which the doctrine to which I havereferred is the full expression, does not lie at the bottom of theminds of a great many people who yet would vigorously object to give averbal assent to the doctrine itself. However this may be, the mainpoint is that sufficient knowledge has now been acquired of vitalphenomena, to justify the assertion, that the notion, that there isanything exceptional about these phenomena, receives not a particle ofsupport from any known fact. On the contrary, there is a vast and anincreasing mass of evidence that birth and death, health and disease, are as much parts of the ordinary stream of events as the rising andsetting of the sun, or the changes of the moon; and that the livingbody is a mechanism, the proper working of which we term health; itsdisturbance, disease; its stoppage, death. The activity of thismechanism is dependent upon many and complicated conditions, some ofwhich are hopelessly beyond our control, while others are readilyaccessible, and are capable of being indefinitely modified by our ownactions. The business of the hygienist and of the physician is to knowthe range of these modifiable conditions, and how to influence themtowards the maintenance of health and the prolongation of life; thebusiness of the general public is to give an intelligent assent, and aready obedience based upon that assent, to the rules laid down fortheir guidance by such experts. But an intelligent assent is an assentbased upon knowledge, and the knowledge which is here in question meansan acquaintance with the elements of physiology. 

It is not difficult to acquire such knowledge. What is true, toa certain extent, of all the physical sciences, is eminentlycharacteristic of physiology--the difficulty of the subject beginsbeyond the stage of elementary knowledge, and increases with everystage of progress. While the most highly trained and the best furnishedintellect may find all its resources insufficient, when it strives toreach the heights and penetrate into the depths of the problems ofphysiology, the elementary and fundamental truths can be made clear toa child. 

No one can have any difficulty in comprehending the mechanism ofcirculation or respiration; or the general mode of operation of theorgan of vision; though the unravelling of all the minutiae of theseprocesses, may, for the present, baffle the conjoined attacks of themost accomplished physicists, chemists, and mathematicians. To know theanatomy of the human body, with even an approximation to thoroughness, is the work of a life; but as much as is needed for a soundcomprehension of elementary physiological truths, may be learned in aweek. 

A knowledge of the elements of physiology is not only easy ofacquirement, but it may be made a real and practical acquaintance withthe facts, as far as it goes. The subject of study is always at hand, in one's self. The principal constituents of the skeleton, and thechanges of form of contracting muscles, may be felt through one's ownskin. The beating of one's heart, and its connection with the pulse, may be noted; the influence of the valves of one's own veins may beshown; the movements of respiration may be observed; while thewonderful phenomena of sensation afford an endless field for curiousand interesting self-study. The prick of a needle will yield, in a dropof one's own blood, material for microscopic observation of phenomenawhich lie at the foundation of all biological conceptions; and a cold, with its concomitant coughing and sneezing, may prove the sweet uses ofadversity by helping one to a clear conception of what is meant by"reflex action. "

Of course there is a limit to this physiological self-examination. Butthere is so close a solidarity between ourselves and our poor relationsof the animal world, that our inaccessible inward parts may besupplemented by theirs. A comparative anatomist knows that a sheep'sheart and lungs, or eye, must not be confounded with those of a man;but, so far as the comprehension of the elementary facts of thephysiology of circulation, of respiration, and of vision goes, the onefurnishes the needful anatomical data as well as the other. 

Thus, it is quite possible to give instruction in elementary physiologyin such a manner as, not only to confer knowledge, which, for thereason I have mentioned, is useful in itself; but to serve the purposesof a training in accurate observation, and in the methods of reasoningof physical science. But that is an advantage which I mention onlyincidentally, as the present Conference does not deal with education inthe ordinary sense of the word. 

It will not be suspected that I wish to make physiologists of all theworld. It would be as reasonable to accuse an advocate of the "threeR's" of a desire to make an orator, an author, and a mathematician ofeverybody. A stumbling reader, a pot-hook writer, and an arithmeticianwho has not got beyond the rule of three, is not a person of brilliantacquirements; but the difference between such a member of society andone who can neither read, write, nor cipher is almost inexpressible;and no one nowadays doubts the value of instruction, even if it goes nofarther. 

The saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing is, to my mind, a very dangerous adage. If knowledge is real and genuine, I do notbelieve that it is other than a very valuable possession, howeverinfinitesimal its quantity may be. Indeed, if a little knowledge isdangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?

If William Harvey's life-long labours had revealed to him a tenth partof that which may be made sound and real knowledge to our boys andgirls, he would not only have been what he was, the greatestphysiologist of his age, but he would have loomed upon the seventeenthcentury as a sort of intellectual portent. Our "little knowledge" wouldhave been to him a great, astounding, unlooked-for vision of scientifictruth. 

I really see no harm which can come of giving our children a littleknowledge of physiology. But then, as I have said, the instruction mustbe real, based upon observation, eked out by good explanatory diagramsand models, and conveyed by a teacher whose own knowledge has beenacquired by a study of the facts; and not the mere catechismalparrot-work which too often usurps the place of elementary teaching. 

It is, I hope, unnecessary for me to give a formal contradiction to thesilly fiction, which is assiduously circulated by fanatics who not onlyought to know, but do know, that their assertions are untrue, that Ihave advocated the introduction of that experimental discipline whichis absolutely indispensable to the professed physiologist, intoelementary teaching. 

But while I should object to any experimentation which can justly becalled painful, for the purpose of elementary instruction; and, while, as a member of a late Royal Commission, I gladly did my best to preventthe infliction of needless pain, for any purpose; I think it is my dutyto take this opportunity of expressing my regret at a condition of thelaw which permits a boy to troll for pike, or set lines with live frogbait, for idle amusement; and, at the same time, lays the teacher ofthat boy open to the penalty of fine and imprisonment, if he uses thesame animal for the purpose of exhibiting one of the most beautiful andinstructive of physiological spectacles, the circulation in the web ofthe foot. No one could undertake to affirm that a frog is notinconvenienced by being wrapped up in a wet rag, and having his toestied out; and it cannot be denied that inconvenience is a sort of pain. But you must not inflict the least pain on a vertebrated animal forscientific purposes (though you may do a good deal in that way for gainor for sport) without due licence of the Secretary of State for theHome Department, granted under the authority of the Vivisection Act. 

So it comes about, that, in this present year of grace 1877, twopersons may be charged with cruelty to animals. One has impaled a frog, and suffered the creature to writhe about in that condition for hours;the other has pained the animal no more than one of us would be painedby tying strings round his fingers, and keeping him in the position ofa hydropathic patient. The first offender says "I did it because I findfishing very amusing, " and the magistrate bids him depart in peace;nay, probably wishes him good sport. The second pleads, "I wanted toimpress a scientific truth, with a distinctness attainable in no otherway, on the minds of my scholars, " and the magistrate fines him fivepounds. 

I cannot but think that this is an anomalous and not wholly creditablestate of things. 

XII

ON MEDICAL EDUCATION

[1870]

It has given me sincere pleasure to be here today, at the desire ofyour highly respected President and the Council of the College. Inlooking back upon my own past, I am sorry to say that I have found thatit is a quarter of a century since I took part in those hopes and inthose fears by which you have all recently been agitated, and which noware at an end. But, although so long a time has elapsed since I wasmoved by the same feelings, I beg leave to assure you that my sympathywith both victors and vanquished remains fresh--so fresh, indeed, thatI could almost try to persuade myself that, after all, it cannot be sovery long ago. My business during the last hour, however, has been toshow that sympathy with one side only, and I assure you I have done mybest to play my part heartily, and to rejoice in the success of thosewho have succeeded. Still, I should like to remind you at the end of itall, that success on an occasion of this kind, valuable and importantas it is, is in reality only putting the foot upon one rung of theladder which leads upwards; and that the rung of a ladder was nevermeant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enablehim to put the other somewhat higher. I trust that you will all regardthese successes as simply reminders that your next business is, havingenjoyed the success of the day, no longer to look at that success, butto look forward to the next difficulty that is to be conquered. Andnow, having had so much to say to the successful candidates, you mustforgive me if I add that a sort of under-current of sympathy has beengoing on in my mind all the time for those who have not beensuccessful, for those valiant knights who have been overthrown in yourtourney, and have not made their appearance in public. I trust that, inaccordance with old custom, they, wounded and bleeding, have beencarried off to their tents, to be carefully tended by the fairest ofmaidens; and in these days, when the chances are that every one of suchmaidens will be a qualified practitioner, I have no doubt that all thesplinters will have been carefully extracted, and that they are nowphysically healed. But there may remain some little fragment of moralor intellectual discouragement, and therefore I will take the libertyto remark that your chairman to-day, if he occupied his proper place, would be among them. Your chairman, in virtue of his position, and forthe brief hour that he occupies that position, is a person ofimportance; and it may be some consolation to those who have failed ifI say, that the quarter of a century which I have been speaking of, takes me back to the time when I was up at the University of London, acandidate for honours in anatomy and physiology, and when I wasexceedingly well beaten by my excellent friend, Dr. Ransom, ofNottingham. There is a person here who recollects that circumstancevery well. I refer to your venerated teacher and mine, Dr. Sharpey. Hewas at that time one of the examiners in anatomy and physiology, andyou may be quite sure that, as he was one of the examiners, thereremained not the smallest doubt in my mind of the propriety of hisjudgment, and I accepted my defeat with the most comfortable assurancethat I had thoroughly well earned it. But, gentlemen, the competitorhaving been a worthy one, and the examination a fair one, I cannot saythat I found in that circumstance anything very discouraging. I said tomyself, "Never mind; what's the next thing to be done?" And I foundthat policy of "never minding" and going on to the next thing to bedone, to be the most important of all policies in the conduct ofpractical life. It does not matter how many tumbles you have in thislife, so long as you do not get dirty when you tumble; it is only thepeople who have to stop to be washed and made clean, who mustnecessarily lose the race. And I can assure you that there is thegreatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life. Youlearn that which is of inestimable importance--that there are a greatmany people in the world who are just as clever as you are. You learnto put your trust, by and by, in an economy and frugality of theexercise of your powers, both moral and intellectual; and you very soonfind out, if you have not found it out before, that patience andtenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight ofcleverness. In fact, if I were to go on discoursing on this subject, Ishould become almost eloquent in praise of non-success; but, lest sodoing should seem, in any way, to wither well-earned laurels, Iwill turn from that topic, and ask you to accompany me in someconsiderations touching another subject which has a very profoundinterest for me, and which I think ought to have an equally profoundinterest for you. 

I presume that the great majority of those whom I address propose todevote themselves to the profession of medicine; and I do not doubt, from the evidences of ability which have been given to-day, that I havebefore me a number of men who will rise to eminence in that profession, and who will exert a great and deserved influence upon its future. Thatin which I am interested, and about which I wish to speak, is thesubject of medical education, and I venture to speak about it for thepurpose, if I can, of influencing you, who may have the power ofinfluencing the medical education of the future. You may ask, by whatauthority do I venture, being a person not concerned in the practice ofmedicine, to meddle with that subject? I can only tell you it is afact, of which a number of you I dare say are aware by experience (andI trust the experience has no painful associations), that I have beenfor a considerable number of years (twelve or thirteen years to thebest of my recollection) one of the examiners in the University ofLondon. You are further aware that the men who come up to theUniversity of London are the picked men of the medical schools ofLondon, and therefore such observations as I may have to make upon thestate of knowledge of these gentlemen, if they be justified, in regardto any faults I may have to find, cannot be held to indicate defects inthe capacity, or in the power of application of those gentlemen, butmust be laid, more or less, to the account of the prevalent system ofmedical education. I will tell you what has struck me--but in speakingin this frank way, as one always does about the defects of one'sfriends, I must beg you to disabuse your minds of the notion that I amalluding to any particular school, or to any particular college, or toany particular person; and to believe that if I am silent when I shouldbe glad to speak with high praise, it is because that praise would cometoo close to this locality. What has struck me, then, in this longexperience of the men best instructed in physiology from the medicalschools of London is (with the many and brilliant exceptions to which Ihave referred), taking it as a whole, and broadly, the singularunreality of their knowledge of physiology. Now, I use that word"unreality" advisedly. I do not say "scanty;" on the contrary, there isplenty of it--a great deal too much of it--but it is the quality, thenature of the knowledge, which I quarrel with. I know I used to have--Idon't know whether I have now, but I had once upon a time--a badreputation among students for setting up a very high standard ofacquirement, and I dare say you may think that the standard of this oldexaminer, who happily is now very nearly an extinct examiner, has beenpitched too high. Nothing of the kind, I assure you. The defects I havenoticed, and the faults I have to find, arise entirely from thecircumstance that my standard is pitched too low. This is no paradox, gentlemen, but quite simply the fact. The knowledge I have looked forwas a real, precise, thorough, and practical knowledge of fundamentals;whereas that which the best of the candidates, in a large proportion ofcases, have had to give me was a large, extensive, and inaccurateknowledge of superstructure; and that is what I mean by saying that mydemands went too low and not too high. What I have had to complain ofis, that a large proportion of the gentlemen who come up for physiologyto the University of London do not know it as they know their anatomy, and have not been taught it as they have been taught their anatomy. Now, I should not wonder at all if I heard a great many "No, noes"here; but I am not talking about University College; as I have told youbefore, I am talking about the average education of medical schools. What I have found, and found so much reason to lament, is, that whileanatomy has been taught as a science ought to be taught, as a matter ofautopsy, and observation, and strict discipline; in a very large numberof cases, physiology has been taught as if it were a mere matter ofbooks and of hearsay. I declare to you, gentlemen, that I have oftenexpected to be told, when I have asked a question about the circulationof the blood, that Professor Breitkopf is of opinion that itcirculates, but that the whole thing is an open question. I assure youthat I am hardly exaggerating the state of mind on matters offundamental importance which I have found over and over again to obtainamong gentlemen coming up to that picked examination of the Universityof London. Now, I do not think that is a desirable state of things. Icannot understand why physiology should not be taught--in fact, youhave here abundant evidence that it can be taught--with the samedefiniteness and the same precision as anatomy is taught. And you maydepend upon this, that the only physiology which is to be of any goodwhatever in medical practice, or in its application to the study ofmedicine, is that physiology which a man knows of his own knowledge;just as the only anatomy which would be of any good to the surgeon isthe anatomy which he knows of his own knowledge. Another peculiarity Ihave found in the physiology which has been current, and that is, thatin the minds of a great many gentlemen it has been supplanted byhistology. They have learnt a great deal of histology, and they havefancied that histology and physiology are the same things. I have askedfor some knowledge of the physics and the mechanics and the chemistryof the human body, and I have been met by talk about cells. I declareto you I believe it will take me two years, at least, of absolute restfrom the business of an examiner to hear the word "cell, " "germinalmatter, " or "carmine, " without a sort of inward shudder. 

Well, now, gentlemen, I am sure my colleagues in this examination willbear me out in saying that I have not been exaggerating the evils anddefects which are current--have been current--in a large quantity ofthe physiological teaching the results of which come before examiners. And it becomes a very interesting question to know how all this comesabout, and in what way it can be remedied. How it comes about will beperfectly obvious to any one who has considered the growth of medicine. I suppose that medicine and surgery first began by some savage moreintelligent than the rest, discovering that a certain herb was good fora certain pain, and that a certain pull, somehow or other, set adislocated joint right. I suppose all things had their humblebeginnings, and medicine and surgery were in the same condition. Peoplewho wear watches know nothing about watchmaking. A watch goes wrong andit stops; you see the owner giving it a shake, or, if he is very bold, he opens the case, and gives the balance-wheel a push. Gentlemen, thatis empirical practice, and you know what are the results upon thewatch. I should think you can divine what are the results of analogousoperations upon the human body. And because men of sense very soonfound that such were the effects of meddling with very complicatedmachinery they did not understand, I suppose the first thing, as beingthe easiest, was to study the nature of the works of the human watch, and the next thing was to study the way the parts worked together, andthe way the watch worked. Thus, by degrees, we have had growing up ourbody of anatomists, or knowers of the construction of the human watch, and our physiologists, who know how the machine works. And just as anysensible man, who has a valuable watch, does not meddle with ithimself, but goes to some one who has studied watchmaking, andunderstands what the effect of doing this or that may be; so, Isuppose, the man who, having charge of that valuable machine, his ownbody, wants to have it kept in good order, comes to a professor of themedical art for the purpose of having it set right, believing that, bydeduction from the facts of structure and from the facts of function, the physician will divine what may be the matter with his bodily watchat that particular time, and what may be the best means of setting itright. If that may be taken as a just representation of the relation ofthe theoretical branches of medicine--what we may call the institutesof medicine, to use an old term--to the practical branches, I think itwill be obvious to you that they are of prime and fundamentalimportance. Whatever tends to affect the teaching of them injuriouslymust tend to destroy and to disorganise the whole fabric of the medicalart. I think every sensible man has seen this long ago; but thedifficulties in the way of attaining good teaching in the differentbranches of the theory, or institutes, of medicine are very serious. Itis a comparatively easy matter--pray mark that I use the word"comparatively "--it is a comparatively easy matter to learn anatomyand to teach it; it is a very difficult matter to learn physiology andto teach it. It is a very difficult matter to know and to teach thosebranches of physics and those branches of chemistry which bear directlyupon physiology; and hence it is that, as a matter of fact, theteaching of physiology, and the teaching of the physics and thechemistry which bear upon it, must necessarily be in a state ofrelative imperfection; and there is nothing to be grumbled at in thefact that this relative imperfection exists. But is the relativeimperfection which exists only such as is necessary, or is it madeworse by our practical arrangements? I believe--and if I did not sobelieve I should not have troubled you with these observations--Ibelieve it is made infinitely worse by our practical arrangements, orrather, I ought to say, our very unpractical arrangements. Some verywise man long ago affirmed that every question, in the long run, was aquestion of finance; and there is a good deal to be said for that view. Most assuredly the question of medical teaching is, in a very large andbroad sense, a question of finance. What I mean is this: that in Londonthe arrangements of the medical schools, and the number of them, aresuch as to render it almost impossible that men who confine themselvesto the teaching of the theoretical branches of the profession should beable to make their bread by that operation; and, you know, if a mancannot make his bread he cannot teach--at least his teaching comes to aspeedy end. That is a matter of physiology. Anatomy is fairly welltaught, because it lies in the direction of practice, and a man is allthe better surgeon for being a good anatomist. It does not absolutelyinterfere with the pursuits of a practical surgeon if he should hold aChair of Anatomy--though I do not for one moment say that he would notbe a better teacher if he did not devote himself to practice. (Applause. ) Yes, I know exactly what that cheer means, but I am keepingas carefully as possible from any sort of allusion to Professor Ellis. But the fact is, that even human anatomy has now grown to be so large amatter, that it takes the whole devotion of a man's life to put thegreat mass of knowledge upon that subject into such a shape that it canbe teachable to the mind of the ordinary student. What the studentwants in a professor is a man who shall stand between him and theinfinite diversity and variety of human knowledge, and who shall gatherall that together, and extract from it that which is capable of beingassimilated by the mind. That function is a vast and an important one, and unless, in such subjects as anatomy, a man is wholly free fromother cares, it is almost impossible that he can perform it thoroughlyand well. But if it be hardly possible for a man to pursue anatomywithout actually breaking with his profession, how is it possible forhim to pursue physiology?

I get every year those very elaborate reports of Henle andMeissner--volumes of, I suppose, 400 pages altogether--and they consistmerely of abstracts of the memoirs and works which have been written onAnatomy and Physiology--only abstracts of them! How is a man to keep uphis acquaintance with all that is doing in the physiological world--ina world advancing with enormous strides every day and every hour--if hehas to be distracted with the cares of practice? You know very well itmust be impracticable to do so. Our men of ability join our medicalschools with an eye to the future. They take the Chairs of Anatomy orof Physiology; and by and by they leave those Chairs for the moreprofitable pursuits into which they have drifted by professionalsuccess, and so they become clothed, and physiology is bare. The resultis, that in those schools in which physiology is thus left to thebenevolence, so to speak, of those who have no time to look to it, theeffect of such teaching comes out obviously, and is made manifest inwhat I spoke of just now--the unreality, the bookishness of theknowledge of the taught. And if this is the case in physiology, stillmore must it be the case in those branches of physics which are thefoundation of physiology; although it may be less the case inchemistry, because for an able chemist a certain honourable andindependent career lies in the direction of his work, and he is able, like the anatomist, to look upon what he may teach to the student asnot absolutely taking him away from his bread-winning pursuits. 

But it is of no use to grumble about this state of things unless one isprepared to indicate some sort of practical remedy. And I believe--andI venture to make the statement because I am wholly independent of allsorts of medical schools, and may, therefore, say what I believewithout being supposed to be affected by any personal interest--but Isay I believe that the remedy for this state of things, for thatimperfection of our theoretical knowledge which keeps down the abilityof England at the present time in medical matters, is a mere affair ofmechanical arrangement; that so long as you have a dozen medicalschools scattered about in different parts of the metropolis, anddividing the students among them, so long, in all the smaller schoolsat any rate, it is impossible that any other state of things than thatwhich I have been depicting should obtain. Professors must live; tolive they must occupy themselves with practice, and if they occupythemselves with practice, the pursuit of the abstract branches ofscience must go to the wall. All this is a plain and obvious matter ofcommon-sense reasoning. I believe you will never alter this state ofthings until, either by consent or by _force majeure_--and Ishould be very sorry to see the latter applied--but until there is somenew arrangement, and until all the theoretical branches of theprofession, the institutes of medicine, are taught in London in notmore than one or two, or at the outside three, central institutions, nogood will be effected. If that large body of men, the medical studentsof London, were obliged in the first place to get a knowledge of thetheoretical branches of their profession in two or three centralschools, there would be abundant means for maintaining ableprofessors--not, indeed, for enriching them, as they would be able toenrich themselves by practice--but for enabling them to make thatchoice which such men are so willing to make; namely, the choicebetween wealth and a modest competency, when that modest competency isto be combined with a scientific career, and the means of advancingknowledge. I do not believe that all the talking about, and tinkeringof, medical education will do the slightest good until the fact isclearly recognised, that men must be thoroughly grounded in thetheoretical branches of their profession, and that to this end theteaching of those theoretical branches must be confined to two or threecentres. 

Now let me add one other word, and that is, that if I were a despot, Iwould cut down these branches to a very considerable extent. The nextthing to be done beyond that which I mentioned just now, is to go backto primary education. The great step towards a thorough medicaleducation is to insist upon the teaching of the elements of thephysical sciences in all schools, so that medical students shall not goup to the medical colleges utterly ignorant of that with which theyhave to deal; to insist on the elements of chemistry, the elements ofbotany, and the elements of physics being taught in our ordinary andcommon schools, so that there shall be some preparation for thediscipline of medical colleges. And, if this reform were once effected, you might confine the "Institutes of Medicine" to physics as applied tophysiology--to chemistry as applied to physiology--to physiologyitself, and to anatomy. Afterwards, the student, thoroughly grounded inthese matters, might go to any hospital he pleased for the purpose ofstudying the practical branches of his profession. The practicalteaching might be made as local as you like; and you might use toadvantage the opportunities afforded by all these local institutionsfor acquiring a knowledge of the practice of the profession. But youmay say: "This is abolishing a great deal; you are getting rid ofbotany and zoology to begin with. " I have not a doubt that they oughtto be got rid of, as branches of special medical education; they oughtto be put back to an earlier stage, and made branches of generaleducation. Let me say, by way of self-denying ordinance, for which youwill, I am sure, give me credit, that I believe that comparativeanatomy ought to be absolutely abolished. I say so, not without acertain fear of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of London whosits upon my left. But I do not think the charter gives him very muchpower over me; moreover, I shall soon come to an end of myexaminership, and therefore I am not afraid, but shall go on to saywhat I was going to say, and that is, that in my belief it is adownright cruelty--I have no other word for it--to require fromgentlemen who are engaged in medical studies, the pretence--for it isnothing else, and can be nothing else, than a pretence--of a knowledgeof comparative anatomy as part of their medical curriculum. Make itpart of their Arts teaching if you like, make it part of their generaleducation if you like, make it part of their qualification for thescientific degree by all means--that is its proper place; but torequire that gentlemen whose whole faculties should be bent upon theacquirement of a real knowledge of human physiology should worrythemselves with getting up hearsay about the alternation of generationsin the Salpae is really monstrous. I cannot characterise it in anyother way. And having sacrificed my own pursuit, I am sure I maysacrifice other people's; and I make this remark with all the morewillingness because I discovered, on reading the names of yourProfessors just now, that the Professor of Materia Medica is notpresent. I must confess, if I had my way I should abolish MateriaMedica [1] altogether. I recollect, when I was first under examinationat the University of London, Dr. Pereira was the examiner, and you knowthat Pereira's "Materia Medica" was a book _de omnibus rebus_. Irecollect my struggles with that book late at night and early in themorning (I worked very hard in those days), and I do believe that I gotthat book into my head somehow or other, but then I will undertake tosay that I forgot it all a week afterwards. Not one trace of aknowledge of drugs has remained in my memory from that time to this;and really, as a matter of common sense, I cannot understand thearguments for obliging a medical man to know all about drugs and wherethey come from. Why not make him belong to the Iron and SteelInstitute, and learn something about cutlery, because he uses knives?

But do not suppose that, after all these deductions, there would not beample room for your activity. Let us count up what we have left. Isuppose all the time for medical education that can be hoped for is, atthe outside, about four years. Well, what have you to master in thosefour years upon my supposition? Physics applied to physiology;chemistry applied to physiology; physiology; anatomy; surgery; medicine(including therapeutics); obstetrics; hygiene; and medicaljurisprudence--nine subjects for four years! And when you consider whatthose subjects are, and that the acquisition of anything beyond therudiments of any one of them may tax the energies of a lifetime, Ithink that even those energies which you young gentlemen have beendisplaying for the last hour or two might be taxed to keep youthoroughly up to what is wanted for your medical career. 

I entertain a very strong conviction that any one who adds to medicaleducation one iota or tittle beyond what is absolutely necessary, isguilty of a very grave offence. Gentlemen, it will depend upon theknowledge that you happen to possess, --upon your means of applying itwithin your own field of action, --whether the bills of mortality ofyour district are increased or diminished; and that, gentlemen, is avery serious consideration indeed. And, under those circumstances, thesubjects with which you have to deal being so difficult, their extentso enormous, and the time at your disposal so limited, I could not feelmy conscience easy if I did not, on such an occasion as this, raise aprotest against employing your energies upon the acquisition of anyknowledge which may not be absolutely needed in your future career. 

 * * * * *

[1] It will, I hope, be understood that I do not include Therapeuticsunder this head. 

XIII

THE STATE AND THE MEDICAL PROFESSION

[1884]

At intervals during the last quarter of a century committees of theHouses of the Legislature and specially appointed commissions haveoccupied themselves with the affairs of the medical profession. Muchevidence has been taken, much wrangling has gone on over the reports ofthese bodies; and sometimes much trouble has been taken to get measuresbased upon all this work through Parliament, but very little has beenachieved. 

The Bill introduced last session was not more fortunate than severalpredecessors. I suppose that it is not right to rejoice in themisfortunes of anything, even a Bill; but I confess that this eventafforded me lively satisfaction, for I was a member of the RoyalCommission on the report of which the Bill was founded, and I did mybest to oppose and nullify that report. 

That the question must be taken up again and finally dealt with by theLegislature before long cannot be doubted; but in the meanwhile thereis time for reflection, and I think that the non-medical public wouldbe wise if they paid a little attention to a subject which is really ofconsiderable importance to them. 

The first question which a plain man is disposed to ask himself is, Whyshould the State interfere with the profession of medicine any morethan it does, say, with the profession of engineering? Anybody whopleases may call himself an engineer, and may practice as such. TheState confers no title upon engineers, and does not profess to tell thepublic that one man is a qualified engineer and that another is not so. 

The answers which are given to the question are various, and most ofthem, I think, are bad. A large number of persons seem to be of opinionthat the State is bound no less to take care of the general public, than to see that it is protected against incompetent persons, againstquacks and medical impostors in general. I do not take that view of thecase. I think it is very much wholesomer for the public to take care ofitself in this as in all other matters; and although I am not such afanatic for the liberty of the subject as to plead that interferingwith the way in which a man may choose to be killed is a violation ofthat liberty, yet I do think that it is far better to let everybody doas he likes. Whether that be so or not, I am perfectly certain that, asa matter of practice, it is absolutely impossible to prohibit thepractice of medicine by people who have no special qualification forit. Consider the terrible consequences of attempting to prohibitpractice by a very large class of persons who are certainly nottechnically qualified--I am far from saying a word as to whetherthey are otherwise qualified or not. The number of LadiesBountiful--grandmothers, aunts, and mothers-in-law--whose chief delightlies in the administration of their cherished provision of domesticmedicine, is past computation, and one shudders to think of what mighthappen if their energies were turned from this innocuous, if notbeneficent channel, by the strong arm of the law. But the thing isimpracticable. 

Another reason for intervention is propounded, I am sorry to say, bysome, though not many, members of the medical profession, and is simplyan expression of that trades unionism which tends to infest professionsno less than trades. 

The general practitioner trying to make both ends meet on a poorpractice, whose medical training has cost him a good deal of time andmoney, finds that many potential patients, whose small fees would bewelcome as the little that helps, prefer to go and get their shilling'sworth of "doctor's stuff" and advice from the chemist and druggistround the corner, who has not paid sixpence for his medical training, because he has never had any. 

The general practitioner thinks this is very hard upon him and ought tobe stopped. It is perhaps natural that he should think so, though itwould be very difficult for him to justify his opinion on any ground ofpublic policy. But the question is really not worth discussion, as itis obvious that it would be utterly impracticable to stop the practice"over the counter" even it it were desirable. 

Is a man who has a sudden attack of pain in tooth or stomach not to bepermitted to go to the nearest druggist's shop and ask for somethingthat will relieve him? The notion is preposterous. But if this is to belegal, the whole principle of the permissibility of counter practice isgranted. 

In my judgment the intervention of the State in the affairs of themedical profession can be justified not upon any pretence of protectingthe public, and still less upon that of protecting the medicalprofession, but simply and solely upon the fact that the State employsmedical men for certain purposes, and, as employer, has a right todefine the conditions on which it will accept service. It is for theinterest of the community that no person shall die without there beingsome official recognition of the cause of his death. It is a matter ofthe highest importance to the community that, in civil and criminalcases, the law shall be able to have recourse to persons whose evidencemay be taken as that of experts; and it will not be doubted that theState has a right to dictate the conditions under which it will appointpersons to the vast number of naval, military, and civil medicaloffices held directly or indirectly under the Government. Here, andhere only, it appears to me, lies the justification for theintervention of the State in medical affairs. It says, or, in myjudgment, should say, to the public, "Practice medicine if you like--goto be practised upon by anybody;" and to the medical practitioner, "Have a qualification, or do not have a qualification if people don'tmind it; but if the State is to receive your certificate of death, ifthe State is to take your evidence as that of an expert, if the Stateis to give you any kind of civil, or military, or naval appointment, then we can call upon you to comply with our conditions, and to produceevidence that you are, in our sense of the word, qualified. Withoutthat we will not place you in that position. " As a matter of fact, thatis the relation of the State to the medical profession in this country. For my part, I think it an extremely healthy relation; and it is onethat I should be very sorry to see altered, except in so far that itwould certainly be better if greater facilities were given for theswift and sharp punishment of those who profess to have the Statequalification when, in point of fact, they do not possess it. They aresimply cheats and swindlers, like other people who profess to be whatthey are not, and should be punished as such. 

But supposing we are agreed about the justification of Stateintervention in medical affairs, new questions arise as to the mannerin which that intervention should take place and the extent to which itshould go, on which the divergence of opinion is even greater than itis on the general question of intervention. 

It is now, I am sorry to say, something over forty years since I beganmy medical studies; and, at that time, the state of affairs wasextremely singular. I should think it hardly possible that it couldhave obtained anywhere but in such a country as England, whichcherishes a fine old crusted abuse as much as it does its port wine. Atthat time there were twenty-one licensing bodies--that is to say, bodies whose certificate was received by the State as evidence that thepersons who possessed that certificate were medical experts. How thesebodies came to possess these powers is a very curious chapter inhistory, in which it would be out of place to enlarge. They were partlyuniversities, partly medical guilds and corporations, partly theArchbishop of Canterbury. Those were the three sources from which thelicence to practice came in that day. There was no central authority, there was nothing to prevent any one of those licensing authoritiesfrom granting a licence to any one upon any conditions it thought fit. The examination might be a sham, the curriculum might be a sham, thecertificate might be bought and sold like anything in a shop; or, onthe other hand, the examination might be fairly good and the diplomacorrespondingly valuable; but there was not the smallest guarantee, except the personal character of the people who composed theadministration of each of these licensing bodies, as to what mighthappen. It was possible for a young man to come to London and to spendtwo years and six months of the time of his compulsory three years"walking the hospitals" in idleness or worse; he could then, by puttinghimself in the hands of a judicious "grinder" for the remaining sixmonths, pass triumphantly through the ordeal of one hour's _vivâ voce_examination, which was all that was absolutely necessary, toenable him to be turned loose upon the public, like death on the palehorse, "conquering and to conquer, " with the full sanction of the law, as a "qualified practitioner. "

It is difficult to imagine, at present, such a state of things, stillmore difficult to depict the consequences of it, because they wouldappear like a gross and malignant caricature; but it may be said thatthere was never a system, or want of system, which was bettercalculated to ruin the students who came under it, or to degrade theprofession as a whole. My memory goes back to a time when models fromwhom the Bob Sawyer of the _Pickwick Papers_ might have been drawnwere anything but rare. 

Shortly before my student days, however, the dawn of a better state ofthings in England began to be visible, in consequence of theestablishment of the University of London, and the comparatively veryhigh standard which it placed before its medical graduates. 

I say comparatively high standard, for the requirements of theUniversity in those days, and even during the twelve years at a laterperiod, when I was one of the examiners of the medical faculty, weresuch as would not now be thought more than respectable, and indeed werein many respects very imperfect. But, relatively to the means oflearning, the standard was high, and none but the more able andambitious of the students dreamed of passing the University. Nevertheless, the fact that many men of this stamp did succeed inobtaining their degrees, led others to follow in their steps, andslowly but surely reacted upon the standard of teaching in the bettermedical schools. Then came the Medical Act of 1858. That Act introducedtwo immense improvements: one of them was the institution of what iscalled the Medical Register, upon which the names of all personsrecognised by the State as medical practitioners are entered: and theother was the establishment of the Medical Council, which is a kind ofMedical Parliament, composed of representatives of the licensing bodiesand of leading men in the medical profession nominated by the Crown. The powers given by the Legislature to the Medical Council were foundpractically to be very limited, but I think that no fair observer ofthe work will doubt that this much attacked body has excited no smallinfluence in bringing about the great change for the better, which hasbeen effected in the training of men for the medical profession withinmy recollection. 

Another source of improvement must be recognised in the ScottishUniversities, and especially in the medical faculty of the Universityof Edinburgh. The medical education and examinations of this body werefor many years the best of their kind in these islands, and I doubt if, at the present moment, the three kingdoms can show a better school ofmedicine than that of Edinburgh. The vast number of medical students atthat University is sufficient evidence of the opinion of those mostinterested in this subject. 

Owing to all those influences, and to the revolution which has takenplace in the course of the last twenty years in our conceptions of theproper method of teaching physical science, the training of the medicalstudent in a good school, and the examination test applied by the greatmajority of the present licensing bodies, reduced now to nineteen, inconsequence of the retirement of the Archbishop and the fusion of twoof the other licensing bodies, are totally different from what theywere even twenty years ago. 

I was perfectly astonished, upon one of my sons commencing his medicalcareer the other day, when I contrasted the carefully-watched coursesof theoretical and practical instruction, which he is expected tofollow with regularity and industry, and the number and nature of theexaminations which he will have to pass before he can receive hislicence, not only with the monstrous laxity of my own student days, buteven with the state of things which obtained when my term of office asexaminer in the University of London expired some sixteen years ago. 

I have no hesitation in expressing the opinion, which is fully borneout by the evidence taken before the late Royal Commission, that alarge proportion of the existing licensing bodies grant their licenceon conditions which ensure quite as high a standard as it ispracticable or advisable to exact under present circumstances, and thatthey show every desire to keep pace with the improvements of the times. And I think there can be no doubt that the great majority have so muchimproved their ways, that their standard is far above that of theordinary qualification thirty years ago, and I cannot see what excusethere would be for meddling with them if it were not for two otherdefects which have to be remedied. 

Unfortunately there remain two or three black sheep--licensing bodieswhich simply trade upon their privilege, and sell the cheapest waresthey can for shame's sake supply to the bidder. Another defect in theexisting system, even where the examination has been so greatlyimproved as to be good of its kind, is that there are certain licensingbodies which give a qualification for an acquaintance with eithermedicine or surgery alone, and which more or less ignore obstetrics. This is a revival of the archaic condition of the profession whensurgical operations were mostly left to the barbers and obstetrics tothe mid-wives, and when the physicians thought themselves, and wereconsidered by the world, the "superior persons" of the profession. Iremember a story was current in my young days of a great courtphysician who was travelling with a friend, like himself, bound on avisit to a country house. The friend fell down in an apoplectic fit, and the physician refused to bleed him because it was contrary toprofessional etiquette for a physician to perform that operation. Whether the friend died or whether he got better because he was notbled I do not remember, but the moral of the story is the same. On theother hand, a famous surgeon was asked whether he meant to bring up hisson to his own calling, "No, " he said, "he is such a fool, I mean tomake a physician of him. "

Nowadays, it is happily recognised that medicine is one andindivisible, and that no one can properly practice one branch who isnot familiar with at any rate the principles of all. Thus the two greatthings that are wanted now are, in the first place, some means ofenforcing such a degree of uniformity upon all the examining bodiesthat none should present a disgracefully low minimum or passexamination; and the second point is that some body or other shall havethe power of enforcing upon every candidate for the licence to practicethe study of the three branches, what is called the tripartitequalification. All the members of the late commission were agreed thatthese were the main points to be attended to in any proposals for thefurther improvement of medical training and qualification. 

But such being the ends in view, our notions as to the best way ofattaining them were singularly divergent; so that it came about thateleven commissioners made seven reports. There was one main majorityreport and six minor reports, which differed more or less from it, chiefly as to the best method of attaining these two objects. 

The majority report recommended the adoption of what is known as theconjoint scheme. According to this plan the power of granting a licenceto practise is to be taken away from all the existing bodies, whetherthey have done well or ill, and to be placed in the hands of a body ofdelegates (divisional boards), one for each of the three kingdoms. Thelicence to practise is to be conferred by passing the delegateexamination. The licensee may afterwards, if he pleases, go before anyof the existing bodies and indulge in the luxury of another examinationand the payment of another fee in order to obtain a title, which doesnot legally place him in any better position than that which he wouldoccupy without it. 

Under these circumstances, of course, the only motive for obtaining thedegree of a University or the licence of a medical corporation would bethe prestige of these bodies. Hence the "black sheep" would certainlybe deserted, while those bodies which have acquired a reputation bydoing their duty would suffer less. 

But, as the majority report proposes that the existing bodies should becompensated for any loss they might suffer out of the fees of theexaminers for the State licence, the curious result would be broughtabout that the profession of the future would be taxed, for all time, for the purpose of handing over to wholly irresponsible bodies a sum, the amount of which would be large for those who had failed in theirduty and small for those who had done it. 

The scheme in fact involved a perpetual endowment of the "blacksheep, " calculated on the maximum of their ill-gained profits. [1] Iconfess that I found myself unable to assent to a plan which, inaddition to the rewarding the evil doers, proposed to take away theprivileges of a number of examining bodies which confessedly were doingtheir duty well, for the sake of getting rid of a few who had failed. It was too much like the Chinaman's device of burning down his house toobtain a poor dish of roast pig--uncertain whether in the end he mightnot find a mere mass of cinders. What we do know is that the greatmajority of the existing licensing bodies have marvellously improved inthe course of the last twenty years, and are improving. What we do notknow is that the complicated scheme of the divisional boards will everbe got to work at all. 

My own belief is that every necessary reform may be effected, withoutany interference with vested interests, without any unjust interferencewith the prestige of institutions which have been, and still are, extremely valuable, without any question of compensation arising, andby an extremely simple operation. It is only necessary in fact to add acouple of clauses to the Medical Act to this effect: (1) That from andafter such a date no person shall be placed upon the Medical Registerunless he possesses the threefold qualification. (2) That from andafter this date no examination shall be accepted as satisfactoryfrom any licensing body except such as has been carried on in partby examiners appointed by the licensing body, and in part bycoadjutor-examiners of equal authority appointed by the Medical Councilor other central authority, and acting under their instructions. 

In laying down a rule of this kind the State confiscates nothing, andmeddles with nobody, but simply acts within its undoubted right oflaying down the conditions under which it will confer certainprivileges upon medical practitioners. No one can say that the Statehas not the right to do this; no one can say that the State interfereswith any private enterprise or corporate interest unjustly, in layingdown its own conditions for its own service. The plan would have thefurther advantage that all those corporate bodies which have obtained(as many of them have) a great and just prestige by the admirable wayin which they have done their work, would reap their just reward in thethronging of students, thenceforward as formerly, to obtain theirqualifications; while those who have neglected their duties, who havein some one or two cases, I am sorry to say, absolutely disgracedthemselves, would sink into oblivion, and come to a happy and naturaleuthanasia, in which their misdeeds and themselves would be entirelyforgotten. 

Two of my colleagues, Professor Turner and Mr. Bryce, M. P. , whosepractical familiarity with examinations gave their opinions a highvalue, expressed their substantial approval of this scheme, and I amunable to see the weight of the objections urged against it. It isurged that the difficulty and expense of adequately inspecting so manyexaminations and of guaranteeing their efficiency would be great, andthe difficulty in the way of a fair adjustment of the representation ofexisting interests and of the representation of new interests upon thegeneral Medical Council would be almost insuperable. 

The latter objection is unintelligible to me. I am not aware that anyattempt at such adjustment has been fairly discussed, and until thathas been done it may be well not to talk about insuperabledifficulties. As to the notion that there is any difficulty in gettingthe coadjutor-examiners, or that the expense will be overwhelming, wehave the experience of Scotland, in which every University does, at thepresent time, appoint its coadjutor-examiners, who do their work justin the way proposed. 

Whether in the way I have proposed, or by the Conjoint Scheme, however, this is perfectly certain: the two things I refer to have to be done:you must have the threefold qualification; you must have the limitationof the minimum qualification also; and any scheme for the improvementof the relations of the State to medicine which does not profess to dothese two things thoroughly and well, has no chance of finality. 

But when these reforms are witnessed, when there is a Medical Councilarmed with a more real authority than it at present possesses; when alicense to practice cannot be obtained without the threefoldqualification; and when an even minimum of qualification is exacted forevery licence, is there anything else that remains that any oneseriously interested in the welfare of the medical profession, as I maymost conscientiously declare myself to be, would like to see done? Ithink there are three things. 

In the first place, even now, when a four years' curriculum isrequired, the time allotted for medical education is too brief. A youngman of eighteen beginning to study medicine is probably absolutelyignorant of the existence of such a thing as anatomy, or physiology, orindeed of any branch of physical science. He comes into an entirely newworld; he addresses himself to a kind of work of which he has not thesmallest experience. Up to that time his work has been with books; herushes suddenly into work with things, which is as different from workwith books as anything can well be. I am quite sure that a veryconsiderable number of young men spend a very large portion of theirfirst session in simply learning how to learn subjects which areentirely new to them. And yet recollect that in this period of fouryears they have to acquire a knowledge of all the branches of a greatand responsible practical calling of medicine, surgery, obstetrics, general pathology, medical jurisprudence, and so forth. Anybody whoknows what these things are, and who knows what is the kind of workwhich is necessary to give a man the confidence which will enable himto stand at the bedside and say to the satisfaction of his ownconscience what shall be done, and what shall not be done, must beaware that if a man has only four years to do all that in he will nothave much time to spare. But that is not all. As I have said, the youngman comes up, probably ignorant of the existence of science; he hasnever heard a word of chemistry, he has never heard a word of physics, he has not the smallest conception of the outlines of biologicalscience; and all these things have to be learned as well and crammedinto the time which in itself is barely sufficient to acquire a fairamount of that knowledge which is requisite for the satisfactorydischarge of his professional duties. 

Therefore it is quite clear to me that, somehow or other, thecurriculum must be lightened. It is not that any of the subjects whichI have mentioned need not to be studied, and may be eliminated. Theonly alternative therefore is to lengthen the time given to study. Everybody will agree with me that the practical necessities of life inthis country are such that, for the average medical practitioner at anyrate, it is hopeless to think of extending the period of professionalstudy beyond the age of twenty-two. So that as the period of studycannot be extended forwards, the only thing to be done is to extend itbackwards. 

The question is how this can be done. My own belief is that if theMedical Council, instead of insisting upon that examination in generaleducation which I am sorry to say I believe to be entirely futile, wereto insist upon a knowledge of elementary physics, and chemistry, andbiology, they would be taking one of the greatest steps which atpresent can be made for the improvement of medical education. And theimprovement would be this. The great majority of the young men who aregoing into the profession have practically completed their generaleducation--or they might very well have done so--by the age of sixteenor seventeen. If the interval between this age and that at which theycommence their purely medical studies were employed in obtaining apractical acquaintance with elementary physics, chemistry, and biology, in my judgment it would be as good as two years added to the course ofmedical study. And for two reasons: in the first place, because thesubject-matter of that which they would learn is germane to theirfuture studies, and is so much gained; in the second place, because youmight clear out of the course of their professional study a great dealwhich at present occupies time and attention; and last, but notleast--probably most--they would then come to their medical studiesprepared for that learning from Nature which is what they have to do inthe course of becoming skilful medical men, and for which at presentthey are not in the slightest degree prepared by their previouseducation. 

The second wish I have to express concerns London especially, and I mayspeak of it briefly as a more economical use of the teaching power inthe medical schools. At this present time every great hospital inLondon--and there are ten or eleven of them--has its complete medicalschool, in which not only are the branches of practical medicinetaught, but also those studies in general science, such as chemistry, elementary physics, general anatomy, and a variety of other topicswhich are what used to be called (and the term was an extremely usefulone) the institutes of medicine. That was all very well half a centuryago; it is all very ill now, simply because those general branches ofscience, such as anatomy, physiology, chemistry, physiologicalchemistry, physiological physics, and so forth, have now become solarge, and the mode of teaching them is so completely altered, that itis absolutely impossible for any man to be a thoroughly competentteacher of them, or for any student to be effectually taught withoutthe devotion of the whole time of the person who is engaged inteaching. I undertake to say that it is hopelessly impossible for anyman at the present time to keep abreast with the progress of physiologyunless he gives his whole mind to it; and the bigger the mind is, themore scope he will find for its employment. Again, teaching has become, and must become still more, practical, and that also involves a largeexpenditure of time. But if a man is to give his whole time to mybusiness he must live by it, and the resources of the schools do notpermit them to maintain ten or eleven physiological specialists. 

If the students in their first one or two years were taught theinstitutes of medicine, in two or three central institutions, it wouldbe perfectly easy to have those subjects taught thoroughly andeffectually by persons who gave their whole mind and attention to thesubject; while at the same time the medical schools at the hospitalswould remain what they ought to be--great institutions in which thelargest possible opportunities are laid open for acquiring practicalacquaintance with the phenomena of disease. So that the preliminary orearlier half of medical education would take place in the centralinstitutions, and the final half would be devoted altogether topractical studies in the hospitals. 

I happen to know that this conception has been entertained, not only bymyself, but by a great many of those persons who are most interested inthe improvement of medical study for a considerable number of years. Ido not know whether anything will come of it this half-century or not;but the thing has to be done. It is not a speculative notion; it liespatent to everybody who is accustomed to teaching, and knows what thenecessities of teaching are; and I should very much like to see thefirst step taken--people making up their minds that it has to be donesomehow or other. 

The last point to which I may advert is one which concerns the actionof the profession itself more than anything else. We have arrangementsfor teaching, we have arrangements for the testing of qualifications, we have marvellous aids and appliances for the treatment of disease inall sorts of ways; but I do not find in London at the present time, inthis little place of four or five million inhabitants which supports somany things, any organisation or any arrangement for advancing thescience of medicine, considered as a pure science. I am quite awarethat there are medical societies of various kinds; I am not ignorant ofthe lectureships at the College of Physicians and the College ofSurgeons; there is the Brown Institute; and there is the Society forthe Advancement of Medicine by Research, but there is no means, so faras I know, by which any person who has the inborn gifts of theinvestigator and discoverer of new truth, and who desires to apply thatto the improvement of medical science, can carry out his intention. InParis there is the University of Paris, which gives degrees; but thereare also the Sorbonne and the Collége de France, places in whichprofessoriates are established for the express purpose of enabling menwho have the power of investigation, the power of advancing knowledgeand thereby reacting on practice, to do that which it is their specialmission to do. I do not know of anything of the kind in London; and ifit should so happen that a Claude Bernard or a Ludwig should turn up inLondon, I really have not the slightest notion of what we could do withhim. We could not turn him to account, and I think we should have toexport him to Germany or France. I doubt whether that is a good or awise condition of things. I do not think it is a condition of thingswhich can exist for any great length of time, now that people are everyday becoming more and more awake to the importance of scientificinvestigation and to the astounding and unexpected manner in which iteverywhere reacts upon practical pursuits. I should look upon theestablishment of some institution of that kind as a recognition on thepart of the medical profession in general, that if their great andbeneficent work is to be carried on, they must, like other people whohave great and beneficent work to do, contribute to the advancement ofknowledge in the only way in which experience shows that it can beadvanced. 

 * * * * *

Footnotes:

[1]The fees to be paid by candidates for admission to the examinationsof the Divisional Board should be of such an amount as will besufficient to cover the cost of the examinations and the other expensesof the Divisional Board, _and also to provide the sum required tocompensate the medical authorities, or such of them as may be entitledto compensation, for any pecuniary losses they may hereafter sustain byreason of the abolition of their privilege of conferring a licence topractise. Report_ 50, p. Xii. 

XIV

THE CONNECTION OF THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES WITH MEDICINE

[1881]

The great body of theoretical and practical knowledge which has beenaccumulated by the labours of some eighty generations, since the dawnof scientific thought in Europe, has no collective English name towhich an objection may not be raised; and I use the term "medicine" asthat which is least likely to be misunderstood; though, as every oneknows, the name is commonly applied, in a narrower sense, to one of thechief divisions of the totality of medical science. 

Taken in this broad sense, "medicine" not merely denotes a kind ofknowledge, but it comprehends the various applications of thatknowledge to the alleviation of the sufferings, the repair of theinjuries, and the conservation of the health, of living beings. Infact, the practical aspect of medicine so far dominates over everyother, that the "Healing Art" is one of its most widely-receivedsynonyms. It is so difficult to think of medicine otherwise than assomething which is necessarily connected with curative treatment, thatwe are apt to forget that there must be, and is, such a thing as a purescience of medicine--a "pathology" which has no more necessarysubservience to practical ends than has zoology or botany. 

The logical connection between this purely scientific doctrine ofdisease, or pathology, and ordinary biology, is easily traced. Livingmatter is characterised by its innate tendency to exhibit a definiteseries of the morphological and physiological phenomena whichconstitute organisation and life. Given a certain range of conditions, and these phenomena remain the same, within narrow limits, for eachkind of living thing. They furnish the normal and typical character ofthe species, and, as such, they are the subject-matter of ordinarybiology. 

Outside the range of these conditions, the normal course of the cycleof vital phenomena is disturbed; abnormal structure makes itsappearance, or the proper character and mutual adjustment of thefunctions cease to be preserved. The extent and the importance of thesedeviations from the typical life may vary indefinitely. They may haveno noticeable influence on the general well-being of the economy, orthey may favour it. On the other hand, they may be of such a nature asto impede the activities of the organism, or even to involve itsdestruction. 

In the first case, these perturbations are ranged under the wide andsomewhat vague category of "variations"; in the second, they are calledlesions, states of poisoning, or diseases; and, as morbid states, theylie within the province of pathology. No sharp line of demarcation canbe drawn between the two classes of phenomena. No one can say whereanatomical variations end and tumours begin, nor where modification offunction, which may at first promote health, passes into disease. Allthat can be said is, that whatever change of structure or function ishurtful belongs to pathology. Hence it is obvious that pathology is abranch of biology; it is the morphology, the physiology, thedistribution, the aetiology of abnormal life. 

However obvious this conclusion may be now, it was nowise apparent inthe infancy of medicine. For it is a peculiarity of the physicalsciences that they are independent in proportion as they are imperfect;and it is only as they advance that the bonds which really unite themall become apparent. Astronomy had no manifest connection withterrestrial physics before the publication of the "Principia"; that ofchemistry with physics is of still more modern revelation; that ofphysics and chemistry with physiology, has been stoutly denied withinthe recollection of most of us, and perhaps still may be. 

Or, to take a case which affords a closer parallel with that ofmedicine. Agriculture has been cultivated from the earliest times, and, from a remote antiquity, men have attained considerable practical skillin the cultivation of the useful plants, and have empiricallyestablished many scientific truths concerning the conditions underwhich they flourish. But, it is within the memory of many of us, thatchemistry on the one hand, and vegetable physiology on the other, attained a stage of development such that they were able to furnish asound basis for scientific agriculture. Similarly, medicine took itsrise in the practical needs of mankind. At first, studied withoutreference to any other branch of knowledge, it long maintained, indeedstill to some extent maintains, that independence. Historically, itsconnection with the biological sciences has been slowly established, and the full extent and intimacy of that connection are only nowbeginning to be apparent. I trust I have not been mistaken in supposingthat an attempt to give a brief sketch of the steps by which aphilosophical necessity has become an historical reality, may not bedevoid of interest, possibly of instruction, to the members of thisgreat Congress, profoundly interested as all are in the scientificdevelopment of medicine. 

The history of medicine is more complete and fuller than that of anyother science, except, perhaps, astronomy; and, if we follow back thelong record as far as clear evidence lights us, we find ourselves takento the early stages of the civilisation of Greece. The oldest hospitalswere the temples of Aesculapius; to these Asclepeia, always erected onhealthy sites, hard by fresh springs and surrounded by shady groves, the sick and the maimed resorted to seek the aid of the god of health. Votive tablets or inscriptions recorded the symptoms, no less than thegratitude, of those who were healed; and, from these primitive clinicalrecords, the half-priestly, half-philosophic caste of the Asclepiadscompiled the data upon which the earliest generalisations of medicine, as an inductive science, were based. 

In this state, pathology, like all the inductive sciences at theirorigin, was merely natural history; it registered the phenomena ofdisease, classified them, and ventured upon a prognosis, wherever theobservation of constant co-existences and sequences suggested arational expectation of the like recurrence under similarcircumstances. 

Further than this it hardly went. In fact, in the then state ofknowledge, and in the condition of philosophical speculation at thattime, neither the causes of the morbid state, nor the _rationale_of treatment, were likely to be sought for as we seek for them now. Theanger of a god was a sufficient reason for the existence of a malady, and a dream ample warranty for therapeutic measures; that a physicalphenomenon must needs have a physical cause was not the implied orexpressed axiom that it is to us moderns. 

The great man whose name is inseparably connected with the foundationof medicine, Hippocrates, certainly knew very little, indeedpractically nothing, of anatomy or physiology; and he would, probably, have been perplexed even to imagine the possibility of a connectionbetween the zoological studies of his contemporary Democritus andmedicine. Nevertheless, in so far as he, and those who worked beforeand after him, in the same spirit, ascertained, as matters ofexperience, that a wound, or a luxation, or a fever, presented such andsuch symptoms, and that the return of the patient to health wasfacilitated by such and such measures, they established laws of nature, and began the construction of the science of pathology. All truescience begins with empiricism--though all true science is suchexactly, in so far as it strives to pass out of the empirical stageinto that of the deduction of empirical from more general truths. Thus, it is not wonderful, that the early physicians had little or nothing todo with the development of biological science; and, on the other hand, that the early biologists did not much concern themselves withmedicine. There is nothing to show that the Asclepiads took anyprominent share in the work of founding anatomy, physiology, zoology, and botany. Rather do these seem to have sprung from the earlyphilosophers, who were essentially natural philosophers, animated bythe characteristically Greek thirst for knowledge as such. Pythagoras, Alcmeon, Democritus, Diogenes of Apollonia, are all credited withanatomical and physiological investigations; and, though Aristotle issaid to have belonged to an Asclepiad family, and not improbably owedhis taste for anatomical and zoological inquiries to the teachings ofhis father, the physician Nicomachus, the "Historia Animalium, " and thetreatise "De Partibus Animalium, " are as free from any allusion tomedicine as if they had issued from a modern biological laboratory. 

It may be added, that it is not easy to see in what way it could havebenefited a physician of Alexander's time to know all that Aristotleknew on these subjects. His human anatomy was too rough to avail muchin diagnosis; his physiology was too erroneous to supply data forpathological reasoning. But when the Alexandrian school, withErasistratus and Herophilus at their head, turned to account theopportunities of studying human structure, afforded to them by thePtolemies, the value of the large amount of accurate knowledge thusobtained to the surgeon for his operations, and to the physician forhis diagnosis of internal disorders, became obvious, and a connectionwas established between anatomy and medicine, which has ever becomecloser and closer. Since the revival of learning, surgery, medicaldiagnosis, and anatomy have gone hand in hand. Morgagni called hisgreat work, "De sedibus et causis morborum per anatomen indagatis, " andnot only showed the way to search out the localities and the causes ofdisease by anatomy, but himself travelled wonderfully far upon theroad. Bichat, discriminating the grosser constituents of the organs andparts of the body, one from another, pointed out the direction whichmodern research must take; until, at length, histology, a science ofyesterday, as it seems to many of us, has carried the work of Morgagnias far as the microscope can take us, and has extended the realm ofpathological anatomy to the limits of the invisible world. 

Thanks to the intimate alliance of morphology with medicine, thenatural history of disease has, at the present day, attained a highdegree of perfection. Accurate regional anatomy has renderedpracticable the exploration of the most hidden parts of the organism, and the determination, during life, of morbid changes in them;anatomical and histological post-mortem investigations have suppliedphysicians with a clear basis upon which to rest the classification, ofdiseases, and with unerring tests of the accuracy or inaccuracy oftheir diagnoses. 

If men could be satisfied with pure knowledge, the extreme precisionwith which, in these days, a sufferer may be told what is happening, and what is likely to happen, even in the most recondite parts of hisbodily frame, should be as satisfactory to the patient as it is tothe scientific pathologist who gives him the information. But I amafraid it is not; and even the practising physician, while nowiseunder-estimating the regulative value of accurate diagnosis, must oftenlament that so much of his knowledge rather prevents him from doingwrong than helps him to do right. 

A scorner of physic once said that nature and disease may be comparedto two men fighting, the doctor to a blind man with a club, who strikesinto the _mêlée_, sometimes hitting the disease, and sometimeshitting nature. The matter is not mended if you suppose the blind man'shearing to be so acute that he can register every stage of thestruggle, and pretty clearly predict how it will end. He had better notmeddle at all, until his eyes are opened, until he can see the exactposition of the antagonists, and make sure of the effect of his blows. But that which it behoves the physician to see, not, indeed, with hisbodily eye, but with clear, intellectual vision, is a process, and thechain of causation involved in that process. Disease, as we have seen, is a perturbation of the normal activities of a living body, and it is, and must remain, unintelligible, so long as we are ignorant of thenature of these normal activities. In other words, there could be noreal science of pathology until the science of physiology had reached adegree of perfection unattained, and indeed unattainable, until quiterecent times. 

So far as medicine is concerned, I am not sure that physiology, such asit was down to the time of Harvey, might as well not have existed. Nay, it is perhaps no exaggeration to say that, within the memory of livingmen, justly renowned practitioners of medicine and surgery knewless physiology than is now to be learned from the most elementarytext-book; and, beyond a few broad facts, regarded what they did knowas of extremely little practical importance. Nor am I disposed to blamethem for this conclusion; physiology must be useless, or worse thanuseless, to pathology, so long as its fundamental conceptions areerroneous. 

Harvey is often said to be the founder of modern physiology; and therecan be no question that the elucidations of the function of the heart, of the nature of the pulse, and of the course of the blood, put forthin the ever-memorable little essay, "De motu cordis, " directly worked arevolution in men's views of the nature and of the concatenation ofsome of the most important physiological processes among the higheranimals; while, indirectly, their influence was perhaps even moreremarkable. 

But, though Harvey made this signal and perennially importantcontribution to the physiology of the moderns, his general conceptionof vital processes was essentially identical with that of the ancients;and, in the "Exercitationes de generatione, " and notably in thesingular chapter "De calido innato, " he shows himself a true son ofGalen and of Aristotle. 

For Harvey, the blood possesses powers superior to those of theelements; it is the seat of a soul which is not only vegetative, butalso sensitive and motor. The blood maintains and fashions all parts ofthe body, "idque summâ cum providentiâ et intellectu in finem certumagens, quasi ratiocinio quodam uteretur. "

Here is the doctrine of the "pneuma, " the product of the philosophicalmould into which the animism of primitive men ran in Greece, in fullforce. Nor did its strength abate for long after Harvey's time. Thesame ingrained tendency of the human mind to suppose that a process isexplained when it is ascribed to a power of which nothing is knownexcept that it is the hypothetical agent of the process, gave rise, inthe next century, to the animism of Stahl; and, later, to the doctrineof a vital principle, that "asylum ignorantiae" of physiologists, whichhas so easily accounted for everything and explained nothing, down toour own times. 

Now the essence of modern, as contrasted with ancient, physiologicalscience appears to me to lie in its antagonism to animistic hypothesesand animistic phraseology. It offers physical explanations of vitalphenomena, or frankly confesses that it has none to offer. And, so faras I know, the first person who gave expression to this modern view ofphysiology, who was bold enough to enunciate the proposition that vitalphenomena, like all the other phenomena of the physical world, are, inultimate analysis, resolvable into matter and motion, was RenéDescartes. 

The fifty-four years of life of this most original and powerful thinkerare widely overlapped, on both sides, by the eighty of Harvey, whosurvived his younger contemporary by seven years, and takes pleasure inacknowledging the French philosopher's appreciation of his greatdiscovery. 

In fact, Descartes accepted the doctrine of the circulation aspropounded by "Harvaeus médecin d'Angleterre, " and gave a full accountof it in his first work, the famous "Discours de la Méthode, " which waspublished in 1637, only nine years after the exercitation "De motucordis"; and, though differing from Harvey on some important points (inwhich it may be noted, in passing, Descartes was wrong and Harveyright), he always speaks of him with great respect. And so importantdoes the subject seem to Descartes, that he returns to it in the"Traité des Passions, " and in the "Traité de l'Homme. "

It is easy to see that Harvey's work must have had a peculiarsignificance for the subtle thinker, to whom we owe both thespiritualistic and the materialistic philosophies of modern times. Itwas in the very year of its publication, 1628, that Descartes withdrewinto that life of solitary investigation and meditation of which hisphilosophy was the fruit. And, as the course of his speculations ledhim to establish an absolute distinction of nature between the materialand the mental worlds, he was logically compelled to seek for theexplanation of the phenomena of the material world within itself; andhaving allotted the realm of thought to the soul, to see nothing butextension and motion in the rest of nature. Descartes uses "thought" asthe equivalent of our modern term "consciousness. " Thought is thefunction of the soul, and its only function. Our natural heat and allthe movements of the body, says he, do not depend on the soul. Deathdoes not take place from any fault of the soul, but only because someof the principal parts of the body become corrupted. The body of aliving man differs from that of a dead man in the same way as a watchor other automaton (that is to say, a machine which moves of itself)when it is wound up and has, in itself, the physical principle of themovements which the mechanism is adapted to perform, differs from thesame watch, or other machine, when it is broken, and the physicalprinciple of its movement no longer exists. All the actions which arecommon to us and the lower animals depend only on the conformation ofour organs, and the course which the animal spirits take in the brain, the nerves, and the muscles; in the same way as the movement of a watchis produced by nothing but the force of its spring and the figure ofits wheels and other parts. 

Descartes' "Treatise on Man" is a sketch of human physiology, in whicha bold attempt is made to explain all the phenomena of life, exceptthose of consciousness, by physical reasonings. To a mind turned inthis direction, Harvey's exposition of the heart and vessels as ahydraulic mechanism must have been supremely welcome. 

Descartes was not a mere philosophical theorist, but a hardworkingdissector and experimenter, and he held the strongest opinionrespecting the practical value of the new conception which he wasintroducing. He speaks of the importance of preserving health, and ofthe dependence of the mind on the body being so close that, perhaps, the only way of making men wiser and better than they are, is to besought in medical science. "It is true, " says he, "that as medicine isnow practised it contains little that is very useful; but without anydesire to depreciate, I am sure that there is no one, even amongprofessional men, who will not declare that all we know is very littleas compared with that which remains to be known; and that we mightescape an infinity of diseases of the mind, no less than of the body, and even perhaps from the weakness of old age, if we had sufficientknowledge of their causes, and of all the remedies with which naturehas provided us. " [1] So strongly impressed was Descartes with this, that he resolved to spend the rest of his life in trying to acquiresuch a knowledge of nature as would lead to the construction of abetter medical doctrine. [2] The anti-Cartesians found material forcheap ridicule in these aspirations of the philosopher; and it isalmost needless to say that, in the thirteen years which elapsedbetween the publication of the "Discours" and the death of Descartes, he did not contribute much to their realisation. But, for the nextcentury, all progress in physiology took place along the lines whichDescartes laid down. 

The greatest physiological and pathological work of the seventeenthcentury, Borelli's treatise "De Motu Animalium, " is, to all intents andpurposes, a development of Descartes' fundamental conception; and thesame may be said of the physiology and pathology of Boerhaave, whoseauthority dominated in the medical world of the first half of theeighteenth century. 

With the origin of modern chemistry, and of electrical science, in thelatter half of the eighteenth century, aids in the analysis of thephenomena of life, of which Descartes could not have dreamed, wereoffered to the physiologist. And the greater part of the giganticprogress which has been made in the present century is a justificationof the prevision of Descartes. For it consists, essentially, in a moreand more complete resolution of the grosser organs of the living bodyinto physicochemical mechanisms. 

"I shall try to explain our whole bodily machinery in such a way, thatit will be no more necessary for us to suppose that the soul producessuch movements as are not voluntary, than it is to think that there isin a clock a soul which causes it to show the hours. " [3] These wordsof Descartes might be appropriately taken as a motto by the author ofany modern treatise on physiology. 

But though, as I think, there is no doubt that Descartes was the firstto propound the fundamental conception of the living body as a physicalmechanism, which is the distinctive feature of modern, as contrastedwith ancient physiology, he was misled by the natural temptation tocarry out, in all its details, a parallel between the machines withwhich he was familiar, such as clocks and pieces of hydraulicapparatus, and the living machine. In all such machines there is acentral source of power, and the parts of the machine are merelypassive distributors of that power. The Cartesian school conceived ofthe living body as a machine of this kind; and herein they might havelearned from Galen, who, whatever ill use he may have made of thedoctrine of "natural faculties, " nevertheless had the great merit ofperceiving that local forces play a great part in physiology. 

The same truth was recognised by Glisson, but it was first prominentlybrought forward in the Hallerian doctrine of the "vis insita" ofmuscles. If muscle can contract without nerve, there is an end of theCartesian mechanical explanation of its contraction by the influx ofanimal spirits. 

The discoveries of Trembley tended in the same direction. In thefreshwater _Hydra_, no trace was to be found of that complicatedmachinery upon which the performance of the functions in the higheranimals was supposed to depend. And yet the hydra moved, fed, grew, multiplied, and its fragments exhibited all the powers of the whole. And, finally, the work of Caspar F. Wolff, [4] by demonstrating thefact that the growth and development of both plants and animals takeplace antecedently to the existence of their grosser organs, and are, in fact, the causes and not the consequences of organisation (as thenunderstood), sapped the foundations of the Cartesian physiology as acomplete expression of vital phenomena. 

For Wolff, the physical basis of life is a fluid, possessed of a "visessentialis" and a "solidescibilitas, " in virtue of which it gives riseto organisation; and, as he points out, this conclusion strikes at theroot of the whole iatro-mechanical system. 

In this country, the great authority of John Hunter exerted a similarinfluence; though it must be admitted that the too sibylline utteranceswhich are the outcome of Hunter's struggles to define his conceptionsare often susceptible of more than one interpretation. Nevertheless, onsome points Hunter is clear enough. For example, he is of opinion that"Spirit is only a property of matter" ("Introduction to NaturalHistory, " p. 6), he is prepared to renounce animism, (_l. C. _ p. 8), and his conception of life is so completely physical that he thinksof it as something which can exist in a state of combination in thefood. "The aliment we take in has in it, in a fixed state, the reallife; and this does not become active until it has got into the lungs;for there it is freed from its prison" ("Observations on Physiology, "p. 113). He also thinks that "It is more in accord with the generalprinciples of the animal machine to suppose that none of its effectsare produced from any mechanical principle whatever; and that everyeffect is produced from an action in the part; which action is producedby a stimulus upon the part which acts, or upon some other part withwhich this part sympathises so as to take up the whole action" (_l. C. _p. 152). 

And Hunter is as clear as Wolff, with whose work he was probablyunacquainted, that "whatever life is, it most certainly does not dependupon structure or organisation" (_l. C. _ p. 114). 

Of course it is impossible that Hunter could have intended to deny theexistence of purely mechanical operations in the animal body. Butwhile, with Borelli and Boerhaave, he looked upon absorption, nutrition, and secretion as operations effected by means of the smallvessels, he differed from the mechanical physiologists, who regardedthese operations as the result of the mechanical properties of thesmall vessels, such as the size, form, and disposition of their canalsand apertures. Hunter, on the contrary, considers them to be the effectof properties of these vessels which are not mechanical but vital. "Thevessels, " says he, "have more of the polypus in them than any otherpart of the body, " and he talks of the "living and sensitive principlesof the arteries, " and even of the "dispositions or feelings of thearteries. " "When the blood is good and genuine the sensations of thearteries, or the dispositions for sensation, are agreeable.... It isthen they dispose of the blood to the best advantage, increasing thegrowth of the whole, supplying any losses, keeping up a due succession, etc. " (_l. C. _ p. 133). 

If we follow Hunter's conceptions to their logical issue, the life ofone of the higher animals is essentially the sum of the lives of allthe vessels, each of which is a sort of physiological unit, answeringto a polype; and, as health is the result of the normal "action of thevessels, " so is disease an effect of their abnormal action. Hunter thusstands in thought, as in time, midway between Borelli on the one hand, and Bichat on the other. 

The acute founder of general anatomy, in fact, outdoes Hunter in hisdesire to exclude physical reasonings from the realm of life. Except inthe interpretation of the action of the sense organs, he will not allowphysics to have anything to do with physiology. 

"To apply the physical sciences to physiology is to explain thephenomena of living bodies by the laws of inert bodies. Now this is afalse principle, hence all its consequences are marked with the samestamp. Let us leave to chemistry its affinity; to physics, itselasticity and its gravity. Let us invoke for physiology onlysensibility and contractility. " [5]

Of all the unfortunate dicta of men of eminent ability this seems oneof the most unhappy, when we think of what the application of themethods and the data of physics and chemistry has done towards bringingphysiology into its present state. It is not too much to say thatone-half of a modern text-book of physiology consists of appliedphysics and chemistry; and that it is exactly in the exploration of thephenomena of sensibility and contractility that physics and chemistryhave exerted the most potent influence. 

Nevertheless, Bichat rendered a solid service to physiological progressby insisting upon the fact that what we call life, in one of the higheranimals, is not an indivisible unitary archaeus dominating, from itscentral seat, the parts of the organism, but a compound result of thesynthesis of the separate lives of those parts. 

"All animals, " says he, "are assemblages of different organs, each ofwhich performs its function and concurs, after its fashion, in thepreservation of the whole. They are so many special machines in thegeneral machine which constitutes the individual. But each of thesespecial machines is itself compounded of many tissues of very differentnatures, which in truth constitute the elements of those organs"(_l. C. _ lxxix. ). "The conception of a proper vitality is applicableonly to these simple tissues, and not to the organs themselves"(_l. C. _ lxxxiv. ). 

And Bichat proceeds to make the obvious application of this doctrine ofsynthetic life, if I may so call it, to pathology. Since diseases areonly alterations of vital properties, and the properties of each tissueare distinct from those of the rest, it is evident that the diseases ofeach tissue must be different from those of the rest. Therefore, in anyorgan composed of different tissues, one may be diseased and the otherremain healthy; and this is what happens in most cases (_l. C. _ lxxxv. ). 

In a spirit of true prophecy, Bichat says, "We have arrived at an epochin which pathological anatomy should start afresh. " For, as theanalysis of the organs had led him to the tissues as the physiologicalunits of the organism; so, in a succeeding generation, the analysis ofthe tissues led to the cell as the physiological element of thetissues. The contemporaneous study of development brought out the sameresult; and the zoologists and botanists, exploring the simplest andthe lowest forms of animated beings, confirmed the great induction ofthe cell theory. Thus the apparently opposed views, which have beenbattling with one another ever since the middle of the last century, have proved to be each half the truth. 

The proposition of Descartes that the body of a living man is amachine, the actions of which are explicable by the known laws ofmatter and motion, is unquestionably largely true. But it is also true, that the living body is a synthesis of innumerable physiologicalelements, each of which may nearly be described, in Wolff's words, as afluid possessed of a "vis essentialis" and a "solidescibilitas"; or, inmodern phrase, as protoplasm susceptible of structural metamorphosisand functional metabolism: and that the only machinery, in the precisesense in which the Cartesian school understood mechanism, is, thatwhich co-ordinates and regulates these physiological units into anorganic whole. 

In fact, the body is a machine of the nature of an army, not of that ofa watch or of a hydraulic apparatus. Of this army each cell is asoldier, an organ a brigade, the central nervous system headquartersand field telegraph, the alimentary and circulatory system thecommissariat. Losses are made good by recruits born in camp, and thelife of the individual is a campaign, conducted successfully for anumber of years, but with certain defeat in the long run. 

The efficacy of an army, at any given moment, depends on the health ofthe individual soldier, and on the perfection of the machinery by whichhe is led and brought into action at the proper time; and, therefore, if the analogy holds good, there can be only two kinds of diseases, theone dependent on abnormal states of the physiological units, the otheron perturbations of their co-ordinating and alimentative machinery. 

Hence, the establishment of the cell theory, in normal biology, wasswiftly followed by a "cellular pathology, " as its logical counterpart. I need not remind you how great an instrument of investigation thisdoctrine has proved in the hands of the man of genius to whom itsdevelopment is due, and who would probably be the last to forget thatabnormal conditions of the co-ordinative and distributive machinery ofthe body are no less important factors of disease. 

Henceforward, as it appears to me, the connection of medicine with thebiological sciences is clearly indicated. Pure pathology is that branchof biology which defines the particular perturbation of cell-life, orof the co-ordinating machinery, or of both, on which the phenomena ofdisease depend. 

Those who are conversant with the present state of biology will hardlyhesitate to admit that the conception of the life of one of the higheranimals as the summation of the lives of a cell aggregate, brought intoharmonious action by a co-ordinative machinery formed by some of thesecells, constitutes a permanent acquisition of physiological science. But the last form of the battle between the animistic and the physicalviews of life is seen in the contention whether the physical analysisof vital phenomena can be carried beyond this point or not. 

There are some to whom living protoplasm is a substance, even such asHarvey conceived the blood to be, "summâ cum providentiâ et intellectuin finem certum agens, quasi ratiocinio quodam;" and who look with aslittle favour as Bichat did, upon any attempt to apply the principlesand the methods of physics and chemistry to the investigation of thevital processes of growth, metabolism, and contractility. They standupon the ancient ways; only, in accordance with that progress towardsdemocracy, which a great political writer has declared to be the fatalcharacteristic of modern times, they substitute a republic formed by afew billion of "animulae" for the monarchy of the all-pervading"anima. "

Others, on the contrary, supported by a robust faith in the universalapplicability of the principles laid down by Descartes, and seeing thatthe actions called "vital" are, so far as we have any means of knowing, nothing but changes of place of particles of matter, look to molecularphysics to achieve the analysis of the living protoplasm itself into amolecular mechanism. If there is any truth in the received doctrines ofphysics, that contrast between living and inert matter, on which Bichatlays so much stress, does not exist. In nature, nothing is at rest, nothing is amorphous; the simplest particle of that which men in theirblindness are pleased to call "brute matter" is a vast aggregate ofmolecular mechanisms performing complicated movements of immenserapidity, and sensitively adjusting themselves to every change in thesurrounding world. Living matter differs from other matter in degreeand not in kind; the microcosm repeats the macrocosm; and one chain ofcausation connects the nebulous original of suns and planetary systemswith the protoplasmic foundation of life and organisation. 

From this point of view, pathology is the analogue of the theory ofperturbations in astronomy; and therapeutics resolves itself into thediscovery of the means by which a system of forces competent toeliminate any given perturbation may be introduced into the economy. And, as pathology bases itself upon normal physiology, so therapeuticsrests upon pharmacology; which is, strictly speaking, a part of thegreat biological topic of the influence of conditions on the livingorganism, and has no scientific foundation apart from physiology. 

It appears to me that there is no more hopeful indication of theprogress of medicine towards the ideal of Descartes than is to bederived from a comparison of the state of pharmacology, at the presentday, with that which existed forty years ago. If we consider theknowledge positively acquired, in this short time, of the _modusoperandi_ of urari, of atropia, of physostigmin, of veratria, ofcasca, of strychnia, of bromide of potassium, of phosphorus, there cansurely be no ground for doubting that, sooner or later, thepharmacologist will supply the physician with the means of affecting, in any desired sense, the functions of any physiological element of thebody. It will, in short, become possible to introduce into the economya molecular mechanism which, like a very cunningly-contrived torpedo, shall find its way to some particular group of living elements, andcause an explosion among them, leaving the rest untouched. 

The search for the explanation of diseased states in modifiedcell-life; the discovery of the important part played by parasiticorganisms in the aetiology of disease; the elucidation of the action ofmedicaments by the methods and the data of experimental physiology;appear to me to be the greatest steps which have ever been made towardsthe establishment of medicine on a scientific basis. I need hardly saythey could not have been made except for the advance of normal biology. 

There can be no question, then, as to the nature or the value of theconnection between medicine and the biological sciences. There can beno doubt that the future of pathology and of therapeutics, and, therefore, that of practical medicine, depends upon the extent to whichthose who occupy themselves with these subjects are trained in themethods and impregnated with the fundamental truths of biology. 

And, in conclusion, I venture to suggest that the collective sagacityof this congress could occupy itself with no more important questionthan with this: How is medical education to be arranged, so that, without entangling the student in those details of the systematistwhich are valueless to him, he may be enabled to obtain a firm grasp ofthe great truths respecting animal and vegetable life, without which, notwithstanding all the progress of scientific medicine, he will stillfind himself an empiric?

 * * * * *

Footnotes:

[1] _Discours de la Méthode_, 6e partie, Ed. Cousin, p. 193. 

[2] _Ibid_. Pp. 193 and 211. 

[3] _De la Formation du Foetus_. 

[4] _Theoria Generationis_, 1759. 

[5] _Anatomie générale_, i. P. Liv. 

XV

THE SCHOOL BOARDS: WHAT THEY CAN DO, AND WHAT THEY MAY DO. 

[1870]

An electioneering manifesto would be out of place in the pages of thisReview; but any suspicion that may arise in the mind of the reader thatthe following pages partake of that nature, will be dispelled, if hereflect that they cannot be published [1] until after the day on whichthe ratepayers of the metropolis will have decided which candidates forseats upon the Metropolitan School Board they will take, and which theywill leave. 

As one of those candidates, I may be permitted to say, that I feel muchin the frame of mind of the Irish bricklayer's labourer, who betanother that he could not carry him to the top of the ladder in hishod. The challenged hodman won his wager, but as the stakes were handedover, the challenger wistfully remarked, "I'd great hopes of falling atthe third round from the top. " And, in view of the work and the worrywhich awaits the members of the School Boards, I must confess to anoccasional ungrateful hope that the friends who are toiling upwardswith me in their hod, may, when they reach "the third round from thetop, " let me fall back into peace and quietness. 

But whether fortune befriend me in this rough method, or not, I shouldlike to submit to those of whom I am potential, but of whom I may notbe an actual, colleague, and to others who may be interested in thismost important problem--how to get the Education Act to workefficiently--some considerations as to what are the duties of themembers of the School Boards, and what are the limits of their power. 

I suppose no one will be disposed to dispute the proposition, that theprime duty of every member of such a Board is to endeavour toadminister the Act honestly; or in accordance, not only with itsletter, but with its spirit. And if so, it would seem that the firststep towards this very desirable end is, to obtain a clear notion ofwhat that letter signifies, and what that spirit implies; or, in otherwords, what the clauses of the Act are intended to enjoin and toforbid. So that it is really not admissible, except for factious andabusive purposes, to assume that any one who endeavours to get at thisclear meaning is desirous only of raising quibbles and makingdifficulties. 

Reading the Act with this desire to understand it, I find that itsprovisions may be classified, as might naturally be expected, under twoheads: the one set relating to the subject-matter of education; theother to the establishment, maintenance, and administration of theschools in which that education is to be conducted. 

Now it is a most important circumstance, that all the sections of theAct, except four, belong to the latter division; that is, they refer tomere matters of administration. The four sections in question are theseventh, the fourteenth, the sixteenth, and the ninety-seventh. Ofthese, the seventh, the fourteenth, and the ninety-seventh deal withthe subject-matter of education, while the sixteenth defines the natureof the relations which are to exist between the "Education Department"(an euphemism for the future Minister of Education) and the SchoolBoards. It is the sixteenth clause which is the most important, and, insome respects, the most remarkable of all. It runs thus:--

 "If the School Board do, or permit, any act in contravention of, or fail to comply with, the regulations, according to which a school provided by them is required by this Act to be conducted, the Education Department may declare the School Board to be, and such Board shall accordingly be deemed to be, a Board in default, and the Education Department may proceed accordingly; and every act, or omission, of any member of the School Board, or manager appointed by them, or any person under the control of the Board, shall be deemed to be permitted by the Board, unless the contrary be proved. 

 "If any dispute arises as to whether the School Board have done, or permitted, any act in contravention of, or have failed to comply with, the said regulations, _the matter shall be referred to the Education Department, whose decision thereon shall be final_. "

It will be observed that this clause gives the Minister of Educationabsolute power over the doings of the School Boards. He is not only theadministrator of the Act, but he is its interpreter. I had imaginedthat on the occurrence of a dispute, not as regards a question of pureadministration, but as to the meaning of a clause of the Act, a casemight be taken and referred to a court of justice. But I am led tobelieve that the Legislature has, in the present instance, deliberatelytaken this power out of the hands of the judges and lodged it in thoseof the Minister of Education, who, in accordance with our method ofmaking Ministers, will necessarily be a political partisan, and who maybe a strong theological sectary into the bargain. And I am informed bymembers of Parliament who watched the progress of the Act, that theresponsibility for this unusual state of things rests, not with theGovernment, but with the Legislature, which exhibited a singulardisposition to accumulate power in the hands of the future Minister ofEducation, and to evade the more troublesome difficulties of theeducation question by leaving them to be settled between that Ministerand the School Boards. 

I express no opinion whether it is, or is not, desirable that suchpowers of controlling all the School Boards in the country should bepossessed by a person who may be, like Mr. Forster, eminently likely touse these powers justly and wisely, but who also may be quite thereverse. I merely wish to draw attention to the fact that such powersare given to the Minister, whether he be fit or unfit. The extent ofthese powers becomes apparent when the other sections of the Actreferred to are considered. The fourth clause of the seventh sectionsays:--

 "The school shall be conducted in accordance with the conditions required to be fulfilled by an elementary school in order to obtain an annual Parliamentary grant. "

What these conditions are appears from the following clauses of theninety-seventh section:--

 "The conditions required to be fulfilled by an elementary school in order to obtain an annual Parliamentary grant shall be those contained in the minutes of the Education Department in force for the time being.... Provided that no such minute of the Education Department, not in force at the time of the passing of this Act, shall be deemed to be in force until it has lain for not less than one month on the table of both Houses of Parliament. "

Let us consider how this will work in practice. A school established bya School Board may receive support from three sources--from the rates, the school fees, and the Parliamentary grant. The latter may be asgreat as the two former taken together; and as it may be assumed, without much risk of error, that a constant pressure will be exerted bythe ratepayers on the members who represent them to get as much out ofthe Government, and as little out of the rates, as possible, the SchoolBoards will have a very strong motive for shaping the education theygive, as nearly as may be, on the model which the Education Ministeroffers for their imitation, and for the copying of which he is preparedto pay. 

The Revised Code did not compel any schoolmaster to leave off teachinganything; but, by the very simple process of refusing to pay for manykinds of teaching, it has practically put an end to them. Mr. Forsteris said to be engaged in revising the Revised Code; a successor of hismay re-revise it--and there will be no sort of check upon theserevisions and counter revisions, except the possibility of aParliamentary debate, when the revised, or added, minutes are laid uponthe table. What chance is there that any such debate will take place ona matter of detail relating to elementary education--a subject withwhich members of the Legislature, having been, for the most part, sentto our public schools thirty years ago, have not the least practicalacquaintance, and for which they care nothing, unless it derives apolitical value from its connection with sectarian politics?

I cannot but think, then, that the School Boards will have theappearance, but not the reality, of freedom of action, in regard to thesubject-matter of what is commonly called "secular" education. 

As respects what is commonly called "religious" education, the power ofthe Minister of Education is even more despotic. An interest, almostamounting to pathos, attaches itself, in my mind, to the franticexertions which are at present going on in almost every schooldivision, to elect certain candidates whose names have never beforebeen heard of in connection with education, and who are eithersectarian partisans, or nothing. In my own particular division, a bodyorganised _ad hoc_ is moving heaven and earth to get the sevenseats filled by seven gentlemen, four of whom are good Churchmen, andthree no less good Dissenters. But why should this seven times heatedfiery furnace of theological zeal be so desirous to shed its genialwarmth over the London School Board? Can it be that these zealoussectaries mean to evade the solemn pledge given in the Act?

 "No religious catechism or religious formulary which is distinctive of any particular denomination shall be taught in the school. "

I confess I should have thought it my duty to reject any suchsuggestion, as dishonouring to a number of worthy persons, if it hadnot been for a leading article and some correspondence which appearedin the _Guardian_ of November 9th, 1870. 

The _Guardian_ is, as everybody knows, one of the best of the"religious" newspapers; and, personally, I have every reason to speakhighly of the fairness, and indeed kindness, with which the editor isgood enough to deal with a writer who must, in many ways, be soobjectionable to him as myself. I quote the following passages from aleading article on a letter of mine, therefore, with all respect, andwith a genuine conviction that the course of conduct advocated by thewriter must appear to him in a very different light from that underwhich I see it:--

 "The first of these points is the interpretation which Professor Huxley puts on the 'Cowper-Temple clause. ' It is, in fact, that which we foretold some time ago as likely to be forced upon it by those who think with him. The clause itself was one of those compromises which it is very difficult to define or to maintain logically. On the one side was the simple freedom to School Boards to establish what schools they pleased, which Mr. Forster originally gave, but against which the Nonconformists lifted up their voices, because they conceived it likely to give too much power to the Church. On the other side there was the proposition to make the schools secular--intelligible enough, but in the consideration of public opinion simply impossible--and there was the vague impracticable idea, which Mr. Gladstone thoroughly tore to pieces, of enacting that the teaching of all school-masters in the new schools should be strictly 'undenominational. ' The Cowper-Temple clause was, we repeat, proposed simply to tide over the difficulty. It was to satisfy the Nonconformists and the 'unsectarian, ' as distinct from the secular party of the League, by forbidding all distinctive 'catechisms and formularies, ' which might have the effect of openly assigning the schools to this or that religious body. It refused, at the same time, to attempt the impossible task of defining what was undenominational; and its author even contended, if we understood him correctly, that it would in no way, even indirectly, interfere with the substantial teaching of any master in any school. This assertion we always believed to be untenable; we could not see how, in the face of this clause, a distinctly denominational tone could be honestly given to schools nominally general. But beyond this mere suggestion of an attempt at a general tone of comprehensiveness in religious teaching it was not intended to go, and only because such was its limitation was it accepted by the Government and by the House. 

 "But now we are told that it is to be construed as doing precisely that which it refused to do. A 'formulary, ' it seems, is a collection of formulas, and formulas are simply propositions of whatever kind touching religious faith. All such propositions, if they cannot be accepted by all Christian denominations, are to be proscribed; and it is added significantly that the Jews also are a denomination, and so that any teaching distinctively Christian is perhaps to be excluded, lest it should interfere with their freedom and rights. Are we then to fall back on the simple reading of the letter of the Bible? No! this, it is granted, would be an 'unworthy pretence. ' The teacher is to give 'grammatical, geographical, or historical explanations;' but he is to keep clear of 'theology proper, ' because, as Professor Huxley takes great pains to prove, there is no theological teaching which is not opposed by some sect or other, from Roman Catholicism on the one hand to Unitarianism on the other. It was not, perhaps, hard to see that this difficulty would be started; and to those who, like Professor Huxley look at it theoretically, without much practical experience of schools, it may appear serious or unanswerable. But there is very little in it practically; when it is faced determinately and handled firmly, it will soon shrink into its true dimensions. The class who are least frightened at it are the school teachers, simply because they know most about it. It is quite clear that the school managers must be cautioned against allowing their schools to be made places of proselytism: but when this is done, the case is simple enough. Leave the masters under this general understanding to teach freely; if there in ground of complaint, let it be made, but leave the _onus probandi_ on the objectors. For extreme peculiarities of belief or unbelief there is the Conscience Clause; as to the mass of parents, they will be more anxious to have religion taught than afraid of its assuming this or that particular shade. They will trust the school managers and teachers till they have reason to distrust them, and experience has shown that they may trust them safely enough. Any attempt to throw the burden of making the teaching undenominational upon the managers must be sternly resisted: it is simply evading the intentions of the Act in an elaborate attempt to carry them out. We thank Professor Huxley for the warning. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. "

A good deal of light seems to me to be thrown on the practicalsignificance of the opinions expressed in the foregoing extract by thefollowing interesting letter, which appeared in the same paper:--

 "Sir, --I venture to send to you the substance of a correspondence with the Education Department upon the question of the lawfulness of religious teaching in rate schools under section 14 (2) of the Act. I asked whether the words 'which is distinctive, ' &c. , taken grammatically as limiting the prohibition of any religious formulary, might be construed as allowing (subject, however, to the other provisions of the Act) any religious formulary common to any two denominations anywhere in England to be taught in such schools; and if practically the limit could not be so extended, but would have to be fixed according to the special circumstances of each district, then what degree of general acceptance in a district would exempt such a formulary from the prohibition? The answer to this was as follows:--'It was understood, when clause 14 of the Education Act was discussed in the House of Commons, that, according to a well-known rule of interpreting Acts of Parliament, "denomination" must be held to include "denominations. " When any dispute is referred to the Education Department under the last paragraph of section 16, it will be dealt with according to the circumstances of the case. '

 "Upon my asking further if I might hence infer that the lawfulness of teaching any religious formulary in a rate school would thus depend _exclusively_ on local circumstances, and would accordingly be so decided by the Education Department in case of dispute, I was informed in explanation that 'their lordships'' letter was intended to convey to me that no general rule, beyond that stated in the first paragraph of their letter, could at present be laid down by them; and that their decision in each particular case must depend on the special circumstances accompanying it. 

 "I think it would appear from this that it may yet be in many cases both lawful and expedient to teach religious formularies in rate schools. H. I. 

 "Steyning, _November_ 5, 1870. "

Of course I do not mean to suggest that the editor of the _Guardian_is bound by the opinions of his correspondent; but I cannot helpthinking that I do not misrepresent him, when I say that he also thinks"that it may yet be, in many cases, both lawful and expedient to teachreligious formularies in rate schools under these circumstances. "

It is not uncharitable, therefore, to assume that, the express words ofthe Act of Parliament notwithstanding, all the sectaries who aretoiling so hard for seats in the London School Board have the livelyhope of the gentleman from Steyning, that it may be "both lawful andexpedient to teach religious formularies in rate schools;" and thatthey mean to do their utmost to bring this happy consummation about. [2]

Now the pathetic emotion to which I have referred, as accompanying mycontemplations of the violent struggles of so many excellent persons, is caused by the circumstance that, so far as I can judge, their labouris in vain. 

Supposing that the London School Board contains, as it probably willdo, a majority of sectaries; and that they carry over the heads of aminority, a resolution that certain theological formulas, about whichthey all happen to agree, --say, for example, the doctrine of theTrinity, --shall be taught in the schools. Do they fondly imagine thatthe minority will not at once dispute their interpretation of the Act, and appeal to the Education Department to settle that dispute? And ifso, do they suppose that any Minister of Education, who wants to keephis place, will tighten boundaries which the Legislature has leftloose; and will give a "final decision" which shall be offensive toevery Unitarian and to every Jew in the House of Commons, besidescreating a precedent which will afterwards be used to the injury ofevery Nonconformist? The editor of the _Guardian_ tells hisfriends sternly to resist every attempt to throw the burden of makingthe teaching undenominational on the managers, and thanks me for thewarning I have given him. I return the thanks, with interest, for_his_ warning, as to the course the party he represents intends topursue, and for enabling me thus to draw public attention to aperfectly constitutional and effectual mode of checkmating them. 

And, in truth, it is wonderful to note the surprising entanglement intowhich our able editor gets himself in the struggle between his nativehonesty and judgment and the necessities of his party. "We could notsee, " says he, "in the face of this clause how a distinctdenominational tone could be honestly given to schools nominallygeneral. " There speaks the honest and clear-headed man. "Any attempt tothrow the burden of making the teaching undenominational must besternly resisted. " There speaks the advocate holding a brief for hisparty. "Verily, " as Trinculo says, "the monster hath two mouths:" theone, the forward mouth, tells us very justly that the teaching cannot"honestly" be "distinctly denominational;" but the other, thebackward mouth, asserts that it must by no manner of means be"undenominational. " Putting the two utterances together, I can onlyinterpret them to mean that the teaching is to be "indistinctlydenominational. " If the editor of the _Guardian_ had not shownsigns of anger at my use of the term "theological fog, " I should havebeen tempted to suppose it must have been what he had in his mind, under the name of "indistinct denominationalism. " But this readingbeing plainly inadmissible, I can only imagine that he inculcates theteaching of formulas common to a number of denominations. 

But the Education Department has already told the gentleman fromSteyning that any such proceeding will be illegal. "According to awell-known rule of interpreting Acts of Parliament, 'denomination'would be held to include 'denominations. '" In other words, we must readthe Act thus:--

"No religious catechism or religious formulary which is distinctive ofany particular _denominations_ shall be taught. "

Thus we are really very much indebted to the editor of the _Guardian_and his correspondent. The one has shown us that the sectariesmean to try to get as much denominational teaching as they can agreeupon among themselves, forced into the elementary schools; while theother has obtained a formal declaration from the Educational Departmentthat any such attempt will contravene the Act of Parliament, and that, therefore, the unsectarian, law-abiding members of the School Boardsmay safely reckon upon bringing down upon their opponents the heavyhand of the Minister of Education. [3]

So much for the powers of the School Boards. Limited as they seem tobe, it by no means follows that such Boards, if they are composed ofintelligent and practical men, really more in earnest about educationthan about sectarian squabbles, may not exert a very great amount ofinfluence. And, from many circumstances, this is especially likely tobe the case with the London School Board, which, if it conducts itselfwisely, may become a true educational parliaments as subordinate inauthority to the Minister of Education, theoretically, as theLegislature is to the Crown, and yet, like the Legislature, possessedof great practical authority. And I suppose that no Minister ofEducation would be other than glad to have the aid of the deliberationsof such a body, or fail to pay careful attention to itsrecommendations. 

What, then, ought to be the nature and scope of the education which aSchool Board should endeavour to give to every child under itsinfluence, and for which it should try to obtain the aid of theParliamentary grants? In my judgment it should include at least thefollowing kinds of instruction and of discipline:--

1. Physical training and drill, as part of the regular business of theschool. 

It is impossible to insist too much on the importance of this partof education for the children of the poor of great towns. All theconditions of their lives are unfavourable to their physicalwell-being. They are badly lodged, badly housed, badly fed, and livefrom one year's end to another in bad air, without chance of a change. They have no play-grounds; they amuse themselves with marbles andchuck-farthing, instead of cricket or hare-and-hounds; and if it werenot for the wonderful instinct which leads all poor children of tenderyears to run under the feet of cab-horses whenever they can, I know nothow they would learn to use their limbs with agility. 

Now there is no real difficulty about teaching drill and the simplerkinds of gymnastics. It is done admirably well, for example, in theNorth Surrey Union schools; and a year or two ago when I had anopportunity of inspecting these schools, I was greatly struck with theeffect of such training upon the poor little waifs and strays ofhumanity, mostly picked out of the gutter, who are being made intocleanly, healthy, and useful members of society in that excellentinstitution. 

Whatever doubts people may entertain about the efficacy of naturalselection, there can be none about artificial selection; and thebreeder who should attempt to make, or keep up, a fine stock of pigs, or sheep, under the conditions to which the children of the poor areexposed, would be the laughing-stock even of the bucolic mind. Parliament has already done something in this direction by declining tobe an accomplice in the asphyxiation of school children. It refusesto make any grant to a school in which the cubical contents of theschool-room are inadequate to allow of proper respiration. I shouldlike to see it make another step in the same direction, and eitherrefuse to give a grant to a school in which physical training is nota part of the programme, or, at any rate, offer to pay upon suchtraining. If something of the kind is not done, the English physique, which has been, and is still, on the whole, a grand one, will become asextinct as the dodo in the great towns. 

And then the moral and intellectual effect of drill, as an introductionto, and aid of, all other sorts of training, must not be overlooked. Ifyou want to break in a colt, surely the first thing to do is to catchhim and get him quietly to face his trainer; to know his voice and bearhis hand; to learn that colts have something else to do with theirheels than to kick them up whenever they feel so inclined; and todiscover that the dreadful human figure has no desire to devour, oreven to beat him, but that, in case of attention and obedience, he mayhope for patting and even a sieve of oats. 

But, your "street Arabs, " and other neglected poor children, are ratherworse and wilder than colts; for the reason that the horse-colt hasonly his animal instincts in him, and his mother, the mare, has beenalways tender over him, and never came home drunk and kicked him in herlife; while the man-colt is inspired by that very real devil, pervertedmanhood, and _his_ mother may have done all that and more. So, onthe whole, it may probably be even more expedient to begin your attemptto get at the higher nature of the child, than at that of the colt, from the physical side. 

2. Next in order to physical training I put the instruction ofchildren, and especially of girls, in the elements of household workand of domestic economy; in the first place for their own sakes, and inthe second for that of their future employers. 

Every one who knows anything of the life of the English poor is awareof the misery and waste caused by their want of knowledge of domesticeconomy, and by their lack of habits of frugality and method. I supposeit is no exaggeration to say that a poor Frenchwoman would make themoney which the wife of a poor Englishman spends in food go twice asfar, and at the same time turn out twice as palatable a dinner. WhyEnglishmen, who are so notoriously fond of good living, should be sohelplessly incompetent in the art of cookery, is one of the greatmysteries of nature; but from the varied abominations of the railwayrefreshment-rooms to the monotonous dinners of the poor, Englishfeeding is either wasteful or nasty, or both. 

And as to domestic service, the groans of the housewives of Englandascend to heaven! In five cases out of six the girl who takes a"place" has to be trained by her mistress in the first rudiments ofdecency and order; and it is a mercy if she does not turn up her noseat anything like the mention of an honest and proper economy. Thousandsof young girls are said to starve, or worse, yearly in London; and atthe same time thousands of mistresses of households are ready to payhigh wages for a decent housemaid, or cook, or a fair workwoman; andcan by no means get what they want. 

Surely, if the elementary schools are worth anything, they may put anend to a state of things which is demoralising the poor, while it iswasting the lives of those better off in small worries and annoyances. 

3. But the boys and girls for whose education the School Boards have toprovide, have not merely to discharge domestic duties, but each of themis a member of a social and political organisation of great complexity, and has, in future life, to fit himself into that organisation, or becrushed by it. To this end it is surely needful, not only that theyshould be made acquainted with the elementary laws of conduct, but thattheir affections should be trained, so as to love with all their heartsthat conduct which tends to the attainment of the highest good forthemselves and their fellow men, and to hate with all their hearts thatopposite course of action which is fraught with evil. 

So far as the laws of conduct are determined by the intellect, Iapprehend that they belong to science, and to that part of sciencewhich is called morality. But the engagement of the affections infavour of that particular kind of conduct which we call good, seems tome to be something quite beyond mere science. And I cannot but thinkthat it, together with the awe and reverence, which have no kinshipwith base fear, but arise whenever one tries to pierce below thesurface of things, whether they be material or spiritual, constitutesall that has any unchangeable reality in religion. 

And just as I think it would be a mistake to confound the science, morality, with the affection, religion; so do I conceive it to be amost lamentable and mischievous error, that the science, theology, isso confounded in the minds of many--indeed, I might say, of themajority of men. 

I do not express any opinion as to whether theology is a true science, or whether it does not come under the apostolic definition of "sciencefalsely so called;" though I may be permitted to express the beliefthat if the Apostle to whom that much misapplied phrase is due couldmake the acquaintance of much of modern theology, he would not hesitatea moment in declaring that it is exactly what he meant the words todenote. 

But it is at any rate conceivable, that the nature of the Deity, andhis relations to the universe, and more especially to mankind, arecapable of being ascertained, either inductively or deductively, or byboth processes. And, if they have been ascertained, then a body ofscience has been formed which is very properly called theology. 

Further, there can be no doubt that affection for the Being thusdefined and described by theologic science would be properly termedreligion; but it would not be the whole of religion. The affection forthe ethical ideal defined by moral science would claim equal if notsuperior rights. For suppose theology established the existence of anevil deity--and some theologies, even Christian ones, have come verynear this, --is the religious affection to be transferred from theethical ideal to any such omnipotent demon? I trow not. Better athousand times that the human race should perish under his thunderboltsthan it should say, "Evil, be thou my good. "

There is nothing new, that I know of, in this statement of therelations of religion with the science of morality on the one hand andthat of theology on the other. But I believe it to be altogether true, and very needful, at this time, to be clearly and emphaticallyrecognised as such, by those who have to deal with the educationquestion. 

We are divided into two parties--the advocates of so-called"religious" teaching on the one hand, and those of so-called "secular"teaching on the other. And both parties seem to me to be not onlyhopelessly wrong, but in such a position that if either succeededcompletely, it would discover, before many years were over, that it hadmade a great mistake and done serious evil to the cause of education. 

For, leaving aside the more far-seeing minority on each side, whatthe "religious" party is crying for is mere theology, under the nameof religion; while the "secularists" have unwisely and wrongfullyadmitted the assumption of their opponents, and demand the abolitionof all "religious" teaching, when they only want to be freeof theology--Burning your ship to get rid of the cockroaches!

But my belief is, that no human being, and no society composed of humanbeings, ever did, or ever will, come to much, unless their conduct wasgoverned and guided by the love of some ethical ideal. Undoubtedly, your gutter child may be converted by mere intellectual drill into "thesubtlest of all the beasts of the field;" but we know what has becomeof the original of that description, and there is no need to increasethe number of those who imitate him successfully without being aided bythe rates. And if I were compelled to choose for one of my ownchildren, between a school in which real religious instruction isgiven, and one without it, I should prefer the former, even though thechild might have to take a good deal of theology with it. Nine-tenthsof a dose of bark is mere half-rotten wood; but one swallows it for thesake of the particles of quinine, the beneficial effect of which may beweakened, but is not destroyed, by the wooden dilution, unless in a fewcases of exceptionally tender stomachs. 

Hence, when the great mass of the English people declare that they wantto have the children in the elementary schools taught the Bible, andwhen it is plain from the terms of the Act, the debates in and outof Parliament, and especially the emphatic declarations of theVice-President of the Council, that it was intended that suchBible-reading should be permitted, unless good cause for prohibiting itcould be shown, I do not see what reason there is for opposing thatwish. Certainly, I, individually, could with no shadow of consistencyoppose the teaching of the children of other people to do that which myown children are taught to do. And, even if the reading the Bible werenot, as I think it is, consonant with political reason and justice, andwith a desire to act in the spirit of the education measure, I amdisposed to think it might still be well to read that book in theelementary schools. 

I have always been strongly in favour of secular education, in thesense of education without theology; but I must confess I have been noless seriously perplexed to know by what practical measures thereligious feeling, which is the essential basis of conduct, was to bekept up, in the present utterly chaotic state of opinion on thesematters, without the use of the Bible. The Pagan moralists lack lifeand colour, and even the noble Stoic, Marcus Antonius, is too high andrefined for an ordinary child. Take the Bible as a whole; make theseverest deductions which fair criticism can dictate for shortcomingsand positive errors; eliminate, as a sensible lay-teacher would do, ifleft to himself, all that it is not desirable for children to occupythemselves with; and there still remains in this old literature a vastresiduum of moral beauty and grandeur. And then consider the greathistorical fact that, for three centuries, this book has been woveninto the life of all that is best and noblest in English history; thatit has become the national epic of Britain, and is as familiar to nobleand simple, from John-o'-Groat's House to Land's End, as Dante andTasso once were to the Italians; that it is written in the noblest andpurest English, and abounds in exquisite beauties of mere literaryform; and, finally, that it forbids the veriest hind who never left hisvillage to be ignorant of the existence of other countries and othercivilisations, and of a great past, stretching back to the furthestlimits of the oldest nations in the world. By the study of what otherbook could children be so much humanised and made to feel that eachfigure in that vast historical procession fills, like themselves, but amomentary space in the interval between two eternities; and earns theblessings or the curses of all time, according to its effort to do goodand hate evil, even as they also are earning their payment for theirwork?

On the whole, then, I am in favour of reading the Bible, with suchgrammatical, geographical, and historical explanations by a lay-teacheras may be needful, with rigid exclusion of any further theologicalteaching than that contained in the Bible itself. And in stating whatthis is, the teacher would do well not to go beyond the precise wordsof the Bible; for if he does, he will, in the first place, undertake atask beyond his strength, seeing that all the Jewish and Christiansects have been at work upon that subject for more than two thousandyears, and have not yet arrived, and are not in the least likely toarrive, at an agreement; and, in the second place, he will certainlybegin to teach something distinctively denominational, and thereby comeinto violent collision with the Act of Parliament. 

4. The intellectual training to be given in the elementary schools mustof course, in the first place, consist in learning to use the means ofacquiring knowledge, or reading, writing, and arithmetic; and it willbe a great matter to teach reading so completely that the act shallhave become easy and pleasant. If reading remains "hard, " thataccomplishment will not be much resorted to for instruction, and stillless for amusement--which last is one of its most valuable uses tohard-worked people. But along with a due proficiency in the use of themeans of learning, a certain amount of knowledge, of intellectualdiscipline, and of artistic training should be conveyed in theelementary schools; and in this direction--for reasons which I amafraid to repeat, having urged them so often--I can conceive nosubject-matter of education so appropriate and so important as therudiments of physical science, with drawing, modelling, and singing. Not only would such teaching afford the best possible preparation forthe technical schools about which so much is now said, but theorganisation for carrying it into effect already exists. The Scienceand Art Department, the operations of which have already attainedconsiderable magnitude, not only offers to examine and pay the resultsof such examination in elementary science and art, but it provides whatis still more important, viz. A means of giving children of highnatural ability, who are just as abundant among the poor as among therich, a helping hand. A good old proverb tells us that "One should nottake a razor to cut a block:" the razor is soon spoiled, and the blockis not so well cut as it would be with a hatchet. But it is worseeconomy to prevent a possible Watt from being anything but a stoker, orto give a possible Faraday no chance of doing anything but to bindbooks. Indeed, the loss in such cases of mistaken vocation has nomeasure; it is absolutely infinite and irreparable. And among thearguments in favour of the interference of the State in education, noneseems to be stronger than this--that it is the interest of every onethat ability should be neither wasted, nor misapplied, by any one: and, therefore, that every one's representative, the State, is necessarilyfulfilling the wishes of its constituents when it is helping thecapacities to reach their proper places. 

It may be said that the scheme of education here sketched is too largeto be effected in the time during which the children will remain atschool; and, secondly, that even if this objection did not exist, itwould cost too much. 

I attach no importance whatever to the first objection until theexperiment has been fairly tried. Considering how much catechism, listsof the kings of Israel, geography of Palestine, and the like, childrenare made to swallow now, I cannot believe there will be any difficultyin inducing them to go through the physical training, which is morethan half play; or the instruction in household work, or in thoseduties to one another and to themselves, which have a daily and hourlypractical interest. That children take kindly to elementary science andart no one can doubt who has tried the experiment properly. And ifBible-reading is not accompanied by constraint and solemnity, as if itwere a sacramental operation, I do not believe there is anything inwhich children take more pleasure. At least I know that some of thepleasantest recollections of my childhood are connected with thevoluntary study of an ancient Bible which belonged to my grandmother. There were splendid pictures in it, to be sure; but I recollect littleor nothing about them save a portrait of the high priest in hisvestments. What come vividly back on my mind are remembrances of mydelight in the histories of Joseph and of David; and of my keenappreciation of the chivalrous kindness of Abraham in his dealing withLot. Like a sudden flash there returns back upon me, my utter scorn ofthe pettifogging meanness of Jacob, and my sympathetic grief over theheartbreaking lamentation of the cheated Esau, "Hast thou not ablessing for me also, O my father?" And I see, as in a cloud, picturesof the grand phantasmagoria of the Book of Revelation. 

I enumerate, as they issue, the childish impressions which comecrowding out of the pigeon-holes in my brain, in which they have lainalmost undisturbed for forty years. I prize them as an evidence that achild of five or six years old, left to his own devices, may be deeplyinterested in the Bible, and draw sound moral sustenance from it. And Irejoice that I was left to deal with the Bible alone; for if I had hadsome theological "explainer" at my side, he might have tried, as suchdo, to lessen my indignation against Jacob, and thereby have warped mymoral sense for ever; while the great apocalyptic spectacle of theultimate triumph of right and justice might have been turned to thebase purposes of a pious lampooner of the Papacy. 

And as to the second objection--costliness--the reply is, first, thatthe rate and the Parliamentary grant together ought to be enough, considering that science and art teaching is already provided for; and, secondly, that if they are not, it may be well for the educationalparliament to consider what has become of those endowments which wereoriginally intended to be devoted, more or less largely, to theeducation of the poor. 

When the monasteries were spoiled, some of their endowments wereapplied to the foundation of cathedrals; and in all such cases it wasordered that a certain portion of the endowment should be applied tothe purposes of education. How much is so applied? Is that which may beso applied given to help the poor, who cannot pay for education, ordoes it virtually subsidise the comparatively rich, who can? How areChrist's Hospital and Alleyn's foundation securing their rightpurposes, or how far are they perverted into contrivances for affordingrelief to the classes who can afford to pay for education? How-- Butthis paper is already too long, and, if I begin, I may find it hard tostop asking questions of this kind, which after all are worthy only ofthe lowest of Radicals. 

 * * * * *

Footnotes:

[1] Notwithstanding Mr. Huxley's intentions, the Editor took uponhimself, in what seemed to him to be the public interest, to send anextract from this article to the newspapers--before the day of theelection of the School Board. --EDITOR of the _Contemporary Review_. 

[2] A passage in an article on the "Working of the Education Act, " inthe _Saturday Review_ for Nov. 19, 1870, completely justifies thisanticipation of the line of action which the sectaries mean to take. After commending the Liverpool compromise, the writer goes on to say:--

"If this plan is fairly adopted in Liverpool, the fourteenth clause ofthe Act will in effect be restored to its original form, and themajority of the ratepayers in each district be permitted to decide towhat denomination the school shall belong. "

In a previous paragraph the writer speaks of a possible "mistrust" ofone another by the members of the Board, and seems to anticipate"accusations of dishonesty. " If any of the members of the Board adopthis views, I think it highly probable that he may turn out to be a trueprophet. 

[3] Since this paragraph was written, Mr. Forster, in speaking at theBirkbeck Institution, has removed all doubt as to what his "finaldecision" will be in the case of such disputes being referred tohim:--"I have the fullest confidence that in the reading and explainingof the Bible, what the children will be taught will be the great truthsof Christian life and conduct, which all of us desire they should know, and that no effort will be made to cram into their poor little minds, theological dogmas which their tender age prevents them fromunderstanding. "

XVI

TECHNICAL EDUCATION

[1877]

Any candid observer of the phenomena of modern society will readilyadmit that bores must be classed among the enemies of the human race;and a little consideration will probably lead him to the furtheradmission, that no species of that extensive genus of noxious creaturesis more objectionable than the educational bore. Convinced as I am ofthe truth of this great social generalisation, it is not without acertain trepidation that I venture to address you on an educationaltopic. For, in the course of the last ten years, to go back no farther, I am afraid to say how often I have ventured to speak of education, from that given in the primary schools to that which is to be had inthe universities and medical colleges; indeed, the only part of thiswide region into which, as yet, I have not adventured is that intowhich I propose to intrude to-day. 

Thus, I cannot but be aware that I am dangerously near becoming thething which all men fear and fly. But I have deliberately elected torun the risk. For when you did me the honour to ask me to address you, an unexpected circumstance had led me to occupy myself seriously withthe question of technical education; and I had acquired the convictionthat there are few subjects respecting which it is more important forall classes of the community to have clear and just ideas than this;while, certainly, there is none which is more deserving of attention bythe Working Men's Club and Institute Union. 

It is not for me to express an opinion whether the considerations, which I am about to submit to you, will be proved by experience to bejust or not, but I will do my best to make them clear. Among the manygood things to be found in Lord Bacon's works, none is more full ofwisdom than the saying that "truth more easily comes out of error thanout of confusion. " Clear and consecutive wrong-thinking is the nextbest thing to right-thinking; so that, if I succeed in clearing yourideas on this topic, I shall have wasted neither your time nor my own. 

"Technical education, " in the sense in which the term is ordinarilyused, and in which I am now employing it, means that sort of educationwhich is specially adapted to the needs of men whose business in lifeit is to pursue some kind of handicraft; it is, in fact, a fineGreco-Latin equivalent for what in good vernacular English would becalled "the teaching of handicrafts. " And probably, at this stage ofour progress, it may occur to many of you to think of the story of thecobbler and his last, and to say to yourselves, though you will be toopolite to put the question openly to me, What does the speaker knowpractically about this matter? What is his handicraft? I think thequestion is a very proper one, and unless I were prepared to answer it, I hope satisfactorily, I should have chosen some other theme. 

The fact is, I am, and have been, any time these thirty years, a manwho works with his hands--a handicraftsman. I do not say this in thebroadly metaphorical sense in which fine gentlemen, with all thedelicacy of Agag about them, trip to the hustings about election time, and protest that they too are working men. I really mean my words to betaken in their direct, literal, and straightforward sense. In fact, ifthe most nimble-fingered watchmaker among you will come to my workshop, he may set me to put a watch together, and I will set him to dissect, say, a blackbeetle's nerves. I do not wish to vaunt, but I am inclinedto think that I shall manage my job to his satisfaction sooner than hewill do his piece of work to mine. 

In truth, anatomy, which is my handicraft, is one of the most difficultkinds of mechanical labour, involving, as it does, not only lightnessand dexterity of hand, but sharp eyes and endless patience. And youmust not suppose that my particular branch of science is especiallydistinguished for the demand it makes upon skill in manipulation. Asimilar requirement is made upon all students of physical science. Theastronomer, the electrician, the chemist, the mineralogist, thebotanist, are constantly called upon to perform manual operations ofexceeding delicacy. The progress of all branches of physical sciencedepends upon observation, or on that artificial observation which istermed experiment, of one kind or another; and, the farther we advance, the more practical difficulties surround the investigation of theconditions of the problems offered to us; so that mobile and yet steadyhands, guided by clear vision, are more and more in request in theworkshops of science. 

Indeed, it has struck me that one of the grounds of that sympathybetween the handicraftsmen of this country and the men of science, bywhich it has so often been my good fortune to profit, may, perhaps, liehere. You feel and we feel that, among the so-called learned folks, wealone are brought into contact with tangible facts in the way that youare. You know well enough that it is one thing to write a history ofchairs in general, or to address a poem to a throne, or to speculateabout the occult powers of the chair of St. Peter; and quite anotherthing to make with your own hands a veritable chair, that will standfair and square, and afford a safe and satisfactory resting-place to aframe of sensitiveness and solidity. 

So it is with us, when we look out from our scientific handicrafts uponthe doings of our learned brethren, whose work is untrammelled byanything "base and mechanical, " as handicrafts used to be called whenthe world was younger, and, in some respects, less wise than now. Wetake the greatest interest in their pursuits; we are edified by theirhistories and are charmed with their poems, which sometimes illustrateso remarkably the powers of man's imagination; some of us admire andeven humbly try to follow them in their high philosophical excursions, though we know the risk of being snubbed by the inquiry whethergrovelling dissectors of monkeys and blackbeetles can hope to enterinto the empyreal kingdom of speculation. But still we feel that ourbusiness is different; humbler if you will, though the diminution ofdignity is, perhaps, compensated by the increase of reality; and thatwe, like you, have to get our work done in a region where littleavails, if the power of dealing with practical tangible facts iswanting. You know that clever talk touching joinery will not make achair; and I know that it is of about as much value in the physicalsciences. Mother Nature is serenely obdurate to honeyed words; onlythose who understand the ways of things, and can silently andeffectually handle them, get any good out of her. 

And now, having, as I hope, justified my assumption of a place amonghandicraftsmen, and put myself right with you as to my qualification, from practical knowledge, to speak about technical education, I willproceed to lay before you the results of my experience as a teacher ofa handicraft, and tell you what sort of education I should think bestadapted for a boy whom one wanted to make a professional anatomist. 

I should say, in the first place, let him have a good Englishelementary education. I do not mean that he shall be able to pass insuch and such a standard--that may or may not be an equivalentexpression--but that his teaching shall have been such as to have givenhim command of the common implements of learning and to have created adesire for the things of the understanding. 

Further, I should like him to know the elements of physical science, and especially of physics and chemistry, and I should take care thatthis elementary knowledge was real. I should like my aspirant to beable to read a scientific treatise in Latin, French, or German, becausean enormous amount of anatomical knowledge is locked up in thoselanguages. And especially, I should require some ability to draw--I donot mean artistically, for that is a gift which may be cultivated butcannot be learned, but with fair accuracy. I will not say thateverybody can learn, even this; for the negative development of thefaculty of drawing in some people is almost miraculous. Stilleverybody, or almost everybody, can learn to write; and, as writing isa kind of drawing, I suppose that the majority of the people who saythey cannot draw, and give copious evidence of the accuracy of theirassertion, could draw, after a fashion, if they tried. And that "aftera fashion" would be better than nothing for my purposes. 

Above all things, let my imaginary pupil have preserved the freshnessand vigour of youth in his mind as well as his body. The educationalabomination of desolation of the present day is the stimulation ofyoung people to work at high pressure by incessant competitiveexaminations. Some wise man (who probably was not an early riser) hassaid of early risers in general, that they are conceited all theforenoon and stupid all the afternoon. Now whether this is true ofearly risers in the common acceptation of the word or not, I will notpretend to say; but it is too often true of the unhappy children whoare forced to rise too early in their classes. They are conceited allthe forenoon of life, and stupid all its afternoon. The vigour andfreshness, which should have been stored up for the purposes of thehard struggle for existence in practical life, have been washed out ofthem by precocious mental debauchery--by book gluttony and lessonbibbing. Their faculties are worn out by the strain put upon theircallow brains, and they are demoralised by worthless childish triumphsbefore the real work of life begins. I have no compassion for sloth, but youth has more need for intellectual rest than age; and thecheerfulness, the tenacity of purpose, the power of work which makemany a successful man what he is, must often be placed to the credit, not of his hours of industry, but to that of his hours of idleness, inboyhood. Even the hardest worker of us all, if he has to deal withanything above mere details, will do well, now and again, to let hisbrain lie fallow for a space. The next crop of thought will certainlybe all the fuller in the ear and the weeds fewer. 

This is the sort of education which I should like any one who was goingto devote himself to my handicraft to undergo. As to knowing anythingabout anatomy itself, on the whole I would rather he left that aloneuntil he took it up seriously in my laboratory. It is hard work enoughto teach, and I should not like to have superadded to that the possibleneed of un-teaching. 

Well, but, you will say, this is Hamlet with the Prince of Denmark leftout; your "technical education" is simply a good education, with moreattention to physical science, to drawing, and to modern languages thanis common, and there is nothing specially technical about it. 

Exactly so; that remark takes us straight to the heart of what I haveto say; which is, that, in my judgment, the preparatory education ofthe handicraftsman ought to have nothing of what is ordinarilyunderstood by "technical" about it. 

The workshop is the only real school for a handicraft. The educationwhich precedes that of the workshop should be entirely devoted to thestrengthening of the body, the elevation of the moral faculties, andthe cultivation of the intelligence; and, especially, to the imbuingthe mind with a broad and clear view of the laws of that natural worldwith the components of which the handicraftsman will have to deal. And, the earlier the period of life at which the handicraftsman has to enterinto actual practice of his craft, the more important is it that heshould devote the precious hours of preliminary education to things ofthe mind, which have no direct and immediate bearing on his branch ofindustry, though they lie at the foundation of all realities. 

 * * * * *

Now let me apply the lessons I have learned from my handicraft toyours. If any of you were obliged to take an apprentice, I suppose youwould like to get a good healthy lad, ready and willing to learn, handy, and with his fingers not all thumbs, as the saying goes. Youwould like that he should read, write, and cipher well; and, if youwere an intelligent master, and your trade involved the application ofscientific principles, as so many trades do, you would like him to knowenough of the elementary principles of science to understand what wasgoing on. I suppose that, in nine trades out of ten, it would be usefulif he could draw; and many of you must have lamented your inability tofind out for yourselves what foreigners are doing or have done. So thatsome knowledge of French and German might, in many cases, be verydesirable. 

So it appears to me that what you want is pretty much what I want; andthe practical question is, How you are to get what you need, under theactual limitations and conditions of life of handicraftsmen in thiscountry?

I think I shall have the assent both of the employers of labour and ofthe employed as to one of these limitations; which is, that no schemeof technical education is likely to be seriously entertained which willdelay the entrance of boys into working life, or prevent them fromcontributing towards their own support, as early as they do at present. Not only do I believe that any such scheme could not be carried out, but I doubt its desirableness, even if it were practicable. 

The period between childhood and manhood is full of difficulties anddangers, under the most favourable circumstances; and, even among thewell-to-do, who can afford to surround their children with the mostfavourable conditions, examples of a career ruined, before it has wellbegun, are but too frequent. Moreover, those who have to live by labourmust be shaped to labour early. The colt that is left at grass too longmakes but a sorry draught-horse, though his way of life does not bringhim within the reach of artificial temptations. Perhaps the mostvaluable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do thething you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it ornot; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and, howeverearly a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that helearns thoroughly. 

There is another reason, to which I have already adverted, and which Iwould reiterate, why any extension of the time devoted to ordinaryschoolwork is undesirable. In the newly-awakened zeal for education, werun some risk of forgetting the truth that while under-instruction is abad thing, over-instruction may possibly be a worse. 

Success in any kind of practical life is not dependent solely, orindeed chiefly, upon knowledge. Even in the learned professions, knowledge alone, is of less consequence than people are apt to suppose. And, if much expenditure of bodily energy is involved in the day'swork, mere knowledge is of still less importance when weighed againstthe probable cost of its acquirement. To do a fair day's work with hishands, a man needs, above all things, health, strength, and thepatience and cheerfulness which, if they do not always accompany theseblessings, can hardly in the nature of things exist without them; towhich we must add honesty of purpose and a pride in doing what is donewell. 

A good handicraftsman can get on very well without genius, but he willfare badly without a reasonable share of that which is a more usefulpossession for workaday life, namely, mother-wit; and he will be allthe better for a real knowledge, however limited, of the ordinary lawsof nature, and especially of those which apply to his own business. 

Instruction carried so far as to help the scholar to turn his store ofmother-wit to account, to acquire a fair amount of sound elementaryknowledge, and to use his hands and eyes; while leaving him fresh, vigorous, and with a sense of the dignity of his own calling, whateverit may be, if fairly and honestly pursued, cannot fail to be ofinvaluable service to all those who come under its influence. 

But, on the other hand, if school instruction is carried so far as toencourage bookishness; if the ambition of the scholar is directed, notto the gaining of knowledge, but to the being able to pass examinationssuccessfully; especially if encouragement is given to the mischievousdelusion that brainwork is, in itself, and apart from its quality, anobler or more respectable thing than handiwork--such education may bea deadly mischief to the workman, and lead to the rapid ruin of theindustries it is intended to serve. 

I know that I am expressing the opinion of some of the largest as wellas the most enlightened employers of labour, when I say that there is areal danger that, from the extreme of no education, we may run to theother extreme of over-education of handicraftsmen. And I apprehend thatwhat is true for the ordinary hand-worker is true for the foreman. Activity, probity, knowledge of men, ready mother-wit, supplemented bya good knowledge of the general principles involved in his business, are the making of a good foreman. If he possess these qualities, noamount of learning will fit him better for his position; while thecourse of life and the habit of mind required for the attainment ofsuch learning may, in various direct and indirect ways, act as directdisqualifications for it. 

Keeping in mind, then, that the two things to be avoided are, the delayof the entrance of boys into practical life, and the substitution ofexhausted bookworms for shrewd, handy men, in our works and factories, let us consider what may be wisely and safely attempted in the way ofimproving the education of the handicraftsman. 

First, I look to the elementary schools now happily established allover the country. I am not going to criticise or find fault with them;on the contrary, their establishment seems to me to be the mostimportant and the most beneficial result of the corporate action of thepeople in our day. A great deal is said of British interests just now, but, depend upon it, that no Eastern difficulty needs our interventionas a nation so seriously, as the putting down both the Bashi-Bazouks ofignorance and the Cossacks of sectarianism at home. What has alreadybeen achieved in these directions is a great thing; you must have livedsome time to know how great. An education, better in its processes, better in its substance, than that which was accessible to the greatmajority of well-to-do Britons a quarter of a century ago, is nowobtainable by every child in the land. Let any man of my age go into anordinary elementary school, and unless he was unusually fortunate inhis youth, he will tell you that the educational method, theintelligence, patience, and good temper on the teacher's part, whichare now at the disposal of the veriest waifs and wastrels of society, are things of which he had no experience in those costly, middle-classschools, which were so ingeniously contrived as to combine all theevils and shortcomings of the great public schools with none of theiradvantages. Many a man, whose so-called education cost a good deal ofvaluable money and occupied many a year of invaluable time, leaves theinspection of a well-ordered elementary school devoutly wishing that, in his young days, he had had the chance of being as well taught asthese boys and girls are. 

But while in view of such an advance in general education, I willinglyobey the natural impulse to be thankful, I am not willing altogether torest. I want to see instruction in elementary science and in art morethoroughly incorporated in the educational system. At present, it isbeing administered by driblets, as if it were a potent medicine, "a fewdrops to be taken occasionally in a teaspoon. " Every year I notice thatthat earnest and untiring friend of yours and of mine, Sir JohnLubbock, stirs up the Government of the day in the House of Commons onthis subject; and also that, every year, he, and the few members of theHouse of Commons, such as Dr. Playfair, who sympathise with him, aremet with expressions of warm admiration for science in general, andreasons at large for doing nothing in particular. But now that Mr. Forster, to whom the education of the country owes so much, hasannounced his conversion to the right faith, I begin to hope that, sooner or later, things will mend. 

I have given what I believe to be a good reason for the assumption, that the keeping at school of boys, who are to be handicraftsmen, beyond the age of thirteen or fourteen is neither practicable nordesirable; and, as it is quite certain, that, with justice to other andno less important branches of education, nothing more than therudiments of science and art teaching can be introduced into elementaryschools, we must seek elsewhere for a supplementary training in thesesubjects, and, if need be, in foreign languages, which may go on afterthe workman's life has begun. 

The means of acquiring the scientific and artistic part of thistraining already exists in full working order, in the first place, inthe classes of the Science and Art Department, which are, for the mostpart, held in the evening, so as to be accessible to all who choose toavail themselves of them after working hours. The great advantage ofthese classes is that they bring the means of instruction to the doorsof the factories and workshops; that they are no artificial creations, but by their very existence prove the desire of the people for them;and finally, that they admit of indefinite development in proportion asthey are wanted. I have often expressed the opinion, and I repeat ithere, that, during the eighteen years they have been in existence theseclasses have done incalculable good; and I can say, of my ownknowledge, that the Department spares no pains and trouble in trying toincrease their usefulness and ensure the soundness of their work. 

No one knows better than my friend Colonel Donnelly, to whose clearviews and great administrative abilities so much of the successfulworking of the science classes is due, that there is much to be donebefore the system can be said to be thoroughly satisfactory. Theinstruction given needs to be made more systematic and especially morepractical; the teachers are of very unequal excellence, and not a fewstand much in need of instruction themselves, not only in the subjectwhich they teach, but in the objects for which they teach. I dare sayyou have heard of that proceeding, reprobated by all true sportsmen, which is called "shooting for the pot. " Well, there is such a thing as"teaching for the pot"--teaching, that is, not that your scholar mayknow, but that he may count for payment among those who pass theexamination; and there are some teachers, happily not many, who haveyet to learn that the examiners of the Department regard them aspoachers of the worst description. 

Without presuming in any way to speak in the name of the Department, Ithink I may say, as a matter which has come under my own observation, that it is doing its best to meet all these difficulties. Itsystematically promotes practical instruction in the classes; itaffords facilities to teachers who desire to learn their businessthoroughly; and it is always ready to aid in the suppression ofpot-teaching. 

All this is, as you may imagine, highly satisfactory to me. I see thatspread of scientific education, about which I have so often permittedmyself to worry the public, become, for all practical purposes, anaccomplished fact. Grateful as I am for all that is now being done, inthe same direction, in our higher schools and universities, I haveceased to have any anxiety about the wealthier classes. Scientificknowledge is spreading by what the alchemists called a "distillatio perascensum;" and nothing now can prevent it from continuing to distilupwards and permeate English society, until, in the remote future, there shall be no member of the legislature who does not know as muchof science as an elementary school-boy; and even the heads of houses inour venerable seats of learning shall acknowledge that natural scienceis not merely a sort of University back-door through which inferior menmay get at their degrees. Perhaps this apocalyptic vision is a littlewild; and I feel I ought to ask pardon for an outbreak of enthusiasm, which, I assure you, is not my commonest failing. 

I have said that the Government is already doing a great deal in aid ofthat kind of technical education for handicraftsmen which, to my mind, is alone worth seeking. Perhaps it is doing as much as it ought to do, even in this direction. Certainly there is another kind of help of themost important character, for which we may look elsewhere than to theGovernment. The great mass of mankind have neither the liking, nor theaptitude, for either literary, or scientific, or artistic pursuits;nor, indeed, for excellence of any sort. Their ambition is to gothrough life with moderate exertion and a fair share of ease, doingcommon things in a common way. And a great blessing and comfort it isthat the majority of men are of this mind; for the majority of thingsto be done are common things, and are quite well enough done whencommonly done. The great end of life is not knowledge but action. Whatmen need is, as much knowledge as they can assimilate and organise intoa basis for action; give them more and it may become injurious. Oneknows people who are as heavy and stupid from undigested learning asothers are from over-fulness of meat and drink. But a small percentageof the population is born with that most excellent quality, a desirefor excellence, or with special aptitudes of some sort or another; Mr. Galton tells us that not more than one in four thousand may be expectedto attain distinction, and not more than one in a million some share ofthat intensity of instinctive aptitude, that burning thirst forexcellence, which is called genius. 

Now, the most important object of all educational schemes is to catchthese exceptional people, and turn them to account for the good ofsociety. No man can say where they will crop up; like their opposites, the fools and knaves, they appear sometimes in the palace, andsometimes in the hovel; but the great thing to be aimed at, I wasalmost going to say the most important end of all social arrangements, is to keep these glorious sports of Nature from being either corruptedby luxury or starved by poverty, and to put them into the position inwhich they can do the work for which they are especially fitted. 

Thus, if a lad in an elementary school showed signs of specialcapacity, I would try to provide him with the means of continuing hiseducation after his daily working life had begun; if in the eveningclasses he developed special capabilities in the direction of scienceor of drawing, I would try to secure him an apprenticeship to sometrade in which those powers would have applicability. Or, if he choseto become a teacher, he should have the chance of so doing. Finally, tothe lad of genius, the one in a million, I would make accessible thehighest and most complete training the country could afford. Whateverthat might cost, depend upon it the investment would be a good one. Iweigh my words when I say that if the nation could purchase a potentialWatt, or Davy, or Faraday, at the cost of a hundred thousand poundsdown, he would be dirt-cheap at the money. It is a mere commonplace andeveryday piece of knowledge, that what these three men did has produceduntold millions of wealth, in the narrowest economical sense of theword. 

Therefore, as the sum and crown of what is to be done for technicaleducation, I look to the provision of a machinery for winnowing out thecapacities and giving them scope. When I was a member of the LondonSchool Board, I said, in the course of a speech, that our business wasto provide a ladder, reaching from the gutter to the university, alongwhich every child in the three kingdoms should have the chance ofclimbing as far as he was fit to go. This phrase was so much bandiedabout at the time, that, to say truth, I am rather tired of it; but Iknow of no other which so fully expresses my belief, not only abouteducation in general, but about technical education in particular. 

The essential foundation of all the organisation needed for thepromotion of education among handicraftsmen will, I believe, exist inthis country, when every working lad can feel that society has done asmuch as lies in its power to remove all needless and artificialobstacles from his path; that there is no barrier, except such asexists in the nature of things, between himself and whatever place inthe social organisation he is fitted to fill; and, more than this, that, if he has capacity and industry, a hand is held out to help himalong any path which is wisely and honestly chosen. 

I have endeavoured to point out to you that a great deal of such anorganisation already exists; and I am glad to be able to add that thereis a good prospect that what is wanting will, before long, besupplemented. 

Those powerful and wealthy societies, the livery companies of the Cityof London, remembering that they are the heirs and representatives ofthe trade guilds of the Middle Ages, are interesting themselves in thequestion. So far back as 1872 the Society of Arts organised a system ofinstruction in the technology of arts and manufactures, for personsactually employed in factories and workshops, who desired to extend andimprove their knowledge of the theory and practice of their particularavocations; [1] and a considerable subsidy, in aid of the efforts ofthe Society, was liberally granted by the Clothworkers' Company. Wehave here the hopeful commencement of a rational organisation for thepromotion of excellence among handicraftsmen. Quite recently, other ofthe livery companies have determined upon giving their powerful, and, indeed, almost boundless, aid to the improvement of the teaching ofhandicrafts. They have already gone so far as to appoint a committee toact for them; and I betray no confidence in adding that, some timesince, the committee sought the advice and assistance of severalpersons, myself among the number. 

Of course I cannot tell you what may be the result of the deliberationsof the committee; but we may all fairly hope that, before long, stepswhich will have a weighty and a lasting influence on the growth andspread of sound and thorough teaching among the handicraftsmen [2] ofthis country will be taken by the livery companies of London. 

[This hope has been fully justified by the establishment of the CowperStreet Schools, and that of the Central Institution of the City andGuilds of London Institute, September, 1881. ]

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Footnotes:

[1] See the _Programme_ for 1878, issued by the Society of Arts, p. 14. 

[2] It is perhaps advisable to remark that the important question ofthe professional education of managers of industrial works is nottouched in the foregoing remarks. 

XVII

ADDRESS ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE PROMOTION OFTECHNICAL EDUCATION

[1887. ]

Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen, --It must be a matter of sincere satisfactionto those who, like myself, have for many years past been convinced ofthe vital importance of technical education to this country to see thatthat subject is now being taken up by some of the most important of ourmanufacturing towns. The evidence which is afforded of the publicinterest in the matter by such meetings as those at Liverpool andNewcastle, and, last but not least, by that at which I have the honourto be present to-day, may convince us all, I think, that the questionhas passed out of the region of speculation into that of action. I needhardly say to any one here that the task which our Associationcontemplates is not only one of primary importance--I may say of vitalimportance--to the welfare of the country; but that it is one of greatextent and of vast difficulty. There is a well-worn adage that thosewho set out upon a great enterprise would do well to count the cost. Iam not sure that this is always true. I think that some of the verygreatest enterprises in this world have been carried out successfullysimply because the people who undertook them did not count the cost;and I am much of opinion that, in this very case, the most instructiveconsideration for us is the cost of doing nothing. But there is onething that is perfectly certain, and it is that, in undertaking allenterprises, one of the most important conditions of success is to havea perfectly clear comprehension of what you want to do--to have thatbefore your minds before you set out, and from that point of view toconsider carefully the measures which are best adapted to the end. 

Mr. Acland has just given you an excellent account of what is properlyand strictly understood by technical education; but I venture to thinkthat the purpose of this Association may be stated in somewhat broaderterms, and that the object we have in view is the development of theindustrial productivity of the country to the uttermost limitsconsistent with social welfare. And you will observe that, in thuswidening the definition of our object, I have gone no further than theMayor in his speech, when he not obscurely hinted--and most justlyhinted--that in dealing with this question there are other matters thantechnical education, in the strict sense, to be considered. 

It would be extreme presumption on my part if I were to attempt to tellan audience of gentlemen intimately acquainted with all branches ofindustry and commerce, such as I see before me, in what manner thepractical details of the operations that we propose are to be carriedout. I am absolutely ignorant both of trade and of commerce, and uponsuch matters I cannot venture to say a solitary word. But there is onedirection in which I think it possible I may be of service--not muchperhaps, but still of some, --because this matter, in the first place, involves the consideration of methods of education with which it hasbeen my business to occupy myself during the greater part of my life;and, in the second place, it involves attention to some of those broadfacts and laws of nature with which it has been my business to acquaintmyself to the best of my ability. And what I think may be possible isthis, that if I succeed in putting before you--as briefly as I can, butin clear and connected shape--what strikes me as the programme that wehave eventually to carry out, and what are the indispensable conditionsof success, that that proceeding, whether the conclusions at which Iarrive be such as you approve or as you disapprove, will neverthelesshelp to clear the course. In this and in all complicated matters wemust remember a saying of Bacon, which may be freely translated thus:"Consistent error is very often vastly more useful than muddle-headedtruth. " At any rate, if there be any error in the conclusions I shallput before you, I will do my best to make the error perfectly clear andplain. 

Now, looking at the question of what we want to do in this broad andgeneral way, it appears to me that it is necessary for us, in the firstplace, to amend and improve our system of primary education in such afashion as will make it a proper preparation for the business of life. In the second place, I think we have to consider what measures may bestbe adopted for the development to its uttermost of that which may becalled technical skill; and, in the third place, I think we have toconsider what other matters there are for us to attend to, what otherarrangements have to be kept carefully in sight in order that, whilepursuing these ends, we do not forget that which is the end of civilexistence, I mean a stable social state without which all othermeasures are merely futile, and, in effect, modes of going faster toruin. 

You are aware--no people should know the fact better than Manchesterpeople--that, within the last seventeen years, a vast system of primaryeducation has been created and extended over the whole country. I hadsome part in the original organisation of this system in London, and Iam glad to think that, after all these years, I can look back upon thatperiod of my life as perhaps the part of it least wasted. 

No one can doubt that this system of primary education has done wondersfor our population; but, from our point of view, I do not think anybodycan doubt that it still has very considerable defects. It has thedefect which is common to all the educational systems which we haveinherited--it is too bookish, too little practical. The child isbrought too little into contact with actual facts and things, and asthe system stands at present it constitutes next to no education ofthose particular faculties which are of the utmost importance toindustrial life--I mean the faculty of observation, the faculty ofworking accurately, of dealing with things instead of with words. I donot propose to enlarge upon this topic, but I would venture to suggestthat there are one or two remedial measures which are imperativelyneeded; indeed, they have already been alluded to by Mr. Acland. Thosewhich strike me as of the greatest importance are two, and the first ofthem is the teaching of drawing. In my judgment, there is no mode ofexercising the faculty of observation and the faculty of accuratereproduction of that which is observed, no discipline which so readilytests error in these matters, as drawing properly taught. And by that Ido not mean artistic drawing; I mean figuring natural objects: makingplans and sections, approaching geometrical rather than artisticdrawing. I do not wish to exaggerate, but I declare to you that, in myjudgment, the child who has been taught to make an accurate elevation, plan and section of a pint pot has had an admirable training inaccuracy of eye and hand. I am not talking about artistic education. That is not the question. Accuracy is the foundation of everythingelse, and instruction in artistic drawing is something which may be putoff till a later stage. Nothing has struck me more in the course of mylife than the loss which persons, who are pursuing scientific knowledgeof any kind, sustain from the difficulties which arise because theynever have been taught elementary drawing; and I am glad to say that inEton, a school of whose governing body I have the honour of being amember, we some years ago made drawing imperative on the whole school. 

The other matter in which we want some systematic and good teaching iswhat I have hardly a name for, but which may best be explained as asort of developed object lessons such as Mr. Acland adverted to. Anybody who knows his business in science can make anything subservientto that purpose. You know it was said of Dean Swift that he could writean admirable poem upon a broomstick, and the man who has a realknowledge of science can make the commonest object in the worldsubservient to an introduction to the principles and greater truths ofnatural knowledge. It is in that way that your science must be taughtif it is to be of real service. Do not suppose any amount of book work, any repetition by rote of catechisms and other abominations of thatkind are of value for our object. That is mere wasting of time. Buttake the commonest object and lead the child from that foundation tosuch truths of a higher order as may be within his grasp. With regardto drawing, I do not think there is any practical difficulty; but inrespect to the scientific object lessons you want teachers trained in amanner different from that which now prevails. 

If it is found practicable to add further training of the hand and eyeby instruction in modelling or in simple carpentry, well and good. ButI should stop at this point. The elementary schools are already chargedwith quite as much as they can do properly; and I do not believe thatany good can come of burdening them with special technical instruction. Out of that, I think, harm would come. 

Now let me pass to my second point, which is the development oftechnical skill. Everybody here is aware that at this present momentthere is hardly a branch of trade or of commerce which does not depend, more or less directly, upon some department or other of physicalscience, which does not involve, for its successful pursuit, reasoningfrom scientific data. Our machinery, our chemical processes ordyeworks, and a thousand operations which it is not necessary tomention, are all directly and immediately connected with science. Youhave to look among your workmen and foremen for persons who shallintelligently grasp the modifications, based upon science, which areconstantly being introduced into these industrial processes. I do notmean that you want professional chemists, or physicists, ormathematicians, or the like, but you want people sufficiently familiarwith the broad principles which underlie industrial operations to beable to adapt themselves to new conditions. Such qualifications canonly be secured by a sort of scientific instruction which occupies amidway place between those primary notions given in the elementaryschools and those more advanced studies which would be carried out inthe technical schools. 

You are aware that, at present, a very large machinery is in operationfor the purpose of giving this instruction. I don't refer merely tosuch work as is being done at Owens College here, for example, or atother local colleges. I allude to the larger operations of the Scienceand Art Department, with which I have been connected for a great manyyears. I constantly hear a great many objections raised to the work ofthe Science and Art Department. If you will allow me to say so, myconnection with that department--which, I am happy to say, remains, andwhich I am very proud of--is purely honorary; and, if it appeared to meto be right to criticise that department with merciless severity, theLord President, if he were inclined to resent my proceedings, could donothing more than dismiss me. Therefore you may believe that I speakwith absolute impartiality. My impression is this, not that it isfaultless, nor that it has not various defects, nor that there are notsundry _lacunae_ which want filling up; but that, if we considerthe conditions under which the department works, we shall see thatcertain defects are inseparable from those conditions. People talk ofthe want of flexibility of the Department, of its being bound by strictrules. Now, will any man of common sense who has had anything to dowith the administration of public funds or knows the humour of theHouse of Commons on these matters--will any man who is in the smallestdegree acquainted with the practical working of State departments ofany kind, imagine that such a department could be other than bound byminutely defined regulations? Can he imagine that the work of thedepartment should go on fairly and in such a manner as to be free fromjust criticism, unless it were bound by certain definite and fixedrules? I cannot imagine it. 

The next objection of importance that I have heard commonly repeated isthat the teaching is too theoretical, that there is insufficientpractical teaching. I venture to say that there is no one who has takenmore pains to insist upon the comparative uselessness of scientificteaching without practical work than I have; I venture to say thatthere are no persons who are more cognisant of these defects in thework of the Science and Art Department than those who administer it. But those who talk in this way should acquaint themselves with the factthat proper practical instruction is a matter of no small difficulty inthe present scarcity of properly taught teachers, that it is verycostly, and that, in some branches of science, there are otherdifficulties which I won't allude to. But it is a matter of fact that, wherever it has been possible, practical teaching has been introduced, and has been made an essential element in examination; and no doubt ifthe House of Commons would grant unlimited means, and if properteachers were to hand, as thick as blackberries, there would not bemuch difficulty in organising a complete system of practicalinstruction and examination ancillary to the present science classes. Those who quarrel with the present state of affairs would be betteradvised if, instead of groaning over the shortcomings of the presentsystem, they would put before themselves these two questions--Is itpossible under the conditions to invent any better system? Is itpossible under the conditions to enlarge the work of practical teachingand practical examination which is the one desire of those whoadminister the department? That is all I have to say upon that subject. 

Supposing we have this teaching of what I may call intermediatescience, what we want next is technical instruction, in the strictsense of the word technical; I mean instruction in that kind ofknowledge which is essential to the successful prosecution of theseveral branches of trade and industry. Now, the best way of obtainingthis end is a matter about which the most experienced persons entertainvery diverse opinions. I do not for one moment pretend to dogmatiseabout it; I can only tell you what the opinion is that I have formedfrom hearing the views of those who are certainly best qualified tojudge, from those who have tested the various methods of conveying thisinstruction. I think we have before us three possibilities. We have, inthe first place, trade schools--I mean schools in which branches oftrade are taught. We have, in the next place, schools attached tofactories for the purpose of instructing young apprentices and otherswho go there, and who aim at becoming intelligent workmen and capableforemen. We have, lastly, the system of day classes and eveningclasses. With regard to the first there is this objection, that theycan be attended only by those who are not obliged to earn their bread, and consequently that they will reach only a very small fraction of thepopulation. Moreover, the expense of trade schools is enormous, andthose who are best able to judge assure me that, inasmuch as the workwhich they do is not done under conditions of pecuniary success orfailure, it is apt to be too amateurish and speculative, and that itdoes not prepare the worker for the real conditions under which he willhave to carry out his work. In any case, the fact that the schools arevery expensive, and the fact that they are accessible only to a smallportion of the population, seem to me to constitute a very seriousobjection to them. I suppose the best of all possible organisations isthat of a school attached to a factory, where the employer has aninterest in seeing that the instruction given is of a thoroughlypractical kind, and where the pupils pass gradually by successivestages to the position of actual workmen. Schools of this kind exist invarious parts of the country, but it is obvious that they are notlikely to be reached by any large part of the population; so that itappears to me we are shut up practically to schools accessible to thosewho are earning their bread, and in such cases they must be essentiallyevening classes. I am strongly of opinion that classes of this kind doan immense amount of good; that they have this admirable quality, thatthey involve voluntary attendance, take no man out of his position, butenable any who chooses, to make the best of the position he happens tooccupy. 

Suppose that all these things are desirable, what is the best way ofobtaining them? I must confess that I have a strong prejudice in favourof carrying out undertakings of this kind, which at first, at any rate, must be to a great extent tentative and experimental, by privateeffort. I don't believe that the man lives at this present time who iscompetent to organise a final system of technical education. I believethat all attempts made in that direction must for many years to come beexperimental, and that we must get to success through a series ofblunders. Now that work is far better performed by private enterprisethan in any other way. But there is another method which I think ispermissible, and not only permissible but highly recommendable in thiscase, and that is the method of allowing the locality itself in whichany branch of industry is pursued to be its own judge of its own wants, and to tax itself under certain conditions for the purpose of carryingout any scheme of technical education adapted to its needs. I am awarethat there are many extreme theorists of the individualist school whohold that all this is very wicked and very wrong, and that by leavingthings to themselves they will get right. Well, my experience of theworld is that things left to themselves don't get right. I believe itto be sound doctrine that a municipality--and the State itself for thatmatter--is a corporation existing for the benefit of its members, andthat here, as in all other cases, it is for the majority to determinethat which is for the good of the whole, and to act upon that. That isthe principle which underlies the whole theory of government in thiscountry, and if it is wrong we shall have to go back a long way. Butyou may ask me, "This process of local taxation can only be carried outunder the authority of an Act of Parliament, and do you propose to letany municipality or any local authority have _carte blanche_ inthese matters; is the Legislature to allow it to tax the whole body ofits members to any extent it pleases and for any purposes it pleases?"I should reply, certainly not. 

Let me point out to you that at this present moment it passes the witof man, so far as I know, to give a legal definition of technicaleducation. If you expect to have an Act of Parliament with a definitionwhich shall include all that ought to be included, and exclude all thatought to be excluded, I think you will have to wait a very long time. Iimagine the whole matter is in a tentative state. You don't know whatyou will be called upon to do, and so you must try and you mustblunder. Under these circumstances it is obvious that there are twoalternatives. One of these is to give a free hand to each locality. Well, it is within my knowledge that there are a good many people withwonderful, strange, and wild notions as to what ought to be done intechnical education, and it is quite possible that in some places, andespecially in small places, where there are few persons who take aninterest in these things, you will have very remarkable projects putforth, and in that case the sole court of appeal for those taxpayers, who did not approve of such projects, would be a court of law. Isuppose the judges would have to settle what is technical education. That would not be an edifying process, I think, and certainly it wouldbe a very costly one. The other alternative is the principle adopted inthe bill of last year now abandoned. I don't say whether the bill wasright or wrong in detail. I am dealing now only with the principle ofthe bill, which appears to me to have been very often misunderstood. Ithas been said that it gave the whole of technical education into thehands of the Science and Art Department. It appears to me nothing couldbe more unfounded than that assertion. All I understand the Governmentproposed to do was to provide some authority who should have power tosay in case any scheme was proposed, "Well, this comes within the fourcorners of the Act of Parliament, work it as you like;" or if it was anobviously questionable project, should take upon itself theresponsibility of saying, "No, that is not what the Legislatureintended; amend your scheme. " There was no initiative, no control;there was simply this power of giving authority to decide upon themeaning of the Act of Parliament to a particular department of theState, whichever it might be; and it seems to me that that is a verymuch simpler and better process than relegating the whole question tothe law courts. I think that here, or anywhere else, people must beextremely sanguine if they suppose that the House of Commons and theHouse of Lords will ever dream of giving any local authority unlimitedpower to tax the inhabitants of a district for any object it pleases. Ishould say that was not in the range of practical politics. Well, I putthat before you as a matter for your consideration. 

Another very important point in this connection is the question of thesupply of teachers. I should say that is one of the greatestdifficulties which beset the whole problem before us. I do not wish inthe slightest degree to criticise the existing system of preparingteachers for ordinary school work. I have nothing to say about it. Butwhat I do wish to say, and what I trust I may impress on your mindsfirmly is this, that for the purpose of obtaining persons competent toteach science or to act as technical teachers, a different system mustbe adopted. For this purpose a man must know what he is aboutthoroughly, and be able to deal with his subject as if it were thebusiness of his ordinary life. For this purpose, for the obtaining ofteachers of science and of technical classes, the system of catching aboy or girl young, making a pupil teacher of him, compelling the poorlittle mortal to pour from his little bucket, into a still smallerbucket, that which has just been poured into it out of a big bucket;and passing him afterwards through the training college, where his lifeis devoted to filling the bucket from the pump from morning till night, without time for thought or reflection, is a system which should notcontinue. Let me assure you that it will not do for us, that you hadbetter give the attempt up than try that system. I remember somewherereading of an interview between the poet Southey and a good Quaker. Southey was a man of marvellous powers of work. He had a habit ofdividing his time into little parts each of which was filled up, and hetold the Quaker what he did in this hour and that, and so on throughthe day until far into the night. The Quaker listened, and at the closesaid, "Well, but, friend Southey, when dost thee think?" The systemwhich I am now adverting to is arraigned and condemned by putting thatquestion to it. When does the unhappy pupil teacher, or over-drilledstudent of a training college, find any time to think? I am sure if Iwere in their place I could not. I repeat, that kind of thing will notdo for science teachers. For science teachers must have knowledge, andknowledge is not to be acquired on these terms. The power of repetitionis, but that is not knowledge. The knowledge which is absolutelyrequisite in dealing with young children is the knowledge you possess, as you would know your own business, and which you can just turn aboutas if you were explaining to a boy a matter of everyday life. 

So far as science teaching and technical education are concerned, themost important of all things is to provide the machinery for trainingproper teachers. The Department of Science and Art has been at thatwork for years and years, and though unable under present conditions todo so much as could be wished, it has, I believe, already begun toleaven the lump to a very considerable extent. If technical educationis to be carried out on the scale at present contemplated, thisparticular necessity must be specially and most seriously provided for. And there is another difficulty, namely, that when you have got yourscience or technical teacher it may not be easy to keep him. You haveeducated a man--a clever fellow very likely--on the understanding thathe is to be a teacher. But the business of teaching is not a verylucrative and not a very attractive one, and an able man who has had agood training is under extreme temptations to carry his knowledge andhis skill to a better market, in which case you have had all yourtrouble for nothing. It has often occurred to me that probably nothingwould be of more service in this matter than the creation of a numberof not very large bursaries or exhibitions, to be gained by personsnominated by the authorities of the various science colleges andschools of the country--persons such as they thought to be wellqualified for the teaching business--and to be held for a certain termof years, during which the holders should be bound to teach. I believethat some measure of this kind would do more to secure a good supply ofteachers than anything else. Pray note that I do not suggest that youshould try to get hold of good teachers by competitive examination. That is not the best way of getting men of that special qualification. An effectual method would be to ask professors and teachers of anyinstitution to recommend men who, to their own knowledge, are worthy ofsuch support, and are likely to turn it to good account. 

I trust I am not detaining you too long; but there remains yet oneother matter which I think is of profound importance, perhaps of moreimportance than all the rest, on which I earnestly beg to be permittedto say some few words. It is the need, while doing all these things, ofkeeping an eye, and an anxious eye, upon those measures which arenecessary for the preservation of that stable and sound condition ofthe whole social organism which is the essential condition of realprogress, and a chief end of all education. You will all recollect thatsome time ago there was a scandal and a great outcry about certaincutlasses and bayonets which had been supplied to our troops andsailors. These warlike implements were polished as bright as rubbingcould make them; they were very well sharpened; they looked lovely. Butwhen they were applied to the test of the work of war they broke andthey bent, and proved more likely to hurt the hand of him that usedthem than to do any harm to the enemy. Let me apply that analogy to theeffect of education, which is a sharpening and polishing of the mind. You may develop the intellectual side of people as far as you like, andyou may confer upon them all the skill that training and instructioncan give; but, if there is not, underneath all that outside form andsuperficial polish, the firm fibre of healthy manhood and earnestdesire to do well, your labour is absolutely in vain. 

Let me further call your attention to the fact that the terrible battleof competition between the different nations of the world is notransitory phenomenon, and does not depend upon this or thatfluctuation of the market, or upon any condition that is likely to passaway. It is the inevitable result of that which takes place throughoutnature and affects man's part of nature as much as any other--namely, the struggle for existence, arising out of the constant tendency of allcreatures in the animated world to multiply indefinitely. It is that, if you look at it, which is at the bottom of all the great movements ofhistory. It is that inherent tendency of the social organism togenerate the causes of its own destruction, never yet counteracted, which has been at the bottom of half the catastrophes which have ruinedStates. We are at present in the swim of one of those vast movements inwhich, with a population far in excess of that which we can feed, weare saved from a catastrophe, through the impossibility of feedingthem, solely by our possession of a fair share of the markets of theworld. And in order that that fair share may be retained, it isabsolutely necessary that we should be able to produce commoditieswhich we can exchange with food-growing people, and which they willtake, rather than those of our rivals, on the ground of their greatercheapness or of their greater excellence. That is the whole story. Andour course, let me say, is not actuated by mere motives of ambition orby mere motives of greed. Those doubtless are visible enough on thesurface of these great movements, but the movements themselves have fardeeper sources. If there were no such things as ambition and greed inthis world, the struggle for existence would arise from the samecauses. 

Our sole chance of succeeding in a competition, which must constantlybecome more and more severe, is that our people shall not only have theknowledge and the skill which are required, but that they shall havethe will and the energy and the honesty, without which neitherknowledge nor skill can be of any permanent avail. This is what I meanby a stable social condition, because any other condition than this, any social condition in which the development of wealth involves themisery, the physical weakness, and the degradation of the worker, isabsolutely and infallibly doomed to collapse. Your bayonets andcutlasses will break under your hand, and there will go on accumulatingin society a mass of hopeless, physically incompetent, and morallydegraded people, who are, as it were, a sort of dynamite which, sooneror later, when its accumulation becomes sufficient and its tensionintolerable, will burst the whole fabric. 

I am quite aware that the problem which I have put before you and whichyou know as much about as I do, and a great deal more probably, is oneextremely difficult to solve. I am fully aware that one great factor inindustrial success is reasonable cheapness of labour. That has beenpointed out over and over again, and is in itself an axiomaticproposition. And it seems to me that of all the social questions whichface us at this present time, the most serious is how to steer a clearcourse between the two horns of an obvious dilemma. One of these is theconstant tendency of competition to lower wages beyond a point at whichman can remain man--below a point at which decency and cleanliness andorder and habits of morality and justice can reasonably be expected toexist. And the other horn of the dilemma is the difficulty ofmaintaining wages above this point consistently with success inindustrial competition. I have not the remotest conception how thisproblem will eventually work itself out; but of this I am perfectlyconvinced, that the sole course compatible with safety lies between thetwo extremes; between the Scylla of successful industrial productionwith a degraded population, on the one side, and the Charybdis of apopulation, maintained in a reasonable and decent state, with failurein industrial competition, on the other side. Having this strongconviction, which, indeed, I imagine must be that of every person whohas ever thought seriously about these great problems, I have venturedto put it before you in this bare and almost cynical fashion because itwill justify the strong appeal, which I make to all concerned in thiswork of promoting industrial education, to have a care, at the sametime, that the conditions of industrial life remain those in which thephysical energies of the population may be maintained at a properlevel; in which their moral state may be cared for; in which there maybe some rays of hope and pleasure in their lives; and in which the soleprospect of a life of labour may not be an old age of penury. 

These are the chief suggestions I have to offer to you, though I haveomitted much that I should like to have said, had time permitted. Itmay be that some of you feel inclined to look upon them as the Utopiandreams of a student. If there be such, let me tell you that there are, to my knowledge, manufacturing towns in this country, not one-tenth thesize, or boasting one-hundredth part of the wealth, of Manchester, inwhich I do not say that the programme that I have put before you iscompletely carried out, but in which, at any rate, a wise andintelligent effort had been made to realise it, and in which the mainparts of the programme are in course of being worked out. This is notthe first time that I have had the privilege and pleasure of addressinga Manchester audience. I have often enough, before now, thrown myselfwith entire confidence upon the hard-headed intelligence and the verysoft-hearted kindness of Manchester people, when I have had a difficultand complicated scientific argument to put before them. If, after theconsiderations which I have put before you--and which, pray be itunderstood, I by no means claim particularly for myself, for I presumethey must be in the minds of a large number of people who have thoughtabout this matter--if it be that these ideas commend themselves to yourmature reflection, then I am perfectly certain that my appeal to you tocarry them into practice, with that abundant energy and will which haveled you to take a foremost part in the great social movements of ourcountry many a time beforehand, will not be made in vain. I thereforeconfidently appeal to you to let those impulses once more have fullsway, and not to rest until you have done something better and greaterthan has yet been done in this country in the direction in which we arenow going. I heartily thank you for the attention which you have beenkind enough to bestow upon me. The practice of public speaking is one Imust soon think of leaving off, and I count it a special and peculiarhonour to have had the opportunity of speaking to you on this subjectto-day. 

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THE END OF VOL. III