known Classical proficiency, all the situations of Head Masters and Under Masters in all the Classical Schools in England, great and small; and in which I have no doubt that there are at least ten Classical Masters for one Mathematical one. There are also all the cases in which tutors receive pupils into their houses, before or after they are at the public schools, or when such an education is preferred to that of a public school; and in these cases the proportion of Classical and Mathematical teachers is, I conceive, much the same. Add to them those who are private tutors in opulent families, who are also, in the great majority of cases, chosen for their classical attainments; and it will be seen what a vast preponderance of encouragement to classical reading the condition of English culture offers; and how important it is for those who know that mere classical reading is a narrow and enfeebling education, to resist any attempts to add to this preponderance by diminishing the encouragement which the University gives to studies of a larger or more vigorous kind.

312 I am obliged to say that I think the change made by the Grace of October last, is a retrograde step in the course of improvement in which the University was proceeding. By the institution of the two new Triposes, for the Moral Sciences and the Natural Sciences, the University aimed, as I conceive, at making its education more comprehensive and truly liberal. It was intended that our students should aspire to something more than the attainments of schoolboys. By this Grace they are told, on the other hand, that they may obtain the highest University Honours while they still remain within the circle of their schoolboy studies. As I have already said, I fear that this permission will set the habits of a large portion of University students. So far as it does this, it will undo what the establishment of the new Triposes was to do. It will contract to the dimensions of

the school, the prevalent circle of Cambridge studies, which we had tried to expand so as to be worthy of a University. If it produces this effect, it will cause the failure of the new Triposes; for they must be considered as having failed, if when they have existed for several years, they attract very few competitors. This is a question of future events, which we cannot decide till they happen. I have given my reasons for my fears of the result, and shall be much rejoiced to find them

erroneous.

313 But it will be said the Grace to which I refer will tend to promote the success of the new Triposes, by enabling many of the competitors for the Classical Tripos to compete also for the new Triposes ; which they could not do if they had also to prepare themselves in Mathematics so as to obtain a Mathematical Honour; as, before the alteration, they were required to do. It may be expected, it will be urged, that many of our most eminent scholars will be led to pursue the studies of the Moral Sciences Tripos espe→ cially; and by obtaining Honours in that, as well as the Classical Sciences Tripos, to shew that their culture is comprehensive and real,—a knowledge of things as well as of words. History, Morality, Polity, Jurisprudence have so close a bearing upon Classical Literature that the Classical student will naturally extend his studies to those subjects when he is encouraged by the University to do so; and thus the education of the Country will really be improved. And again, it may easily happen that a Classical student may also have a turn for the Natural Sciences, though he is averse to Mathematics: such a person may aim at Honours on the Tripos of those Sciences, and in this manner also the education of some of our classical scholars will be enlarged.

I wish to treat this argument with great respect; for it is the really hopeful view of the subject. If we

could cherish this hope, we should find nothing to regret in the alteration recently made. If the event should turn out so, the establishment of the new Triposes, and the other measures connected therewith, will be crowned with a success beneficial in an eminent degree to the national education. Let us consider, then, upon what causes it depends which result shall take place whether our Classical students, being no longer compelled to labour at Mathematics in order to obtain their Classical Honours, will add to their Classical lore some larger Philosophy; or whether it will become, more decidedly than it is, their practice to attend to nothing but Classical Literature.

314 It may help us to form an opinion on this subject to consider how far our Classical scholars have already shewn any tendency to combine comprehensive philosophical views, and the study of cognate provinces of literature, with the study of Classical Authors.

That this has been done to a great extent by some of our best Classical scholars, in their individual studies, there can be no doubt. I am well aware that Aristotle and Plato have been, by such persons, subjected to a critical and philosophical survey; that the Roman Law has been studied with the advantage of all the light that has recently been thrown upon it;-that the philosophy of language, the relation of languages, the history of the Greek and Latin language, have been the subject of many profound and acute researches ;that the histories of ancient times, and the parallelisms of ancient and modern histories, have been investigated with much thought, as well as learning. This has been done by many of our best scholars. Some of them have given to the world the results of their labours in published books: others are known to have acquired an admirable mastery of such speculations, though they have only communicated their views to narrower circles. 315 But have these philosophical views and com

prehensive studies produced much effect, hitherto, upon the general body of our Classical students? Do such studies enter much into the occupations of our competitors for Classical Honours? Or do these competitors, on the other hand, confine themselves within the schoolboy circle of construing Greek and Latin, and writing Latin and Greek; the language, or rather the art of translating and writing the language, being their principal object, and not the matter or the thought?

In order to form an opinion on the point before us, which is to us a very important one, I am obliged to ask this question. For the same purpose, I am obliged also to answer it. So far as my acquaintance with the habits of our Classical scholars entitles me to give any answer, I should say that the latter kind of classical knowledge preponderates vastly in the studies of our students; that in most, translation and imitation are the prominent, essential, and almost exclusive elements of their attainments; matter, thought, and philosophy being only occasionally, and in a few cases, the subjects of a transient and subordinate regard.

316 But I will not leave this question to rest upon my own judgment. I am able to give upon this subject, the testimony of a person who himself recently obtained the highest Classical Honours bestowed by the University, and who, on reading the first Part of this book, wrote to me, confirming, from his own knowledge, the account which I had given of evils attendant upon the state of Cambridge studies and Examinations. "I am well assured," he says, "that the chief fault of the Cambridge Classical system in my time was what you have adverted to in Art. 110;" (where I have spoken of the habit prevalent among our Classical students of ridiculing all information respecting philology, antiquities, &c. as Cramming ;) "but which I think is hardly put so prominently for

ward in the book as it might deserve: viz. the total absence of all demand in the University Examinations, for any scientific and well grounded knowledge on any Classical subject whatever, not excluding language. For what was required, and of course what was produced, was not knowledge, but skill. At best it was a sort of empirical knowledge, wholly confined to the languages of Greek and Latin. No scientific knowledge of ancient history, philosophy, antiquities, or philology was of the least importance. If a few questions appeared on such matters, they were wholly overbalanced and made insignificant by the preponderance of skill in writing the three languages, in all possible combinations and it is a fact that any one might get anything, up to the Chancellor's Medal, without even a tolerable knowledge on such subjects: for I did it. It was not called for, and I never troubled myself about any such works as you mention in Art. 94 (capital books on Classical History and Antiquities). All I did, for seven or eight years, with a view to Cambridge Honours, was to read all the Classics through, and to write Greek, Latin, and English incessantly. But I never cared whether I even remembered the letter of what I read, let alone the spirit of it, or had any idea of acquiring a philosophical knowledge of antiquity: satisfied with acquiring a perfect mastery of the language, like a tool or plaything."

317 My correspondent's remarks on the intellectual effect of this kind of training appear to me very judicious. "In so far as such a course has positive effects, they are extremely good. It tends to give one both a refined taste and a command of very powerful instruments for acquiring knowledge, together with a most enduring delight in what one has acquired and all connected with it. Nor need these be sacrificed. But I conceive that its negative effects on the mental constitution are most pernicious. It tends to give,