These Disputations were the evidence which the University required of the student's attainments: and his main employment was, I conceive, to acquire a skill in such Disputations by similar exercises, performed in his own College, or at least among his fellow-students. These College Disputations held the places, in a great measure, of the College Lectures of later times, which are also preparations for University Exercises. The Professorial Lectures must, in the more ancient, as well as in the modern times of the English Universities, have formed a small part of the student's University employments. 142 But I suppose Mr Lyell would not himself attach much weight to this argument of his, from the asserted practice of a remote antiquity. The College system has, as he allows, prevailed in the English Universities from the time of the Reformation, which is surely antiquity enough, if antiquity is to guide us. The defenders of the College system have never, so far as I am aware, rested its defence mainly upon its remote antiquity. They have spoken of its advantages; and these are of a kind on which Mr Lyell himself appears to look with approbation, when he finds them in America. If we can secure these advantages, we shall not readily consent to part with them in order to go back to the condition which he represents as existing before the Reformation. 143 A return to an obsolete state of things on the ground of antiquity is generally a mischievous innovation. The College system in the English Universities has that support from antiquity which is really important; namely, the authority of the Statutes by which the Colleges have been governed for three centuries*. * I insert here the chapter in the Statutes of Trinity College which establishes College Tutors. I believe the principal of the other Colleges have the like laws. [PT. I.] 10 144 It is true, that in most cases the statutes contemplate the resident fellows in general, and not "CAP. 10. De Tutorum et Pupillorum officio. "EST ea quidem ineuntis ætatis imbecillitas, ut provectiorum consilio et prudentiâ necessariò moderanda sit; et propterea statuimus et volumus, ut nemo ex baccalaureis, discipulis, pensionariis, sisatoribus, et subsisatoribus Tutore careat: qui autem caruerit, nisa intra quindecim dies unum sibi paraverit, è Collegio ejiciatur. Pupilli Tutoribus pareant, honoremque paternum ac reverentiam deferant, quorum studium labor et diligentia in illis ad pietatem et scientiam informandis ponitur. Tutores sedulò quæ docenda sunt doceant: quæque etiam agenda instruant admoneantque. Omnia Pupillorum expensa Tutores Collegio præstent, et intra decem dies cujusque mensis finiti æs debitum pro se et suis omnibus Senescallo solvant: Quod ni fecerint, tantisper commeatu priventur, dum pecunia à se Collegio debita dissolvatur. Cautumque esto ne Pupillus quispiam vel stipendium suum à Thesaurariis recipiat, vel rationem pro se cum eisdem aliquando ineat, sed utrumque per Tutorem semper sub pœnâ commeatûs menstrui à dicto Tutore Collegio solvendi fieri volumus.” These Statutes have recently undergone a revision, with the view of removing discrepancies between the letter of the law and the modern practice. The only alteration which was introduced into this chapter (except the omission of the last sentence, now superfluous), was the addition of the following clause: 66 Singulis autem Tutoribus permittimus unum pluresve a Sociis Collegii idque ex nominatione magistri sibi adsciscere, qui opem illis ferant in exercitationibus quotidianis habendis atque in Pupillis ad eruditionem bonosque mores instituendis." This clause recognizes the liberty of a Principal Tutor to engage some of the other Fellows as Assistant Tutors, which has commonly been the practice for some years, the Assistant Tutors being generally selected on account of their attainments and reputation in the subject, Classics or Mathematics, on which they are intended to give Lectures. There is nothing in this Statute, either in its original or present form, inconsistent with the practice of having only two or three Principal Tutors in the College. On the other hand, there is nothing which would prevent a greater number of the Fellows acting as Tutors, according to the Statutes, if circumstances should render such a change desirable. two or three of them only, as Tutors who are to receive pupils. The restriction at present habitually prevailing, of the Public Tutors in each College to two or three, is a modification of the original scheme which is clearly within its limits. This modification has never, in practice, been treated as unchangeable. It is upheld on the ground of its advantages, which in the present state of the University of Cambridge at least, are very manifest. For each of these Public Tutors joins with him one, two, or three of the younger Fellows, as Assistant Tutors; and these his assistants give lectures to his pupils, each on that branch of Classics or Mathematics to which he has especially attended. These Lecturers, each employing himself habitually on some special department of learning or science, may be considered as being, in that respect, analogous to Professors in other Universities: and the pupil receives the benefit of their lectures, as a part of the instruction which his Tutor has to provide for him. By the practice of having in each College two or three Public Tutors only, the pupils enjoy this advantage at a very moderate expense (ten pounds a year in all): while the office of Tutor, at the same time, is made lucrative enough to retain in College men of high talent and reputation. If Fellows of Colleges had only three or four pupils each, either all men of great ability and acquirement would quit the employment, and seek success in professions better rewarded, or else the payments of the pupils must be made much greater than they now are. 145 It may be said that the lectures of the Public Tutors are not, at present, the most prominent part of the instructions which the pupils receive. Mr Lyell states, (that of which we have frequent complaints among ourselves also,) that Private Tuition has in a great measure superseded this Public Tuition;-that besides the public Lectures of Tutors and Assistant Tutors, and often to the neglect of them, pupils have recourse to Private Tutors, to prepare them for the University Examinations; and that thus, the expenses of a University Education are much increased; (the payment to a Private Tutor being £40 or £50 a year) the studies of the pupils made more narrow and conventional; and the most laborious of the University teachers kept back in their intellectual progress. 146 I have no wish to deny either the existence, or the importance of this evil. One of the objects of the present volume is, to suggest measures which may have a remedial tendency in this respect. But I see no reason whatever to believe that Mr Lyell's remedies would avail us. I return therefore to the discussions in which I was engaged when I was compelled to enter into the digression which this section contains. Among the processes which have been proposed and employed as remedies for some of the evils which have been noticed, are Examinations; and of these I now proceed to speak. SECT. 3. Of Examinations. 147 Examinations, no less than Lectures, are to be considered as means of Education. Since the proximate aim of Lecturers often is to prepare students for undergoing an examination, it is sometimes imagined that Lectures are means to Examinations as ends. But, in fact, Lectures and Examinations are alike means to a common end. The knowledge which, in such examinations as we have to speak of, the student brings out of his acquisitions, he is required to produce, in order that he may be induced to acquire it. Whatever honour or profit may be the prize of examinations, in a course of Education, the honour and the profit are not the ultimate objects of the system. They are instruments which have it for their purpose to make men give their attentions to those studies of which the educational course consists. In the student's individual purposes, it may be the object of study to obtain prizes; but in the purpose of the educational legislator, it is the object of prizes to promote study; and the prizes which he proposes, and the conditions to which he subjects them, are regulated by his views as to what the best course of study is. 148 Examinations, in teaching bodies in general, and in the English Universities especially, are not adopted with a view to supersede, but to aid the influence of Lectures. They are instituted commonly, as I have already said (136), in order to guard against the possibility of students not profiting by the instructions given in the system, or to distinguish and reward a proficiency in the studies which the system includes. But we may conceive an Educational System consisting of Examinations alone; requiring students to pass Examinations, or tempting them to do so by honours and rewards, but not requiring attendance at courses of Lectures, either College or Professorial. This practice has been adopted, in some measure at least, in the administration of the University of Dublin; but it has never been at all admitted into the English Universities. In those, attendance upon College Lectures has always been a part of the system; and a residence of a certain period, under the restrictions of College life, has always been required as a condition, no less essential than the passing of Examinations, to the acquisition of the Degrees which mark the completion of the student's educational course in the University. If we were to make the Examinations alone the essential part of the system in the English Universities, we should no longer have any reason for requiring a certain amount of residence in College, from the student who applies for a Degree. In that case, the University would merely have to ascertain whether the candidate could pass the appointed Ex |