the examinations being known, the order of study maintained, and the standard of excellence evident to all, the College Lectures would retain their superior importance as the best preparations for examinations conducted in a great measure vivá voce; and Private Tuition would retain its value as a means of progress for those who were too slow to keep pace with the rest without such help; or whose aims were too high to be reached by common aids only. Co-operating in the University System under such conditions, and in cordial good understanding with the College Teachers, the class of Private Tutors may be expected to contain, as it has long done, a large portion of the intellectual wealth, scholarship and beneficial influences of the University.

SECT. 4. Of Establishing the Progressive Sciences in the University System.

278 It will be observed by the reader that I have proposed that the access to University Honours among us should consist of two steps; in the first of which a person is declared a Junior Optime; while in the second, he is admitted as a candidate for the Higher Classes of the Mathematical Tripos; and that the student should, instead of this course, or along with it, be also allowed to be a candidate for the Honours of the Classical Tripos. I have now further to observe that there would be no difficulty in the way of the University, by its legislature, putting other subjects on the same footing on which classical teaching was put by the Grace which established the Classical Tripos. We might have a Tripos, or appointed form of Classes of Honour, for any other subjects, for Botany, or Natural History in general, Geology or Ethnography; to which sciences, as I have already said, it would be desirable to give an authorized value in the University, as roads to distinction; or, which would perhaps be

best, we might have a General Tripos, including the Inductive Sciences, or those which it was thought right by the University to group together for such a purpose.

279 Such a Tripos, if established, would be a means, and as seems to me, one of the best we could take, of removing the alleged neglect of the Inductive Sciences in the University, without any great disturbance of our existing system. The Sciences, thus encouraged by the University would, of course, be those of which there are Professors in the University, not connected with examinations for degrees; namely, Anatomy, Botany, Chemistry, Geology, Mineralogy. These Professors should be the Examiners, or should form a prominent part of the Examining Board. This arrangement would tend, it may be supposed, to remedy the neglect of the Lectures of some of those Professors which is often complained of. It would tend also to encourage the study of science in the University. Many persons might prefer the study of Botany, or Chemistry, or Mineralogy, or Geology, either to the pursuit of the higher parts of mathematics, or to the continued cultivation of classical learning; especially when those subjects offered a road to University Honours, as well as these. And such a Scientific Tripos would fall in with some of the existing regulations of the University, respecting the duties of the Professors in the University. For some of the Professors of the above sciences are already authorized and required to examine candidates for the degree of M. B., sometime in the fifth year of their residence. If this examination were extended to all who chose to offer themselves, and made to lead to an arrangement of the successful candidates in Classes of Honours, the Professors being formed into a Board of joint Examination, it would probably, in time, draw to it many candidates besides Medical students. For this pur[PT. I.]

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pose, it might be desirable to remove it out of the fifth into the fourth year, that it might come about the same period as the Classical Tripos; but on such details of this scheme I shall not now enter.

280 If it were thought advisable, attendance at the Lectures of some or other of the above Professors might very reasonably be required of those who were not Candidates either for Classical or Mathematical Honours; and in this manner the general education of the University would be materially improved. I believe that in Oxford, in some at least of the colleges, a rule of this kind is acted upon.

281 In order further to assimilate the General Tripos to the Mathematical and the Classical Tripos, two Medals for General Science might be established, to be given to the first and second prizemen. I will venture to say that if such a General Tripos as I have described were established, funds for providing one or two such medals would be found, without burthening the University chest. And I think it very likely that, in such case, the merits of candidates shown in this General Tripos would be taken into account, as well as their places in the Mathematical and Classical Tripos, in electing Fellows, and in other appointments both within and without the University.

282 It may perhaps be suggested that the encouragement afforded, by such a scheme, to the cultivation of the progressive sciences in the University would be more complete, if we were to establish a General Scientific Tripos without making it a condition that the Candidates for its Honours should previously be declared Junior Optimes. But in order to estimate the value of this suggestion, we are to recollect what was formerly said, of the necessity of Elementary Mathematics, as a permanent element of a Liberal Education. The sciences which we have mentioned could not for this purpose supply the place of the Mathema

motes.

tical part of our University Studies. Moreover, the sciences themselves would be more fully understood, in consequence of the steadiness of thought and clearness of conception which the study of Mathematics proA student who should distinguish himself in the examination in Science, after obtaining a Junior Optime's place, would be unlikely to have acquired his knowledge of science in a superficial manner, or as a matter of memory merely. And in order to see how little discouraging the requirement of the previous step would be, we are to recollect that we are supposing the qualifications of a Junior Optime to be clearly defined and limited, so as no longer to demand an indefinite and doubtful course of reading. The mathematical studies which such a step would require, would leave time, throughout the student's career, for attending the lectures of the Professors of the Sciences, and for cultivating in other ways the knowledge which the General Scientific Tripos would call into play.

283 How the examination should be arranged with regard to the union or separation of the different sciences, would be a matter for deliberation, if the general design of establishing such an examination were once taken into consideration with a view to its adoption. The main purpose of the present volume being directed to other parts of the University system, I touch briefly upon this; being only desirous of showing in what manner some of the evils often complained of as existing in the University may, perhaps, be remedied.

284 Besides the physical sciences, there are other branches of human knowledge which naturally offer themselves to our consideration, as belonging to the Higher Education of men in our time; other languages and other histories, both ancient and modern, besides those of Rome and Greece; and Comparative Philology, which I have already mentioned; and also those which are sometimes described as the Moral and Intellectual

Sciences; or as provinces of Philosophy; for instance, the Philosophy of the Human Mind, Moral and Political Philosophy, the Philosophy of Science, the Philosophy of History, the Philosophy of Language, and the like. These are subjects which ought to be actively cultivated at Universities; and it is to be hoped that there will always be at the English Universities persons who will make these and the like branches of knowledge the subjects of the labours of many studious years. It is desirable that our Students also should have their attention drawn to some parts of these subjects; but in what manner this is to be done, so that their minds may be led to think steadily, clearly, and rightly on such matters, is a more difficult question even than the like inquiry with regard to the kinds of knowledge already spoken of. Our Universities should furnish lectures in these branches of philosophy, as well as in those other departments of knowledge; but in them as in those others, lectures, even if delivered by highlygifted men, may find scanty audiences, especially in an atmosphere saturated with examinations. In these subjects too, as in those others, the influence of examinations may be tried; and this may be done with no inconsiderable success, as I can testify from my own experience. But in these subjects, still more than in those others, examinations are a very ineffective machinery for evoking philosophical thought; and the relation which examinations must bear to lectures, so that the effect may be salutary to the mind, is a problem of no ordinary difficulty.