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visit. The Minute of the 19th of May, 1863, reducing the Privy Council grant by the amount of any endowment attached to a school, has met with the opposition of the National Society, and will, along with the question of Inspector's Reports, be, without doubt, taken up by the House of Commons.

The code is now extended to Scotland, but as it does not come fully into operation till April, 1864, it would be premature to make any observations on its working, further than to express a hope that the fluctuations of the Privy Council administration, and its tendency to ignore what is peculiar to the Scottish system, may promote the erection of a national system on the parochial basis.

The Training College Minute of the 21st of March last, is perhaps more fraught with changes than any other act of the Privy Council during the past year. The reduction of the grants towards their support, and the making these grants dependent, not on the work done, but on the number of trained teachers who actually enter into service and teach for two years in the same elementary school, it is feared, will result in the speedy abolition of some colleges, and the precarious existence of the others. The reduction of the programme of study is perhaps more apparent than real, but the withdrawal of all advantages connected with different degrees of ability and acquirement among teachers, is likely to operate in a depressing way on the energies of teachers in training, and also on the authorities of the colleges. The great limitation of the numbers henceforth to be admitted to the colleges, and the abolition of Queen's Scholarships, must tell very seriously on the elementary schools, by making it extremely difficult to procure pupil-apprentices. Parents are not likely to apprentice their children to an occupation, when they know that at the completion of the apprenticeship probably two-thirds of the apprentices will have to begin a fresh trade. There is much reason to fear that, through the combined operation of the Training College Minute and the Revised Code, the pupil-teacher system is doomed, and that schools will fall back on paid monitors.

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This Department deals with the various questions relating to Education, both industrial and intellectual, whether of the upper, middle, or lower classes of Society.

SUMMARY OF PROCEEDINGS.

In addition to the papers printed in the foregoing pages, the following were read in the Department :

"Morning and Evening Classes at the Universities of Scotland." By the Rev. G. R. Badenoch.

"On the Admission of Women to Academical Degrees." By W. A. Brown, Advocate.

"Industrial Education, with reference to Mechanics' Institutions." By George Lees, LL.D.

"Remarks on some Points of the Revised Code of the Committee of Council on Education of May, 1862." By the Rev. Dr. Bell, M.D.

"On Highland Schools considered with a Special View to the Best Means of Introducing a more General Knowledge of English among the Celtic Population." By the Rev. D. Masson, M.A., M.D.

"On Scottish Sabbath Schools, and their Educational and Moral Bearing." By the Rev. R. Blyth.

"On the Means of Elementary Education in the City of Aberdeen;

with Suggestions for a Government Inquiry into the same Subject in the towns of Scotland." By James Valentine. "On the Training of the Primary Schoolmistress." By Mrs. Gordon (née Brewster).

"On the Early Industrial Training of Girls of the Humbler Classes." By Mrs. E. Hamilton.

"The Monitorial System of Elementary Instruction as carried on

in the Schools of the Aberdeen Industrial School Association, and in Chalmers' Infant School at Turriff." By Sheriff

Watson.

"On the Organisation of the High School, Edinburgh, and cognate Institutions." By J. Donaldson.

"On Open Competition in Theory and in Practice." By Walter Scott Dalgleish, M.A.

"Description of an Apparatus to be used in English Schools for Teaching the Metric System of Weights and Measures." By James Yates, M.A., F.R.S.

"On Ancient Music or Song Schools of Scotland, with a Plea for the Teaching of Music in Schools." By James Valentine.

"On Reading, Writing, and Speaking as Aids in the Training of the Mind." By Phoebe Blyth.

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Agricultural Instruction on the Lower Platform."

Wallace Fyfe.

Colportage in Scotland." By the Rev. William Boyd.

By W.

"On necessary Additions to the English Alphabet." By

Alexander Melville Bell.

"International Education." By E. Barbier.

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UNIVERSITY REFORM.

In addition to the paper of Dr. LEES, printed at p. 375, the Rev. G. R. BADENOCH read a paper "On Morning and Evening Classes in the Universities of Scotland," in which he strongly advocated the opening of such classes in all the Scotch Universities, that young men engaged in business during the day might attend, and qualify themselves for the degree of Master of Arts. He suggested that these classes should commence at six or seven in the morning, and in the evenings about the same hours. He thought difficulties to the proposal might be started. An extra amount of work might be thrown upon the present professors, or perhaps additional professors would be required. These difficulties had been triumphantly overcome by the London University, whose Professors spoke strongly of the importance of evening classes, and testified that they were largely appreciated by the young men of London. The plan has been partially carried out at Glasgow and Edinburgh in regard to law classes the hours of meeting being so arranged in the mornings or afternoons as to admit of young men in offices both attending to business and going through a regular course of instruction in law. Morning classes were held in Glasgow University. Many merchants would not have been able to take advantage of a portion of university instruction had such classes not been in existence: and many young men, now useful at the bar, in medicine, or in the Church, could not have entered upon their studies had there been no such classes in Glasgow. The universities are national institutions, and ought to be rendered useful to the greatest possible extent in advancing education.

Mr. W. A. BROWN read a paper "On the Admission of Women to Academical Degrees." The object of the author was to consider the question, Whether it is desirable that women should engage in professional labours? He did not dispute the desirableness of some honorary distinction being held forward as a stimulus to their intellectual exertion; that every inducement should be held out to women to cultivate their minds, and that they should be permitted to adorn themselves with the symbols of mental distinction, was admitted by every one; but whether the possession of an academical degree was likely to act as a stimulus towards higher education, or whether such education was to be esteemed of value that required to be fostered by such expedients, were points on which there might be a difference of opinion. But it was absurd to suppose that this was the extent of the claim contended for. Degrees were of value to men so far only as they had a practical bearing on professional life, and it could only be as producing a similar result that they were coveted by women. The question, therefore, was whether it was expedient that women should engage in active professional labour. If a degree was coveted simply as the evidence of a certain amount of culture, there was no question at issue, and probably the universities would not grudge the means of indulging in so harmless an aspiration. But a degree was

not merely a certificate of knowledge, but a guarantee of competency to practise with a view to follow a certain intellectual calling; for though some aspirants to degrees did not contemplate professional life, that did not affect the essential character of the degree itself. It was the certificate of a licensing body intended to serve as a passport to the honours, emoluments, and responsibilities of professional life. But passing over the fact that the new claims had encountered the opposition of the great majority of women themselves, they had to deal with the fitness of the female mind for the requisite degree of culture to undertake professional pursuits. In his view, there was a difference in the condition of men and women, which ought to be recognised as the foundation of the standard of their education respectively. A woman was to be educated as much as a man in the sense that everything was to be done that would best fit her for her duties and promote her happiness; but she was not to be educated to the same extent in the sense that her mind was to be subjected to the same amount of intellectual cultivation; for he asserted a difference of mental condition between the two sexes, and in respect of that, he argued that an inferior standard of education should be applied to women. After some remarks on the inequality of the sexes, and on the position of women as decreed by nature, and accorded by society, the conclusion at which he arrived was-that to admit women into the learned professions was to make women do the work of men, and the result of that was to leave us without women, and to leave women's work undone.

DISCUSSION.

Professor BLACKIE said he had been crying aloud, in season and out of season, on the subject of University Reform for the last thirty years. With some of the papers read he most cordially agreed, and against others he felt himself bound to protest. The first paper, that of Mr. Badenoch, was the one against which he felt himself bound to protest most strongly. It advocated a movement for the expansion and diffusion of useful knowledge among all classes. It was not an idea conceived in the spirit of the elevation of the universities. It was conceived in no academical spirit at all, and ought to receive the most decided opposition from all men who knew that a university was one thing, and that a school for diffusing popular information was a very different thing. It was proposed to open classes at six o'clock in the morning, or at six o'clock at night, or at both, for the purpose, he understood, of giving some increase of knowledge to either of two classes-to those who were seeking for useful scraps of knowledge, or for general information for those who were students, and who were wishing to prepare themselves for the bar and the church. Now, with regard to the first class, they had their mechanics' institutions, popular classes, and popular libraries, and other means of instruction waiting for them; but for that class the universities were not instituted, and it would be lowering the universities, if they were to become the disseminators of knowledge, however useful, to the masses. Then as to the other class that was to be favoured with the proposed measure, he meant students in the right sense of the word, and strictly speaking, students of theology. Now it was considered to be a great favour to them to work the whole day, and lash their brains in the evening; but so far from this practice requiring to be encouraged, it ought to be discouraged by all means. It was of the utmost consequence that persons who were to be students should devote themselves to study, and separate themselves from the world, as it were, for three, four, or five years, as the case might be. If the plan proposed were put in operation, it would be

merely allowing the students to taste knowledge by scraps-to taste it and not to enjoy it, and tempting them to get through with as much or as little of mere superficial cramming as they could get. There would be no time for a young man to get his soul into the matter; and unless a young man put his soul into a matter of this sort, he would never do it when he grew up and entered into active life. He thought this would be an evil measure rather than a good measure. The teaching that was now called for by Mr. Badenoch would be essentially elementary teaching; and it was quite impossible that these young men, occupied with other things, and without any proper school training, could enter on the higher departments of study. This was a scheme for the purpose of extending the elementary education in Greek, Latin, and mathematics, which already existed in Scotland to too great an extent in connexion with the universities. He put it to any one who knew anything about the evidence given before the University Commissioners for the last twenty or thirty years, if it were not the fact that the great evil from which the university suffered was that we had too much of the elementary teaching, and that we had blundered in slumping the school and the university into one. They had deserted the system of John Knox-the parish schools, the burgh or middle schools, and the universities. They had lowered the universities so as to supply the place of the middle schools, which had been unwisely neglected. It was, in his opinion, the duty of all academical men to protest against the system of elementary teaching in the colleges. Something had no doubt been done to elevate university teaching. The Greek Grammar has been cast out of the university; but, nevertheless, the important fact remained that the course of instruction given in the first two years in the Latin, Greek, and mathematical classes generally speaking, in the Scottish universities, was in a school style, and not in a university style. It was elementary as compared with the education given in the German universities. They were bound therefore to protest against every measure that gave them more clementary teaching, and took no cognizance of that elevation to the high platform which was the first requisite to improved teaching. If it were advisable to have additional classes, either at six o'clock in the morning or six in the evening, then he maintained it could not be done without additional teaching power. That was to say, they could not justly call on the present professors to work more than they did, at least during the winter session, because, for himself, he was employed the whole forenoon, from nine to three, in class-work -three hours in public teaching and three hours in class-work. The only time a professor had for reading and private study was three or four hours in the evening. And was he to be deprived of that privilege to go and teach a parcel of raw boys? Certainly not. That would not raise the character of the universities. With regard to the tutors or assistants to the professors who had been instituted by the late University Commission, he wished to say a single word in favour of them. It might occur to some that the tutors should be called on to do the work that was proposed. He did not think the tutorship was meant merely as a piece of drudgery work to be given to some young man who assisted the professor, but rather as a reward for his scholarship; and that while he was improving himself by assisting the professor, he might still have time to carry on his own studies in the evening. His own tutor, who was a man of great talent, attended the Divinity Hall in the forenoon, besides assisting him in the afternoon; and he ought surely to be allowed to carry on his own studies in the evening. If they thought it right to introduce a greater number of teachers, and if they paid them better than they had been accustomed to pay them in Scotland, the experiment might be tried, but he did not think it was a wise one. Two things were wanted in the Scottish universities, and only two. They wanted nothing in the shape of expansion, or of generalisation and a dilution of all kinds of knowledge; but they wanted a foundation to stand upon and a prize to run for. Until they got those two essential things-a foundation and a goal-all other talk on the subject of the universities would be mere vanity and babble. All kinds of monopoly and routine were as dangerous in universities as anywhere else. Therefore he was in favour of intramural competition, as in Germany. He was also decidedly in favour of the admission of women to academical degrees.

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