Additional Objections to the Lecturing System.

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obviously most inadequate to call into activity that critical acumen and independence of judgment which it should be the great object of a professor to exercise and evoke. The μéuvao' amore of the Dorian poet and philosopher, which must ever be one of the fundamental precepts of the philologist, can ill be observed among those indefatigable youths who may be seen in the crowded auditoria of the German Universities, writing for their lives, as if Heaven itself were dictating. There is scarcely a scholar, therefore, of that country who does not find himself compelled to admit that the only part of the course to which he was indebted for any important increase in the positive knowledge of his professional studies, was that devoted to what is called the Seminarium, where the faculties of original thought are called into more lively activity. Apart from this tendency to exercise none but the receptive faculties, another objection to the exclusive adoption of this mode of teaching arises from its almost essential superficiality. This defect can be clearly noticed wherever a course of lectures has been published in the form in which they were originally delivered. Even in the case of those where the original effect was most striking, as in those of Niebuhr, Schlegel, and Dahlmann, no one can fail to perceive, on a quiet perusal, how little suited such works are to satisfy the requirements of a reader who wishes to get to the bottom of the subject. The lecture possesses an essentially viva voce character; under such circumstances the professor instinctively hurries over minute details, (which, however acceptable in print, are apt to weary and confuse an audience,) in order to arrive at high-sounding and showy generalities. Like all public harangues, they are addressed to the many rather than to the few, and possess something of the same ephemeral ad captandum nature which gives their subordinate position to the pamphlet and the review.

A not less important consideration is the effect which such a system produces upon the professors themselves. Its natural and inevitable tendency is to operate as a strong temptation to that sloth and self-indulgence which, in learned professors no less than in frail mortals like ourselves, shows itself as one of the radical and inveterate sins of human nature. In its practical workings the result is, and must be, in nine cases out of ten, that a professor composes a set of lectures, which he continues to deliver year after year, with a few trifling alterations, just in the same manner as some clergymen, when they have amassed a stock of sermons, regard the labours of their life as terminated. Even in the case of those individuals who enjoy the greatest celebrity, and whose productions have exerted an influence more than usually important upon the age, it but too often happens that the lectures they deliver are little better than an abridgment of

their works, and the student has often occasion to recall to mind the sarcasm of Mephistopheles, on discovering, to his no small disgust, that the time spent in the lecture-room has been thrown away in listening to a dull and slovenly recapitulation of what could easily have been found in some well-known work on the subject. In this manner it not unfrequently happens that the most illustrious names in the University belong precisely to those individuals who most carelessly and inefficiently discharge the duties of an instructor, and whose personal influence upon the institutions to which they are attached is most insignificant. It is an evil arising from the formlessness of the German Universities, that men of the greatest eminence are but too much. tempted to regard their appointments as a species of literary sinecure, instead of devoting their chief and primary attention to the peculiar duties which such an office entails upon its occupant. Universities which, like Berlin, exhibit an assemblage of the greatest scholars and philosophers in Europe, are, for this reason, found to be less practically useful, and are less general favourites than the provincial institutions of Bonn and Breslau, where the social influences of the University are more perceptible.

If, as regards the encouragement of authorship to the neglect of the more strictly educational functions of the University, the learned institutions of Germany have exhibited a tendency to go into one extreme, there can be little doubt that those of England have even more decidedly fallen into the other. No more emphatic condemnation could be pronounced upon the system pursued in these noble institutions than that furnished by the comparatively trifling nature of their results upon learning and science. Of the thousands who, for the last hundred years, have held university appointments in Oxford, and who have resided within the walls of the University, engaged professedly in the cultivation of "godliness and good learning," how few can be mentioned who have contributed to the intellectual advancement of their own country or of mankind. Gaisford, Clinton, Cramer, (a German, we believe,) and Elmsley, are almost the only European celebrities, and the last mentioned is unfortunately nowhere less heard of than in Oxford itself.

The idea of this venerable institution is founded upon a grand, though perhaps somewhat imperfect, conception of the functions and ends of a University. Its theory is that of a place consecrated to immaterial science, and to those studies whose especial bearing is upon the moral and intellectual nature of man. As a counterpoise to the system adopted in Cambridge, natural science in Oxford, though represented, has received a decidedly subordinate position with reference to philosophy, criticism, and history.

Characteristic Defects of Oxford.

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The extent to which so great and noble an end has been practically frustrated for centuries by the existence of the most senseless abuses, is a matter becoming too well known for us to attempt an exposition of it. There could not be a more glaring instance of the aforesaid practical character of the English-that is to say, of their indifference to everything which does not promise immediate material advantage, and their utter helplessness in all questions of higher import-than is furnished by the manner in which an institution with the endless capabilities of Oxford has tended to degenerate into a snuggery for a few hundred churchmen.

No one at all practically acquainted with Oxford can entertain any doubt that the mediocrity and inactivity which have for centuries been its reproach, are mainly to be attributed to the "limitations imposed on the elections of Fellows, a circumstance utterly destructive to the possibility of obtaining efficient college tuition." No vulgar error was ever more unfounded than the one which seems to have taken so strong a hold upon the popular fancy, of supposing that the peculiar characteristics of Oxford, its excellencies and defects, are all to be derived from one source, the predominance of the philological element. We regret that Professor Blackie should have so far joined in swelling the common cry on this subject as to point to the puerilities of Puseyism as exhibiting the legitimate results of a too exclusive devotion to classical learning. Nothing could be more diametrically opposed to the natural and obvious tendencies of philological studies. They tend above all others to exercise and sharpen the critical faculties, and are consequently most adverse to that passive receptivity of faith which constitutes the chief distinction of the Oxford school. We need only point to the scholars of Germany as an exemplification of the truth of this remark.

In Oxford, scholastic logic and patristic theology have engrossed a larger share of attention than classical literature; and we have no hesitation in affirming that the low state into which philological learning has fallen in that University has long been one of its most serious defects. Strange as it may seem, the demand for classical learning in Oxford is scarcely so great as in the sister University. In Cambridge the searching examination for the classical Tripos enables a scholar of eminence readily to obtain pupils amongst those who become candidates for distinction in this department of university study; while in Oxford, on the contrary, the logic paper has so notoriously decided the result in the public examinations for honours, and there is so little room for exhibiting an unusual proficiency in scholarship, that in providing themselves with a tutor, pupils

have invariably looked far more to his qualifications as a logician than as a scholar. The close fellowships and other similar college appointments, we need hardly say, encourage no species of learning or science whatever.

The great advantage derived from a residence at Oxford, and which has prevented abuses of so serious a nature from having long ere now become intolerable, arises from the moral training which it affords. No graduate of that University, however deeply impressed with its many defects, can avoid acknowledging in his heart that he left the University a different, and in many respects a better man, than he entered it-that he was indebted to Oxford for a peculiar species of mental culture which he could nowhere else have acquired so well. In a word, the University turns out gentlemen, and her fostersons, though not always very profound scholars or thinkers, are generally distinguished by a modesty of demeanour, a correctness of principle, a liberality and refinement in social dealings, which gives them a well deserved preference wherever the value of these qualities is duly recognised. But honour to whom honour is due. This we fear is a circumstance but little to be attributed to those into whose hands the guidance of the collegiate system has been entrusted, and who have had it in their power to carry forward its tendencies to grander and more important results. On the contrary, poorly provided as are the German Universities with arrangements for this purpose, the personal character of the professors, their religious love of learning, their freedom from cold conventionality and rigid formalism, enable them to exert upon the students a kindly and encouraging influence, undreamt of in Oxford or Cambridge. The elevated tone of social feeling which reigns in the great Universities of England is due, we believe, to a few of the leading regulations of the system-the ovσoiria of the college-hall, the academic dress, the colleges in which each member of the University enjoys the feeling of a corporate existence, and, above all, to the honourable spirit which naturally arises among two thousand English youths, drawn from the best classes in the country, and consciously met together for the prosecution of the most sacred and elevating studies.

In our anxiety to convey something like a definite conception of the idea which we entertain of the functions and influences of the University, in its absolute sense, we have been led to travel over so large a space, that it may not be amiss, before finally taking leave of our readers, to furnish them with a brief recapitulation of some of the most prominent points in which we deem reform and extension to be called for in our Scottish Universities. A scheme in detail we cannot furnish without an acquaintance with the pecu

Scheme of University Reform.

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liarities of each individual case; but generally, and in outline, it might be something like the following:

:

I. That the distinction between the functions of the Higher School and the University be distinctly recognised, though possibly under the modification which we indicated, viz., that the classes corresponding to the highest in the German Gymnasia, be retained within the University, as preparatory to professional training.

II. That on completing their attendance on this portion of their course, a degree (that of Bachelor or Master of Arts) be taken by all students who design to enter the professions.

III. That amongst the professions be included that of the teacher, whether literary or scientific.

IV. That to these, as well as to the physician or lawyer, a distinct course of professional training be assigned, at the termination of which, a higher degree (that of Doctor) be imposed ou all who aspire to the higher departments of instruction.

V. That in order to the formation of a learned class around the University, and in the country generally, means be adopted to increase the demand for their services.

VI. This we propose to effect by creating three distinct gradations in the professorial office.

1st, That of University Tutors.

2d, Of a body of Inferior or Junior Professors, on whom the greater part of the actual public teaching of the University should fall, and a large part of whose remuneration should be dependent on fees.

3d, Of Superior or Senior Professors, one for each of the leading branches, both literary and scientific, from whom so great an amount of positive teaching should not be required, but whose function should rather be to superintend the cultivation, and contribute to the advancement of their respective departments. This latter office to be regarded as the highest literary preferment in the country, and its provision to be made, to a greater extent than in the case of the other University teachers, independent of fees.

VII. That the moral influences of the University be rendered more intense and definite, by communicating, as far as possible, to every student, the feeling that he belongs to a corporate body, with the honour of which he is entrusted, and the dignity of which he shares. Of the means to this end, the simplest, and perhaps not least effectual, would be the adoption of an academic dress. Some modification of the "Common Table," similar to that which exists in Cambridge, and in Trinity College, Dublin, might also be introduced, and other schemes would readily be devised when the circumstances of the particular case were known.

VOL. XIII. NO. XXVI.