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also to favour the rapid adoption and diffusion of all that the progress of knowledge brings to light. For a lecturer would prepare for his audience, with pleasure and with spirit, all that was likely to interest the most zealous and intelligent among them, when he was secure of having his instructions carefully attended to and treasured up. And the student would, in such a system, go on with all his impulses tending the same way;-urged forwards alike by his love of knowledge and his emulation, his sympathy with his teacher and his desire of honour.

RES.

SECT. 2.-OF PROFESSORIAL LECTURE

I HAVE spoken hitherto of our College teaching; but it must be recollected that this, though the peculiar and characteristic, is not the only part of our University system. Besides this, there are in the English Universities not only university examinations, but, as in other universities, professors of various departments of science, literature, and speculation. These professors have been, and are, some of the most eminent men of their time in their respective provinces ; and their lectures have been rich in instruction and interest; but a few remarks upon them will suffice for our present purpose.

Reproaches have often been cast upon the English Universities, in consequence of several of their professors discontinuing their lectures; but the cause has not been duly attended to. In almost all cases in which this has been done, the discontinuance of

the lectures has arisen from the defection of the audience. It may be said, that this shows the lectures to have been bad;-that they would have been attended if they had been worth attending. I think this assertion may be shown to be unfounded.

In the first place, I would observe, that professorial lectures appear to have very small attraction for the greater part of Englishmen. The German student pursues the career of his professor with avidity through the most thorny and abstruse paths of speculation, without any motive except his taste for such an employment; and even writes down his lectures, with a diligence which must be considered as somewhat superstitious, since it goes to the extent of fixing his attention principally upon the mechanical process of writing at the time, and his voluminous "heft" is often turned to small account afterwards. I do not think that, under any circumstances, English students would be brought to do this, or anything like this. Even when the matter is interesting, and the manner striking, how rarely does the lecturer collect and keep together a voluntary audience in England! And if his topic be a subject of exact science or critical research, we are certain that his hearers will soon be reduced to a very few students, and perhaps a few personal friends. In the metropolis, most persons have known of many admirable lectures, delivered in various institutions, on subjects even of great popular interest, as geology or political economy, where general neglect was bestowed, so undeservedly, as to be a matter of grief and indignation to those who attended.

We may explain this as we can, but the fact is certain. It might appear as if our countrymen were too practical to love knowledge and speculation for its own sake, and to bestow time and systematic thought upon it, except it leads to something of profit or distinction. We have seen evidence of the same temper in various circumstances connected with the institutions for academic education recently established. It may be possible for a lecturer to draw together an audience by treating some popular subject in a striking manner; but he must have very crude or very visionary notions, who thinks that the attendance of students upon a solid, unambitious course of lectures, on a subject in which little of novel views or striking exposition could be introduced, would be diligently and regularly followed by voluntary students.

But I observe further, that even if there were in this country at large a disposition to attend professorial lectures which are really instructive and valuable, such an attendance could not be expected to be generally given by the students of our Universities. For their time is engaged, and their efforts are drawn away from such occupations, by the demand which the University makes upon them, and especially by the examinations. As the examinations are now constituted, they require all the study and intellectual exertion which many of the students are able to give. The influence of such requirements on voluntary study is not a matter of opinion or conjecture. A few years ago a new University examination was established at Cambridge, to take place in the second year of the

student's residence. Not only has its effect in interfering with the attention to the College courses been very decided, but the University professors at once felt its operation. The lectures of Professor Smyth upon modern history, eloquent and thoughtful disquisitions, which had long enjoyed great popularity, and drawn together, year after year, a crowded lectureroom, immediately lost half their audience. Something of the same kind happened to others of the University professors. With men of moderate talents and application, the demands of the examinations are a familiar, and I believe a just, excuse for not pursuing with earnestness any voluntary study. And even those of most active minds, and of the most lively interest in matters of taste and knowledge, can only with difficulty snatch from the course of study into which the University prizes impel them, fragments of time to give to other pursuits. It is true, that in many cases the energy of youthful zeal and love of knowledge breaks through all difficulties; and that our lectures on geology, botany, chemistry, and other sciences, are pursued, as they well deserve to be, by a body of intelligent and persevering voluntary students, and even by persons who aim at high honours in our examinations. But these are young men happily constituted in intellect and disposition, whom systems cannot spoil, as systems cannot make them. It is very certain that the great body of young Englishmen during their residence at the Universities, will never, till their characters and dispositions have undergone a material change, derive any great portion

of their education from their voluntary attendance on the public lectures of the University. They bring to the Universities no tastes, or ambition, or preparation, which lead them to follow the speculations which are thus placed before them; and though they do, I conceive, under a proper administration of our institutions, derive from them very great advantages, these advantages would be reduced to nothing, if they were made to depend upon the voluntary pursuit of literature and science, carried on with the assistance of the University professors.

Some of the University lectures at Cambridge, particularly those of the Regius Professor of Greek and the Plumian Professor of Experimental Philosophy, have been so directed as to be of great use to those who are candidates for the honours which the University bestows; and on that account, as well as for their other merits, have been attended with avidity. But this attraction, and the consequent benefits, apply only to students of active minds and generous ambition; a class about whose education there is nowhere any difficulty. Professorial lectures of this kind can exercise no influence upon a class who are numerous among the students of all universities,—the comparatively dull and inert intellects. And yet these latter are a body who must not be neglected as of no consequence; since not only it contains a great number of estimable, right-minded, and useful men, but also such men are capable of a very large share of mental cultivation, which it is most important to them and to society they should receive. Many of these per

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