whether he does not think that a Faculty of Divinity
is needed, even from his point of view, to conduct re-
search in the highest sphere, as to the attributes of what
Herbert Spencer calls "a first Cause," which, as he says, is
" infinite and absolute." Are teachers to be trained at our
Universities ? In St. Andrews, at all events, it would be
ungraceful to give a negative reply, in the presence of the
Professor of the history, theory, and practice of Education.
But it would be unpardonable to treat the subject as one of
minor importance. An army of teachers, an army of ex-
aminers, is spread all over the country. Can anybody for
one single moment believe that these armies can operate
with skill unless they are instructed in tactics ? Of all
astounding assertions the most astonishing certainly is, that
the men who are to teach theories, who are to test theories,
are themselves not to be taught the theory of their own art.
It is to the honour of the Universities of St. Andrews, and
of Edinburgh, that this glaring defect has been mitigated.
Do you require method in education ? You probably
admit this. How is method to be obtained in education ?
Only by the pursuit of the philosophy of education. An
educator must find out by what means subject-matter is
most rapidly, and at the same time most thoroughly, assimi-
lated ; under what conditions that process of assimilation
has to be carried on ; what are the circumstances which
militate against its success. The whole question of " cram,"
the question of " over-work," the question of modern versus
classical education, the limits of secondary and of higher
education, the neglect on the Continent of physical educa-
tion in one word, the growth of mind, body, and soul are
problems which cannot be left to the solution of men who
have simply a practical turn for teaching.

We are not contending for an examination in the philo-
sophy, art, and history of Education as the sole qualification
of teachers. On the contrary, instead of the rough practical



294 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES

test you now apply, you will be able to apply a test by
which that practical efficiency which you naturally require,
can be tried, because you will see whether practice and
theory are in harmony. Good practice in Education, as well
as in Games, is simply an example of the theory, which is
the rule. A successful practical teacher is simply a teacher
who carries on his business, on the understanding that he
will not depart from certain laws, which are a theory, after
all, whether he likes to admit it or not.

If we have training colleges for our schoolmasters, why
should we be without training for our teachers in the depart-
ment of Secondary Education ? And if such training is
wanted, the University is the natural place for it. All
graduates formerly were obliged to teach for two or three
years ; this sufficiently shows what then was considered
the main object of a University education. If secondary
education is to be a success, it will depend mainly on the
way in which the Universities will fulfil their duties in
this respect. It is one of the highest functions which the
Universities have to discharge. Work at the University
will be made more profitable, if the work which precedes a
University career is performed according to the method,
which will enable a student at once to feel himself at home
when he attends University lectures.

In training an efficient staff of teachers for secondary
education, and training them on the same lines as the future
university Professors, the Universities increase their own
efficiency. In Germany, the teachers and masters in the
middle schools and gymnasia are all educated at the Uni-
versities. In France, strenuous efforts are made to reach
the same goal.

The Scottish Universities are desirous of reaching an-
other stratum. They wish to secure the supervision of
the training of primary teachers. As long as our schools
are not merely primary, but contain a secondary element,
it is natural that the Universities should entertain this
wish, though the training colleges are doing admirable
work. We cannot, I believe, transform the Universities



LORD RE A Y 295



into the sole training schools of primary teachers, without
results which would prove disastrous ; but, to obtain the
fullest recognition from the Education Department, for those
who are training to be schoolmasters, and who are attending
classes at the Universities, I consider only just. Closer
connection of the training colleges with the Universities is
also desirable.

It is a remarkable fact that in Germany, even for
secondary teachers, a training college has been established
by Professor Stoy at Jena, which shows that, even for that
higher class of teachers, the training colleges are considered
not altogether superfluous by some pedagogues. Important
information on this subject will be found in two reports of
1883, on the Herbart-Stoy-Ziller system, by the Directors
in the province of Saxony.

I agree with the late Monsieur Dumont whose pre-
mature death has inflicted a terrible loss on University
reform in France that " care should be taken not to make
of higher education a kind of secondary education of a more
refined order." I wish our Universities to be levelled
up; but, if we are confronted with this dilemma, 'that the
youth from the rural districts of Scotland must either have
the higher part of their secondary education at the Uni-
versities, or none at all, I, for one, am not a sufficiently
hardened doctrinaire to slam the door of the Universities in
their faces. Generations of our countrymen have valued
this privilege. I do not wish to take away the ideal of
culture, which now gives a higher tone to the rural classes
of Scotland, and which is unequalled in any other country.
It is clear, however, that merely preparatory classes, in the
Faculties of Arts and of Science, should not in any way
interfere with the higher work which is the proper sphere
of Professors. Are we to have a separate Faculty of
Science ? I should say certainly. Just look at the field
covered by a Faculty of Science. It is preparatory to
medical science ; and our engineers, our manufacturers, our
analysts, our botanists, our zoologists, our astronomers, our
naval constructors, our geologists, our biologists, our physi-



296 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES

ologists, our mineralogists, our agriculturalists, should obtain
scientific degrees. I do not see why a Faculty, having such
an immense area, should remain linked with another, which
has quite different objects to pursue.

The same work done by the French Ecole Polytechnique
I wish to see done at the Universities ; and if the Germans
have lately spent 340,000 on a new College for technical
education at Berlin, I should like to ask what possible
reason can be adduced for stinting science-teaching in
Scotland, at a moment when the report on technical instruc-
tion has pointed out that "theoretical knowledge and
scientific training are of pre-eminent importance, as in the
case of the manufacturer of fine chemicals, or in that of the
metallurgical chemist, or the electrical engineer, the higher
technical instruction may with advantage be extended to
the age of twenty and twenty-two." Here, then, is a clear
case even for a Philistine to grant Government aid. If we
are to hold our own in manufactures, if we do not want to
go abroad for scientific managers of our works, then give to
our Universities the full equipment, which is necessary to
bring science up to the highest level. The University of
Edinburgh has done well in establishing Chairs of Agricul-
ture and of Engineering; but this is merely a small be-
ginning. The Scottish Universities are, by their constitu-
tion, by their popular instincts, well adapted to spread their
wings into this vast field, of what I should like to call the
higher education of the classes who are the actual producers
of the wealth of the nation. The sooner this gap is filled
up, the better it will be for the country ; and it constitutes
another claim on the Government.

There is a peculiar aptness in giving what I should like
to call a purely modern side to the Scottish Universities.
They have not had the benefit of large endowments, but
their most important endowment hitherto has been the
value put upon a University education by various pro-
fessions in Scotland, which in England do not by any means
show the same appreciation of it. That is a character which
they should carefully preserve and extend. The demand



LORD RE A Y 297



which is at present strong for scientific training, in walks
of life in which it has hitherto been neglected, should be
responded to by the Scottish Universities without a moment's
hesitation. Of course, that department will have to bid
good-bye to Classics ; but, if we draw into the charmed circle
of University life those whose influence on our material and
social progress is very great indeed, we shall simply have
done for our generation what the founders of our Universities
intended to do for theirs. Science is the great renovator of
this century; whatever may be material in its objects, will,
by contact in the University, be counteracted by other
influences.

The golden words of not the least eminent of my pre-
decessors, on the recognition due to Art and Poetry in a
University, will not have faded from your memory. I may
not agree with all the arguments used by Stuart Mill, but
I certainly should wish to give to Art and Poetry, in this
modern side of our Universities, a prominent place. Those
professions which will be allured to the Universities, by
throwing open to them the Science classes, will certainly
be all the better for the development of their imaginative
faculties ; and these are easily roused in a Scotsman, how-
ever much he may have been maligned on account of his
Puritanical notions.

With reference to the Science faculty, I should like to
make a remark, which applies also to the other faculties,
but very specially to this faculty. I should wish to give it
considerable power to establish Lectureships in any special
subject, for which a specially gifted man should be found.
Though the number of his pupils might be very limited, the
publication of the results of his research carried on at the
University and through it would raise the University in
what I should like to call the international scale. Besides,
the knowledge of such prizes being attainable would stimu-
late original research anions the more brilliant under-
graduates. I wish those lecturers to be incorporated in the
University. I admit that I would rather see those lecturers
organised in the University than competing with the Uni-



298 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES

versity outside its gates. We had better use our resources
scanty as they are to give a complete organisation to
our Universities before we think of squandering our in-
tellectual treasures by establishing competing institutions.
These lecturers should, of course, be supplied with all the
best tools. As scientific lectures of the more recondite
character will necessarily only be attended by a few students,
it is obvious that remuneration in this case must be mainly
independent of fees, whatever may be the system adopted
in other cases. What I am pleading for is simply the
immediate and constant annexation of any scientific specialist
by one of our Universities. These lecturers would, of course,
represent a different category from those who would under-
take the burden of elementary lectures, leaving to the
professors the comprehensive view, and consequently the
highest teaching of their subject.

On the extreme importance of giving to the Scottish Uni-
versities a full complement of Laboratories I need not insist.
The excellent work done at our University in that branch
of scientific investigation, so important to one of our fore-
most national industries namely, zoological marine research
cannot any longer be ignored. The generous devotion
shown by Professor M'Intosh is deserving of the fullest
recognition. The meteorological observatory on Ben Nevis
though not attached to any of our Universities, yet
worked by their professors and students deserves our
hearty sympathy. Both are experiments whose success
may in no distant future increase largely the food supply
of the people. To those who may doubt the expediency of
strengthening the higher Science teaching in Scotland by
creating a separate faculty of Science, I shall simply recall
this fact, that in the Netherlands there are four science
faculties with forty-one professors. The creation of a new
faculty is further provided for in the original Bull of Pope
Benedict XIII., of 1413, which says: "We found and
institute a University in the said city of St. Andrews, for
theology, canon and civil law, arts, medicine, and other
lawful faculties."



LORD RE A Y 299



What I have observed about the Faculty of Science
applies to the Medical Faculty, about which little need be
said, as it has attained European fame by adopting many of
those improvements which I am recommending for the
other Faculties. Nothing that it can possibly require should
be refused to it. The Science and the Medical Faculties
at this University have, I believe, a splendid opening, if
they make the most of Miss Baxter's grand foundation in
the neighbouring town. Science itself is paving the way,
bridging over the difficulty. On this side of the Tay you
have the old associations ; on the other side, you have the
vitality of modern progress. Eemain separated, and you
are weak on both sides ; unite, and you double your
strength. The distance will be smaller than that between
a West End and an East End Hospital, belonging to the
new London University. You are the oldest family among
the Universities ; take heed that, by haughty isolation, you
may not meet with the tragic fate of extinction. And, to
my Dundee friends, I would say : You have the means of
building your future glory, on the sure foundation of the
experience of centuries. Let your College be the fourth
constellation in the St. Andrews planetary system. The
ideal of a University is the blending of the ancient and
modern.

About the Faculty of Arts I can be very brief,- because
its needs, as well as those of the Faculty of Medicine, are
least likely to be overlooked by any Executive Commission ;
and, because it has an exalted position, which I shall not
impugn except where it attempts to monopolise, and thereby
to destroy, the increased usefulness of the Universities.
Besides a very complete staff for keeping up its philo-
sophical and classical traditions, I wish to see its philo-
logical efficiency increased, and provision made for Modern
Literature. At Leipsic there are the following Chairs : an
ordinary Professor and two lecturers for French ; two
ordinary Professors and four lecturers for Teutonic ; one
ordinary Professor for English, whose class is attended by
300 students ; one lecturer for Italian, and one for Spanish ;



300 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES

one Professor and two lecturers for Slavonic. The great
importance of developing this essential element in a Faculty
of Arts is clear, if our Universities are to undertake what
I have included in the Faculty of Science as the new poly-
technic part.

In his evidence before the Universities Commission,
Professor Eamsay, of the Glasgow University, said
"What we feel to be the characteristic of our system is,
that with us the teaching is the main thing, and the ex-
amination is subordinated to it. At Oxford the cry of
University reformers is that the teaching is entirely dwarfed
and controlled by the examinations." I may quote still
further : " The teaching given in the classes is the most
valuable portion of our Scottish University system, and it
would be simply a miserable policy to make our degrees
popular (as some people call it) by making them represent
less culture." The only essential element of success in
a University is that its teaching should be first-rate.
Whether it leads to a degree, and how it leads to a degree,
are matters not unimportant, but they are not essential.
A University without prescribed courses, without examina-
tions, and without degrees, is conceivable. A University
out of which men emerge with degrees but untaught, as
they did during the last century in Oxford and Cambridge,
is not a University. Of course, as our Universities are
professional Schools, courses will have to be prescribed as
avenues to various professions.

I am altogether in favour of qualifying for professions
by a University degree, and not by State examinations,
which is the German system. As the needs of professions
constantly vary, and as new professions constantly require
University training, I do not wish to draw a very hard and
fast line, but I would give to the various Faculties very
elastic powers of determining what courses of study, and
what variety of examinations for degrees, they should pre-
scribe. To stereotype either an entrance examination, or
the entrance to the lectures of a Faculty, or the examina-
tions for degrees, would be very injudicious. The avenues



LORD REA V 301



to, and from, the University should be wide. Excellence in
each special department will be more easy of attainment,
the less you aim at uniformity. The tendency of Science
in all directions is subdivision. The more flexible your
system is the better ; the more alternative courses you
open, the more your Universities will prosper. What is
wanted is a machinery, by which the University can con-
stantly adjust its resources to supply needs, as they arise.
Finality in University reform may suit the Treasury ; but,
you cannot make a bargain with knowledge, which is an
expanding quantity. The Treasury cannot hold a perpetual
season-ticket for the Scottish Universities. The days of
the " trivium " and of the " quadrivium " are not likely to
recur. Let us see what is the expenditure, which foreign
Governments, and Parliaments, consider imperative. In
1868, the French Government only spent 8,000 on Uni-
versity education; the estimates now are 400,000, besides
extraordinary estimates, to which the State, the " Depart-
ment," and the "Communes" contribute. Since 1868,
Parliament, the representatives of " Departments " and of
" Communes," have voted close upon seven millions for
Buildings, used by higher educational institutions, of which
the Government contribute one million and a fifth, the
towns more than four. Between 1868 and 1878 thirty
Chairs were created in the Faculties of Science and Arts,
besides eighty-nine lectureships. From 1878 to 1884 the
Faculties of Science were endowed with four new Chairs
and several laboratories, and the Faculties of Arts with
fifteen new Chairs. At the present moment, the first have
78 lecturers and the latter 111, divided in "Cours Com-
plementaires " and " Maitrises de Conferences." The first
embrace Sanskrit, Semitic languages, Romance languages,
and literature of the Middle Ages the latter are supple-
mentary lectures to those given by the professors. They
are chiefly intended for those who wish to teach in their
turn. M. Waddington, the present French Ambassador in
London, was the founder of 300 bursaries, and now there
are 516. The Faculty of Arts, which was called "la



302 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES

petite faculte," has now been raised from the slough of
despond to a much higher level, and is no longer what it
was twenty years ago without pupils. The Sorbonne
now boasts of a thousand bond fide undergraduates in Arts
and Science. On the 24th of January of last year M.
Fallieres, Minister of Education, told the Senate that he
required one million and a fifth more to put the Faculties
on such a footing that they could compete with foreign
Universities.

In the Netherlands in 1876, the last year before the
new Act was in operation, a sum of 62,000 was spent;
the estimates for 1885 amount to 136,000 for University
education alone.

Let us see what has been spent on the University of
Strasburg. Its new buildings, or rather palaces, were
opened on the 29th October of last year. The Academie
of Strasburg was transformed into a University by an
Imperial decree of the 11th December 1871, the very
day (mark the coincidence) that the additional convention
was signed of the treaty of peace at Frankfort. Since
the annexation, 640,000 have been spent on buildings,
71,400 on the library, and the annual estimates exceed
40,000 for the University, and come up to 6,000 for
the library. Of these buildings the Chemical Institute
amounts to 35,000 ; the Institute for Physics to 28,000 ;
the Botanical Institute to 26,000 ; the Observatory
to 25,000; the Anatomical Institute to 42,000; the
Clinical Surgery to 26,000 ; the Institute of Physiological
Chemistry to 16,000; and the Physiological Institute to
13,900. The University had 858 matriculated students,
and of these 100 quite filled the Institute for Organic and
Inorganic Chemistry, which cannot hold more. There are
73 ordinary professors and 19 extraordinary. This is done
for less than 1,000 students. What is done in Scotland
for seven times the number ?

The question of University reform in Scotland is not
merely an educational question. It is a question of
practical importance to anybody who looks at political



LORD RE A Y 303



questions from a statesman-like point of view. The chief
wealth of Scotland consists in the natural resources of
Scottish brains. The development of brain-power on a
wide scale is what a Scottish statesman has to look to. If
we had a Scottish Parliament sitting in Edinburgh, I have
no doubt that the organisation of the Universities would
be the first number on the legislative programme. There
were Scottish University Commissions in 1567, 1574,
1652, 1661, and 1690, and the Act of Union guaranteed
the existence of the four Universities. We have scattered
doctors and surgeons broadcast over the Empire, why
should we not do the same for other professions ? If the
University of St. Andrews has given a headmaster to West-
minster, there is no reason why the University of Edin-
burgh should not give one to Harrow, and why the
University of Glasgow should not give to Eton the head
of its Science department, or Aberdeen another Arnold to
Rugby.

If we are to make our Universities what they ought
to be, without having a Parliament of our own, we must
impress the Parliament, in which we play such a very
meek part, with the sense that we are in earnest. We
must convince them that we are not asking for University
reform as a luxury, but as a right. It is clearly a right of
Scotsmen to have the same means of education which are
at the disposal of the people of Baden. This is not a
question of local importance. It concerns the greatness of
the Empire. Development of more brain-power in Scot-
land means increased national efficiency and less danger
from democratic ignorance.

Our position is unassailable ; on one condition, how-
ever that our Universities should present a joint front.
They are the representatives in the country of its noblest
and highest aspirations. They should combine to convince
the Government that they do not urge selfish claims, but
the most imperative needs which any nation can plead.
We cannot ask the Government to put each of the four
Universities on the same footing as the University of



304 RECTORIAL ADDRESSES

Strasburg ; but we have a right to expect that everything
which is taught at Strasburg should at least be taught at
one of the four Universities. To secure the success of the
reform of the Universities, I would impress on the Senates
of the four Universities the paramount obligation of estab-
lishing a temporary federation to secure a maximum of
advantages by division of labour. Such a federation was
contemplated in the seventeenth century. These are the
" Overtours of the 20th August, 1641, concerning ye
Universities of this kingdome to be represented be the
Generall Assemblie to ye Kingis Majestie and Parliament
first, becaus the good estate both of the Kirk and
comone wealth dependeth mainly from the flourishing of
universities and colledges as ye seminaries of both, quilk
cannot be expected unless ye poore means quilk they have
be helped, and sufficient revenues be provided for them,
and the same weill employed. Thairfore, that out of the
rent of prelacies, collegiate, or chapter kirkes, or syclike,
a sufficient maintenance be provyded for a competent
number of professors, teachers, and bursars in all faculties,
especiallie in divinitie, and for upholding, repairing, and