| | | <1845> | | They have been talking lately about abolishing academical | TESTS. This is comfortable ~~ characteristic enough too; after | the phantom has been stalking about in Edinburgh for a century | at least, a noon-tide dream and a mid-day ghost ( , as | AEschylus says,) recognized by all as a shadowy apparition of | obsolete bigotry, scarce worthy of a smile, the Ministry of Great | Britain has at length summoned up resolution (so it would seem) | to declare that the phantom is indeed a phantom, and no reality. | An act of some moral courage this unquestionably; for the | General Assembly of the Established Church still protests that | the thing is no shadow, but real flesh and blood; and the ghosts | which churchmen raise are stronger than stone walls and granite | mountains, in the estimation of many, and not to be blasphemed | with impunity. Sir Robert Peel, therefore, if, in the spirit of Mr. | Home Drummond's

"liberal and enlightened policy,"

| he abolish the university tests in Scotland, will deserve a | considerable need of praise ~~ a double praise; the praise of | understanding the difference between a phantom and a reality; | and the praise of the moral courage necessary to contradict those | of his friends who shall persevere in not perceiving the | difference. , was one of Sydney Smith's last words. | . | But the Tests, when they are abolished, are | | only a small matter; and we have faith enough in Sir Robert to | think that when he once enters on academic ground he will make | a regular survey, and take up, with a decided determination to do | something, the great question of UNIVERSITY REFORM in | Scotland. We know, indeed, no field in which a minister, | situated as he is, could reap at once more noble and more easy | laurels. He could do a great deal of lasting public good in this | department without offending anybody; | for we are not here, as in England, hampered with | universities that belong exclusively to the aristocracy and to the | church, and which always have, and must have, an interest | opposed to the great body of the people. All classes, with us, | partake of the benefits, whatever they be, that universities confer | on a people; all classes have an interest, and the same interest, to | see them in as efficient a state of erudite activity as possible. | The minister who, with a clear glance and a bold hand, takes up | the question of academical reform in Scotland will meet with no | formidable opposition; the tests being removed, Whigs and | Tories (if such creatures still exist) Churchmen and Voluntaries, | Conservatives and Progressives, will all agree. Let us see, | therefore, how the matter stands. What sort of UNIVERSITY | REFORM is wanted; and how can it be achieved? | Now, the excellence of a national university is to be measured | mainly by these three things: ~~ First, | By the riches and variety of interesting and elevating subjects of | public instruction which it embraces in its scientific and literary | faculties. Second, By the degree of | excellence that it aspires to and maintains in the different spheres | of intellectual striving. Third By the | comparative cheapness of the instruction imparted, and its | accessibility to all classes of the community that may require it. | Let us try shortly our Scottish academical institutions by these | very obvious tests. | As to the first point, we present, in the gross, a happy contrast to | our narrow academical neighbours on the Isis and the Cam: and | for this we are not unthankful. For not only do we include, in | our universities, the complete triad of the learned professions, | (all of which they have so strangely excluded in England,) but | our preparatory curriculum possesses a character of breadth and | liberality that looks something like nature's luxuriance, and | almost means to affect popularity. The course of study, indeed, | the regular completion of which entitles the student to the | designation of A.M. is not exactly the same in each university; | but the difference is only in one or two details, the general | principle is the same in all: and as we admit all sorts of students | to our classes without tests or declarations of any kind, so we | seem willing, in the same anti-Oxonian spirit, to admit all sorts | of studies, and that | as the lawyers say, with a fair consideration for each. We shall | take the Aberdeen University for an example, and that on the | recommendation of Bishop Russell, who, in a work on the | Scottish system of education, published so far back as 1813, tells | us (p. 149) that the Aberdeen curriculum is decidedly the best in | Scotland. Well, the Aberdeen curriculum is as follows: ~~ | . A man who goes through this quadrennial routine, and can | pass muster on a general examination at the end of the fourth | year, claps A.M. to his name in Aberdeen, and is said to have | received an academical education. Now, the advantages of this | system above the narrow curriculum of Oxford and Cambridge | are sufficiently obvious. It supplies the natural stimulants to a | greater variety of intellectual tastes, and gives every man, within | a certain sphere, fair play. But the great defect of it is this: it | does not go far enough, and within the narrow circumscription | which it makes, it is altogether exclusive and compulsory. There | is no provision, for instance, made for the English language and | literature, none for French, and none for German line, instead of | the Greek, he not only finds no professor in a Scottish university | to give him instruction, but even after he has got instruction | elsewhere, the dispensers of academical dignities will not take | Goethe's "Iphigenia" for that of Euripides, (though it is a finer | play in many respects); but the candidate must either cram | himself for the nonce with abhorred Greek, or be content to | exhibit himself ingloriously on the title-page of his first book, | bearing a name without tags. Now, this is a great evil, and cries | loudly for REFORM. The universities were, as we all know, | founded in an age when Latin was only another name for | knowledge, and Greek for philosophy; but at the present day | Greek means merely Greek, and Latin is no more than Latin. | Knowledge and philosophy are to be found there indeed, but also | elsewhere: nay, even in many departments of recent growth, not | there; so that a man, in this nineteenth century, may have read a | great many Latin and Greek books, and yet may be (perhaps is | likely to be) a very ignorant man. Greek and Latin have now lost, | and can never regain, that character of universality which | belonged to them in the days of Erasmus. And as they cannot | claim in the intellectual world | | generally, and in the great arena of European thought, to any | exclusive monopoly, or even right of preponderance, so it is | manifestly unfit that they should occupy such a position in our | universities. It is plain also that so long as they do hedge | themselves in behind such a rampart of scholastic thorns, (for | Greek and Latin, when compulsory, | must never be so many,) these institutions must be, in a certain | sense, unpopular; sharing less in public sympathy than they | might do, and less deserving (let the professors consider that) of | contributions from the public purse. We say, therefore, to our | good countrymen, Rejoice that you have universities on a liberal | and healthy footing comparatively; but be not content with this | comparative well-being; labour to be healthy altogether; extend, | vary, and open your curriculum (we say to the professors) in all | directions; come to meet the pubic, and the public will come to | meet you; set yourself in harmony with the spirit of the age in | which you live; teach every thing that people wish to learn; make | your academical dignities as flexible as possible, and adapt them | as much as may be to the various nature of the human mind; have | all sorts of degrees for all sorts of people; remember that you live | in the year 1845. | So far on the first point; and let us not be misunderstood by any | eager person, as if we were joining in that undistinguishing bray | against

"classical learning"

which is the current text of | educational declamation with a certain class of one-sided persons. | We esteem Greek and Roman lore too highly not to lament that | its champions in this country have too often seemed to imitate | the shallow wisdom of the English church in Ireland, seeking to | gain favour by violently leaping down the lieges' throats, whether | they will or no. Experiment, however, has proved in Ireland that | compulsory Protestantism has been fertile only in confirming | Papists in Popery; and, in Scotland, it has proved also, in the | experience of only too many, that compulsory Latin and Greek | has only served to multiply the votaries of what is called | Utilitarianism. Teach Latin, therefore, by all means in the | universities; but teach it with discrimination, and with discretion. | The best things in this world are seldom best for every body: | larch trees grow tall on the Alps; but on some of our bleak | Scottish moors here, cradled by the east wind, and nursed by the | north, they are scraggy stumps indeed. It were worth while | asking whether our Greek and Latin, in many cases, is not | somewhat in the same predicament. | Our second point is a much more serious one; what we teach, as things go, may seem fair | enough; but how we teach it, and how far; ay, there's the weak side of our | academical existence. And here the Oxonians even (not to talk | of the more liberal Cantabs) lift up their horn against us | triumphantly. ; Professor Pillans told the University | Commission in 1826, | that is to say, in so many words, that , | Strange, and yet true; it is a fact; a printed fact; and not | very difficult of explanation either. For, when we come to look | closely into the matter, we find that our academical institutions | are called upon to perform a double function, the function that | properly belongs to a university, as understood in England, | Germany, France, etcetera and the | function which, in England, Germany, and France, is performed | by the gymnasia, lycea, and superior schools of whatever | designation. Now, this is a great evil, and one that calls loudly | for reform. It is an evil that undermines our whole university | system; it is a rottenness in the bones; it is a palsy in the right | arm; it lames us miserably, and makes us limp ludicrously, | before men; we crawl when we ought to fly; or we attempt, at | most, to fly with our wings in the mud; and the result is neither | creeping nor flying, but a clumsy shift between the two. We | earnestly desire the inquiry to be made, whether in any European | institutions calling themselves universities, little boys of thirteen | and fourteen years of age are congregated together, for five | months in the year, to con over the mere Alpha, Beta, Gama of | classical literature, under the supevisorship of a learned | individual called the Professor of Greek, and then dismissed for | the rest of the year to run loose and vagrant, with two months | more out of the twelve to forget than they had to learn. We shall | be happy to be informed that the Scottish universities, in this | respect, are not quite singular and anomalous. But we fear they | are. In Scotland we have (from poverty perhaps at first, and | afterwards from custom; but so it is) remained in a great measure | without that necessary foundation of a university, GOOD | INTERMEDIATE OR SUPERIOR SCHOOLS; and our | universities have been forced to supply their place. And the | consequences are what might have been expected. Learning is | now, and has long been, at a very low ebb in Scotland; and we | seem pretty well satisfied with our ignorance: that is one of the | worst signs of the disease. In no country are narrow and partial | notions so prevalent; in no country are ecclesiastical questions of | a purely historical nature so eagerly stirred and so keenly | agitated, while, at the same time, so few are grounded in the | vulgarest elements of church history; in no country do people | praise the schools and colleges so much as in Scotland, and in no | country do they stand, in many important respects, so low. And | thus we see plainly the meaning of the paradoxical proposition | propounded by the learned professor above quoted. For, as Dr. | Chalmers, with his sesquipedalian words, and up-towered | periods, addressing a gallery in an Infant School, the more | eloquent he was, the less instruction he would be able to convey | to the little boys and girls on the benches; so a Thiersch from | Munich, or Boeckh from Berlin, lecturing with all the strength of | their classical genius to students in the Latin and Greek classes in | Edinburgh, would teach absolutely nothing. Matters are, indeed, | close to such a pass in many classes of our Scottish universities, | that there may be a great danger, sometimes, | | on occasion of a vacancy, that the new professor may turn out | too clever for the BOYS. A man accustomed to move in the | highest walks of his particular department, will, indeed, have to | unlearn not a few things, before he make an efficient Scottish | professor. He must unlearn, in particular, in the first place, all | his high notions about academical dignity and freedom; every | thing that, in his imagination, may hitherto have served to | distinguish a university from a school, and a professor from a | schoolmaster. Read the reports of the last two University | Commissions, and you will find that these things are so, ~~ even | literally so. Of course, this schoolboy character of our Scottish | universities, is felt most perniciously, and exhibited most | perfectly, in the earlier stages of the acaedemical curriculum, in | the two first years. Professor Wilson, we suppose, and his | illustrious predecessors, Brown and Stewart, were never much | incommoded by it. Young men of sixteen, seventeen, and | eighteen, may be capable enough of comprehending and | relishing lectures on the moral senses, and on the intellectual | powers; but boys of thirteen and fourteen are not capable of | being benefited by a university education (as distinguished from | a school) in any shape; much less can they with any profit study | the mere elements of a dead language under a professor | superintending some seventy or one hundred and seventy of them | at a time, and that only by fits and long intervals. | A university class, though in point of intellectual elevation it may | sink to the level of a school, and fall even considerably below it, | never can become a school altogether, in its forms, in its | discipline, and in its habits; and yet it is called on to do the work | of a school! You deck your boy in man's clothes, and you bid | him hold up his head, and look like a man; but the boy will not | grow larger for the sake of the clothes, and the clothes will not | grow smaller for the sake of the boy. You may clip and pare | them, indeed, and hang them all round with necessary reefs; but | they will never be neat. So it is exactly with our green | unprepared boys in the Greek and Latin and Logic classes of the | Scottish universities. A course of lectures, in a university, | continuing for five or six months in the year, is not the thing for | them. They should be kept at school for two years more; for of | school discipline only are they capable. No professor, in fact, | where their number exceeds a score or two, can do them justice. | They require minute superintendence and constant drill. They | must be taught as much as possible by the English tutorial system; | and this is impossible in a large class, and a class especially | composed of such motley elements as a first Greek and Latin | class in a Scottish university comprehends. To teach the | elements of a dead language by the professorial system, and for | only five months in the year, is one of the grossest educational | blunders that can be made. Is it made any where except in | Scotland? We ask this question again. | By the second test, therefore, our academical condition, in | Scotland, is clearly not sound. Our standard of excellence is low, | very low. Our universities, according to the evidence given to | the commissions, are, in fact, no universities at all, in the noblest | sense of that word; but they are rather to be defined as large | rambling, irregular, ill-organized and ill-conducted high schools, | performing certain functions of an university with their extreme | branches, but, in their main trunk, and in their substantial juices, | only schools. This is assuredly a matter that deserves to be | seriously pondered, and calls loudly for REFORM. In the third | point of comparison, however, with our English brethren, in the | matter of cheapness and accessibility, we find, again, | comfortable occasion for self-congratulation. Surely education is | cheap enough in Scottish universities; perhaps too cheap in some | places. A youth cannot be educated in the Edinburgh Academy | under ?11 of fees yearly; in Aberdeen they educate every student, | of fair talents, for nothing at all; they have a great number of | bursaries; and these, however small, are always made to pay the | fees, and something more. A lad can get a free education there at | the rate of 5 pounds a-year; and the good citizens of the shrewd capital | of the north do, in fact, use their university as a FREE SCHOOL; | that is to say, the Aberdeen Colleges, by their scores of small | bursaries, performs the same part to this city that free schools do | to Manchester and other English towns. This is cheap education, | and accessibility of the universities to all classes, after a fashion | which they have no conception of in Berlin, any more than | Oxford. And we have no objection at all to the thing; nay, rather | boast in it and rejoice; only we see no reason why an act of | parliament should not be passed, handing over at least the half of | these bursaries to the burgh school, that the school may remain, | according to its proper nature, a school, and the university a | university. As it is, you shall see, in the streets of Aberdeen, (if | you go there,) all sorts of little boys, with jackets and open shirt | necks, going about in red gowns velvet-collared, having Greek | and Latin books under their arms, and sitting so many hours | a-day, in listless rows before a learned professor in Marischal | College; not because they have, or can have, any conception of | what Virgilian or Sophoclean poetry means, but because they can | get Latin and Greek for nothing, while, for the Queen's English, | and other things, they must pay. This is | not as it ought to be. The Queen's English ought not to be | sacrificed in this way to the manes of Caesar and Cicero. | Assuredly Tully himself, were he to rise from the grave, would | reproach us valiantly for this. My masculine Roman! my | masculine Roman! that was always the cry with him. Greek was | only a page, now going before to hold the torch, now behind (we | adopt a similitude of Immanuel Kant's) to hold the train to the | noble Roman; but our modern Ciceronians, for the most part, | have borrowed all things from their master rather than this | patriotism. | The question now remains, how are these evils to be remedied? | And here, as in all moral questions, the grand desideratum is to | feel strongly that an evil exists, , as the theologians say. | This is the main, indeed the | | only difficulty in the matter; for were the people of Scotland, | generally, to be strongly impressed with the feeling that there is | something wrong about their universities, reform could not be | delayed a single minute. After the Maynooth business, a decided | and temperate request from the Scottish people, that Protestant | universities also might receive a few crumbs of ministerial | favour, could not decently be refused. But the misfortune is, the | Scottish people are not, in any sense, alive to the extent of the | evil; they have been so accustomed to a mean and beggarly style | in all educational matters, to starvation in their parochial schools, | and puerility in their universities, that they are apt to think it is | all quite right. The very fact, however, of so many university | commissions having being issued during the last twenty years | shows that some intelligent persons in influential quarters are | fully alive to the evils of the case; and that a sense of these evils | may be made to interpenetrate the public mind, we suggest, in | the first place, that some popular abstract or excerpt of the | evidence taken before the commissions should be made by a | skilful person, and sold at a cheap rate. The half dozen and more | of immense blue boarded folios (some of them with nearly a | thousand pages of small type) that we see here on our table, | possess no aptitude for vulgar perusal. In the next place, we | suggest, that some intelligent member of Parliament, who loves | his country better than his ease, and literature more than politics, | take up the Scottish University Question as a hobby, and agitate | the country on the subject. Let Mr. Wyse, with his new Irish | Colleges, serve as an example here. In the third place, we | suggest, that the Professors themselves, who so lately did their | duty to the universities, by originating the Test movement, shall | now do, what is even more their duty, by directly, and in their | corporate capacity, petitioning the government, and addressing | the country on the general subject of academical reform. The | evidence is all already taken, and not a few restorative measures | recommended by the professors themselves. They have merely | to ask the ministry to take the reports of the different | commissions into consideration, and act upon them. Such a | request could not be refused by any minister; much less by Sir | Robert Peel, who himself issued the first of these commissions in | 1826. In the fourth place, we suggest, that the friends of | education over the whole of Scotland should communicate and | combine, in order to bring this matter to a practical bearing; for it | is the want of co-operation as much as the want of knowledge | and strong conviction that has hitherto kept us lagging where we | are. It is gratifying to behold in Edinburgh, in Glasgow, in | Inverness, in Ayr, academics recognising a standard of | scholarship and other attainments, that has already far overgrown | the beggarly elements of the Latin, and Greek, and mathematical | classes in our universities. Let such schools be erected every | where, one at least in each county, on a large and liberal scale; | then the universities will no longer have any apology for | remaining as they now are ~~ a miserable substitute for higher | schools, and a common receptacle for all sorts of crude and | unworkable materials that can find no other limbo to roll in. | Finally, the government of the country must determine to act | decidedly in the matter; for academical men | also have jealousies and petty prejudices, which must be | simpliciter disregarded. The people of | Scotland must also make up their minds to pay generously for the | services of worthy men; otherwise they will get minds of baser | quality. There is a professorship of belles | letters in the university of Edinburgh, of which the salary | is 70 pounds a-year, and the whole emoluments not above 200 pounds!!! | If a man of any talent happen to accept this situation, and have no | other means of living, what will be his first object after getting | into the chair! ~~ to get out of it into a better as soon as possible | ~~ matter that calls loudly for reform. Either the chair of belles letters (one of the most important | chairs in a university, and that might also be one of the most | popular) should be better endowed, or the attendance on it should | be rendered imperative on all the students who attend the general | curriculum. | . We could produce many examples of the same kind from | other universities, but the thing is notorious. Universities may be | rich and very inefficient; witness Oxford; but poor professors | cannot afford to buy books, much less to publish them; and they | are in the fair way to become mechanical. A poor university | must, in the general course of things ~~ in | the very nature of human striving ~~ be a bad university. The | parochial schools of Scotland are bad schools, principally | because they are poor. The schoolmasters are

"dominies," |

principally because they have been starved. Therefore, as | Sir Walter Scott says, . If we will have our universities | improved and reformed, we must not spare the necessary | expense; ~~ we must produce MONEY. It is a law of nature: | there is no help for it. SPIRIT never yet acted, and, so far as we | know, never can act, but through the instrumentality of | MATTER.