SCOTTISH UNIVERSITY TEACHING.
WHEN a public writer is censured by critics who take ground on diametrically opposite sides, and who blame him for faults that contradict each other, there is some excuse for the complacent assumption on his part that he has pretty well hit the truth. In this happy plight are we as regards the letters which have appeared in our columns from Professor Ramsay, of Glasgow, and Mr. Hutchison, of the High School there, as regards the Scottish University system. Each adopts and endorses a part of our representation, while in those parts wherein either differ from us they are more distinctly at odds with each other. Naturally, therefore, our conclusion is that while we are mainly right, each of them is partly right and partly wrong. There are three points in controversy—the character of Scottish University teaching as it is ; the methods of improving it by fit appliances of a kind which shall be operative within Universities; • and the means which must be brought into play outside of them, chiefly with the intent of raising the standard of preparatory scholarship.
As to the first, we confess to some astonishment on read- ing the letters of Professor Ramsay. Either we must for a long series of years have been egregiously mistaken, or a very marked change has of late passed over the character of the Scottish Universities. We are not persuaded of any blunder, and no report has reached us of a character to sustain the Professor's representation. He disputes in strong terms the averment that, in Scotland, University teaching is of a bare and meagre kind. Well, that must be largely a matter of opinion and testimony, and while we would shrink from throwing any doubt upon the statement of one who knows so well, and is so excellently qualified to judge, we must be permitted to say that the denial runs counter to a large amount of trustworthy evidence. At the time of writing the remarks which Professor Ramsay so strongly calls in question, we had before us a published letter addressed to himself by "Islay Burns, D.D., Free-Church Col- lege, Glasgow," entitled, "Plea for Junior Scholarships in the University of Glasgow," wherein we read :—
"The great defect of our Scottish Educational system, so far as tho interests of the higher learning are concerned, is one which lies not within, but outside the University walls. It turns not on the quality of the instruction, but on the character of the pupils. It is not that our students are ill-trained—that they are any worse trained than on the banks of the Isis and the Cam—but that the great majority of them come op to College so ill-prepared, or so wholly unprepared, as to be incapable of academic training. Few advance to any eminent pro- ficiency—few attain even to a respectable mediocrity—because most never really enter on the race, or enter under such heavy disadvantages as to render any considerable progress hopeless. They come to learn the higher principles of scholarship before they have mastered the ele- ments—to study idiom and style, and listen to lectures on philology, before they have thoroughly learned the grammar. Of those who annually commence their studies at our Universities, it is probably within the mark to say that six-tenths are fit only for a class of tyros, and that of the remaining four-tenths, only a very few can be said to be thoroughly well-prepared for University work. Many, practically, know nothing at all. They are wholly innocent of such trifling distinctions as those between amabant and arnobo, amaturus and aniandus ; the active and the passive voices are to them, in great measure, convertible terms ; and an oratio obliqua is as great a mystery to them as the differential calculus. They are incapable of deciphering a single Latin sentence which they have not previously crammed, or of translating the simplest clause of English into even grammatical Latin. Some, I dare say, may suspect me here of exaggeration ; but you, Sir, know but tee well that I am but speaking the simple, literal truth. It is quite a common thing for men not only to enter the University, but to leave it, in just that state of blissful and 'invincible' ignorance which 1 have described. I am well aware that it might be possible to parallel such cases as these by hosts of instances from amongst these who seek admission to the English Universities. But then many of these are stopped by the matriculation examination ; and even though a considerable number should, after all, find their way into some exceptionally lax College or Hall, it is to be remembered that their presence there is a much less serious disturbing element than in a Scottish University, where the system of simultaneous tuition in large classes renders it so supremely important that all should be prepared to go on pan i passe together. It is but little to say that such students can make small progress in the classical studies of the Univer- sity; they cannot even move a single step until the initial obstacle to all progress is removed. They stand from first to last at the door, be- cause the key which alone can open it is wanting. In short, they profit little by the classical studies of the University, because they enter College when they should only be going to school."
Are we wrong in our recollection that Professor Ramsay publicly endorsed this statement, or in thinking that it war- rants all we said ? The date of the pamphlet is 1871, but that the state of things it describes is still believed to have existence we have proof in a recent speech by the Rector of the Edinburgh High School, a scholar of acknowledged emin- ence. Addressing a meeting of schoolmasters, be bewailed the -circumstance that the great majority of Scottish lads who go in for a University training do it much more for the name of the thing than for any solid benefit thence derivable, coming -out, as he phrased it, "with a University flavour," but with scarcely anything of that culture which it is the proper function of a University to communicate. Mr. Hutchison admits the substantial truth of this statement, and surely the .condition of things it implies is degrading.
The second point touched upon is mainly a matter of argti- -ment. Professor Ramsay demurs to the proposal that com- petition should be introduced to his business. He and every one who holds a similar place are at present the possessors of a privileged monopoly. He has no idea of being interfered with in its enjoyment. But surely students have rights as well as Professors. It is not denied that occasionally a dull, heavy, somnolent, and ineffective man may be appointed to a Chair. In that case, he may curse with blight successive series of youths year by year for thirty years on end. Such things have happened, and we look through Professor Ramsay's letter in vain for the slightest hint of preventive or remedy. Be must know that at present affairs are managed very much upon the territorial principle. Every Professor has exclusive
• command of his own chair and of his own subject ; the students who belong to a certain district are as certainly doomed to come under his tuition as the fish in a certain pool to pass into the net of the nearest fisherman, and thus an effete or incapable man has the power of working irremediable mischief. The sole exception to this rule is to be found in the Medical Schools of Edinburgh and Glasgow ; where a vigorous extra- mural competition is maintained. Its benefits are generally acknowledged. They are so distinct as, we think, to justify our recommendation of an intra-mural rivalry in all the branches of instruction.
Whether that rivalry comes by throwing open the right of teaching to all Graduates, introducing the principle of free -competition, and utilising the abilities of the best men, while providing them with stepping-stones towards a career, as in the case of the Privat-docenten of Germany, or as has been re- peatedly proposed, by dividing the curriculum into two great departments, a Senior and a Junior, its advent may, we think, be deemed certain. The first method is most in accord with ancient usage, it would best promote the vigorous stir of intel- lectual life, it would give to the several Universities the char- acter and attractions of educational centres, while we fail to see any good reason why a Professor of Greek or Logic should be shielded from such wholesome competition as the Professors of Chemititry and Physiology in the two chief Scottish Universi- ties have to encounter. But the second method would have sundry advantages. By its adoption the Junior department would continue to discharge the function which the Scottish -University system has long performed, while it would act both as a strainer and a feeder to the higher department, in which we might then expect the achievement of results such as are simply impossible in any larger number of cases, where in- structions are delivered to minds destitute of the capacity for understanding them. The zeal and ability of Scottish Pro- fessors, conjoined with the honest laboriousness and intellectual tenacity of Scottish students, have done much; but will Pro- fessor Ramsay, who boasts the value of a Glasgow MA. degree, tell us what proportion those who take it bear to the whole number of matriculated students ?
The third point is the one that touches Mr. Hutchison. He is concerned for the honour of the intermediate Scottish schools. With the Report of the recent Commission regarding them before us, we fear it must be said that in undertaking their defence his chivalry is rather more notable than his dis- cretion. It should be added, however, that their wretched poverty is the prime cause of their wretched inefficiency. No part of the magnificent conception of John Knox has been so miserably dwarfed and starved as this branch of it. In every -considerable Scottish town there is a seminary dignified by the title of the Grammar School, the High School, or Academy, which is supposed to hold an intermediate place betwixt the elementary -schools and the Universities. In not more than half-a-dozen of them, however, situated in the principal towns, or presided over by some enthusiast with a genius for tuition, have they done efficient work of a scholastic and disciplinary character. How could they, organised as they were ? They were attended
by a crowd of children of both sexes and all ages. Alphabet- grinding and pot-hooks were taught, as well as Horace and Euclid ; and the budding miss of sweet seventeen might pass from the room where she had been copying picturesque and dilapidated cottages, for another where an ex-Communist and an ex-Count took turns in acquainting her with French and German. A crowd of teachers competed against each other, and the radical idea of the school was lost sight of. The late Education Act has largely changed all that. The organisation of the schools has been amended, but they are left sadly pinched for money. Another Baird might achieve a renown surpassing that of the rich ironmaster who gave half-a-million to the Scottish Church, were he to give as much for the improvement of Scottish secondary schools, so as to place them on a satisfactory footing. A little less than that might do it. Meantime, while we can- not acquit Mr. Hutchison of exaggeration in his account of what these schools have done in the past, we think he has the best of it in his dispute with Professor Ramsay as to how their capabilities are to be made the most of. It is indispensable that something should be done to improve the relations now borne by the higher class of schools to the University. But to our thinking, the University authorities have the control of this matter almost completely in their own power. The University was not made for the schools, but the schools should be required to accommodate their policy to the needs of the University. In other words, the attainments prescribed by the University as conditions of entrance the schools must of neces- sity work up to. All experience shows that to insist upon a high .standard as a condition of entrance not only secures, in much more than equal ratio, a high standard of ultimate attainment, but quickens and elevates the whole style of preliminary tuition. Any hardship that might accrue from the occasional exclusion of young men of untrained taleikt and defective acquirements would thus be much more than compensated.
Mr. Ramsay seems to look forward with a curious blending of hope and misgiving to the action of the promised Royal Commission. There is ample scope for such an investigation as is proposed. A great variety of questions beyond those we have noticed press for consideration. Some workable adjust- ment of the governing powers now possessed by the body of graduates known as the "Council," and by the officials who compose the "Court "—two bodies perpetually at loggerheads —is urgently needed. As it is, the privilege of "unlimited ' grumbling" is about the extent of the powers really allotted to the Council ; and unless they are allowed some right of initiative, it is to be feared the whole arrangements will break in fragments or sink into decay.
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