Itttrrs to tit itrittr.
UNIVERSITY CAPA BILITIES.
Cambridge, 2d January 1851. Srn—I may perhaps best explain a slight-misconstruction of my meaning which appears in your article of the 28th December on this subject, and which was probably owing to the partial and limited character of my state- ment, by saying that I agree in the main with your exposition of the ad- vantages of lectures. Your arguments, if I understand them rightly, do net prove that a system of lecturing, as a means of general instruotion, can be advantageously substituted for a system of private or individual tuition. Of course I am considering the case of the young, and of those whose time is supposed to be principally devoted to mental cultivation. I believe, how- ever, that an opinion favourable to the indolent occupation of merely liken- ing to oral discourse is too prevalent, and ought to be rigorously combated. The practical issue to which I wish the question to be brought is not be- tween leotures,and books, but between lectures and tuition. I need scarcely guard myself against being thought to object to tuition in small &sae; which seems to me the best mode ofearrying it out. Allow me to add, that I feel the importame of developing the professorial system fully as much as I do that Of organizingthe-tutonal ; and that I con-
slider the llniversity system as it is offers peculiar advantages to both enter-
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