The Right Hon. W. E. Forster was installed yesterday week
as Lord Rector of Aberdeen University, and delivered an address on the relation of University studies to political success, in which, while denying that book:culture was the only, or even the most weighty, element in political intellect, he acknowledged its im- portance, and devoted the greater part of his address to show- ing how it might be so turned to account as to constitute a real element of political power. He insisted much on the command of foreign languages, as helping us to know how political questions, of which we sometimes take too insular a view, are regarded abroad. He dwelt also on the neces- sity of attaining a great power of lucid expression, if the people, who are the source of power, are to be leavened with the best political intellect ; and he recommended French political writing as, for this purpose, the best model of a lucid political style. Among English political writers he mentioned Bolingbroke and Cobden as the greatest masters of the style which best com- mands attention. (But would not Cobbett and Cobden have been nearer the mark? Had Bolingbroke the weight of style which is the true key to his country's attention ?) And then kr. Forster dwelt on the utility to the politician of some know- ledge of Roman law, on the value of mathematical habits of thought, on the necessity of some knowledge of theology for the purpose of interpreting the true meaning of many of the most difficult political problems of the age, on the great lessons which the inductive sciences teach to the politician, and on the absolute necessity for historical knowledge. In fact, Mr. Forster proved too much. His address seemed to indicate that so much was necessary to the political education of young men, that they could never learn at college a tenth part of it. The great need of the higher education at the present day, is to enforce strictly on young men that they must leave very much unlearnt in order to learn anything,—and more especially the very habit of. learning, —well.
