PROTECTION V. IMPROVED METHODS IN TRADE.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE SPRCTATOR.'l Sue,—To a letter in your last issue urging our need of a national University to train business men you append a note contrasting our educational resources with those of Germany, and concluding : "We do not want to make our Universities purely, or even mainly, utilitarian, but we do not see why they should not provide for the men who are going to work family businesses, and give them opportunities for supplementing the humanities by the acquisition of knowledge which will help them in the conduct of industrial concerns." I confess, Sir, these words make a reader familiar with the present con- dition of the older Universities rub his eyes in amazement. In my own for more than half-a-century large and ever- increasing provision has been made for scientific education. A whole section of the town is covered with vast museums and laboratories. Last year a hundred and forty-six men took honours in natural sciences, and twenty-eight in mechanical sciences. A curriculum of economic and kindred studies has been specially framed for those who are destined for a financial career ; another in the sciences bearing on agriculture for future landowners and estate agents. We have half-a-dozen courses combining science with the humanities as an avenue to a pass degree. Can it be that you have been misled by rumours of our recent controversy about "compulsory Greek" into supposing that classics form a part of all or most of our degree courses ? What some of us were desirous of abolishing was the present requirement of a preliminary smattering of Greek from all and sundry before they begin their University studies at all. Dis aliter visum : the country clergy non-placeted the Grace. Nevertheless, as things remain, perhaps not a half of our undergraduates touch Greek or Latin after leaving school. You speak of "supplementing the humanities." It is only a lively faith in their value, and therefore vitality, that prevents a fear of their entire exclusion. Happily, so far they have only gained fresh vigour from the rivalry and from the example of their sister Arles, the natural sciences.—I am,
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