OWENS COLT EGE ESSAYS.* Oetober, 1873, Owens College, Manchester, took

possession of a pile of new buildings, where henceforth it is to carry on its work. Some twenty-three years ago this institution was started with the modest endowment of less than /4,000 a year, and it now takes rank as one of the great teaching centres of the country, —a leader in the ranks of that practical and scientific system now threatening to be all-prevailing, and which, being founded on a certain intellectual division-of-labour principle, may be held to have its fit seat in Manchester. To commemorate this great mark of prosperous growth in the College, this volume of essays has been collectively published by the teachers of the College. It is designed, says the preface, "to mark our recognition of the liberality with which the public of this city and district have made it possible to begin the work of the extension of our College, and of the single-minded and self-sacrificing exertions of friends -and members of its Governing Body." However homogeneous the teaching of a college may be, if it attempt at all to keep pace with the widening range of modern studies, it must embrace sub- jects wide almost as the Poles asunder in intent, each interesting to a different and more or less limited class of readers, and hence when the teachers of such an institution come together with utter- ances upon their several specialities, as in a work ffire this, there is a

* Essays and Addresses by Professors and Lecturer* of the Owens College, Manchester. Zondon: Macmillan and Co.

want of unity in its apparent purpose, if not a want of breadth general interest. One subject appeals to the sympathies and tastes of one reader, another to another, and yet there is hardly, from the very limited field allowed for treatment, enough interest in any one essay to draw many readers of any one class to the volume. For the friends of the College, the book will doubtless have much value, but it can hardly be expected that the public will turn to it largely. This is a great disadvantage to the essayists, who may have—and in this instance, as a rule, have—much to say that is well worth reading ; and it is also a disadvantage that the ordinary reviewer can do little or nothing to remedy, for he like the public must follow, if not his predilections, at least the dictates of his own knowledge, and while touching a point here and there, pass by the greater portion of the book, however good it may be.

A mere statement of the subjects which compose this volume is enough to justify us in leaving the greater part of it alone, for in addition to three essays dealing more or less with matters relating to astronomy, an essay on the use of steam, and one on science and medicine, we have essays on the Talmud, on historical results of the science of language, on provincial poetry, on the Judicature Act, on railways and the State, and Sc forth. Although unable to revieW the book as a book therefore, we may nevertheless say that we have read most of it with some care, and that so far as a lay mind can judge, most of the essays are valuable. And unity, as far as can be with matters so heterogeneous, is sought to be given to the book in a sense, by taking as far as possible the historical aspect of each subject. The first one of all, by Mr. Greenwood, the principal of the College, "On Some Relations of Culture to Practical Life," seems to us a very wise and necessary plea for that broader general culture, as the basis of all education, which some have thought Owens College itself rather apt to ignore, and which specialists, with their classified competitive examinations and exact ticketting of degrees of intellectual power, by an arbitrary system of marks allotment, partition of -the field of study, and so forth, threaten to destroy. The following observations regarding this Examination mania are worth quoting :—

" Can anything be more deplorable—if it were not deplorable, it would be grotesque—than the change which this system threatens to bring about in the mutual relations of study and examinations ? By the old theory, the business of education was, first, the discipline of the intellect by means of the arts and sciences as instruments; and secondly, the storing of the mind with methodical knowledge gained in the process. Examinations were but the handmaids of teaching, designed to test and measure the results of study and to correct its methods ; and if honours and more substantial rewards were conferred on those who took tho foremost places, this was partly to stimulate the flagging and enable the more promising wits to prolong their season of study, and partly that public or academic offices might be filled by the fittest occupants. Under the new theory, posts are viewed as so much booty—pretiunt victoribus—of which each is entitled to what he can carry off with his bow and his spear. Competitive examinations are the race-coarse or the battle-field, and the years of education but as the obscure and interim drill or training, good not for itself, or its proper results, but for the prizes it will bring. But assuredly trained talent has no jus divinum of its own, apart from the services which it can and therefore a hound to render for the common good."

And he goes on to plead for freer study, for the necessity that exists that our youth should pursue a common road so far on their way as to secure their having all life long some common ground of interest; that the "useless stridies " should not be alto- gether neglected, giving as the heads under -Which the learning that goes for general discipline should range,—(1), letters ; (2), mathematics ; (3), some branch of physical study. In its whole tone, in the quiet rebuke which is administered to the restless physicists who are but too ready to ignore the value of the first, at least, of these three essentials, in the kindly enthusiasm with which the writer cheers the students to their work, this essay strikes a very lofty key-note to the book.

The essays on "Original Research as a Means of Education," on "Solar Physics," on "The Distances of the Sun from the Earth," and on "The Limits of our Knowledge of the Earth," the three last being more or less astronomical, we must perforce pass by, as also that on "The Use of Steam." In their several ways, they are all interesting, but often too abstruse for the general reader. Mr. Osborne Reynolds tries our patience somewhat, too, when he gravely calculates how many millions of men's labour steam saves us. Steam helps us in so many ways besides in the mere quantity of force it gives us, that computations of this kind can only be fantastic. Had Mr. Reynolds undertaken to compute to how many millions of men steam has given increased work, we could have understood it. His history of the steam-engine is,

however, very interesting and readable.

The most remarkable paper in the volume, so far as the aciets- tific half of it is concerned, is Professor lirilliamson's "Primeval Vegetation, in its Relation to the Doctrines of Natural Selection

and Evolution," and we should not be surprised if, it produce some tough arguing in certain quarters. The Professor's position is perhaps best described as a negative one towards these theories. He does not reject evolution ; on the contrary, he admits that within certain lines of progression it has probably played an im- portant part, but he insists that, as yet, there is no trace any- where to be found in the geological records that it was the all-pervading law of organic life. There is change visible, no doubt, but it is not change of one type or genus into another by well-marked or traceable stages. As far as can be at present said, the alterations visible in the primeval Flora during successive ages are confined to distinct orders of plants, which do not, in their origin or decay, shade off into each other, and are as often retrograde as progressive. The field here dealt with is a wide one, and offers a much more complete series of successive genera for investigation than can be gathered of the geological fauna,, while it has hitherto been comparatively neglected in relation to the doctrines in question, on which it surely has an all-important bearing. Facts of the kind advanced by Professor Williamson cannot be overridden by a theory.

We must pass by several interesting and important essays, and amongst the rest an exceedingly lucid résumé of the growth of our English judicial system, and of the changes which last year's Act will introduce into it next May, by Mr. Bryce, which is worthy of a very wide circulation, in order to say a word upon the forcible paper by Mr. Stanley Jevons on "The Rail- ways and the State." As is well known, Mr. Jevons is a strenu- ous resister of the doctrine that the only solution of the Railway problem lies in the purchase of the lines by the State, and in this paper he renews his opposition with some vehemence. He declares it the purpose of his essay to show that the arguments of those who advocate State purchase,— " are unsound, their theories false, and their speculations chimerical. They misinterpret experience, they assume some doubtful facts, and they overlook other unquestionable ones ; they advocate a measure which is, fortunately, so nearly impracticable that there is no appre- ciable chance of it being carried out, but which, if it really were undertaken, would probably land us in great financial loss and much embarrassment."

These are strong words, and coming from so eminent a logician and economist as Mr. Jevons, may not be passed lightly over. But upon what does he base this sweeping condemnation? This is how he states the arguments of his opponent :—

" The Government manages the Post Office with success ; by a great reduction of charges it has created a vast business, and earns a satis- factory revenue ; the Government has purchased and successfully or- ganised the Telegraphs, and is making them pay; therefore the Govern- ment ought to buy the Railways, and we should then have railway-fares reduced a third of their present amounts, trains very regular, and acci- dents few or none."

Now, to begin with, we submit that this is not a fair statement of his opponents' side of the question, and as the whole after-reason- ing in Mr. Jevons's essay is based upon the assumption that this is what all advocates of State purchase of Railways mean, much of that reasoning is necessarily altogether beside the mark. We are not, of course, responsible for the opinions put forth elsewhere, but so far as we are concerned, Mr. Jevons turns into an argument what is used simply as an illustration or example to sustain an argument. The grounds for seeking that the whole of our vast Railway system should come under a central control are far broader than any that the example of the Post Office or Telegraphs affords, although they may be essentially the same as those which make it expedient that these should be in the Government's hands. It is, in fact, not a question of good or bad management at all, in the first instance, but of the right of the community to have control of such monopolies as affect it daily and hourly at every point and in every interest. As a mere matter of profit and loss, possibly both Post Office and Telegraphs might be managed more economically than now by private monopolists, but what has that to do with the necessities and convenience of the public? These monopolists might put more profit than the State can get into their pockets, but if they did so at the cost of a great increase of discomfort or withdrawal of advan- tages to the public, ought that public to stand tamely by? We think not, and extreme worship of vested interests of this sort only hides from the mind the true bearings of the case. Based upon public requirements, and the necessity which these requirements raise that a service so vast as the Railways should be properlyunder public control, so that public wants should not so constantly clash with private interests, the argument for the purchase of the lines by the State wears a very different aspect to what it does when Mr. Jevons has only a travestie of the kind we have quoted to tilt against, and much of his reasoning accordingly falls to the ground. For our parts, we believe that only in direct State control, and the consequent complete amalgamation of the whole system, is there any issue. from the anomalies, the injustice, vexations, and frequent waste through unseemly competition which now harass the public, and too often cause people's lives to be sacrificed. At the same time, we must admit that there is very great force in many of Mr. Jevons's secondary objections, as we may call them, to the realisation of this plan. The doubts he casts upon the possibility of the Government being able to man- age a capital account so large as on any computation that of the Railways would be, reasoning as he does from the waste which has characterised our Admiralty and from the errors of the new Telegraph Department, appear to us altogether overstrained ; but the initial difficulties of all, the finding of so much capital at any reasonable rate of interest, and the purchase of the Railways at anything like a fair price, cannot be overstated. The pur- chase need not be dreamt of, in fact, until we have house- hold suffrage the country over, and consequently some chance that the Railway magnates will not have it all their own way in Parliament, and even then the obstacle to direct, instant purchase may prove insuperable. Speculation would indubitably send all Railway stocks and shares up ; every effort would be made to victimise the Government, by such means, for instance, as strong representations of the future values of the properties, such as have been lately circulating, and in the end, probably in spite of all, the nation would be considerably cheated. But after all, there is a higher consideration than even saving the money, and that is, as we must persist in saying, that the nation should have complete control of its arteries of communica- tion ; and the difficulty of purchase only brings out more clearly the folly which permitted the perpetual alienation from the State. of monopolies so vital ; it does not prove the desire to have them back absurd. In this respect Belgium has certainly set us a good example, which every attempt to settle this difficulty will make us regret the more keenly that we did not follow. There each private railway lapses to the State in ninety years from its construction, and the Government's own lines, the lines leased by it, already furnish a considerable nett revenue. The Belgians also afford us a hint of a way out of the purchase difficulty, which may prevent the necessity of borrowing a thousand millions or so suddenly at three and a quarter per cent. ,—a task Mr. Jevons, rightly enough, sets down as impossible. We may lease the Railways from their proprietors upon terms not of the actual dividends paid at a given date, but computed over a reasonable period, and in con- sideration of a sort of bonus upon the rental so ascertained, stipulate for complete possession at a future date. In short, ways will be found to compass the end, once the people are fully awake to what they want ; and every new instance made. public of obstruction, and of monopolists' unscrupulous use of power, of the kind that Mr. Jevons himself cites as needing remedy, will help so to wake them.

We have devoted some space to this subject, because it is one of great and growing importance, and because we wish to show that the purchase " cry " is not based upon the impracticable conceptions of theoretical dreamers to the extent that this essayist makes out. In spite of his criticisms, too, we mutt maintain that the example of the Post Office is perfectly relevant to the case, and affords good warrant that another department serving the public constantly and all the land over, and against the mis- management of which the public would have instant means of redress through Parliament, and through the Parliamentary head or heads of the department, would equally well meet general requirements in its own field, and do the work required in a more just and efficient manner than it is now done. For of course we do not endorse Sir Rowland Hill's plan that the Government should buy the Railways, and then lease them out in blocks to be Worked. That would be as absurd a proceeding as

it is possible to conceive. The only rational ground for urging the purchase at all is, that the Railways may be worked in such a manner as to be directly under the control of the community, through Parliament, a condition that no Commissioner's Court will, we fear, ever make any distant approach to bringing about. We should have liked to discuss some of the minor issues with which this ingenious essay bristles, but must refrain for want of space. The essay is quite the most practically important, and in some respects the most striking, in the book ; but its fallacies are at least as many and as great as those of the party Mr. Jevons opposes, and it is based on a mistaken statement of their position.

The volume winds up with a paper by Mr. A. W. Ward, on "The Peace of Europe," which, in addition to showing that the old phrase, "balance of power," now grown obsolete, once repre- sented a very real fact, contains some sensible remarks on inter- national arbitration, which we venture to commend to the attention of Mr. Richard and the Peace Society.