A somewhat novel and significant experiment is about to be
tried by the University of Cambridge. It has been resolved to institute a special examination in the art and theory of Teach- ing, with a view to encourage the masters and mistresses of higher and secondary schools to study the literature of their profession, and to acquaint themselves with the best methods of instruction and of school management. For the present, the University has evaded the rather difficult problem of establish- ing a permanent Professorship in Education ; but arrangements have been made for three preliminary courses of lectures,—one in the Michaelmas Term, on " The History of Eminent Teachers," by Mr. R. H. Quick ; another in Lent Term, on " The Art and Method of Teaching," by Mr. J. G. Fitch ; and a third in the Easter Term, on " Mental Philosophy in its Relation to Educational Work," by Mr. J. Ward, of Trinity. Further, a Teachers' Training Syndicate is now established, as part of the permanent provision for students at Cambridge, and the " University Intelligence " of the Times of Thursday last con- tains an elaborate programme of professional examination. If it be true that the systematic study of the rules and principles of the schoolmaster's art can, in the region of higher education, yield results at all analogous to those which have been attained in the normal training of elementary teachers, it is by the Uni- versities, which can look at this special work in its broader relations to a liberal education generally, and not by the estab- lishment of separate professional training Colleges, with all their narrowing influence on the character and the aims of the students, that the work is to be done.
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