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and we wish to place on record a portion of her examination, which Alma, at the same time that she annually parades her sublime problems, is apt to shove out of sight. It is also really surprising, as well as melancholy to observe, how profoundly ignorant the greater part of our countrymen are of even the most notorious facts relating to a system that has exercised, we are informed, an influence upon our national character so powerful, as to have given to the "frame of society in this country" a superiority" over that of all other nations!"

The above portion then of science the University herself considers to be a fair result to the studies of three years and a quarter, almost exclusively devoted to mathematics, and conducted under the superintendence of the able men she retains for the purpose of tuition. We are authorized in assuming this as her standard of proficiency, since within these limits she is content to confine her expectations, in the case of a large majority of her pupils. The papers yearly put forth by her moderators exhibit what she desires should be thought, and what is vulgarly, though erroneously, held to be her standard; but these, in fact, only measure the profundity of the examiner, and that of some dozen (if so many) individuals among her students. By this then, her true standard of proficiency, we are to judge the merits of her system of education; since, on the principle above laid down, those merits were to be estimated by the attainments of the majority. Let every father, then, or guardian, preparing to send his son to Cambridge for the benefit of scientific education, and, therefore, on the lowest calculation of expences, proposing to lay out six or seven hundred pounds, as well as devote the three most valuable years of his son or ward's existence, to the acquisition of the advantages contemplated, remember, that from the great mass of Cambridge students, (we once more particularize the items,) a proficiency in the common rules of arithmetic, the simpler operations of Algebra, and four books of Euclid, is all that is expected or required. Let him also reflect that as this mass is three or four times greater than the total number of those who take honours at all, and nine or ten times greater than those who take honours creditable to them, even in the estimation of the University, that the chance is four to one against any given individual's acquiring even so much as a smattering of science, and nine or ten to one against his making in it any really useful and respectable proficiency.

If he will not listen to our exhortations, we bring down upon him, at once, the ponderous authority of the Quarterly Review, in a passage, where some croaking aristocrat, whose father for all that may have been the son of a weaver, or even a weaver himself, covertly dissuades (and sneers at them in the act) the tradespeople of the metropolis from sending their sons to the London University, as an unprofitable expenditure of time, that might more usefully be occupied. "To be detained several years from entering into an active life in order to struggle for a prize," (applying this to Cambridge, read, and one so beggarly too,')" by means of studies which have no connexion with the calling that awaits them, and where it is manifest that not one in fifty can actually succeed, is rather incongruous with the spirit of sober calculation by which trade prospers, and must cause many an industrious and unambitious parent to hesitate,

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before he barters the solid advantages of gain, for the contingency of empty praise."*

We are partly of opinion with the Quarterly Review, that the“ advantages of a liberal education" are not to be strictly estimated by the degree of proficiency a person may have reached in the studies in which he has been engaged. They may be " exemplified in a thousand ways incapable of exact measurement, in the opinions, the habits, the tastes, the feelings of the individual so trained." Incapable, indeed! He must be a conjurer who could detect a single one of the thousand ways in which a proposition of Euclid got by rote, or a Rule-of-three sum, worked by rule, might be conceived to exemplify itself in a Cambridge man's mode of reasoning and reflecting, As the reviewer had an eye, no doubt, when he wrote this sentence, to each of the two English universities, and as that which surveyed Cambridge would naturally be fixed upon the condition of the mass of students there, we may infer that the degree of proficiency in science, which enters into his idea of a "liberal education," coincides with the degree established in that University. But once morerespice finem-let the result try the system, and we are sure that no man in his right senses could think of submitting his son (unless, indeed the latter had a very, very mathematical head, and were very, very much disposed to exercise it) to the discipline of Cambridge.

The misfortune is, that one or two splendid examples (which have nothing to do with the general merits of the system) of science successfully cultivated, appearing at intervals few and far between, diffuse round the University a glory that deludes both her own people and the world into an opinion, that Cambridge is a grand place of scientific education:† whereas the fact is, thas it is only a place where some very able mathematicians are collected and incorporateda place merely of science-and in reality deserving to be considered as scarcely more a seminary of education, than the Royal Society, or any other body congregated for the advancement of philosophy. The name of Newton has been to Cambridge a tower of strength, and has attracted thither multitudes who might otherwise have had a chance of being tolerably well educated. The tenant of some remote parsonage in Cumberland hears of the fame of Cambridge, and pinches himself and family to send thither his earliest hope. The young student

* Even empty praise is better than the no praise of Cambridge; but behold how this English University man opposes solid gain to empty praise, as if the merit of bond fide, not Cambridge, proficiency, (for, by the premises, he supposes the prize to be an honourable one,) were empty; and that none but an aristocrat could appreciate, and to none but an aristocrat could be useful, the advantages of a philosophical or literary education. Blessed distinction of aristocracy, if in all persons below a certain income, the ornaments of science and learning be empty praise, and in all above, real and substantial gifts!-if, in the one case, the benefits of education are all vested in the medal at the button-hole, and in the other alone are communicated to the intellect! But these are the splenetic effusions of clerical indigestion, after yesterday's dinner.

We ourselves remember to have heard an accomplished gentleman say, that though he had originally destined his son to Oxford, for which he had an old predilection, yet that upon hearing in the House of Lords, a Cambridge man, a person of eminence at the bar, and one of the lights of that university, argue a point much more ably and logically than it was afterwards handled by his opponent, who happened to be an Oxonian, he had changed his son's destination, and proposed to send him to the former place. Upon grounds like these, slight, and merely casual, are the majority of people in the habit of deciding a question of the utmost consequence to their children!

having caught the contagion of the gown and tassel, from some schoolfellow, incipit optare, and, however little he need fear to walk under Bacon's arch, straightway hopes, with all humility, the renown of a Watson, at least.

We might here pause, and leave, without a single word more, the matter entirely to the good sense of the public. No plea, no argumentation can reason away the damning fact, that the system of the university of Cambridge fails altogether in imbuing the majority of her students-the men of fair average parts-with even so much as the faintest tincture of aught that can deserve the name of science; and that this failure has been exemplified year after year, from the earliest recollections of the oldest man now living down to " the pupilage" of this last January, eighteen hundred and twenty-six. But to unfold the subject more completely, we shall condescend to even minute particulars, and endeavour to dissect this great but ill-understood class of Cambridge graduates, vulgarly known at the University by the emphatic term oi root, or the Many.

Of this immense division, it not unfrequently happens that a brokendown senior wrangler, or mathematician, once of very great promise, is found at the head, under the title of" Captain." Among the first twenty or so, are often seen a few individuals also, each of whom once bore to the lecture-room a countenance multa ac præclara minantis, but who, from failure of health, disgust, caprice, sheer indolence, or, as in most cases, the absence of incentives properly applied, has stopped short in his career, and abandoned the pursuit of honours. The remainder will be found to consist of students, who passed through the University quietly and indolently, addicting themselves to pursuits more congenial to their tempers, as fiddling, fishing, botanizing, gossiping, eating, drinking, and sleeping; or who diversified the monotony of a college routine by more active exercises, as hunting, shooting, cricketplaying, &c. and all the pleasures, more or less innocent or profligate, which a young man witli money, leisure, perfect license, and acquaintance innumerable, well knows how to ensure to himself. This latter division, which comprises a large proportion of the wealthier students, may be subdivided into two classes, gay men, as they are called, who drink, &c. like gentlemen; and mere grooms, of no higher elevation of character than the coachmen and dog-dealers, whose company they affect, and whose manners they imitate.

The more respectable, or, more properly, the quieter description of idlers, are generally at the pains to remember enough of what they acquired in their first year's residence at college, or, perhaps, before they left school, to make sure of their degree. That where the maximum of knowledge is fixed so low, as to leave no room for credit to be gained, the student should perform any works of supererogation, will not be expected by any reasonable person. The fact is, the tendency is to reduce this little to even less, and the greatest éclat redounds to him, who contrives to make the least go the furthest. As for those who never were at the trouble to learn the little required of them, or were in haste to forget what they happen to have learned, they pursue their several avocations, regardless of the day, yet far distant, which is to summon them to render an account of their three years' reading. When, however, the revolution of this period restores them, in their. fourth October, for the last time, to the bosom of Alma, the more:

considerate portion begin to look grave, are oftener seen in cap and gown, and occasionally exhibit a Wood's Algebra on their table. A tutor is procured, who crams his pupil with as much as his experience judges will suffice to carry his charge through the perils of examination. Some take this process easily, and are merry. Others with more difficulty, and are lugubrious. Some dashing sons defy danger to the last, and take the examination, as they would charge an ox-fence, blindfold. These of course, the dull and the desperate, crowd thick to the bottom of the list; and some, that have shorn time too closely, or trusted too much to native talent, are found wanting, that is to say, absolutely ignorant of every thing; for so indulgent is the University, that she refuses her certificate of proficiency to none but the absolutely ignorant. The number of these would, we apprehend, be found greatly to exceed what we have assigned above, as the average proportion of rejected men ; but there are stratagems in examinations, as in every thing else; and many a man is bent upon resorting to illegitimate practices, which the examiner, of course, is equally on the look-out to prevent. As the questionists take their seats according to an alphabetical arrangement of their names, a person of this description is always anxious to ascertain the scientific reputation of his right and left-hand neighbour. One man will be heard to congratulate himself npon sitting next to of Caius, or — of Christ's, &c. Another will bemoan his hard fate in being environed by two arrant dunces, who cannot, or two surly fellows, who will not, lend him a helping hand. The art of copying under the examiner's nose, implies, of course, the possession of considerable dexterity. A man must be able to see on either side of him, while his eyes, to all outward appearance, are bent in profound study upon the opposite wall. Then, in copying his neighbour's demonstration, he must know how to vary the phraseology and order of the words, lest a too faithful transcript should betray the collusion. We would impress one caution upon those who adopt this expedient, viz. when they change the letters of the diagram, not like an unhappy gentleman, we once knew, to forget to change, in a corresponding manner, the letters of the demonstration; and fall into the fatal error, which cost him his degree, of supposing it immaterial whether you write ABC or ACB, AB or AC, &c. Accidents of this kind will, no doubt, mar the efforts of the most dexterous; but yet it is frequently the case, that when a man of this stamp happens to excel his neighbour in neatness of penmanship, the copyee is astounded at finding himself in the list of degrees some forty places below his copyer. Here and there a practised eye may discern a trio, or quaternion of persons, among whom it will descry the symptoms of a mutually good understanding, who are throwing into a common stock for common use their several fragments of knowledge. In this case the candidate will best succeed, if he be quick of hearing, and quick at catching a hint; otherwise a prolonged discourse, or loudness of voice, or an undue elongation of the neck towards your neighbour, is apt to bring the examiner upon you, from the other extremity of the table, like a hawk upon the quarry.

From what has been said, the reader will not be likely to form an estimate too high of the proficiency of Cambridge men, even in the very limited course of study with which they are required to evince some acquaintance. He may take our word for it, that beggarly as is

the portion of knowledge expected of them, their performances are yet more contemptible; and that the standard of proficiency among the first twenty is, to our knowledge, far below that of school-boys under twelve or thirteen. In writing out his Euclid, we would recommend the questionist to be careful to time well his buts, his therefores, and wherefores. This caution premised, he will do admirably well, whether he understand his propositions, or but remember them. If he can work an equation to a certain point, and be of an understanding nimble and apprehensive, half a hint from his neighbour at this crisis will carry him triumphantly over the obstacle. Should he, as in nine cases out of ten, boggle altogether, or beg the question, and produce a result, not what he ought, but what he can, let him not be under any apprehension. He has done ill, but hundreds have done worse, and their superlative badness converts his ill into comparatively good. Arithmetic has been the salvation of hundreds, whose brains were impervious to the logic of Euclid, whose ingenuity was defied by the nice turns of an algebraical process, and whose memory, unassisted by the intellect, was incompetent to the retention of either. The rules learned at school, and not yet obliterated, after years of oblivion, are once more recalled to mind. The owner unexpectedly finds in them a treasure-imagines himself fingering the slate and pencilhums over the rule-works his figures-and wins a title, that, besides obtaining for him general respect, sometimes procures him solid advantages in church and state. In a word, there is not a private teacher of mathematics in the kingdom, who cannot, on a public day, produce some score pupils, whose performances shall not excel those of any twenty out of the whole number of persons, who in this examination close their academical studies. Those little urchins will often surprise you by the rapidity and certainty of their calculations, and the clearness with which they will explain, step by step, the reasoning of a geometrical problem. Look at the papers of the Many-villainous scrawls-ill-arranged, and sometimes worse spelled-a pile of figures, whose fabric would disgrace a boy in compound division-a diagram too plainly bespeaking a hand wholly unpractised in the drawing of circles and lines-and a demonstration, running from first to last, without stop, or break, or interval-defying the examiner to tell, whether the understanding did, or did not, (to borrow an ingenious phrase of the Quarterly Review,)" run parallel with the progress of the solution"-such are the productions of even the best disciplined among the Many. Let the reader, starting from something like this standard, run down the long list of degrees, and conceive, if he can, the average quantity of science displayed in the performances of the latter division of this numerous class-the knowledge, for example of an "Apostle!" If he can, we may congratulate him upon having realised that chimera of the old philosophers, an indivisible particle, or atom. We entertain the highest respect possible for the scientific acquirements of a Cambridge Moderator; yet we do conscientiously believe that his merits cannot bear comparison with those of another university officer less known to fame, we mean the Examiner of the Questionists. A mass of papers, which, piled one upon another, might overlook St Mary's, (for be it remarked that the number of a man's papers generally varies inversely as his knowledge,) is given

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