Practical Essays - Alexander Bain (free novel reading sites TXT) 📗

I suppose elsewhere, the classes were divided into companies, who met apart, and conferred and debated among themselves daily. The students were occupied, altogether, six hours a day. Then the higher classes were frequently pitched against each other. This was a favourite occupation on Saturdays. The doctrines espoused by the leading students became their nicknames. The pass for Graduation consisted in the _propugning_ or _impugning_ of questions by each candidate in turn. An elaborate Thesis was drawn up by the Regent, giving the heads of his philosophy course; this was accepted by the candidates, signed by them, and printed at their expense. Then on the day of trial, at a long sitting, each candidate stood up and propunged or impunged a portion of the Thesis; all were heard in turn; and on the result the Degree was conferred. A good many of these Theses are preserved in our Library; some of them are very long--a hundred pages of close type; they are our best clue to the teaching of the period. We can see how far Aristotle was qualified by modern views.


REGENTING DOOMED.

I said there might have been times when the students never had the relief of a second face all the four years. The exceptions are of importance. First, as regards Marischal College. Within a few years of the foundation, Dr. Duncan Liddell founded the Mathematical Chair, and thus withdrew from the Regents the subject that most of all needed a specialist; a succession of very able mathematicians sat in this chair. King's College had not the same good fortune. From its foundation it possessed a separate functionary, the Humanist or Grammarian; but he had also, till 1753, to act as Rector of the Grammar School. Edinburgh obtained from an early date a Mathematical chair, occupied by men of celebrity. There was no other innovation till near the end of the 17th century, when Greek was isolated both in Edinburgh and in Marischal College; but the end of Regenting was then near.

The old system, however, had some curious writhings. During the troubled 17th century, University reform could not command persistent attention. But after the 1688-Revolution, opinions were strongly expressed in favour of the Melville system. The obvious argument was urged, that, by division of labour each man would be able to master a special subject, and do it justice in teaching. Yet, it was replied, that, by the continued intercourse, the master knew better the humours, inclinations, and talents of their scholars. To which the answer was--the humours and inclinations of scholars are not so deeply hid but that in a few weeks they appear. Moreover, it was said, the students are more respectful to a Master while he is new to them.

The final division of subjects took place in Edinburgh, in 1708; in Glasgow, in 1727; in St. Andrews, in 1747. In Marischal College, the change was made by a minute of 11th Jan., 1753; but, whether from ignorance, or from want of grace, the Senatus did not record its satisfaction at having, after a lapse of five generations, fulfilled the wishes of the pious founder. In King's College, the old system lasted till 1798.

This closes the second age of the Universities, and introduces the third age, the age of the Professoriate, of Lecturing instead of Text-books, the end of Disputation, and the use of the English Language. It was now, and not till now, that the Scottish Universities stood forth, in several leading departments of knowledge, as the teachers of the world.

[AGE OF THE PROFESSORIATE.]


THE UNIVERSITIES AND THE POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS.

The second age of the Universities was Scotland's most trying time. In a hundred and thirty years, the country had passed through four revolutions and counter-revolutions; every one of which told upon the Universities. The victorious party imposed its test upon the University teacher, and drove out recusants. You must all know something of the purging of the University and the Ministry of Aberdeen by the Covenanting General Assembly of 1640. These deposed Aberdeen doctors may have had too strong leanings to episcopacy in the Church and to absolutism in the State, but they were not Vicars of Bray. The first half of the century was adorned by a band of scholars, who have gained renown by their cultivation of Latin poetry; a little oasis in the desert of Aristotelian Dialectics. It would be needless and ungracious to enquire whether this was the best thing that could have been done for the generation of Bishop Patrick Forbes.

Your reading in the History of Scotland will thus bring you face to face with the great powers that contended for the mastery from 1560: the Monarchy, always striving to be absolute; the Church, whose position made it the advocate of popular freedom; the Universities, fluctuating as regards political liberty, but standing up for intellectual liberty. In the 17th century the Church ruled the Universities; in the 18th, it may be said, that the Universities returned the compliment.

[PROFESSIONAL TEACHING BY APPRENTICESHIP]


UNIVERSITIES NOT ESSENTIAL FOR PROFESSIONS.

Enough for the past. A word or two on the present. What is now the need for a University system, and what must the system be to answer that need? Many things are altered since the 12th century.

First, then, Universities, as I understand them, are not absolutely essential to the teaching of professions. Let me make an extreme supposition. A great naval commander, like Nelson, is sent on board ship, at eleven or twelve; his previous knowledge, or general training, is what you may suppose for that age. It is in the course of actual service, and in no other way, that he acquires his professional fitness for commanding fleets. Is this right or is it wrong? Perhaps it is wrong, but it has gone on so for a long time. Well, why may not a preacher be formed on the same plan? John Wesley was not a greater man in preaching, than Nelson in seamanship. Take, then, a youth of thirteen from the school. Apprentice him to the minister of a parish. Let him make at once preparations for clerical work. Let him store his memory with sermons, let him make abstracts of Divinity systems; master the best exegetical commentators. Then, in a year or two, he would begin to catechise the young, to give addresses in the way of exposition, exhortation, encouragement, and rebuke. Practice would bring facility. Might not, I say; seven years of the actual work, in the susceptible period of life, make a preacher of no mean power, without the Grammar School, without the Arts' Classes, without the Divinity Hall?

What then do we gain by taking such a roundabout approach to our professional work? The answer is twofold.

First, as regards the profession itself. Nearly every skilled occupation, in our time, involves principles and facts that have been investigated, and are taught, outside the profession; to the medical man are given courses of Chemistry, Physiology, and so on. Hence to be completely equipped for your professional work, you must repair to the teachers of those tributary departments of knowledge. The requirement, however, is not absolute; it admits of being evaded. Your professional teachers ought to master these outside subjects, and give you just as much of them as you need, and no more; which would be an obvious economy of your valuable time.

Thus, I apprehend, the strictly professional uses of general knowledge fail to justify the Grammar School and the Arts' curriculum. Something, indeed, may still be said for the higher grades of professional excellence, and for introducing improved methods into the practice of the several crafts; for which wider outside studies lend their aid. This, however, is not enough; inventors are the exception. In fact, the ground must be widened, and include, secondly, _the life beyond the profession_. We are citizens of a self-governed country; members of various smaller societies; heads, or members of families. We have, moreover, to carve out recreation and enjoyment as the alternative and the reward of our professional toil. Now the entire tone and character of this life outside the profession, is profoundly dependent on the compass of our early studies. He that leaves the school for the shop at thirteen, is on one platform. He that spends the years from thirteen to twenty in acquiring general knowledge, is on a totally different platform; he is, in the best sense, an aristocrat. Those that begin work at thirteen, and those that are born not to work at all, are alike his inferiors. He should be able to spread light all around. He it is that may stand forth before the world as the model man.

[THE GRADUATE AS SUCH.]


THE IDEAL GRADUATE.

All this supposes that you realise the position; that you fill up the measure of the opportunities; that you keep in view at once the Professional life, the Citizen life, and the life of Intellectual tastes. The mere professional man, however prosperous, cannot be a power in society, as the Arts' graduate may become. His leisure occupations are all of a lower stamp. He does not participate in the march of knowledge. He must be aware of his incompetence to judge for himself in the greater questions of our destiny; his part is to be a follower, and not a leader.

It is not, then, the name of graduate that will do all this. It is not a scrape pass; it is not decent mediocrity with a languid interest. It is a fair and even attention throughout, supplemented by auxiliaries to the class work. It is such a hold of the leading subjects, such a mastery of the various alphabets, as will make future references intelligible, and a continuation of the study possible.

Our curriculum is one of the completest in the country, or perhaps anywhere. By the happy thought of the Senatus of Marischal College, in 1753, you have a fundamental class (Natural History) not existing in the other colleges. You have a fair representation of the three great lines of science--the Abstract, the Experimental, and the Classifying. When it is a general education that you are thinking of, every scheme of option is imperfect that does not provide for such three-sided cultivation of our reasoning powers. A larger quantity of one will no more serve for the absence of the rest than a double covering of one part of the body, will enable another part to be left bare.


VOLUNTARY EXTENSION OF THE BASIS.

Your time in the Arts' curriculum is not entirely used up by the classes. You can make up for deficiences in the course, when once you have formed your ideal of completeness. For a year, or two after graduating, while still rejoicing in youthful freshness, you can be widening your foundations. The thing then is, to possess a good scheme and to abide by it. Now, making every allowance for the variation of tastes and of circumstances, and looking solely to what is desirable for a citizen and a man, it is impossible to refuse the claims of the department of Historical and Social study. One or two good representative historical periods might be thoroughly mastered in conjunction with the best theoretical compends of Social Philosophy.

[THE WELL-INSTRUCTED MAN.]

Farther, the ideal graduate, who is to guide and not follow opinion, should be well versed in all the bearings of the Spiritual Philosophy of the time. The subject branches out into wide regions, but not wider than you should be capable of following it. This is not a professional study merely; it is the study of a well-instructed man.

Once more. A share of attention should be bestowed early on the higher Literature of the Imagination. As, in after life, poetry and elegant