I do
not think that the mere personal taste of a teacher is sufficient
justification for a special course, unless it has been adopted under a
consideration of that responsibility. Now I can say for myself that I
have, for some years, inspected the examination papers, and have
considered the bearing of the course which they imply upon the
education of the student, and am firmly convinced that as regards men
below the very few first--say below the ten first--there is a
prodigious loss of time without any permanent good whatever. For the
great majority of men, such subjects as abstract Analytical Geometry
perish at once. With men like Adams and Stokes they remain, and are
advantageous; but probably there is not a single man (beside them) of
their respective years who remembers a bit, or who if he remembers
them has the leisure and other opportunities of applying them.
I believe on the other hand that a careful selection of physical
subjects would enable the University to communicate to its students a
vast amount of information; of accurate kind and requiring the most
logical treatment; but so bearing upon the natural phenomena which are
constantly before us that it would be felt by every student to possess
a real value, that (from that circumstance) it would dwell in his
mind, and that it would enable him to correct a great amount of flimsy
education in the country, and, so far, to raise the national
character.
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