time to time, large classes of both graduates and undergraduates there come together to listen to some distinguished lecturer on metaphysics, ethics, or political economy.

But here in Cambridge there is, what in Oxford and elsewhere there is not, an opportunity for the undergraduate to make as thorough and systematic and exclusive a study of moral science in all its branches during his course of three or four years as he can of any other subject whatever. We ought to turn out the best men; and perhaps we do. But we turn out too few of any sort.

Objections, however, are often raised against a student's specializing in "Morals" during his entire University career; and we ought to consider what they are, whether they are valid. To many of them no pat rejoinder can be made; we can only say that it depends upon the man and upon his circumstances in a way to be presently explained.

But it will first be necessary to give a brief account of the Moral Science Tripos as at present established.* The examination is divided into two parts, either of which may be taken separately, but both of which ought to be taken by any student who specializes entirely in moral science. An Honours Degree can, however, as in other Triposes, be obtained on the first part only. The first part consists of logic, psychology, and political economy; and it may be taken either at the end of a student's second or third year. Part II. consists of ethics, metaphysics, politics, history of philosophy, advanced logic, psychology, and political economy; but of these the candidate may select two or three only, and he must take the examination in his third or fourth year. The division of the Tripos into these two parts was made in 1890, and one of its objects was to induce students to take moral science as a second Tripos, or, at least, to make it possible for them to do so. For such a course there is a great deal to be said; it is, indeed, the ideal one for many people. But the practical drawbacks to it are want of money and want of time." Two Triposes cannot well be taken in less than four years.

For some time past, moreover, there has been a prejudice in favour of extreme specialization. The reaction against an education which consisted in a smattering of everything, and the desire to mark off the Honours man as sharply as possible from the Poll man, coupled with the great extension of knowledge in all departments, has led to the confining of advanced studies in our University to single channels. It was thought that loss of breadth would be more than compensated by increased depth. But it is not invariably so. Complete specialization at the University may be all very well when there has been a superior general education to begin with, or where there is marked talent in one line only, or where a professor's or lecturer's career is aspired to. But, for the man of good average ability, who simply wants a thorough mental training, and to have his powers generally made the most of, it is often a great mistake to spend his three or four years at the University working exclusively at one subject, and that subject, in all probability, the one to which he has already devoted most of his time at school. Able, quick-witted men, who pick up knowledge all round, may be the better for such concentrated study. But, on ordinary minds, the effect is now and then injurious; the long-continued effort to excel in the one line, involving as it does a grappling with the most difficult parts of the subject, may result in over-strain; so that the capacity for taking in new ideas, the mental alertness, may be lost, while the man's mind is empty of everything except what is called his "shop." Yet, if laurels are all that is wanted, this specializing in some one branch of learning from early boyhood to late manhood is the surest way to win them. The public ear is easiest caught by announcements of first classes and seniorships; but sooner or later it may become alive to the fact that a man with perhaps only second class honours, but in two Triposes, may be the abler person, the better educated, and the fitter generally for his work in the world. As long, however, as this is not recognised, he who has his way to make and who is not exceptionally able, scarcely dare risk losing a first class by dividing his studies. Those who now take a second Tripos are usually men who have already gained a first class in one subject, having devoted the usual three years of study to it; they then stay up for a fourth year, and hurry over the new ground. They *For further details as to the course of study, the books to be read, &c., the inquirer is referred to Part VIII. of the "Student's Guide.”

ordinarily choose, of course, for their second Tripos one for which their first has been in some measure a preparation, and they then may, and sometimes do, obtain a first class in the second also. But only the abler men are equal to this feat nowadays, when each Tripos covers so much more ground than formerly.

Now, supposing that two Triposes ought to be taken oftener than they are, and not exclusively by the very ablest men, and also, supposing that he who does take two can be induced to divide his time pretty equally between them, then there are many grounds for maintaining that the second Tripos should be the Moral Sciences. To these sciences most other studies directly or indirectly lead up. Mathematics and natural science both form excellent bases of approach, while classics on the literary side, history, and theology more or less overlap them. The mathematician or the biologist who goes far enough finds himself, whether he knows it or not, in the domain of moral science. What he generally thinks is that he has made the discovery that philosophy or logic or psychology, as the case may be, is included in his speciality; the fact being that first principles, fundamental truths, ultimate problems of all sorts, are just what constitute the special province of philosophy. De Morgan, Boole, and Clifford in mathematics, Jowett in classics, Huxley in natural science, are all recent instances of men whose thoroughness in their own pursuits has landed them in moral science. Moral science appears to be the goal to which all roads of learning lead; and the ideal Moralist therefore would be he who has been the round of all the other Schools to begin with. But life is short for all ideals, and this among the rest. It is a fact, however, that those who have made the chief contributions to moral science have been proficients in other branches of learning. Mathematicians have perhaps contributed most; but experts in biology are now specially needed in the moral science field; great results might be hoped for from men who, having carefully studied the physical phenomena of life, would turn their attention to the mental. But the student of natural science seems unfortunately to be the last to interest himself in moral science, the last to comprehend it, or to recognise its place in the system of knowledge. He is too newfangled just yet with his own pursuits natural science is plainly the chief birth of the century, and it is still rapidly progressive and full of promise. No wonder that it absorbs its disciples, and that to them the most renowned of philosophers seem to be at best but intellectual heathen, gifted perhaps in their way, but who yet grope in darkness because the sun of natural science has not risen upon them. The more sure and extensive, however, the advance in natural science, the sooner will its confines be discerned, and the readier will be the acknowledgment of the interest and importance of much knowledge that lies outside its sphere.

Now the foregoing argument that the study of moral science follows most profitably upon a certain advance in other studies, and that it is better adapted to mature minds, may seem to imply that it should never be the exclusive work of an undergraduate during his entire University career. But this would be going too much to the other extreme. If it were so, of course the Tripos, as it stands, would be a paradox; no one could possibly prepare adequately for more than a few sections of it in the course of one year or two; and that thoroughness and completeness of the moral science course at Cambridge, on which we justly pride ourselves, would have to be sacrificed. Much of the value of the study, both educational and practical, would go, and we should approach more and more to the unsatisfactory Oxford system. If it is to maintain its position in the University alongside with other studies, we must have some men who specialize in it as completely as others do in classics, or mathematics, or natural science. But who and what precisely these men should be requires careful consideration. Perhaps their number may never be very large, even supposing that many of the present drawbacks be removed. For, in the first place, not many lads of eighteen or thereabouts, coming up to the University straight from school, are likely to take a keen interest in the moral sciences; they will not have got so far in their mental development; their school - work forms no direct introduction to or preparation for them, as it does in regard to classics, mathematics, history, and often nowadays even to natural science. They have no means of determining whether they have a taste or talent for philosophy or not; and they, naturally, following the advice of their schoolmaster, adopt

what seems to be the safe course of continuing the study for which they have hitherto shown most aptitude. But, as regards aptitudes, the schoolboy is not always father of the man; he may have many a faculty which does not develop early, and some precocious ones which never fulfil their promise. Besides, the work which is done best in leading-strings and under school routine may not always be that which will be done best under the totally different conditions of University life and teaching. As some one has remarked, there is between study at school and study at college a difference not only of degree but of kind.

Ordinarily, no doubt, the lad who comes up from school advanced in this or that branch of learning does well in it at the University; but this is no proof that he might not have done something else better and with more satisfaction and benefit to himself. His "getting on," or not, with some study at school frequently depends more upon the teacher than upon the subject itself.

It is no unusual thing to find a successful Honours man going down" full of regret that he had not chosen a different Tripos; and the one he is most apt to hanker after thus late in the day is the Moral Sciences. When he came up he scarcely knew the Tripos by name; but the very work he has been doing on other lines has led him round to it. Whether without this other work and in the beginning it would have been well for him to undertake it, one cannot in all cases say. But there certainly must be, if not a large, at any rate a fair, number of able youths coming up to the University whose general education is sufficient as a basis for moral science, and whose talents and temperament would lead them direct to it and make them successful in it, if only they knew what it was. Such men ought to have it suggested to them, at least as a second Tripos, before they commit themselves entirely to any other.

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Perhaps the only persons who need be altogether debarred from the study of "Morals" are the ill-educated or the unintellectual. Such persons would benefit more by almost any other study we could name. They may not be able to go far in anything, but whatever distance they do go, say in mathematics, classics, natural science, it is all so much to the good; whereas, in moral science, a little knowledge may be worse than no knowledge at all. It is a mistake, perhaps, to call the little in this case knowledge," for the student may spend his time blankly facing problems with which he cannot even begin to deal, floundering about among abstract terms which he cannot mentally interpret; he has either insufficient reasoning power or too little knowledge of data. And to learn such terms and phrases by heart, and to succeed to some extent in manipulating them correctly by dint of memory merely, is no educational gain whatever. The study of the moral sciences is, before all, calculated to develop independence of thought, width of view, and powers of subtle analysis and of close and complicated reasoning. If it does not do this, it does nothing. It must be added, however, that there is little in Part I. of the Tripos which a person of fair education and average ability cannot gain some mastery of, and which will not be of great service to him as mental discipline.

There is yet another person who, for quite different reasons, should be warned off the exclusive study of philosophy, namely, the poor man who wishes to make money. If he is willing to take his chance of a lectureship or professorship, either in England or abroad, well and good. But, if not, as things stand at present, other Triposes are likely to pay him better, especially in the immediate future. They make more éclat, and are the conventional introduction to certain posts and professions.

So much for those who had better not study moral science; now for those who should or who may. To begin with, it is supremely adapted, both practically and educationally, to able men from the public schools who have means, and who look forward to a political career. There is something anomalous at the present day in any one's putting up for Parliament, or even for a County Council, who has absolutely no knowledge either of the theory of politics or of economics, and for whom the philosophical conceptions that both express and mould the national life have no meaning. More than two thousand years ago that seemed plain enough to Plato; Dr. Martineau quotes the following significant passage from the "Republic": "Until, in our States, either philosophers are rulers, or the present nominal rulers become competent philosophers, and political power and philosophy coalesce, and the ordinary

natures that seek the one without the other are forced to stand aside, there is no rest from ills for States, or, indeed, for human kind." Ethics and economics go straight to the roots of all social life. The progress of any State is conditioned, on the one hand, by the satisfaction of material needs, and, on the other, by prevailing moral ideals. No one who compares the questions now discussed in Parliament with even a generation back can fail to be struck with the increasing prominence of economical and sociological considerations. Whatever party is in the ascendant, taxes have to be levied, commercial treaties drawn up, and laws, affecting the country's wealth, have to be brought into accordance with ever-changing conditions. And the problems grow harder as time grows on, while tradition becomes less and less reliable. Moreover, public opinion becomes daily a stronger force, making it all the more important that it shall be intelligently led. The growing influence of the press has diffused a knowledge of facts, without supplying the training necessary to grapple with them; so that we have on every question, moral, economical, political, a great and powerful body of opinion, which is, for the most part, ignorant opinion. We might add that we are all a great deal more meddlesome than of yore; perhaps, because of our developed moral ideas and sympathies. But the best of intentions in this connexion will not save us from the worst of mistakes.

To acknowledge this is to regard the philanthropist equally with the politician as a person to whom a moral science training would be invaluable. Yet we do not mean to say of this training generally, any more than Prof. Nicholson says of political economy in particular, that "it is able to provide an immediate answer to a difficult practical problem," but only that a person having it would “know the kind of facts to look out for, and the way to estimate the relative importance of the facts." In all kinds of philanthropic work, in all matters for social reform, the value of the trained thinker and worker is being more generally recognised. And even in a private capacity, some knowledge or other of matters included in the moral sciences would seem requisite to the making of a good and useful citizen.

Next to politics, one would naturally be inclined to single out law and many branches of the Civil Service as pursuits which the study of moral science would essentially further. But we are almost alone in England in excluding moral science from our law examinations, and in making it optional only for important branches of the Civil Service. In France, Austria, many German States, Belgium, Holland, and Italy, ethics and economics, one or both, are obligatory on all candidates for the legal or administrative service. Happily, the time may come when this will be so here; but, until it does, the most we can hope for is that an increasing number of those preparing for these careers will, for the sake of their after efficiency, make some partial study of the moral sciences before leaving the University. Yet it needs some courage for any young man, with his way to make in the world, to step aside ever so slightly from the prescribed course for his chosen profession. He fears to handicap himself in his competition with others for a place in examination. Nevertheless, the best, and perhaps the only, way to force public recognition of the value of a study is for those with a taste for it to take it boldly up, and demonstrate its practical worth afterwards.

It is easy, however, to mention cases in which the advantage to be derived from the study of “Morals" is more immediate and obvious ; par excellence, there is that of men with a turn for literature or journalism. One half of the articles which now appear in the higher class of magazines, and many newspaper leaders, deal directly or indirectly with what are essentially moral science questions; and strange jargon they sometimes contain when they do not proceed from the pen of an expert. At Cambridge, it is found that in the matter of essay writing the moral science man runs the classical man hard, despite the latter's far greater practice in composition, his superior knowledge of style and of the subtleties of language, and his wider literary culture. What stands the moral science man here in good stead is not only that he has cultivated the power of close reasoning and can conduct an argument systematically to a definite close, that he is accustomed to take wide and tolerant views and is skilled in collecting from many widely diverse sources all that bears upon a question, but also that he has a good deal to write about; he is full of interesting matter; he has ideas to which his training tends to give largeness and freshness on most topics of prime human concern. These are,

at any rate, some of the essentials of good writing. It has often been remarked that the best journalistic posts are obtained by Oxford men; and it is probable that their study of moral science, partial though it be, contributes a good deal to this result.

A profession which one might suppose to have a closer connexion than any other with moral science, but which, for the most part, stands aloof, is that of the Church. Yet we need but name Bishop Berkeley as a metaphysician, Bishop Butler as an ethical philosopher, and, more recently, Dean Mansel and Archbishops Whateley and Thomson as logicians, to show that high clerics have often been able moral scientists. It were well if they were so again, and in greater numbers. Many of the clergy are beginning to see that, if their influence is to be maintained, they must concern themselves somewhat more than hitherto with the questions of the day; they must understand what is engrossing the minds and exercising the souls of the more intelligent of their flock. Perhaps, just now, the main questions are social and economical, and in these the people appear ready enough to accept the leadership of the clergy when they have reason to think it competent. The Bishops of Durham and of Hereford, Cardinal Manning, and others, have been invited to arbitrate in trade disputes; and many a clergyman has confessed that he feels it more incumbent upon him nowadays to read a text-book of political economy than the Lives of the Fathers or a dissertation on the Thirty-nine Articles. The Roman Catholic Church in France, with all its supposed narrowness, here sets us an example; for a large number of those preparing for the priesthood receive a training in economic science at the University of France. The Church would soon occupy a stronger position in England if some knowledge of at least ethics and economics were made indispensable to ordination. As for the abler men, a few of whom now take the Theological Tripos at Cambridge, they surely ought to know something of philosophy or metaphysics; how theology can be thoroughly studied without any reference to the thought of such men as Spinoza or Kant it is difficult to conceive.

Close treading on the heels of the clergyman comes, of course, the schoolmaster to our consideration. Can moral science do anything for him? We quote an answer from an American writer. He says: "It is only possible to make pedagogy a vital force when all teachers, even those of average ability, have acquired a taste for psychological study, and can apply its principles in the complicated conditions of the schoolroom." And wherever the advisability of a special training for teachers is recognised, as it lately has been in America and in Germany, there it is also recognised that psychology should form part of that training; and many would add logic and ethics as well.

But the idea of training teachers at all except for primary and secondary schools is only beginning to make way with us, and it may be long before pedagogy is sufficiently advanced in theory, or is ably enough taught, to make it a very inviting study to highly-educated men, such as those who obtain masterships in the public schools. They are apt to think they can get along well enough without it. They have probably been at fairly good schools themselves, and they can teach as they have been taught, introducing here and there some slight change of manner and method, according as their individual wisdom or experience directs. Now, without entering here upon a discussion of the value of a special training for teachers, we may yet point out that the study of certain branches of moral science, and chief of all of psychology, would go a long way, cæteris paribus, towards making the ideal teacher out of the intelligent man. would supply him with a scientific basis on which to build up a theory of education for himself; it would suggest to him the main lines on which improvements could be made, and help him to understand the causes of any failures he met with or any new difficulties; it would enable him to analyse and classify his teaching experience, so as to derive sound precepts from it for the future. The commonplaces of psychological science, such as the continuity of mental growth, the force of habit, the laws of association, the connexion between will and intellect, the interaction of mind and body, all these are weighty with practical import to the educator.

It

All improvements in methods of teaching are grounded, consciously or not, upon psychological laws, and all problems of mental and moral discipline can only be worked out on the assumption of some sort of psychological basis. This being so,

there is everything to gain and nothing to lose by having a basis that is both scientific and consciously possessed. Even though a teacher's good sense, sound traditions, and intellectual gifts may happen to be such as to supply him already with all the practical skill he needs, yet for his own sake it would be well if he had an insight into the principles of his procedure: this would immensely enhance the interest of his work. It would tend to prevent that inroad of dulness and dreariness which we are told overwhelms the teacher's life after the first ten years or so, when the monotony of teaching the same things over and over again to very similar generations of boys has sapped his enthusiasm. If the schoolroom were something of a psychological laboratory, where the teacher on his own account was making many an interesting observation and experiment, collecting valuable material for the expert, and educating himself meanwhile in one of the most interesting of sciences, his work would be less tedious. To even the most benevolent and patient of teachers it would be a relief to regard a tiresome pupil pro tem. as a curious mental phenomenon rather than as an irritating personality.

But it may be objected that all this relates only to the method of teaching. What about the matter taught? The best form in the world is useless if it be void. And a complaint often raised against the “trained” teacher of to-day is that he is ignorant of his subject-matter. It is obvious that a person should possess some knowledge before inquiring how he may best convey it to another. No one should attempt to train himself for teaching, or study moral science to that end, unless he has first got a mastery of the subjects he will have to teach. In most cases, therefore, moral science should only be taken by the intending schoolmaster as a second Tripos-very rarely as a first and sole.

There still remains another learned profession concerning which we have a word to say. A physician's training is already long and arduous, and it may seem inadvisable to add to its difficulty. Yet modern medical science recognises more and more emphatically the close connexion between mental and bodily states; and it has to deal with a vast number of so-called nervous diseases as well as with a great variety of distinct maladies of the brain in all these there can be no doubt that the power accurately to observe and to interpret the mental symptoms would be of great value. Accordingly, the University of London, starting untrammelled by precedent, has made a certain amount of psychology compulsory for the M.D. degree. It may be just, in this way, to require some knowledge of it from the most advanced medical students, while exempting the ordinary members of the College of Surgeons.

Finally, we come to the business man. Of late years it has been less rare than formerly for Honours men at the Universities to turn to mercantile pursuits. And it is well, both for themselves and the country, that a fair number of them should do so. It will lessen the over-fierce competition in the professions, and relieve them of persons who have no particular taste or talent for them. A business faculty is as distinct a faculty as any other, and in its higher manifestations it is as valuable and as rare. Bagehot speaks of some of the best intellects of the country being at work on the Stock Exchange; if some of the best are not also at work on our manufactures, our trade and commerce, our national prosperity, are at stake. It is of the greatest moment that the captains of industry should be men of high attainments, both mental and moral, and especially that they should be masters of all the social science that bears directly upon their undertakings. The conditions both of home production and of international trade are now far too complicated to be dealt with by mere shrewdness, common sense, and rule of thumb; they offer scope for intellectual work of a very high order, and demand much scientific knowledge. This knowledge may be mainly economic, concerning credit, banking, the currency, foreign exchanges, incidence of taxation, and other like matters presenting problems of the greatest difficulty and quite insoluble by the amateur; but it is also ethical and sociological. For, when we come to practice, economic facts can no longer be treated as purely economic; they are knit in with the rest of human life, and have diverse moral aspects and elements. In so far as, by the study of its scientific bases, business becomes an intellectual occupation and a great art, in so far will it be removed from the sordidness and tedium that intellectual people commonly ascribe to it, while, at the same time, success in it will be more assured. We may be " a nation of shop-keepers"; that

is no disgrace to us if only we keep shop on higher principles, and with greater intelligence, than any one else.

So far, we have considered moral science studies in relation to men only; but women are now a considerable factor in University life, and, though a great deal of what has been said applies equally to them, there are certain modifications of statement to be made. In some ways, moral science is especially adapted to women. To begin with, it is more accessible to them. Their education at high schools and at college is less hampered by tradition and convention and by the necessity of adopting a paying profession. They have great liberty of choice as regards all intellectual pursuits, parents and guardians expecting nothing of them but that they shall cultivate their intelligence in any direction in which they can do it successfully. Even when it is necessary for them to earn their own living, the fact that moral science does not lead directly to the most paying careers scarcely affects them; women are accustomed to earn less than men, and less suffices for them, since they have not a family to support ; while the employments which are most open to them, and to which they incline, are precisely those wnich moral science does specially subserve--such as literary work and journalism, social and philanthropic work. It is commonly supposed that philanthropic work should be unpaid; but there is no more reason for this than in the case of religious work. It will certainly have to be paid, if it is to be done by persons specially trained and furnished with technical knowledge; which is equivalent to saying if it is to be done thoroughly and well.

Mr. Loch, speaking of Charity Organization, writes: "I think it is likely that we shall in future draw our women secretaries more and more from the ranks of graduates who have taken the trouble to study political economy and other branches of work which may be of use to them, and who are prepared to undergo a noviciate in practical administration. . . . Most of our district secretaries are University men; . . . one of our most capable district secretaries is a lady who has been at Cambridge." (This lady, by the way, took a first class in the Moral Sciences Tripos.) The Secretary of the State Charities Aid Association, of New York, urges that philanthropy needs highly-trained, well-educated men, and that there should be professional or steady workers," one of whose principal duties will be to" inspire and direct occasional workers." Women have recently been employed as clerks under the Labour Commission; a few are factory inspectors, and there is need of more. There are paid workers among the Charity Organization Society's secretaries, and among Miss Octavia Hill's rent collectors. As to unpaid philanthropic work, the greater part of this would naturally fall to women if they were fitted to undertake it; they have many of them enough leisure and a mind unabsorbed and unharassed by business cares and professional duties. Statistics were recently collected of the after-careers of women who had studied at Newnham College, and it was found that, out of 667 former students, 374 were engaged in teaching of some sort ; while 64 had miscellaneous occupations, professional or other; and 230 were leading purely domestic lives. No special comment is needed in regard to women who intend to teach, and who apparently form the majority of the students at the women's colleges; what has already been said of schoolmasters applies equally to them. It is the women who marry or who live in their parental homes whose lives are most differentiated from those of men, and who, therefore, ought to be specially considered. Many of these have time to spare for other work than the purely domestic, and would welcome anything which widened their interests and employed their minds. To such women, having a good education and ability, moral science opens up many a worthy and attractive field besides those already noted.

No apparatus is needed for moral science work except a good library and a trained intelligence. And with these there is a great deal to be done, especially in a new and growing science such as psychology. No one can hope for great results, perhaps, who does not devote his entire time to the study; but the "half-timer," if he is content to confine himself to details and to minor questions, may make observations and analyses of mental phenomena which will be of great value afterwards to the expert psychologist; he may collect and prepare material which will serve to clear up many an obscure problem. In logic, too, there is plenty of work to be done within moderate range. Then there are reviews of moral science books to be written, and foreign ones to be translated. Such work has to be done; it

[Jan. 1896.

requires special training, and yet the professor has not time for it. If women will qualify to do it, and do it well, they will earn much gratitude, and probably a little payment to boot.

Nor is it quite out of the question that women in the position we speak of should make some contribution to philosophy proper. A gift for philosophy may be rare in either sex, but women have now and then shown that they possessed it, despite the disadvantages under which, until recently, they have studied. George Eliot began with philosophy, and if she had not been a great novelist she would have been a great philosopher. And many women of literary distinction show in their writings what might be called a philosophic turn of mind. Philosophy certainly has fascination for women, as, indeed, have all the moral sciences. Perhaps this is partly explained by the common theory that women are primarily interested in human nature and affairs- in persons rather than in things. Anyhow, these sciences bear more directly than any other upon matters which concern most women's every-day life the employment of labour, the consumption of wealth, the moral and mental training of the young, the moral and religious attitude of society. And there is surely something to be said for their taking up those studies which form the scientific background of their chief functions. They are more likely to do original work on these lines than on any which are absolutely dissociated from their ordinary activities. In human nature, as in physical nature, the best results are commonly obtained by working with, rather than against, natural forces. And there can be little doubt that women's intellectual work has always suffered from its divorce from their natural occupations. They have endeavoured to carry on two distinct careers at one and the same time. And, although moral science is in itself a purely intellectual and abstract study, it has this distinction, that very many of its deliverances admit of direct practical interpretation in individual and in social life. It thus fits in more nearly with women's ordinary vocations than almost any other study we could mention.

So far we have dwelt mainly upon the practical utility of moral science, its bearing upon certain careers and professions, and its connexion with other departments of learning. It was necessary to insist particularly upon its practical value, because that is what is chiefly ignored. It really is not designed, as seems commonly to be supposed, for the mental diversion of hermits and dreamers and poetasters and eccentric persons generally.

But it remains for us to consider its purely educative value, its worth as mental discipline alone. To explain this adequately, we should have to give a more detailed account of each branch of the study than is here possible. Some knowledge of the subject-matter of a science is needful to enable the mental effects of mastering it to be estimated. All we can do here is to indicate briefly some of the main characteristics of moral science regarded simply as mental training. To begin with, it has this most important educative quality-it is stimulating, Students of moral science are almost always enthusiastic, and put into their work their whole powers. It rouses them to full consciousness of some of the most profound and most permanent of human interests, those which underlie all others, and confer meaning and value upon that which in itself appears trivial and fugitive. Philosophy is essentially a knitting together of things; it is an attempt to elaborate all knowledge and all experience into an organic whole, to reduce the chaos of life and thought to some sort of order and harmony, and remove contradictions and unintelligibility. This is the goal of all reason, the ideal end of knowledge; and, although it may never be attained, any more than infinity, we are bound to journey towards it, and every fresh step the intellect takes has its delights. Such problems as the bases of morality, the nature of the highest good, the nature of mind and its relation to the world, and the history of its development; the meaning of truth and the tests of it, the relation of the real to the ideal, the interpretation of beauty, the connexion of the emotional side of human nature with the active and intellectual-all these are ever recurring; and in some form or other most intelligent people are led to ponder them, though it may be vaguely and half consciously. Most people have more philosophical and metaphysical notions than they are aware of, and some of those who disclaim philosophy do so on genuinely philosophic grounds. Philosophy of some sort men must have to fill their mental emptiness, but they are content with the crudest; they are "fain to fill

their belly with the husks that the swine do eat," while at the University of Cambridge there is, as we strenuously maintain, prepared for them the "fatted calf."

Taken as a whole, the study of moral science is essentially a training in close, subtle, and complicated reasoning; it tends to develop mental muscle, and to enlarge as well as to strengthen the grasp. The great variety and complexity of the matter dealt with provide that the reason shall be exercised generally, and not become expert merely in some special province, or with some one method. The range is wide, from symbolic logic to the conditions governing the foreign exchanges or the genesis of the moral sentiments. And within it the powers of delicate analysis, of subtle observation, of abstraction and generalization, of imagination, of pointed criticism, of close argument, are called constantly into play. The habit of looking at a question from many sides, of collecting from far and near all facts which will bear upon it, of entering carefully into the workings of other minds all this militates against narrowness, intolerance, and dogmatism, while, at the same time, it tends to beget force and independence of thought. Philosophy both widens the actual horizon and points to a limitless "beyond": in so doing it strengthens reason and does not curtail faith.

Comparing with other studies, we may safely say that logic, especially if carried far into its symbolic developments, gives a training in clear and exact thinking comparable only to that afforded by mathematics, while psychology may vie with natural science in the cultivation it gives to observation and to the power of fruitfully combining inductive with deductive reasoning; also, in the field it opens for original research. M. W.

I

E. C. J. M. P. M.

"THE GROWTH OF THE BRAIN."*

Tis reasonable that the art of education should expect help from the science of physiology. The functions of the brain underlie the mental processes which education is occupied in developing. The connexion between mind and brain is a matter of separate and independent interest; the chief fact is that the two are coterminous so far as concerns their practical relations. The education of the mind, on its physical side, is the development of certain functions of the brain. Since the latter is within the province of physiology, it is natural to expect to receive, from this, information that will furnish important guidance in the work of education.

But those who have sought for such help have been disappointed. It may be doubted whether any text-book of physiology, however elaborate, contains a single statement that tells the teacher anything regarding his work which he did not know before. Those who have thus looked in vain will welcome, with revived hope, the book which bears the title given below, just added to the "Contemporary Scientific Series." The author is Henry Herbert Donaldson, the Professor of Neurology at the University of Chicago. An account of "The Growth of the Brain a Study of the Nervous System in relation to Education," must surely present the knowledge which the teacher needs.

Alas, even this hope is doomed, we fear, to disappointment. The only definite information on the question which will probably be gained from the book is the reason why the searcher seeks in vain. Were it not for this, the title of the book would be unkind. The explanation lies in the fact that the growth of the brain is over before "education" can begin. It is not usual to include under the term "education" the influences to which the child is subjected during the first year of life, and when that year is ended the structural development of the brain is complete. Indeed, even at birth the weight of the brain is one quarter of that which it ultimately attains, while the corresponding proportion, in the case of the whole body, is less than onetwentieth. At the end of a year the body has attained one-sixth of its development, as estimated by weight, but the weight of

"A Study of the Nervous System in relation to Education." By Henry Herbert Donaldson, Professor of Neurology in the University of Chicago.

the brain is two-thirds of its ultimate weight. At four years of age, which is the earliest age at which "education" can be considered to begin, the body has still three-quarters of its growth before it, but the brain only one-tenth. This is not all. At the end of the first year, although the brain has still some increase in weight to achieve, its structural development is complete, so far as the utmost methods of microscopical research can reveal. At birth the cells and fibres are, to some extent, imperfectly developed, but the first year of life completes them, and brings them to a condition absolutely indistinguishable from that of adult life. It is impossible to perceive in what structures the increase afterwards occurs which adds a little to the whole

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weight of the organ. It is a molecular increase, far too minute ever to be seen in detail. These facts explain sufficiently why it is impossible that the study of the growth of the brain should aid education. We shall see how far beyond our scrutiny are the constituent parts of the nerve centres, if we consider the following facts:-A drop of blood, the size of a pin's head (a cubic millimetre), contains, floating in its serum, five million 'corpuscles." Each of these is a fairly large object under the microscope, and yet probably contains as many atoms, arranged in molecular groups, as there are corpuscles in the tiny drop. So with nerve structures. The changes of atomic and molecu-, lar arrangement which underlie the development of function, after the coarser structural perfection is attained, are inconceivably minute. Yet on them all depends. The changes that underlie "education" are changes in molecular nutrition, compared with which the most minute alteration that the microscope can detect is simply colossal.

In spite of the impossibility of the task which is suggested by the title of this book, the volume is one of interest and value. In it are collected almost all known facts and statements regarding the growth, structure, and functions of the brain, obtained from every available source, illustrated by an extensive collection of figures, also gathered from a wide range, and completed with forty-seven tables of such facts as can be presented in the form of serial figures. The list of tables, indeed, makes it difficult to refrain from repeating a joke, always thin, and long since worn threadbare, regarding their "service."

The facts thus brought together are not of a character to permit an epitome to be presented in a review. Most of them have very definite intrinsic interest. Many of them, however, have nothing more. For instance, one table gives the specific gravity of the various parts of the brain. This set of facts was ascertained thirty years ago, but since its first publication it has not found the slightest application, even in medical pathology, and has ceased to be remembered. Indeed the information the book contains far transcends that which any medical student could need.

The connecting cord on which the facts are strung shows that the author has a thorough grasp of his subject. It may not be useless to state that a Professor of Neurology at an American University is a physician who has chosen nervous diseases as a speciality, and has been selected to lecture upon them. Specialism has been carried far enough in this country, but most things are carried farther beyond the Atlantic. It is now the fashion in the United States for every small medical school (and their number is not small) to have its "Professor of Neurology." But Chicago is a large city, of great momentum, or at least weight, and the authorities have secured in Dr. Donaldson a man of acute and active intellect who knows his subject. More, it is difficult to say. A critic feels that the use of words may not be the same on the two sides of the Atlantic, and that it may be unjust to think that the words, of which a writer should be the master, have mastered him. Yet this impression, conveyed by one sentence in the preface, is renewed so persistently throughout the book that it may be well to quote the sentence: "We are rather allied to the rock-bound dead by an inherited power to respond than separated from them by a recent capacity for nerve exhaustion." To whom can the words "rock-bound dead" refer? Romanes long ago demonstrated that the power of response unites us with the interesting creatures called "jelly-fish," but we do not find these in the rocks.

The great object of the book being the physiology that underlies education, it is worth while also to quote another remarkable sentence from the preface. Among the "more neglected points," the author enumerates "a few. The growth of the nervous system compared with that of the body; the interpretation of