University to teach men the scholarly knowledge of languages, that it is not its business to teach men their practical mastery," were not this and other passages made to imply that the practical mastery' of his own language should be held of no account in a student's University standing. It has never been found inadvisable in the studies of Latin and Greek to teach the writing of Latin and Greek prose."

In speaking of the dangers of dilettantism and pedantry, I have already endorsed much of the criticism which Professor Freeman directs in his article against the study of Literature. Where we differ is

1 Cont. Review, lii. 553.

2 Cont. Review, lii. 562. "Now I believe that I am right in saying that all the subjects of examination now in use in Oxford, from any survivals that may still abide of the old Litera Humaniores to the last and most 'specialised' thing in natural science, agree in this, that all deal with facts, that in all it is possible to say of two answers to a question that one is right and the other is wrong. As long as this can be done, the subject is a possible one for examination."

in our conclusions. To him the teaching of English literature in Universities seems impossible for three reasons: that it cannot be taught, that it cannot be examined upon, and that it cannot be 'crammed.'

"All things cannot be taught; facts may be taught; but surely the delicacies and elegances of literature cannot be driven. into any man: he must learn to appreciate them for himself." True: they cannot be 'driven into' any one; and if driving things into students is the definition of 'teaching' in our Universities, his conclusion is irrefutable. Had he used the word 'educate,' or 'teach,' the premiss would have been fair, and the conclusion refuted. It is evident that no student can appreciate a criticism of poetry or a principle of literary art by simply repeating it. It is the raison d'être of any great work of art that it is the expression of something that cannot be

1 Cont. Review, lii. 566.

translated, far less, ‘driven into' any man. But the aim of University education is not to foster a state of passive receptivity, nor are its main appeals to mere memory-the supreme mental power of 'dry-as-dusts.'

I

It is a truism that the teacher "cannot hammer into a man so much as an ear for metre and rhythm; still less can he hammer into him the thousand minute gifts, the endless powers of appreciation, which go to make the literary student in any sense worthy of the name." Yet, impossible as it is to give any one an ear for harmony, it is possible to educate an ear for harmony when it exists. The teacher can at least examine and illustrate for the student the principles of harmony, and, by sounding for him chords that are admittedly harmonious, aid and guide the development of his natural gift. In short, education-and I trust to speak for education in history as

Cont. Review, lii. 566.

well as literature-is not a matter either of "driving in" or of "hammering in." It is a much slower and subtler task, and demands more co-operation on the part of the student, more activity of various intellectual powers. It is obvious that the student "must learn to appreciate the delicacies and elegances of literature for himself" as well as more essential qualities which Professor Freeman naturally ignores; but it is not less obvious, if education is more than a name in our Universities, that the teacher must also guide and train him in 'learning to appreciate them for himself.'

It is no argument against education in "literature," that the professor of Literature often fails. His function is that of the critic and instructor, to educate what powers he finds in the student; not that of the Creator, to give him powers. And as a professor of History may occasionally meet with a student whose memory is paralysed, a professor of

Literature may find a student's intelligence and taste so long deadened by mutilation, neglect, or bad example, as to be hopelessly barren for culture.

I am confident that literature can be made in our Universities a subject, not only of Education but of Examination. I maintain that no competent teacher or examiner ever has much difficulty, even in that department of the study which Professor Freeman superciliously contemns, æsthetical criticism, in detecting in essays and in written and oral examination the dictated from the original, the false from the true. An examiner in any subject so examines a student as to test, not only his mnemonical attainments, but his qualities of thought and power in dealing with it.

I

The assertion that in literature' the temptation to examine unfairly is greater than in history or in philosophy is courageously absurd; but it is explained

1 Cont. Review, lii. 563.