The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-27 00:00:00

DR. TEMPLE ON EDUCATION.

On Friday afternoon the Right Rev. Dr. Temple, Bishop
of Exeter, distributed prizes to successful students in the
last examinations of arts and laws at the University
College, London. In the course of a long address which
he afterwards made, his lordship said :—I desire to con-
gratulate the college upon the evident prosperity which is
attending its work, and upon the value which the
country at large, more and more every day, is attaching
to the work, and in all probability will attach to it.
The college, as a place of education, has been from the
beginning distinguished for the very wide range of its
studies ; and the success of many of its sons has shewn how
judicious it was to widen the range of studies so much as
to encourage young men to endeavour to cultivate, not
only one particular branch of knowledge, but, as far as
possible, to make themselves acquainted—and that
with no shallow knowledge—with a large extent of
all that can elevate the mind, that can train the intel-
lect, that can supply information for future use. This
width and range of studies has always distinguished
this college from the cammencement ; and now, I think,
we must consider it an additional service that this col-
lege has taken the lead in doing something to provide
a similar education for women. (Cheers and hisses by
some of the students.) They, too, have been encouraged
to cultivate their faculties—not only by the cultivation of
graces and accomplishments, but by the cultivation of
their own understanding till they can take a part in all
that interests man. I congratulate the college on its
great success and the work it is doing. You have been
studying what is commonly called " arts," and some of
you have made such progress as to obtain the prizes here
given. And this word arts " has always been used to
signify that sort of study which not only prepares a man
for a particular employment or profession, but which
makes him truly a man, by cultivating all,his faculties
by giving him a command of his whole intellect, by
training and disciplining his mind—in fact, by, as it
were making him what his nature intended him to
be, and so fitting him to go forward ; and, whatever pro-
fession he may choose, enabling him to master it by the
advantage belonging to thorough previous training and
thorougl_ previous discipline. It is well worth our while
to consider for a moment what is the advantage of these
different studies. If I speak of mathematics, it is
a trite thing to say that, by its study, the mind obtains
a sense of the importance of clear definitions, of just
postulates, of impregnable reasonings, such as can-
not be obtained from any other study we can
pursue. And you will see, generally speaking, the effect
of this study upon those who have followed it. The man
who has studied mathematics always endeavours to see
clearly what he is saying. He shews a remarkable de-
sire to keep to the point, and an impatient— sometimes
a downright—dislike to everything that is irrelevant.
But the study of mathematics has deficiencies. While it
teaches the intellect, it never teaches the moral side of the
nature at all, a man who is a mathematician and nothing
more, is cold and narrow in his sympathies. He
has not a wide contact with human nature. He is very
often narrow-minded ' • because all that he knows of other
men is simply derived from his own personal experience,
and that personal experience has not been enriched by the
study of history and of biography. It is certainly true of
the great mass that the exclusive study of mathematics,
must fail as a complete discipline for the human under-
standing. Let me go to another great branch of human
study--that of natural science. Here we find
a newset of the faculties of the human under-
standing called into play. It has been well remarked
that almost invariably the student of natural science
by the mere result of the study is a cultivated
man. It is possible for a man to be a great mathematician
and yet to be uncultivated as a man ; but it is very rarely
indeed that you see such a result in the student of exter-
nal nature. Therefore, this study must rank by the side
of the other, and must hold a place in no way inferior to
it. Yet we may well ask what is the reason that this
study still hangs back; and, why is it, for instance, that
in so many of. our great schools there is difficulty in intro-
ducing these studies and carrying them forward? The
answer we must give is one that might very likely surprise
those who are the masters of this science. It is because
in so very many instances • and to a very
large degree those who are endeavouring to pro-
mote the study of natural science as a part
of education have made the great mistake of omitting
altogether that which is essential to a true study, viz.,
scientific method. I pass to another branch. In reality
the study of literature and classics is philosophically a
branch of the study of nature. When you study a lan-
guage you have to exert the same keen observations, even
to minute details ; you have to exercise the same combina-
tion, and you have to put together laws of various kinds
for the solution of problems of the same character as
those which are presented by the study of natural science.
You will find that in studying, for instance, chemistry,
you have in your hands a certain mixture which you are
to examine. You apply various tests, you apply to it the
various laws of chemistry, and by that application you
succeed, at length, in analysing the mixture into its
component parts, and saying, " Here we have so much
of this substance, so much of another, and another."
Precisely the same thing is done when you set the student
down to a Latin sentence which he has never seen before,
and desire him to make out what it means. The process
of the mind is exactly paralleled in the two cases. Having
been for many years a teacher myself, I may say that
a great help in giving real instruction to the intelli-
gence of his hearers is a sort of of healthy scep-
ticism, always distinguishing between that which is
merely laid down by authority, and that which,is proved
by evidence, and requires evidence before it gives full
assent. In conclusion, his lordship observed : That which
educates a mnn above everything else, as it seems to me,
is the student's contact with minds greater than his own.
That it is which makes it worth while for the sfudent not
only to study in books, but under the eye and face of the
living teacher. It is that which makes such a college as
this of real value.

The Bishop of Sierra Leone (the Right Rev. Dr.
Crowther), accompanied by his son, the Rev. Mr.
Crowther, left Liverpool on Friday in the African Royal
mail steamer Biafra, for his diocese. Amongst the other
passengers by the same steamer were the King and
Prince Charles of Bonny and suite, which consisted of one
" nigger."