but especially in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. After spending some years as a tutor in the Southern States of America, he returned to this country, took orders in the Church of England, and sailed for Madras. There he was appointed to an army chaplaincy, and undertook, along with his other duties, the superintendence of the Military Male Orphan Asylum, which was instituted after his arrival in the Presidency. It was while devoting himself with singular earnestness and assiduity to the work of Education in this hospital that he was driven, almost by the necessity of his position, to invent the system of mutual tuition with which his name will be ever associated. After Dr. Bell's return to this country, he devoted himself to the dissemination of his system, being sustained in his unceasing activity not a little by the rivalry of Joseph Lancaster.* Out of the labors of the latter grew the British and Foreign School Society, and out of the labors of the former the National Society in connection with the Church of England.

The principle of mutual instruction of boys by boys was the discovery by which Dr. Bell hoped to regenerate the world. But in truth the invention and application of this method was not his sole merit. He was a genuine teacher, having quick sympathy with the nature of boys, and great readiness of resource in the school-room. Many of our established practices were first introduced by him, and some of his improvements are only now being adopted. My impression is, that, prior to his undertaking the charge of the Madras Orphan Asylum in 1789, it was not usual strictly to classify the pupils of a primary school; and you are doubtless aware that it is only the other day that the leading schools of Scotland began to arrange their pupils in classes according to their progress, and that in some schools of high reputation (incredible as it may seem) classification on this basis has not even yet been attempted! I shall not on this occasion enter further into Dr. Bell's educational reforms, but content myself with saying that at present, and until better informed, I am disposed to regard him as the founder of the Art of Primary Education in this country, as a conscious Art.

Dr. Bell destined his large fortune mainly for the foundation of specific Educational Institutions, the residue to be applied to educational purposes, according to the discretion of his Trustees, enjoining on them always to have due regard to the promotion of his system. The interest of this money was for many years paid away in small grants to various schools throughout the country in connection with the Church of Scot land; but after the passing of the Education (Scotland) Act in 1872, which made universal provision for schools, the Trustees, who at present are the Earl of Leven and Melville, Lord Kirkcaldie, and Mr. John Cook, W. S., resolved to employ a portion of the funds in their keeping for the purpose of instituting Chairs of Education in Edinburgh and St. Andrews, to be called the 'Bell Chairs of the History, Theory, and Practice of Education,' imposing on the occupants the duty of expounding, in the course of their prelections, Bell's principles and system. They thereby

fulfilled in the most effectual way, under existing circumstances, the objects which Dr. Bell had in view in originally constituting the trust. Certainly no one who had read the Life of Dr. Bell will doubt that this resolution of the Trustees would have been in the highest degree pleasing to him. Almost with one voice the teaching profession have hailed the action of the Trustees as a great educational advance. It has been felt that the three gentlemen above named have conferred honor on a department of work which Dr. Bell delighted to honor. They have unquestionably done very much to promote Education in Scotland, not only by raising the work of the schoolmaster in public estimation, but also by attracting public attention to Education as being not merely a question of national machinery for the institution of schools (essential though this undoubtedly is), but a question of principles and methodsin brief, of philosophy.

It is with regret that I find myself constrained by want of time to make here only a passing allusion to the zealous efforts of the late Professor Pillans to do what the Bell Trustees have now accomplished.

Objects of the Chair.-Training Colleges.

A Chair of the Theory, History, and Practice of Education having been instituted, we have now to ask what the objects of such a Chair are. There has been much misunderstanding with regard to these. Some are at a loss to know what there is to say on Education within the walls of a University, and what the principles and history of that subject have to do with the schoolmaster's work. Others who have not to be instructed on these points dread the competition of an Education Chair with the existing Training Colleges. The latter class of objectors is the more important. They are at least aware that the necessity of training teachers in methods and in school organization is not a question to be now for the first time debated. They know that the question has been settled these thirty years by the combined intelligence of the Government of the country and of the Education Committees of the various Churches. The former class of objectors have nothing to urge against the University training of teachers in the philosophy and methods of Education, which they would not have been prepared with equal readiness and confidence to urge against the institution of the existing Training Colleges thirty years ago. Indeed, I am disposed to think that, had the general question of the desirableness of training teachers to their professional work been propounded thirty years ago for discussion on its own merits, it would not yet be settled in the affirmative. The Parliamentary Philistine, the 'Church in danger' men, and above all (strange to say) a considerable proportion of those engaged in the work of teaching, would have been opposed to the introduction of any such novel idea in a practical form. Many as are the evils of centralization, it is to centralization and to the Committee of Privy Council that we owe the full recognition of the efforts which were being made thirty-five or forty years ago in Edinburgh and elsewhere to train teachers, and the consequent growth of the Training

College system. The work was done through the Churches, and accordingly called forth no Church opposition, and as money was freely offered to all who desired training, the rest of the world readily acquiesced. The effect of this action on the part of the Privy Council has been most beneficial. Almost all now recognize that there is an art of teaching and of school keeping, and that teachers should be trained in that art. It is only among that class of teachers and professors who have never come into close contact with the existing system of training that doubts and objections survive. Quietly, and almost unnoticed, a great new Institution has established itself in the United Kingdom, and has overpowered every possible theoretical objection to its existence by the practical benefits it has conferred on the country. It is therefore too late now to discuss the general question. The practical result is before us, and the occupation of teacher has been finally raised into a profession by requiring, as the condition of entering it, a professional discipline.

Notwithstanding many defects-and I suspect that even in our University system there are defects-the Training College system has been a success. The kind of work done in these institutions, and the extent to which they have taken their place as seminaries second only to the Universities themselves, would, if inquired into, astonish the few who have hitherto ignored their existence. I am also satisfied that the improvements which have taken place even in Secondary instruction have been due largely, if not chiefly, to the indirect influence of the Training Colleges, although these exist for the training of Primary teachers alone. Every man connected with Education must be so well informed on this the most important modern movement in educational history that to dwell longer on it would be superfluous. My purpose in referring to it at all is to limit the range of any argument which might naturally be expected from me on this occasion.

Bearing of the Chair on Training Colleges.

For, the necessity of training the future teacher not only in the subjects which he is afterward to teach, but in the art which he is to profess, being once for all a settled matter, I am at liberty to confine my remarks to the narrower question of the training of aspirants to the scholastic profession, who pass through the Universities. These aspirants are either self supporting or partly dependent on small bursaries gained in open competition, and their purpose is to prepare themselves for the higher class of Public Schools (which, in their upper departments, are in truth Secondary Schools), and for purely Secondary or Grammar Schools either in Scotland or other parts of the Empire. As it is at once evident that attending University classes instead of the classes of a Training College has no such great virtue in it as to enable University men to dispense with professional training more than their humbler fellow-teachers, it is superfluous to argue the point. It may be at once assumed that, as the schools for which they are preparing themselves, at least those in

Scotland and the Colonies, comprehend within them at once Primary and Secondary instruction, the need of professional training, in the case of University students, is peculiarly great. Where are they to get this? They might be required to combine attendance at a Training College with attendance at the University for a degree; but this, though it might serve as a provisional arrangement, would not secure the end we seek. And why would this arrangement not secure the end we seek? For the same reason, and for no other, that a specialist Training College does not answer the same purposes as a University. The broader culture, the freer air, the higher aims of the latter, give to it an educational influence which specialist colleges can never exercise.

It is impossible within my present limits to elaborate this view of the question: it is familiar to all educated men. It would appear, however, that the moment we substitute a distinct practical purpose, such as the production of engineers, officers of the army, ministers of the church, as the exclusive aim of education, and arrange the whole machinery of an Institution to attain any one of these ends exclusively, the mental life of the student becomes at once narrowed, and education in the higher sense disappears altogether. We all acknowledge this truth when it is supported by our antipathies, and we are called upon for an opinion on such seminaries as Jesuit Colleges. But the objections to be taken to these specialist seminaries are, from an educational point of view, substantially the same in kind as may be taken to colleges which have other and merely secular aims. It is desirable therefore to maintain the position of the Universities as the trainers of all those aspirants to the teaching profession who are fitted by their previous education to enter on a University curriculum. This is all that is demanded by those who desire a University training for schoolmasters. Is it an unreasonable demand? The preliminary training of all female student-teachers, and of the great majority of the other sex, make, and will continue in perpetuity to make, Training Colleges a necessity; but there are some youths whose greater local advantages or greater native energy of mind is such as to have secured for them a better early training in languages and mathematics, and to have inspired them with a higher ambition than these seminaries can satisfy. Those better trained intellects, those more ambitious natures, ought to have the University open to them.

It may be urged-it is urged by some-that the students of Training Colleges are welcome to the discipline which the University can give in classics, science, and philosophy, but that the Training Colleges themselves should furnish the purely professional instruction. But the answer to this is, that if the Training Colleges are competent to handle the question of Education as a science and art equally well with the Universities, they are also competent to teach classics, science, and philosophy equally well with the Universities. It would be quite easy to add to the staff of these institutions. Latin, I fancy, can be taught quite as well in one street of a town as another. What we want is, that the student-teacher

shall live in the University atmosphere, and enjoy all those subtle intellectual and moral advantages which belong to that serener air. If this be desirable as regards Latin and Mathematics, how much more is it desirable in the case of the Philosophy of Education! Here the student enters into the precincts of Philosophy itself: he has to find the psychological basis and relations of methods of instruction; he has to think about Education, and try to ascertain what Education precisely is, and what kind of public duty it is which he has before him as a teacher. He has to investigate the principles of his art, and to expand his thought by studying its history. Is it not at once apparent that whatever advantage belongs to the study of classics and science in a University belongs preeminently to studies which ally themselves to philosophy and history? Doubtless there are some minds whose education is so defective and whose imagination is so weak that they are unable to conceive in what respect a University curriculum should differ, as it does differ in its very essence, from a similar curriculum in a specialist college in which a practical limitation of aim vitiates, unconsciously it may be, the process of education in the proper sense of that term. To such minds I do not address myself..

Far be it from me to say one word in depreciation of Training Colleges. You will not misapprehend me. I know them too well not to respect them. I have already shown to you their importance as a part of the educational machinery of the country, their necessity as a permanent part of that machinery, and the debt the country owes to them. But they are not Universities-this is all I desire to say-any more than Sandhurst, or Woolwich, or Cooper's Hill is a University. It is true that certain picked students are now sent from the Training Colleges to certain Universities to attend two of the classes there, and thus sniff the Academic air; but this device can never supply the place of a University curriculum and of University life.

Relation of University Curriculum to the Education of Scotland.

When, further, we consider that for two hundred years all the leading teachers of the Parochial Schools of Scotland have been supplied by the Universities, and have carried with them into the most remote parishes some University culture, is it too much to ask that a system which has been so beneficial in the past shall be continued and even more fully developed under the new Statute? At this moment no man can be appointed to a Public School in Scotland-and the term Public School includes all schools, with about a dozen exceptions-who does not possess a Government certificate. A raw lad from the Hebrides is, after nine or ten months' training, and while yet barely able to write an ordinary letter, while wholly ignorant of Latin, acquainted with the merest elements of other subjects, technically qualified for any Public School, while a graduate of the Universities is disqualified until he undergoes a further examination. This seems hardly credible. I have taken opportunities