sophically, and practically, up to that point, that I
drew up my little work.

On the general question of Mathematical Studies, I will first give my
leading ideas on what I may call the moral part. I think that a heavy
responsibility rests on the persons who influence most strongly the
course of education in the University, to direct that course in the
way in which it will be most useful to the students--in the two ways,
of disciplining their powers and habits, and of giving them scientific
knowledge of the highest and most accurate order (applying to the
phenomena of nature) such as will be useful to them through life. 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.

The consideration of the education of the reasoning habits suggests
ideas far from favourable to the existing course. I am old enough to
remember the time of mere geometrical processes, and I do not hesitate
to say that for the cultivation of accurate mental discipline they
were far superior to the operations in vogue at the present day. There
is no subject in the world more favourable to logica