ing with Greek in all her university and competitive
examinations. Moreover, it is necessary to set a definite aim of
application before university mathematical teaching. As the first
condition of character-building in all these things, the student should
do what he ostensibly sets out to do. No degree and no position should
be attainable by half accomplishment.

Of course, languages and mathematics do not by any means round off the
education of a man of the leading classes. There is no doubt much
exercise in their attainment, much value in their possession. But the
essence of the higher education is now, as it always has been,
philosophy; not the antiquated pretence of "reading" Plato and
Aristotle, but the thorough and subtle examination of those great
questions of life that most exercise and strengthen the mind. Surely
that is the essential difference of the "educated" and the "common" man.
The former has thought, and thought out thoroughly and clearly, the
relations of his mind to the universe as a whole, and of himself to the
State and life. A mind untrained in swift and adequate criticism is
essentially an uneducated mind, though it has as many languages as a
courier and as much computation as a bookie.

And what is our fundamental purpose in all this reform of our higher
education? It is neither knowledge nor technical skill, but to make our
young men talk less and think more, and to think more swiftly, surely,
and exactly. For that we want less debating society and more philosophy,
fewer prizes for forensic ability and more for strength and vigour of
analysis. The central seat of character is the mind. A man of weak
character thinks vaguely, a man of clear intellectual decisions acts
with precision and is free from vacillation. A country of educated men
acts coherently, smites swiftly, plans ahead; a country of confused
education is a country of essential muddle.

It is as the third factor in education that the handling and experience
of knowledge comes, and of all knowledge that which is most accessible,
most capable of being handled with the greatest variety of educational
benefit, so as to include the criticism of evidence, the massing of
facts, the extraction and testing of generalisations, lies in the two
groups of the biological sciences and the exact sciences. No doubt a
well-planned system of education will permit of much varied
specialisation, will, indeed, specialise those who have special gifts
fro