necessary?" Nothing of course can be more
absurd than to neglect in education those matters which are necessary for
a boy's future calling; but the tone of Locke's remarks evidently implies
more than this, and is condemnatory of any teaching which tends to the
general cultivation of the mind.

Now to turn to his modern disciples. The study of the Classics had been
made the basis of the Oxford education, in the reforms which I have spoken
of, and the Edinburgh Reviewers protested, after the manner of Locke, that
no good could come of a system which was not based upon the principle of
Utility.

"Classical Literature," they said, "is the great object at Oxford. Many
minds, so employed, have produced many works and much fame in that
department; but if all liberal arts and sciences, _useful to human life_,
had been taught there, if _some_ had dedicated themselves to _chemistry_,
_some_ to _mathematics_, _some_ to _experimental philosophy_, and if
_every_ attainment had been honoured in the mixt ratio of its difficulty
and _utility_, the system of such a University would have been much more
valuable, but the splendour of its name something less."

Utility may be made the end of education, in two respects: either as
regards the individual educated, or the community at large. In which light
do these writers regard it? in the latter. So far they differ from Locke,
for they consider the advancement of science as the supreme and real end
of a University. This is brought into view in the sentences which follow.

"When a University has been doing _useless_ things for a long time, it
appears at first degrading to them to be _useful_. A set of Lectures on
Political Economy would be discouraged in Oxford, probably despised,
probably not permitted. To discuss the inclosure of commons, and to dwell
upon imports and exports, to come so near to common life, would seem to be
undignified and contemptible. In the same manner, the Parr or the Bentley
of the day would be scandalized, in a University, to be put on a level
with the discoverer of a neutral salt; and yet, _what other measure is
there of dignity in intellectual labour but usefulness_? And what ought
the term University to mean, but a place where every science is taught
which is liberal, and at the same time useful to mankind? Nothing would so
much tend to bring classical literature within proper bounds as a _steady
and invariable appeal to utility_ in our appreciation of all huma