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have been habituated to direct a strong , clear , analytical attention to the phenomena even of a single experiment ; so as to fix the succession of its details strongly , clearly , consecutively in the mind . Few will have been accustomed to follow a train of reasoning expressed in the language of science ; for , even supposing them to have the corresponding ideas in their minds , they are
not in the habit of rapidly attaching those ideas to the language . If there may be more haste than good speed in reading , there may also be too rapid a progress in experimenting ; and , in a word * the common rate of experimenting , which is followed without difficulty in this place , may leave a country audience behind , lingering , longing , but at last despairing . Yet , I must acknowledge , that this impossibility of rapid pro gression in physical discipline in the generality of audiences in
small country towns , considering the small knowledge of natural philosophy to be found amongst many of those who have received the most expensive educations , is by no means a thing to be deprecated . It is a strange instance of , I know not what to call it , in the persons who are facetiously called heads of houses
in one of our universities , that they not only have not encouraged , but that they have actually prevented the professors of the physical sciences teaching a knowledge of God ' s works as they are seen through the wide extent of physical philosophy . But their obstruction of the physical sciences * is of a piece with
* The following extracts from Professor Powell's * Present State and Future Prospects of Mathematical and Physical Studies in the University of Oxford / will prove even more than 1 have asserted : — ' Under these absurd and discouraging restrictions , it was yet considered by the examiners as well to try what could be done in encouraging the candidates , who might know something of these subjects , to bring it to bear ; and , accordingly , a
paper of very elementary general physical questions , tog-ether with some questions on algebra , &c . &c ., was appended to those on Euclid . This plan afforded the result , ( at least in the two first examinations under this system , ) that out of the whole nnmber of candidates , though a certain portion had « ' got up" the four books of Kuclul , not more than two or three could add vulgar fractions , or tell the cause of day and night , or the principle of a pump . '—Page 40 .
And what remedy is adopted by heads of houses , the bishops of the university , for this gross defect in their system of education , when professors and examiner * , after pointing it out , intimate their willingness to do their part ; namely , to take all the labour of amending it upon themselves , if only the heads of houses will stand by them , and sanction their endeavours ? Let the answer be given in the words of Professor Powell : —
' The last representation of the Examiners was discussed by the heads of houses , who , on the 30 th of January , 1832 , came to the resolution , that the Examination Statute having been so recently enacted , it is not at present expedient to propose ia convocation any alteration in its details . As soon , ' continues Professor Powell , this resolution of the heads of houses was communicated to me ( then one of tie examiners ) 1 lost no time in . sending in my resignation , conveyed in a letter to tie
vice-chancellor , which I requested might be laid before the heads of houses , containing tin explicit statement of my convictions as to the absolute necessity of those changes in the system which had all along been contended for by the mathematical examiners , and which I have advocated in the foregoing pages . '—Page 42 . As it is the bishops in the Church who uphold fanaticism of feeling and bigotry ef opinion , to it it th « head * of houses who obstruct the sound science which
Untitled Article
874 The Diffusion of Knowledge amongst the Peopled
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1834, page 274, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2632/page/42/
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