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20 feels himself competent to teach have been wisely defined in the University Calendar by Syllabus instead of by text-book ; wisely we may, because we believe the optional and alternative arrangement of these subjects now adopted, leaves him the only teacher who is likely to undertake experimental Physics or Geology, and the adoption of a Syllabus emancipates him from the thraldom of rudimentary treatises, while it does not affect the Professorial staff of the other affiliated Colleges. Zoology with Animal Physiology is still a destitute wanderer, and is likely to remain so until, in the fulness of time, a University Professorship may be established ; while Optics, the subject allied with Conic Sections geometrically treated, under the queer cognomen of ‘Mathematics, pure and mixed,’ is also defined by a Syllabus, but one which being adapted to the capabilities of the minor Colleges, does not include much that is necessarily experimental, and does not therefore necessarily fulfil that which we, following Dr. Whewell, regard as an essential, a practical teaching in the phenomena of things, as opposed to an analysis or synthesis of the words which represent them, the camel itself in its native desert, and not its imago developed from the moral consciousness.

Moved by the destitution of the Colleges in all matters of Natural Science, Mr. Oldham, in 1862, suggested a substitute for the vacant chair of Geology at the Presidency College, by making the Geological Survey the centre or nucleus of a School of Applied Science. It was proposed to transfer this Professorship to the University, and then to divide its emoluments among different gentlemen of the Survey who should be recommended by Mr. Oldham for Professorships in the different branches of Physical Science, they being afforded sufficient leisure to discharge the duties thereof. Thus, it was thought, no additional expense would be entailed on Government, while the Professorship would be placed on a wider and more useful basis.

There was doubtless much apparent advantage in this scheme. The two years’ vacancy of the single existing Professorship in Physical Science seemed to render it probable that its re-occupation by a qualified Professor, was distant if not hopeless ; while it is unquestionable that, among the gentlemen engaged on the Geological Survey, there are some fully qualified to teach both Geology, and several of the Sciences with which it is closely allied, and on which indeed it rests. The bait of cheapness too, of getting two pounds of labour at the cost of one, was tempting, for much as we may ridicule women for their love of bargains, we have found in our own experience, that corporate bodies of the ruder sex, even the paternal wisdom of Government itself, is not at all times proof against the allurements of a low price, in defiance of