Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/515

Rh you will find the majority of students engaged in exercises in which they feel no responsibility whatever. In my opinion this indicates that for them the spirit of true university education has never been awakened. It is, after all, very largely a question of attitude of mind. Any subject of study, whether it be a scientific experiment or an historical event, or the significance of a text, is a matter of interpretation, and to approach it in the university spirit is to approach it with the question, "Is this the right interpretation?" Upon that question can be hung a whole philosophy of the subject, and from it can proceed a whole series of investigations: it embodies the true spirit of research and it opens the door to true learning.

In discussing university education I have not, of course, forgotten that many persons have taught themselves up to a university standard entirely without the aid of professors; indeed, the University of London long ago provided an avenue to a university degree which has been successfully followed by many such persons with the best possible results. But I have endeavored to remind you that at the university as at school for most students the personal influence of the teacher is the important thing; that at the university as at school success in teaching depends mainly on the extent to which the interest of the student is aroused; and that at the university this is only to be done by providing him with a purpose and a responsibility in his work in order that he may understand to what conclusions it is leading him. Until this is done we shall still have university students complaining that they do not see the object of what they are learning or understand what it all means. This complaint, which I have often heard from past and present students of different universities, suggested to me that I should on the present occasion deal with this defect in our customary methods.

In the hope that the attention of university teachers may be turned more fully to this aspect of their work I have ventured to make it the subject of my address.