Oxford reform and Oxford professors : a reply to certain objections urged against the report of the Queen's Commissioners / by Henry Halford Vaughan.

  • Halford, Henry, 1766-1844.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Oxford reform and Oxford professors : a reply to certain objections urged against the report of the Queen's Commissioners / by Henry Halford Vaughan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    mixed classes, implies the acknowledgment that active powers are engaged in receiving knowledge which is imparted. To understand and retain is therefore a discipline of the mind; it is one kind of action and one kind of discipline—one kind of exercise, and there- fore one source of improvement—to the intellectual faculties; and it is not to be undervalued because it is not every source of improvement at the same time. With this point clearly established, let us advance to a comparison of this discipline as imparted by lecture and the hook. The lecture is delivered rapidly, without interruption, and it must therefore he comprehended and retained by one sustained action of the compre- hensive faculties. The hook, on the other hand, is ever near; it may be taken up, and put down, and continued, at will; it may be read carelessly, and then read again, and nothing be thus lost save the time. Now, doubtless the hook has in this respect some ad- vantage over the lecture; the advantage is that of giving information: for although the attention slackens - or the thoughts wander, the effect of all this may he retrieved hy a repeated effort, and the matter of the hook at last, after all this capricious weather of the mind, he safely garnered. The lecture, on the otlier hand, if lost at the moment, is lost for ever; a serious truancy of mind forfeits what has been delivered; and the matter is lost, or can only be supplied by inquiry from others. But if the hook has thus decided advan- tages for conveying information, for the very same reason is the lecture superior as a mental disciphne. The mind must be held in command, the attention vigilantly ])ointed, the comprehensive faculties sus- tained in action, during the whole lecture, without