The present state and future prospects of mathematical and physical studies in the University of Oxford / [Baden Powell].

  • Baden Powell
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The present state and future prospects of mathematical and physical studies in the University of Oxford / [Baden Powell]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    henceforth be considered as a further source of evidence: but as far as a year’s trial has ena¬ bled us to speak, the small proportion of the Candidates who take up this department at all, and the use generally made of the additional privilege so liberally allowed, are sufficient proofs of the low ebb to which these studies are reduced, among the majority even of those who are led to enter upon them. In fact, no one at all acquainted with the state of the University can need much detail of evidence to convince him of the truth of these general statements: that if a considerable proportion of the Undergraduates go through a part of the Elements of Euclid, it is chiefly by compulsion, without an idea beyond the letter of the text, and this often learned by rote : if a smaller proportion advance a little beyond this, having no adequate stimulus to counterbalance their diffi¬ culties, they soon abandon the pursuit: and if a few persevere to the higher parts, they do so only to that precise amount, which is to secure them from falling into the second or lower Classes ; or finally with a view to the Mathematical Scholarships. The majority then approach these subjects with awe, do only just so much and in such a way as fulfils a compulsory requisition, and, as
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