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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    2] the Examination system requires to be regu¬ lated on such a principle, as shall induce and encourage the many to pay some attention to these subjects, instead of leading only the few to pursue them to a high degree; so as to make an acquaint¬ ance with at least the principles of Science be¬ come as essential a part of a liberal education, as a knowledge of the Classics is at present consi¬ dered to be. I speak of the Public Examinations solely with respect to the Mathematical and Physical depart¬ ments, although impressed with the conviction, that similar evils exist in some degree in other departments also: but here it is that I am mainly concerned; and here it is also that the evil exists in the most pernicious form. It appears to me, that no person, not labour¬ ing under the most unhappy prejudices or the most lamentable infatuation, can doubt or deny, that the tendency of the present system is to encourage (what I will admit, if they please, to be an excessive cultivation of) Mathematical Science among a very few, and to discourage it altogether among the many. Circumstances already referred to tend to the alternative of doing the utmost, or nothing; and the Examination system, instead of counteracting, only more powerfully, enforces this mischievous