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Now what cognitions, calculated to aid such a purpose, can we find to teach? Gymnastic, music, the vulgar arts, are all useful to teach, but they do not tend to that which we are here seeking. Arithmetic does so to a certain extent, if properly taught which at present it is not. It furnishes a stimulus to awaken the dormant intellectual and reflective capacity. Among the variety of sensible phenomena, there are some in which the senses yield a clear and satisfactory judgment, leaving no demand in the mind for any thing beyond there are others in which the senses land us in apparent equivocation; puzzle, and contradiction-so that the mind is stung by this apparent perplexity, and instigated to find a solution by some intellectual effort. Thus, if we see or feel the fingers of our hand, they always appear to the sense, fingers: in whatever order or manner they may be looked at, there is no contradiction or discrepancy in the judgment of sense. But if we see or feel them as great or small, thick or thin, hard or soft, &c., they then appear differently according as they are seen or felt in different order or under different circumstances. The same object which now appears great, will at another time appear small: it will seem to the sense hard or soft, light or heavy, according as it is seen under different comparisons and relations. Here then, sense is involved in an apparent contradiction, declaring the same object to be both hard and soft, great and small, light and heavy, &c. The mind, painfully confounded by such a contradiction, is obliged to invoke intellectual reflection to clear it up. Great and small are presented by the sense as inhering in the same object. Are they one thing, or two separate things? Intellectual reflection informs us that they are two enabling us to conceive separately two things, which to our sense appeared confounded together. Intellectual (or abstract) conception is thus developed in our mind, as distinguished from sense, and as a refuge from the confusion and difficulties of sense, which furnish the stimulus whereby it is awakened.

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master sets before his pupils numbers in the concrete, that is, embodied in visible and tangible objects-so many balls or pebbles. Each of these balls he enumerates as One, though they be unequal in magnitude, and whatever be the magnitude of each. If you remark that the balls are unequal-and that each of them is Many as well as One, being divisible into as many parts as you please he will laugh at the objection as irrelevant. He will tell you that the units to which his numeration refers are each Unum per se, indivisible and without parts; and all equal among themselves without the least shade of difference. He will add that such units cannot be exhibited to the senses, but can only be conceived by the intellect; that the balls before you are not such units in reality, but serve to suggest and facilitate the effort of abstract conception. In this manner arithmetical teaching conducts us to numbers in the abstract-to the real, intelligible, indivisible unit the Unum per se.

Geometrical teaching conducts the mind to the same order of contemplation; leading it away from variable particulars to unchangeable universal essence. Some persons extol geometry chiefly on the ground of its usefulness in applications to practice. But this is a mistake: its real value is in conducing to knowledge, and to elevated contemplations of the mind. It does, however, like arithmetic, yield useful results in practice: and both of them are farther valuable as auxiliaries to other studies.

After geometry-the measurement of lines and superficial areas-the proper immediate sequel is Stereometry, the measurement of solids. But this latter is nowhere properly honoured and cultivated; though from its intrinsic excellence, it forces its way partially even against public neglect and discouragement. Most persons omit it, and treat astronomy as if it were the immediate sequel to geometry: which is a mistake, for astronomy relates to solid bodies in a state of rotatory movement, and ought to be preceded by the treatment of solid bodies generally. Assuming stereometry, therefore, as if it existed, we proceed to astronomy.

cannot discriminate in this way the Idea or Form of Good from every thing else, will have no proper cognition of Good itself, but only, at best, opinions respecting the various shadows of Good. Dialectic-the capacity of discriminating real forms and maintaining them in cross-examining dialogue-is thus the coping-stone, completion, or consummation, of all the other sciences.

The preliminary sciences must be imparted to our guardians during the earlier years of life, together with such bodily and mental training as may test their energy and perseverance of character. After the age of twenty, those who have distinguished themselves in the juvenile studies and gymnastics must be placed in a select class of honour above the rest, and must be initiated in a synoptic view of the affinity pervading all the separate cognitions which have been imparted to them. They must also be introduced to the view of real essence and its nature. This is the test of aptitude for dialectics: it is the synoptic view only which constitutes the dialectician.

In these new studies they will continue until thirty years of age: after which a farther selection must be made of those who have most distinguished themselves. The men selected will be enrolled in a class of yet higher honour, and will be tested by dialectic cross-examination: so that we may discover who among them are competent to apprehend true, pure, and real essence, renouncing all visual and sensible perceptions. It is important that such dialectic exercises should be deferred until this advanced age, and not imparted, as they are among us at present to immature youths who abuse the licence of in

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terrogation, find all their homegrown opinions uncertain, and end by losing all positive convictions. Our students will remain under such dialectic tuition for five years, until they are thirtyfive years of age, after which they must be brought again down into the cave, and constrained to acquire practical experience by undertaking military and administrative functions. In such employ ments they will spend fifteen years, during which they will undergo still farther scrutiny, to ascer tain whether they can act up to their previous training, in spite of all provocations and temptations. Those who well sustain all these trials will become, at fifty years of age, the finished elders or chiefs of the republic. They will pass their remaining years partly in philosophical contemplations, partly in application of philo sophy to the regulation of the city. It is these elders whose mental eye will have been s trained as to contemplate the real essence of good, and to copy it as an archetype in all their ordinances and administration. They will be the moderators of the city, but they will perform this function as a matter of duty and necessity-not being at all ambitious of it as a matter of honour.

What has here been said about the male guardians and philosophers must be understood to apply equally to the female. We recognise no difference in this respect between the two sexes. Those females who have gone through the same education, and have shewn themselves capable of enduring the same trials as males, will partici pate, after fifty years of age, in the like philosophical contemplations, and in superintendence of the city.

O

There are two classes of men that now wish to come to the University, but cannot do so. There

* In a letter addressed o the Editor of the Times.

grade of society-men who have learnt to value a University education for its own sake, and who also know how much a University degree would aid them in their legitimate desire to rise in the world. To gain this, many who intend to practise medicine would come to study the science of their profession in the Oxford Museum. Many who intend to become solicitors would gladly avail themselves of the law which shortens the time of preparation for all who have passed the University examinations. If the School Inquiry Commission shall give, as it can hardly fail to give, a great stimulus to education, there will be a great demand for schoolmasters, and they will all be glad

to have a University degree. There is, in fact, no profession which will not supply students to the University, if the University be really opened to them. There cannot be the slightest doubt that Oxford could confer on all these men a boon of inestimable value, while she would find in them a body of very hardworking and, in many cases, very able students.

Again, there is a large class which has the strongest claim on the sympathies of Oxford-the sons of Oxford men who are too poor to do for their children what was done for themselves. It may safely be said that nine out of ten University men would send their sons to the University if they could afford it. They remember too well how much benefit they got, not to wish their children to have the same. This class would not, perhaps, be so able or so ambitious as the other, but it would have the advantage of possessing that refinement which is only to be obtained by passing childhood and boyhood in educated homes. It would, in fact, belong in every respect, except wealth, to the same grade of society as that which sends men to Oxford now.

There is one way of opening the University to all these men, and one way only, and that is to allow them to become undergraduates without belonging to any College or Hall. Demand the needful testimonials to character, ascertain before admitting them that they have reached a proper standard of knowledge, make regulations to insure duc discipline, require proper certificates before each examination to prove that they have resided the legal number of days in each term, and then let them live and study where and how they will.

No other plan holds out any real prospect of making Oxford cheap. In cases such as this there is, you may depend upon it, no economy like freedom. Even the workhouses administered by guardians jealous of the rates cannot keep paupers as cheaply as labourers can keep themselves; and the principle holds good for all ranks alike. A poor student left to himself can choose his own privations, and fit them to his own ability to bear; can choose his own society; can contract his expenditure if he find it too great,-can do all this without exciting unpleasant remark. The same man in a College is compelled to share some expenses which he would be quite willing to dispense with; is to a certain extent drawn into society, whether he likes it or not; always spends more money, and often finds less comfort.

I have no doubt that a very large number of men would get a University education on the open system for £50 a-year, and many for a good deal

less. No other system would make it much less than it is at present, except for a very small number. For the University students would need no College tutors, since they have the Professors. They might cut down their meals, the furniture of their rooms, the expenses of servants, as much as they chose; and, above all, they would be quite unfettered in their management of social expenses. For this plan would get rid of the objection commonly made to the admission of poor students, that they would have no society, and would therefore lose half, if not more than half, the benefits of the education; for they would soon come in sufficient numbers to make society for themselves. In many cases, such "poor" society as this would be as good as any society in the place. Poor men, sons of gentlemen, living in a humble way to complete their education, would certainly not be wanting in refinement; and even men of another kind would find it much easier to get society that would be really useful than if they were admitted to a College on such a footing as formerly the servitors of Christ Church. Poverty left to find its natural place has its discomforts; but poverty forced into invidious neighbourhood with wealth is not only uncomfortable, it is hurtful.

The common objection to an open system is that it would damage discipline and, therefore, morals. This objection would be undeniably fatal if it were well-founded, but I am convinced that it is groundless. The poor men who come to Oxford would be of a kind to raise, not to lower, the moral tone. The great bulk would come with an earnest desire for self-improvement, and even for distinction, and hard work would be sure to keep them out of mischief. Some rich men, no doubt, would prefer the apparent freedom of lodging in the town, and would perhaps be, or, at any rate, try to be, as idle and as noisy as they are at present; but I do not believe that it would be at all more difficult to control them than it is now. On the contrary, I believe that University officers would be less likely than College authorities at present to deal too leniently with disorderly youths of rank or wealth. The fact is that College discipline is exceedingly slight, and much of it merely formal. At all times in our history, the morality of Oxford has but reflected the morality of England, and the discipline of the Colleges never raised the tone of the University above that of the country at large. I believe that if there were no Colleges at all, the discipline would not fall below what it is. There would unquestionably be much loss, but not loss in that direction. Even now the discipline is chiefly in the hands of the proctors; and whatever further control is needed