THE ENGLISH AND SCOTCH UNIVERSITIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1179, 4 July 1874, Page 6

THE ENGLISH AND SCOTCH UNIVERSITIES.

Dr Playfair,. speaking at a meeting in Dundee recently, urged the importance of ' placing the Edinburgh University in a j position in which it would be able to j teach in a thoroughly practical manner I the sciences, and the professions resting upon them. He dwelt on the great importance of scientific education, and said that any nation which bestowed more science and skill on any one of their manufactures than we did must inevitably beat us in the race, be that a long or a short one. He pointed to the advantages which Germany had derived from bestowing special attention on scientific instruction, and said that in Manchester we now saw the remarkable spectacle of an inland trading town of England in which Germans occupied much of the field of industry. Dr. Playfair said that English critics sometimes told the Scotch that their colleges are little better than high schools, and perform like functions. Ido not (Dr. Playfair said) go so far aa John Stuart Mill when he says that the difference between English and Scotch universities consists in the former taking in intelligent youths and turning them ' out ignorant men, while the latter converts youths of low education into men of high education. Even in this exaggerated form of expression there is a basis of truth, for we do not disdain to receive educational raw material if we can manufacture it into the finished product of a university. Our glory is to preserve our universities as universities for the people. Oxford ia now moving in the right direction, and ia already far before us in its resources for teaching modern science. We do not intend, however, to be long in the rear.

The President of the Republic of Guatemala, Don Rufino Barrios, offered England every reparation for the outrage on the British Vice-ConsuJ.