Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

be made. At whatever cost to preconceived notions as to width of culture, or imagined expediency (" we have to compete with other Universities ") the work for a degree must be such that the learner can assimi- late what he hears and reads, can immerse himself in his subject with a sense of unhurried ooncentration. On those twin evils, our present syllabuses and our present examinations, similar attacks could be made. Not that either in any given case is wrong still less should examinations and syllabuses all be swept away. But we must alter our view of them. And here I touch one of the contentions put forward with deadly urbanity by Z." in the Welsh Outlook for July. He maintains that the teacher in our University is not fettered as regards syllabus since (after all discussion over a joint scheme has failed) he can assert himself and submit an entirely different syllabus of his own. This at first sight appears a perfect method of ensuring freedom, and it is perhaps the chief weapon of those who would defend the University from disruption. But observe three difficulties. (i.) Any syllabus must be drawn up beforehand for acceptance by the University. At present the scheme must be submitted at least two years before it begins to operate. And, granting that by a change of regulations this interval might be vastly curtailed, it remains a fact that if the University is to be more than a name, it must give its consent before the course of study begins. That is, our Professor of Latin-I take" Z.'s instance-must fix what John Jones is to read before he ever sets eyes on him. What, then, becomes of our development of John Jones's personality ? Is it the physician or the quack who prescribes without seeing his patient ? The true method is to study John Jones and to give him what he personally needs. Imagine our Professor's first-year Latin class. He knows nothing of them, they nothing of him. He begins with a good steady dose of Caesar (Gallic War, Book I., by the bye, speeches included-no leaping into the middle at Book IV. because last year's class did Book III.). By the time he has reached the end of it he knows the class. According to that knowledge he goes on. He may finish the Gallic War-all eight books- and a thoroughly fine piece of work it would be. His students, long before they reached the final book, would be thoroughly at home in Caesar's style-reading with ease and therefore with intelli- gence, gathering instinctively an interest in the geography, the history, the psychology, of that marvellous but ill-fated work. They would have that rich, that priceless feeling, that here was something they really knew. Meanwhile, the Pro- fessor at a sister College, having skill as a handi- craftsman, may have constructed a relief-model illustrating the passage of the Helvetii into Gaul, and the eternal factor loci natura grows from that imbecile expression the nature of the place into a stimulus to a vivid concern for topography, home- made plans of marches or campaigns, and visits to whatever Roman camps or towns are within prac- ticable distance of the College. A natural outcome of this might be to desert Caesar early and to study in the Agricola of Tacitus the military geography of our own island a company of students imitating the Dutch infantry of Agricola who swam the Menai Straits in the teeth of the enemy would never forget the great soldier or his son-in-law the historian. And for the rest of their year's work-who knows but that in better days a party of young Welsh scholars will trace on foot that march of Hannibal from the Rhone to Trasimene which forms the most glorious episode of Livy ? At a third College, where the students of the same first book of Caesar had been led to Mommsen, a study of the writer's own genius and history might well prevail-lectures on the Roman constitution and perusal of Cicero's letters, reinforced by inscriptions and a look at the political passages scattered through the poems of Vergil, ending with the mighty Vision of Aeneas. Is this natural but varied development not better than a simultaneous stride forward half-way through the session from Caesar to Ovid's Metamorphoses, or even to a single book of Vergil ? But how could it have been planned before the classes met ? (ii.) However proposed syllabuses are allowed to differ, still the University Charter and Z." himself evidently contemplate some syllabus; the Colleges should propose schemes which, though different, yet correspond. But suppose a gifted and original teacher wishes to have no syllabus at all? Mere anarchy 1 you may exclaim. Perhaps but at present we are discussing whether the teacher is fettered or not. Now I observe, in the nick of time, that Z." more or less clearly envisages this and writes It is entirely a matter of personal choice whether the professor considers a six-line syllabus or one of ten pages best calculated for the expression of his personality.' Would the University Senate and Court really accept the six-line syllabus? If we may judge by experience, certainly not, and for a reason which flows from the third objection. (iii.) Granted this freedom of syllabus-making, how can the work of three Colleges be co-ordinated ? That they must be co-ordinated is essential to a University which offer* the same degree to its three bands of students. Given freedom, the teaching