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Is a recent visit to Oxford , we were greatly struck by the enormous capabilities and their enormous waste which that " centre of learning" presents If anything in this country imperatively demands organic reform it is this University . Wandering through its , 'beautiful colleges , reflecting on its wealth , its prestige , . 'its libraries , and its opportunities , Oxford appeared to us wholly to have lost its raison d'etre—its funotion in the social organism . It is no more the centre of learning than a fossil is the representative of a living animal . It produces gentlemen , excellent fellows , a few scholars , and some distinguished men ; but it produces the last named in spite of , not in virtue of , its system . Its system is one which , admirably adapted to
the age which originated it , is in complete discordance with this age . When Greek and Latin , the Organon and Euclid , formed the culture of Europe , when the educated class was almost exclusively an ecclesiastical class , then , indeed , Oxford had its \ raison d ' etre ; . and if only ecclesiastical students were received there now , some reasons might be urged for the continuance of its system . But to suppose that such a training is the one best fitted for youth in the nineteenth century is profoundly to misunderstand the needs of our age . Incessant prayers , grinding of Thucydides alternating with grinding of the Gospels , " getting up " a Greek play , or construing Tacitus—what has all this to do with our Life ? The boasted benefits of " intellectual
training" which are claimed for the classic languages would be far more efficiently secured by Science . But Science is not dead ; if it were Oxford would teach it . We are told , indeed , that from Thucydides and Livy , from Pjcato and Tacitus , we gain our best moral and political instruction ; a proposition which must be received with considerable qualification , but which , even if admitted to the fullest , in noway legitimates the enormous devotion of time
to the acquirement of such instruction . Our readers know the position we assume in this question of the study of ancient languages ; how indispensable we hold that study as a , special study for a certain class of men ; and how impossible we hold it to be for translations ever to adequately reproduce the aesthetic qualities of ancient works . But with regard to the practical instruction supposed to be derived from ancient writers , who will deny that translations are even more available than originals which have to be " construed ? " Observe this curious contradiction : those who deem classical
literature of such immense importance because of its bearings on life , and will not hear of its being studied in translations , do , nevertheless , content themselves with a translation of the Bible , and never insist on the necessity for its being studied in Hebrew ! What Latin and Greek were for the Middle Ages , Science is for our Mother Age . In days when such as Lady Jane Grey turned over the pages of Boethius or Pxato , as our educated women turn over those of
Fenejlon or Goethe—when Latin and Greek were accomplishments such as French and German are now , Oxford was a centre of learning . It is now a centre of superstition . It travels in the lumbering old coach , while the railway car is flashing past . [ And as a piquant illustration , let us add that even now it refuses to have its libraries li ghted with gas !] Clinging to the dead past , less from reverence than from fear of the present , it pretends to mould the young generations by training them as they would * havc been trained centuries ajrone !
Beside these evils , which we indicate in passing , thcro arc , however , hopeful signs . Men there are in Oxford who deeply feel how much is to bo done , and how little the present system is competent to do it ; men who love Oxford , and would retain what is powerful for good , while eliminating the obstacles . Science also has no Temple , indeed , yet some small Chapels . Oxford is proud of her Buck . lani > , her Dmjbknky , her Maskklisyne , her Phillips , her Acxand , few as are the students who listen to them : the few will become the many if Oxford continues .
It is something to say that in eight years Dr . Aci . and has been able to form that small , yet , for its size , ricli and admirably arranged Museum of Christ Church , wherein the student may learn comparative anatomy ; and although very few students as yet Jkivo availed themselves of these riches ,-nevertheless a beginning has been made , and those who have listened to J ) r . Acr-AND have learned the grandeur and importance of Anatomy as a science to be studied npart from professional necessities , an Astronomy and Chemistry arc studied apart from Navigation and Manufactures .
The reader may smile , and whisper " Nothing like leather ; " but we are quite serious in saying that our visit to this Museum , and the conversation with its accomplished curator , suggested more hope for Oxford than anything else we saw there ; not because Biology , being the science of our predilection , appears to us all-important , but because it is ji great science , and is taught here on scientific principles , as nn instrument of Education , not merely us a professional requirement . By nn easy transition we pass from this Museum of Comparative Anatomy to an illustration recently afforded of the direct application of Comparison as . a means of elucidating problems in human physiology . We are going
to borrow from the last number of the Annales des Sciences Naturelles a ver curious verification of an hypothesis respecting the formation of fat | but before doing so , it may be well to state what was the state of opinion on this subject . . ¦ . ¦¦; It was maintained by one school that all the fats found in animals are derived from vegetables ; the vegetables form them from inorganic matter the animals * assimilate them when thus formed , but are quite unable to do what the vegetables do , form them in their own bodies . Another school maintained that animals did both : they assimilated the fats found
in vegetables , and formed them also directly in their bodies by new combinations of the materials furnished in their food . According to the one school , you must feed an animal on fatty matters ; according to the other he will make the fat fon himself if you give him food , even though the food contain no fat . In Lehmann's " . . Physiological Chemistry" ( vol . i . y p . 239 , of the last German edition ) , the curious reader will find ample details , which prove the second hypothesis to be the more probable . Lehmaijn adds , however , that the experiments have only been statistical . They turn upon comparisons of the quantity in the food and in the animal . In the investi gations announced by the Annales des Sciences we see the problem simplified , and the demonstration placed beyond a doubt .
MM . Lacaze and Riche examined the little Hymenopterous insects named Cynipidce . These insects pierce the skin of certain vegetables and deposit their eggs in the cavity ; this produces an excrescence called the gall . This gall is found to be a series of concentric layers enveloping the alimentary mass , in the centre of which the insect grows , feeding on this mass of cells containing fecula ( starch ) . It occurred to the gentlemen just named , that here was an experiment , so to speak , of Nature ' s own instituting . They analysed the alimentary mass on which the insect fed , and compared it with the analysis of the insect . We cannot here give the details : one will suffice . They found in the gall of one plant that the alimentary mass contained 0 * 236 milligrammes of fatty matter ; whereas the insect contained 5 * 010 milligrammes , an excess of more than 4 milligrammes , which it must have formed from the fecula .
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NOBLE ON INSANITY . Elements of Psychological Medicine . An Introduction to the practical study of Insanity By Daniel Noble . Price Is . Gd . Churchill . , ( Second Article . ) Insanity is one of the most interesting subjects , as well as one of the most urgent importance , which can engage the philosophic mind ; it is , however , also one of the most delicate and difficult . Before we can hope to-arrive at any satisfactory knowledge of it , we must first settle our Psychology and
Physiology , neither of which are at present in a condition to furnish us with absolute data . While therefore we wish to recommend Dr . Noble ' s work as a suggestive and serviceable contribution to the science , we must at the same time warn the student that it is only a tentative essay , ^ and that its teachings must be received with caution , and in some cases with direct negation ; this less from any fault in the author than from the condition of our knowledge . But the author is in fault too , as we conceive ; and we must lay before him and our readers the reasons which make us question certain of these " elements"
passages . , First of Psychology . Dr . Noble belongs to a school so entirely opposed to the one wo follow , that a mere indication of two fundamental positions must suffice . While maintaining with all Physiologists that the Brain is the organ of the Mind , he ranges with those Psychologists who maintain that the Mind is an immaterial Entity—a spirit superadded to the Brain . And , like them , talking as if Spirit were a thing with which we are perfectly acquainted , lays down this proposition : — - ¦ ¦ i "If there bo one characteristic which , more than another , may bo said to diatingmai spirit from mutterit is its absolute unity . "
, We do not profess to characterise " spirit , " nor do we understand the process by which its nature is rendered intelligible . Dr . Noble , however , hints that those who do not recognise his distinction want fresh air an exercise to restore them to mental health . On the next page we are tow , " In one word , it is the immaterial spirit which wills . " As this is not tnj time for a discussion of immaterialism , we indicate these two positions a pass on . " Non rngioniam di lor Ma guurda o pnssa . "
Next of Physiology . On the whole the student will find a very clear account of what is known of the nervous system in its bearings on ln , ^' ^ but we deem it right to caution him against one or two passages . -i ° able the reader to follow the argument we commence by a quotation : " You are awurc tlmt , whilst the structural appearances and ' constitution or Aj ^ j , ' of nn < l nervous system have a cortain general similarity , there is yet an obvious " . j * L w jiicli the-tissues into two distinct . kinds—tho grey and the white matter ; a division -y ^^ applies alike to tho enccphalon , tho spinal cord , and tho nerves . The dj flerenco ^^ nervous aub&tances is-not an nflair of colour only : it ' refers also to their inUmnto ^ ^ and organisation ; tho white matter is made up of bundles of tubular fibres , wniis coj | cC . is composed of aggregated cells , and ia often denominated tho vesicular nou f . J " jocaUHO tlio t ions of this vesicular substance , tho term ganglion is very generally a I * P , ' orvc 8 and knots of nervous mattor which wore formerly supposed to givo origin t < i tno l _ OHition . which aro distributed so largely throughout the body , are vesicular in fc '' " ' wor j giin-And thus tho identity in structural constitution haa led to employment ot tlio tial i . i * ¦ a iti t i i » iri-i 4 '** tvi * imrat > ( Ul vn term
_ >„ . . . ...-. a . gnon as a common , aitliough the ganghouio or splicroiuai n > rm « n »»• " —;• flU [) Htiiiico . as- wan at one time supposod , to tho constitution of what in novr called gangliomc ^^ ^ Physiological and pathological metirchos have rendered it more than J > r ° DU . | ( 1 the vesicular and tho fibrous substances have , universally , Depurate and distinct o nI 1 ( i tho animal economy : tho ganglionio structured being tho sourco of functional cftanJ . ' ft > r iiH > r . iibrous matter being simply for the conduction of impressions originating in oinirioiit This thoory , in tho promulgation of which Mr . Solly shares probably in tho ni degree , i » now received very generally us scientific truth . . 8 ic »'' " In tho anatomical structures within tho head , various collections of g ^ v *
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Gntics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . ... 'They-do . ' n 6 t make laws—they . interpret and try to enforce them .-Edinburgh Review .
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- ¦ 1240 ¦' . - ' " THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 24, 1853, page 1240, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2018/page/16/
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