The New-York Review

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Art. III.?.1. On the Principles of English University Educes tion. By the Rev. William Whewell, M- A., Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge. Second Edition. London; 1838. 2. Die Englischen Universitdten. Von V. A. Huber, Doktor und ordentlichem Professor der abenlandischen Literatur in Marburg....
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Art. III.?.1. On the Principles of English University Educes tion. By the Rev. William Whewell, M- A., Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge. Second Edition. London; 1838. 2. Die Englischen Universitdten. Von V. A. Huber, Doktor und ordentlichem Professor der abenlandischen Literatur in Marburg. Iter Band. Cassel: 1839. 2ter Band. 1840. 3. Die Preussischen Universituten. Erne Sammlung der Ver- ordnungen, welche die Versassung und Verwaltung dieser Anstalten betreffen. Von Johann Friediuch Wilhelm Koch. Erste Band. Berlin, Posen, and Bromberg: 1839. 4. Wissenschaft und Univcrsitat, in ihrer Stellung zu den prak- tischen Interessen der Gegenwart, von Dr. Carl Bieder- Mann, ausserordentl. Prof. d. Phil, an d. Universitat Leipzig. Leipzig: 1839. The present is an adventurous age; it claims the right to doubt the wisdom of the past, and set aside the authority of experience; it is studious of change, eager for new inventions, and delights in the untried. This ruling passion is manifest in every thing, and in nothing more strikingly, than in attempts to reform the systems of education heretofore in practice. It has discovered that there is no necessity for mental labor and mental discipline; that the mind is a mere sponge, and may soak in wisdom, as the thirsty earth soaks in the rain from heaven; that thinking is useless, observation all sufficient. It substitutes blocks for books, turns universities into workshops, and discards all knowledge but that which presents itself in a visible and tangible shape. England and the United States have been the principal laboratories for the experiments of these mental alchemists; for years they have been attempting their transmutations in both countries, and the only result is a manifestly enfeebled condition of the powers ...