turn out the complete professional man, but they aim at giving him the general principles of his branch of work and the knowledge required for an adequate grasp of these principles. The definitely professional aim of University study is somewhat obscured by the fact that for two very important vocations for which University education prepares—that of transmitting knowledge to others either as schoolmasters or mistresses or as University teachers, and that of advancing knowledge—there can be, so far as the acquisition of knowledge goes, no special course. Each student preparing for these careers will follow the path or paths of knowledge in which he hopes to lead others, or which he hopes to carry on further.
That the University is understood to give professional education more than general cultivation appears clearly when the suitableness of University education for women is being discussed. For the question is constantly raised, and quite reasonably raised, how far any University course is suited to prepare for the domestic callings, for which so many women are destined. To this question I will return later, but let me first guard against a possible misunderstanding. I do not mean to suggest that the Universities have abandoned or are intending to abandon, the ideal of making their students capable and cultivated human beings. On the contrary, I am glad to believe that this ideal is steadily maintained and even pursued with increasing earnestness and ardour in our Universities, notwithstanding the irresistible tendency to the development of professional studies. I hope that they will never cease to aim at producing that intellectual grasp and width of view which Mill regarded as their chief object. But it is more and more recognised that they have to produce if in most cases, not by teaching to any one individual a wide range of subjects, nor by teaching the same subjects to each individual, but by teaching him in the right manner those which, with a view to his future career, it is especially necessary for him to know. The subjects must be largely selected with a view to
