I remain, dear Sir,
Yours sincerely,
A. CAYLEY.

CAMBRIDGE,
10th Dec., 1867.

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1867, December 17.

MY DEAR SIR,

Since receiving your letter of 9th I positively have not had time to express the single remark which I proposed to make on it.

You state your idea that the educational element ought not to be the predominating element in the University.  “I do not think that every thing should be subordinated to the educational element.”  I cannot conceal my surprise at this sentiment.  Assuredly the founders of the Colleges intended them for education (so far as they apply to persons in statu pupillari), the statutes of the University and the Colleges are framed for education, and fathers send their sons to the University for education.  If I had not had your words before me, I should have said that it is impossible to doubt this.

It is much to be desired that Professors and others who exercise no control by force should take every method, not only of promoting science in themselves, but also of placing the promoted science before students:  and it is much to be desired that students who have passed the compulsory curriculum should be encouraged to proceed into the novelties which will be most agreeable to them.  But this is a totally different thing from using the Compulsory Force of Examination to drive students in paths traced only by the taste of the examiner.  For them, I conceive the obligation to the nation and the duty to follow the national sense on education (as far as it can be gathered from its best representatives) to be undoubted; and to be, in the intensity of the obligation and duty, most serious.

I am, my dear Sir,
Yours very truly,
G.B.  AIRY.

Professor Cayley.

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1868

“In the South-East Dome, the alteration proposed last year for rendering the building fire-proof had been completely carried out.  The middle room, which was to be appropriated to Chronometers, was being fitted up accordingly.—­From the Report it appears that ’our subterranean telegraph wires were all broken by one blow, from an accident in the Metropolitan Drainage Works on Groom’s Hill, but were speedily repaired.’—­In my office as Chairman of successive Commissions on Standards, I had collected a number of Standards, some of great historical value (as Ramsden’s and Roy’s Standards of Length, Kater’s Scale-beam for weighing great weights, and others), &c.  These have been transferred to the newly-created Standards Department of the Board of Trade.”—­In the Report is given a detailed account of the system of preserving and arranging the manuscripts and correspondence of the Observatory, which was always regarded by Airy as a matter of the first importance.—­From a careful discussion of the results of observation Mr Stone had concluded that the refractions ought to