uncommonly great, and if a young man may enter as a University student at sixteen, take his Degree of B. A. at nineteen, and obtain his professional Degree at twenty-two or twenty-three, I do not think that he will have any ground of complaint, or that the community would be benefited by his earlier emancipation."

The Original Committee evidently agreed with the sound views expressed by his Lordship excepting in the case of candidates for the Medical degree, but the strong party who at the time tried to admit Candidates for a degree in Laws without having first taken their degree in Arts have at last succeeded in gaining their object. Every candidate for the B. A. degree must now take two examinations-in itself a great improvement on the old plan-the first, necessarily more severe than the Entrance Examination and much less so than the second Examination. And the rule now is that every candidate for the degree of Licentiate of Laws or Licentiate of Civil Engineering-(each of them by the way new degrees unknown to English Universities) need only take the first Examination for the B. A. degree. We look upon this regulation with unmixed regret. Had the old rule remained in force there would have been, in a comparatively short time, a number of men capable of successfully competing for the B. L. degree, but now we venture to predict that many many years will pass away before any number will be found who will care to go beyond the uncouth and very inferior degree of L. L. Better far had the University maintained its original standard and insisted upon the candidates attaining to it, rather than lower itself and injure them by accommodating its standard to the measure of their present attainments. We write strongly upon the subject because in addition to the injury actually done, there is a very obvious tendency to make the acquisition of a degree more and more easy-and there is no slight ground for the fear that the authorities will forget that the great object of the University is to promote a sound, intelligent, and liberal scheme of education, which they most assuredly will not do by admitting those who are confessedly incapable of taking the ordinary B. A. degree to the examinations for the professional degrees and by inventing new degrees for the express purpose of meeting their case.

The results of the Examinations that have been held may be given in very few words. From the published minutes of the Senate we extract the following tables-including in them the results of the last examinations held, the minutes for 1860 not having been yet published.

Result of the B. A. Examination for each year since the commencement of the University.

Do. (Dec.) 705 17.96 69.50 626 27 52 65 178 34.46

47

66.39

37 29 82

35 107 233

8888

23.92

48.15

Result of the B. L. Examination for each year since the commencement

of the University.

Result of the L. M. (First Examination) for each year since the com

mencement of the University.

From which it will be seen that 856 students of an average age of 18.06 years have passed the Entrance Examination. 25 of an average age of 22 have taken the B. A. degree, 61 of the average age of 21 have taken the first Examination for the L. M. S. degree, and 24 have taken the legal portion of the B. L. degree.

Sufficient time has not yet elapsed to enable us to form an accurate judgment of the effect which the establishment of the University will have upon existing scholastic institutions. But the results already apparent are such as to help us in the formation of a judgment approximating at least to accuracy. Dividing the existing schools into the two classes-those capable of carrying on their students to the Examination for the B. A. degree and those not professing to carry them farther than that for the Entrance Examination-or in other words into the greater and smaller schools, the influence exerted upon the latter is one of almost unmixed good. A wholesome healthy stimulus is given which before they were, and could scarcely but have been, without. A definite object and definite course of study is set before the students' minds, which course must be mastered before the object is gained. And those who look forward to the Examination must concentrate their attention upon a not very extended course of reading, it is true, but a course of sufficient scope to warrant the opinion that any one who has gone through it, has had a fair ordinary school education. We have good reason for believing that in these lesser schools, not only has the standard of education been raised, but a degree of attention to the work is given both by teachers and students which it would have been judged impossible to obtain from them a few years ago. And for the present the chief benefit of the University must be looked for in schools of this character. They may send as many students as they like to the Entrance Examination, and we have been surprised on looking through the lists to find how many candidates have gone up and passed from schools established in such out of the way places that their names had never been heard of before. And we would urge it as an additional reason why the Senate should not lower the standard for the Entrance Examination. These schools will in a short time attain to the standard even though it should be restored to what it was at first-nay, even if it were raised beyond it. And since their students will not in nine cases out of ten go on for a degree, but will immediately on passing the Entrance Examination seek for a situation, it will be destructive of the very object for which the University was instituted to make that Examination too easy. In the higher schools the influence of the University has not been unmixed with evil. It has perhaps to some extent produced a greater concentration of purpose, and checked what certainly is a great evil and a vicious habit to which so many young lads are prone, the propensity to careless and desultory readingbut in many instances it has sensibly lowered the standard of

DECEMBER, 1860.

3 B

education. The lads preparing for Matriculation will not throw any interest into the study of subjects that are not necessary for success in it. And if the teacher persists in retaining the subject on his list, the class is languidly attended to until at last he is obliged to give way, or the student has an excuse for fancying that he is labouring under a real grievance inflicted on him by his teacher unnecessarily. This may be only a present disadvantage. In course of time it may cure itself-but the Senate have it in their power to hasten that time considerably by restoring the subjects they have expunged. The study of Greek too has in those European and East Indian schools where it was before pursued, been almost if not quite destroyedthough we are not prepared to say that the Senate have acted unwisely in requiring a tolerably fair knowledge either of, Latin or Greek, rather than a mere smattering of both. But with the exception of the one thing to which we have referred before at length, the tendency to lower the standard of Examination and to render the obtaining literary distinctions a more and more easy matter, the Authorities of the University have done well-they have earned the thanks of all who are labouring for the good of India, and although it must be many years before the full and proper influence of the University is felt, and its institution must now be looked upon more or less as an experiment, the success which has already attended it shows that it has not been established prematurely, and that it is destined with the blessing of God to give a mighty impetus to the promotion of a regular and liberal course of education in India.

We have purposely omitted all reference to the Universities of Madras and Bombay. Our object has been to deal simply with that of Calcutta. We have endeavoured to trace the various steps taken for its establishment--and to put before our readers the results that are already apparent from it. Its progress will be watched with interest, and every well-wisher of the education of the millions of Bengal will pray that wisdom and prudence may be given to its leaders that its future course may be one of continued and increasing success.