Natural Science Degrees at Oxford

Abstract

MANY of our readers have no doubt noticed the scheme which some soi-disant “friends of science” in authority at Oxford hare brought forward professedly in the interests of science. One of the prime movers in the new scheme for the creation of B.N.S. and M.N.S. degrees is Canon Liddon, who insists that for the degree of Arts Greek shall be indispensable, but for the inferior degrees in science maybe dispensed with. Since the meeting of congregation at which the scheme was discussed, there has been much correspondence in the Times on the subject, the letters of most importance being those of Canon Liddon and Prof. Odling. The former in his correspondence professes to have the interests of natural science purely at heart in the creation of the new degree, which, he maintains, would give facilities to a much wider class to obtain the stamp of the University than if Greek were insisted on, as he maintains must be the case with the degree of the university. The opposition of Prof. Odling and those who think with him, is not to the creation of a degree in natural science, but to any course that would degrade it in public estimation. He urges on the university the desirability of framing such statutes in reference to any such degree, as shall assure it a high place in general estimation, and shall more especially obtain for it the approval and sympathy of the cultivators of natural science. He considers it important to this end that the possession of a degree in natural science shall imply on the part of the student, first, general cultivation, and second, special knowledge in some branch of science. But according: to the proposed innovation, if such general cultivation is based on classical studies, the student cannot get the new degree, but must take the Arts degree, which quoad natural science must be held to be an inferior degree. But he shows that by the proposed statute the science graduate need know little of natural science, as he may take his degree in the School of Mathematics; thus he shows a degree in natural science might be confined to those who had never got beyond its rudiments; why, then, he asks, does not Canon Liddon propose a new degree in mathematics, and thus “assign one set of students a new decoration which will honourably represent their real attainments.” Prof. Odling shows that many of those who in the debate insisted on Greek being necessary to a degree in Arts, admitted it was not necessary to a liberal education; and thus, a degree in Arts must be held as something different from a certificate of liberal education.