Item 183 - William Whewell to Richard Jones

4 pp.

Trinity College - RJ's examination papers appear to WW excellent: 'I see many reasons for thinking that your system of examinations by the lecturers themselves has several advantages over ours. It is also I think in some degree the Oxford system. I am still scheming and speculating for the improvement of our system here'. WW has written to the editors of the Encyclopaedia Britannica offering to edit James Mackintosh's 'History of Moral Philosophy in a separate and convenient form for our men, to write a preface, or analysis or some other kind of appendage to recommend it to our students as the best text book on the subject'. He also wants to write a pamphlet about mathematics as part of a liberal education, 'which will all be founded on the principles of the true philosophy without my telling people more of them than is requisite to be told for the purpose. I want you to come and talk about this for I daresay we shall disagree hugely'. WW reflects upon the current political state: 'One cannot but feel that the present state of the country breaks up all those circles of early friendship which at a former period one hoped would apply a great deal of the quiet pleasures of maturer age'.