446 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



adjustment and regulation of the educational life and progress of the 

 young in securing that correct perspective and that direct course from 

 haven to haven which, only, can give the highest possible result in 

 training, in education, and, finally, in professional life. The best dis- 

 position of time, the best choice of subjects of study, the best adjust- 

 ment of hours and the most satisfactory appropriation of time to work, 

 to play, to gymnastics, and to practically fruitful exercises of mind 

 and body, can only be determined by wise and experienced advisers. 



Eeferring to industrial and professional training, Dr. Lyman Abbott 

 says: 



Industrial education, in the broad sense of the term, is a function of the 

 state; not because it is the duty of the state to give to every, or to any, man a 

 training in his profession, but because it is the function of the state to prepare 

 man for self-support. One difficulty with our system of education thus far 

 seems to me to be that we have paid too much attention to the higher education 

 and too little to the broader education. We need to broaden it at the base even 

 if we have to trim a little at the top.* 



The importance of the provision of every citizen, of either sex, with 

 systematic and scientific preparation for the duties of life is thus a 

 most essential provision for the future of the State. Even were we 

 not compelled, in providing for the individual, to make provision for 

 systematic education and training in subjects that relate to the useful 

 arts and the duties of every-day life, it would be none the less impera- 

 tive, as being vital in the maintenance of the highest interests of the 

 people as a whole. We can not escape this duty, either individually or 

 as a nation, and it is supremely important that we go about our work 

 in a systematic and intelligent manner. 



Eegarding methods: It is interesting to observe how completely 



educational processes have changed, in the last generation, in every 



department and in every division. The old methods, which reminded 



one of the stuffing of the Strasbourg goose, have largely disappeared 



and, while it must be admitted that work under high pressure is now 



too generally the rule, it may be claimed that a very great gain has 



been effected in finding reasonable ways of teaching, and especially of 



importing into the study of serious, and perhaps intrinsically difficult 



and uninteresting, subjects methods of treatment which render the 



task far more attractive than formerly. 



The system of instruction by didactic methods still exists in places, but 

 only because the machinery for carrying on the work on more rational prin- 

 ciples has not been obtained. Wherever the object is education, the methods of 

 research have been introduced and it is recognized that real scientific knowledge 

 can only be gained by individual experience .'-j- 



This is as true of other subjects than those which, like physics and 



* Lyman Abbott, * The Rights of Man,' p. 161. 



f Sir John Gorst at the Glasgow meeting of British Association, 1901. 



