444 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



calls one of the numerous acts of wise care whose blessed fruits we 

 meet everywhere in this city, in this state. This institution, created 

 when Prussia was still a feeble, small power, has grown with the state 

 in importance and certainty of aim, and is now the nursery of physi- 

 cians for by far the largest part of the Prussian-German army and 

 for the Imperial German fleet. Whether scholar or teacher, each one 

 of us feels how, with this elevated position of the school, his duty in- 

 creases to perfect himself by means of incessant conscientious exercise. 



-*+- 



NATIONAL NECESSITIES AND NATIONAL EDU- 

 CATION* 



By BENJAMIN WARD KICHARDSON, M. D., F. E. S. 



I ASK myself if the system of education at present going on in our 

 nation is a system which has a proper relation to the necessities 

 of the nation. I look round me, to see the nation in chaos of thought 

 and action ; in what Mr. Gladstone has correctly defined as social revo- 

 lution in one part, and mental revolution in all parts ; mental revolu- 

 tion that might, by merest accident, by one or two days' shortness of 

 food, from failure of foreign supply and panic thereupon, pass, after a 

 few years of further chaos, into physical revolution. And the thought 

 which occurs to my mind, as it must to all who think, is, Are we educat- 

 ing to prevent catastrophe ? Are we educating the young to become 

 useful, independent, and capable working members of society, ready 

 to work with muscle as well as brain, in orderly and profitable form, 

 or are we educating them to become mere troublers without design, 

 repiners without hope, schemers without self -endurance, masters of the 

 forces of Nature herself, knowing how to use them for temporary, self- 

 ish, insane objects, but not knowing how to apply them for splendid 

 results and the general good ? 



The national necessities as the bases of national education are, first 

 and foremost, these : that although in the early days of youth the 

 three simple elementary educational practices of learning to read, to 

 write, and to calculate, are necessities for the time, they are compara- 

 tively valueless unless combined with further necessities of a physical 

 kind namely, sound and systematic muscular training ; freedom of 

 breathing, and circulation of the blood ; practical training, so that the 

 body can be structurally built up and sustained in health ; preparation 

 for all duties requiring precision, decision, presence of mind, and en- 

 durance ; and readiness to acquire any craft or handicraft that may 

 bring a useful living ; in a word, an education that shall bring the 



* From a Lecture delivered before the Society of Arts, April 28, 1882. 



