THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE IN OUR 

 SCHOOLS— THEIR COMPLETE RE- 

 ORGANISATION A NECESSITY 1 



" The main thing which we ought to teach our youth is to see something — all that the 

 eyes which God has given them are capable of seeing. The sum of what we do teach them 

 is to say something. As far as I have experience of instruction, no man ever dreams of 

 teaching a boy to get to the root of a matter ; to think it out ; to get quit of passion and 

 desire in the process of thinking ; or to fear no face of man in plainly asserting the 

 ascertained result." — Ruskin in Modern Painters. 



1 assume that it is my privilege and office to-day to repre- 

 sent you ; therefore I propose, for once, to break through 

 that modesty which became you well in the past but which 

 you cannot, in fairness to the public, allow to stand always 

 in the way of your preferment. 



Am I not voicing your conviction when I say that the 

 future of our schools must depend on the position accorded 

 in them to science — the acknowledged office of science being 

 the elucidation of truth ; that the men most competent to take 

 charge of the schools will be the science masters — it being 

 their business to study method and to be practical, therefore 

 to solve problems and lead ? 



If shyness forbid you to recognise the picture, at least 1 

 should like to forewarn you of the greatness of your future 

 responsibilities, so that you may prepare yourselves to bear 

 the heavy burden which will be cast upon you. 



Believe me, I am serious. I would ask } r ou what the 

 literary man is and does that he now should be held com- 

 petent to undertake work which is essentially experimental 

 and practical in its character, for which he has had no fit pre- 

 paration, if indeed he be not unsuited to it by nature ? It is 

 clear that he owes his position not to special qualifications 

 but to inheritance ; he is as much out of place as is the stage- 

 coach driver in these days of railways, electric cars, automo- 

 biles and aeroplanes. I venture to assert that ere long the 

 literary man in charge of a school will be an anachronism ; 



1 Presidential Address to the Association of Public School Science Masters 

 delivered at Westminster School, January 13, 1910. 



417 27 



