THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE IN OUR SCHOOLS 423 



destruction rather than the development of originality. Together 

 with the good it does, it provides so much that may be dispensed 

 with, if it be not directly harmful, that it is to be shunned in all 

 cases in which the development of special ability is in question. 



" Latin has long ceased to be the gate of culture ; indeed it is 

 become the greatest obstacle in the way of culture. 



"Those who have plunged the intermediate school into its 

 present deplorable condition are certainly not those who can 

 rescue it therefrom. 



" How is help to be obtained ? Only by every one who is 

 aware (of the condition of affairs) raising his voice without regard 

 to the odium he may incur. For the future of our people is at 

 stake." 



This has been the cry of a small party of realists among 

 us for years past. Year after year, however, our Headmasters 

 demonstrate their impotence in public — but no one heeds the 

 writing on the wall. When the Royal Society formally addresses 

 the Universities, nothing is done. 



Even in Russia a protest has been raised against the classical 

 system. Thus Prof. Tilden, in the recent lecture he de- 

 livered to the Chemical Society on the world-renowed chemist 

 and physicist Mendeleeff, calls attention to his irreconcilable 

 enmity to the system and quotes the following passage among 

 others from his Remarks on Public Instruction in Russia 

 (1901): "The fundamental direction of Russian education 

 should be living and real, not based on dead languages, 

 grammatical rules and dialectical discussions, which, without 

 experimental control, bring self-deceit, illusion, presumption 

 and selfishness." 



Lastly, let me point out that the book, published recently, 

 entitled Schools and Schoolboys, written by Dr. Burge of 

 Winchester and the Rev. Mr. Lyttelton of Eton, is not with- 

 out value to my argument. It is remarkable, in the first place, 

 as an illustration of the cogency of Dr. Warre's reasoning that 

 "Latin and Greek are the great instructors in English." If 

 handed in as a sixth-form essay, I can imagine it returned with 

 the remark, " Good in intent but full of illogical statements, 

 lacking point and needing rearrangement to make it a logical 

 treatise. You should spend more time over your work and 

 give more thought to it, taking care that your arguments are 

 less often mutually destructive. Leave out the twaddle about 

 1 blooming earls ' setting an example by indulging in hand 



