THE PLACE OF RESEARCH IN EDUCATION. 349 



brought about a complete revolution, that the application 

 of scientific principles and methods is becoming so uni- 

 versal elsewhere, that all here who wish to succeed must 

 adopt them and therefore understand them. It rests with 

 our schools to make the change possible. To repeat what 

 I said in 1894 in the presidential address before referred to : 

 " There can be no question that the future of this country is 

 very largely in the hands of its schoolmasters and school- 

 mistresses, and there are many among us who are con- 

 vinced that our progress is much hindered by their failure 

 to feel the pulse of the times — who think, indeed, that they 

 do not suitably prepare the material which we subsequently 

 are called on to mould into its final shape. We look to 

 the new Commission to recommend drastic changes which 

 will enable us to utilise to the full the marvellous ability 

 latent in the English race, and which will help parents in solv- 

 ing the truly terrible problem with which they are confronted 

 in these days of unreasoning and unreasonable competition 

 when the time comes to secure a career for their children. 

 English boys and girls at the present day are the victims 

 of excessive lesson learning, and are also falling a prey, in 

 increasing numbers year by year, to the examination demon, 

 which threatens to become by far the most ruthless monster 

 the world has ever known either in fact or in fable. Ask 

 any teacher who has to do with students fresh from school 

 his opinion of them : he will say that in the great majority 

 of cases they have little if any power of helping themselves, 

 little desire, to learn about things, little if any observing 

 power, little desire to reason on what they see or are called 

 on to witness ; that they are destitute of the sense of 

 accuracy, and satisfied with any performance however 

 slovenly ; that, in short, they are neither inquisitive nor 

 acquisitive, and as they too often are idle as well, the 

 opportunities offered to them are blindly sacrificed. A 

 considerable proportion undoubtedly are by nature mentally 

 very feeble ; but the larger number are by no means without 

 ability, and are, in fact, victims of an acquired disease. 

 We must find a remedy for this state of things, or perish in 

 the face of the terrific competition now setting in. Boys 



